Christmas 2013 to New Years 2014

Okay, so I didn't quite get all the way through Christmas before New Years, did I?  Oh well.  It seems like I am always playing catch up on this blog, but here is another catch-up post.  Someday I have plans to get on top of things and come up with some witty posts full of deep insights and clever observations, but for today here is another quick, picture-heavy post. 

Christmas Eve...here is Dax fast asleep, sugarplums dancing in his head.  He is so beautiful when he sleeps, I can hardly stop myself from kissing his whole face and waking him up.  

Christmas morning came VERY early.  Cora was up around 4 a.m., but she luckily crawled into our bed and went back to sleep.  Unluckily, Cora snuggles very close and rubs her feet on me while she sleeps.  This makes it very hard for me to catch any zzzs, so I soon gave up and retreated to her bed.  Arden woke up around 5 and started heading downstairs, but I heard her little footsteps and told her she wasn't allowed out of her room until the first number on the clock was a 6.  So, at 6:00:01 I heard her and Daxton pounding down the stairs, headed for the stockings that had been filled with care.

Cora slept for a while longer, but soon joined in the fun.  Santa brought her a cute little stuffed puppy!

Santa brought Dax his very own scooter!  Wahoo!

Arden got a Furby Boom.  I thought it would be annoying, but it is actually kind of cute.  Especially since I know that I can put it to sleep by pulling on its tail for 5 seconds.

Around 9 a.m. Grandma, Grandpa, Val, Josh, Manda, Matt and BJ came over to open presents.  Dax gave Arden a "Frozen" shirt.  Arden LOVES Frozen, and has talked me into taking her to it twice.  She is trying for a third.  Needless to say, she liked it.

Dax got some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys this year, and was a very happy boy!

Grandpa liked the plates that the kids drew for him and Grandma.

After a breakfast of French Toast, we played for a while and then headed to Grandma Wilson's, where I neglected to take a single picture.  Again, to Grandma Zauggs (who got me some very cute booties!), where my camera again stayed in my purse for some weird reason.  I know, I am a huge slacker.  We had a great Christmas, and were all pretty tired out by the time we got home. 

No rest for the weary though, on Boxing Day we got up, packed up, and headed out of town to the cabin.  It was so nice to have no schedule for the week between Christmas and New Years.  We stayed in our jammies until late mornings most days, playing games (Uno Attack and "Headbandz" were new Christmas games that we broke in...the kids cheat horribly) and watching movies (we borrowed "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" from the library, and the kids LOVED it.  Whoda thunk?)

It was foggy one morning, and then when the sun came out, the trees all looked like this:

 Beautiful!  The side roads up by the cabin were all snow packed and perfect for sledding!

Even Grandma and Grandpa had a few runs.  Here is Grandpa, going FAST:

 The kids were super spoiled, and got pulled up the hill most of the time.  Here is Arden, milking it for all it is worth:

It was so sunny most days that we had to take off our coats or we would get too hot.  Arden and I had become so good at sledding, we decided to expand our sliding skills.  We have been meaning to get Arden skiing lessons so that she wouldn't end up like me...a non-skier living in Utah.  I decided to get brave and take a lesson with her!  We headed to Beaver Mountain which is less than half an hour from the cabin.  Here is Arden at the bottom of the bunny hill:

Arden had a little bit of a rough start and fell down quite a few times, but after about an hour or so she was really getting the hang of it!  After our lesson and a few more practice runs down the bunny hill and up the magic carpet, we got brave and headed to the real live ski lift!

I hadn't fallen at all on the bunny hill, but I wiped out 3 or 4 times on the real slope.  Arden showed me up big time!   I need some practice for sure.

Arden also spent a lot of time on the Rainbow Loom I got her for Christmas.  She has made bracelets for everyone!

 Than it was New Years Eve!  Break out the Sparkling Cider!

 Cheers!

 We had our New Years Eve celebration a little early.  We did a big countdown for the kids around 9:45 (seemed pretty late to us!) and ran around crazy yelling HAPPY NEW YEARs just like it was midnight.

The next morning was our last before we had to go home.  2014 was off to a beautiful start!

We had one last sledding trip

 The kids found some ice chunks and made a couple of snow men.  Cora was feeling a little tired from all of the partying :

Cora has a very nice big brother who was willing to pull her back up the hill to the cabin.  

After that, we packed up and headed home.  Back to the real world where the air wasn't so sparkling, and where we have to get up in the morning and get off to school, and where laundry seems never ending.

Oh well...Only 353 days until next Christmas!