May Family Visit and New Year's Celebrations!

Just when our break was starting to get a little boring, the May family came!! We have been so excited to see them again. They are on their way home from Christmas with family so we get to have them with us for a couple days. We are excited to play and hang out with the Divett family too. The kids are all so excited to be together.

And I bet you can't spot the favotite parent among the children!

For New Year's eve we did our traditional fondue party with them. We fed the kids regular dinner, the adults did a full fondue dinner, and then we all enjoyed the fondue desserts. It was such a fun night!

yummmmmm.... doesn't this fondue dessert look amazing?!

Then all the fun continued for hours - past midnight and into the early morning. My kids were in heaven! It was kid mania and they ran around crazy while the adults played games. It was a good night!

Ok I take back what I said earlier - not all the kids made it. Both Karly and Aubrie feel asleep on couches, but the rest of the kids stayed strong and energized until 2020! Happy New Year's one and all!! It's going to be a good one! Thanks May and Divett families for making our final days of 2019 full of fun and laughs!

Ice Skating and Yoda Cookies!

The kids have been asking and asking to go ice skating and it just hasn't seemed to work out, until now!! We were all excited for a free day during break to make sure we hit the ice! Eden has been before, but for the rest of the kids, this was their first try at skating. They were all a bit nervous and clung to the training rails at first, but before long they were trying more and more to skate solo. They all had a few spills, but overall it was a great time and very loved! Bentley was so focused and determined to get it down that we hardly saw the guy. He was intensely focused, and it paid off. He was getting around quick and solo by the time we left.

The other thing on our Christmas break bucket list was baby Yoda cookies. Brad chopped the head off the angel cookies, we frosted them with green and brown, and voila - baby yoda!

These were a labor of love for sure!

And another labor of love? Eden helped grandpa polish Granny Moe's old silver while we worked on the cookies. Phew - that's a tiring job.

Bentley's Creations

Since Christmas, Bentley has been working hard on the Harry Potter perler set he got. He has made some pretty amazing things! This guy has the patience to work on this type of thing like no other.

Post Christmas Stroll to the Cave

After spending the day inside with all the new things yesterday, it felt good to get outside and move a bit. A nice walk to explore the new surrounding area was in order. We found some interesting storm tunnels, and Brad and Olive decided to show us the cool caves they found nearby in the Boca Negra Canyon.

We even found a few old petroglyphs out there on the rocks.

And notice the hot air balloon in the sky? I love that we see these all year long from our view up on the mesa. So pretty!

Cute Letters for Santa

 Olive left this cute drawing out for Santa - looks to me like Christmas cats. Very thoughtful Olive.

Bentley left a few different notes out.  One for "Tudah" our elf, along with a very kind and thoughtful note to Santa.

The last thing was this package of several papers wrapped up tightly with the words "Santa, Big Guy" written on the front.  When we opened and unraveled all the papers, there was a tiny little note that said "Thanks mom and dad."   Now we know that he knows, but he still showed so much love and gratitude to the magic of Christmas and it warmed my heart so much.  I love you Bentley.