December Festivities

It's the start of all the gift opening in December!!  And all the fun activities!!

Jessi, Gary, Kenzie and Evan arrived Friday evening and later on, Jill, Aleah and Parker arrived for the weekend!  The house was full with kids sleeping all over the place!!

It was SO cold all weekend - we kept the wood stove stocked and the furnace running full force as it was below zero each night - luckily the sun did shine some during the day!

I tried a new breakfast crockpot recipe that cooked overnight in the hopes it would taste great and I could use it for our Christmas breakfast - it didn't cook quite as fast as I thought it would (I kept it very low) but I turned it up as soon as I got up and by the time we were ready to eat, it was done!!  It tasted great so I will be using it for Christmas and it's so nice to make the night before and just plug it in!!

Jessi, Jill and I headed out for the Home Holiday Tour mid-morning and stopped for coffee before meeting another friend - we love looking at all the decorated houses and dreaming of having that "perfect" home!!

It wasn't too bad weather wise getting in and out of the car so we managed just fine!!  We ate lunch at Carmen's Tapas place and yes, we ordered tapas and shared - they were delicious!!

We also stopped at our office so I could show the girls our 5th wheel - gosh, it was cold in there which made it hard to imagine camping in the dead of winter!!

After a couple more stops, we headed home and Glenn and Gary were officially let go of their child care duties!!  Here's Jill reading her "Elf on The Shelf" book - yes, Dash ( her elf) made himself quite at home in our house and even managed to spill the sugar on Sunday morning - naughty Dash!!

We were all supposed to head to the annual Christmas Parade late afternoon but the temps were so cold that only the Keppy's decided to brave it - they said it wasn't too bad at all and had a fun time - even brought home lots of candy for us!!

The rest of us watched a movie and Papa made popcorn for all of us!

Gary and Glenn got up VERY early to go ice fishing - brrrrr - didn't even sound fun to me!!  I was HOPING to sleep in a little bit but the two little giggly girls woke up at 5:45am and since our bedroom is right above where they were sleeping, I could hear every word!!  Oh well, if they weren't so darn cute, I might be mad!1

Evan always helps me make my cracker mix - he loves dumping all the crackers in the garbage bags!

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without turning on Santa and hearing Jingle Bell Rock!! 

Jill and her kids left mid-morning as she had another party to attend on Sunday - Jessi and I had coffee and apple cider and just relaxed the day away - Kenzie took a really long nap (from getting up so early) and the guys enjoyed the Broncos game while Jessi and I caught up on some reading!!

They headed out after an early dinner and once again, the house seemed way too quiet!!