Getting Ready for Christmas

 

We had so much fun getting ready for Christmas this year.  We packed in as many activities as possible to bring in the Christmas spirit.  We started out by decorating the house including setting up the tree, decorating the front porch and putting the lights up on the house.  It doesn't take too long to get everything set up and this year I even let the kids help me decorate the tree, I just kept quiet and then made some adjustments after the kids went to bed.  Craig and I started out the season with our annual Nutcracker at the Morrison Center.  Amazing as usual.  The kids wrote their letters to Santa and dropped them off at the big red mailbox.  They also got to see Santa when he visited the gym. We also went out to Caldwell to walk through the Christmas lights with Mark and Paige and their kiddos. The kids painted new ornaments and we took them up to Grandpa's grave and put them on his little tree.

The week before Christmas got really busy.  On Monday we went to the drive through Christmas lights at Expo Idaho with my family.  We all crammed into Llyr's truck and luckily the weather was quite warm so no one in the back was cold at all.  The lights were really good and the kids had a blast with their cousins. On Tuesday we had friends over for our annual Christmas cookie decorating.  There were a lot of sprinkles on the floor, but it was totally worth it.  Wednesday during the day the kids and I hit up jumptime and then that night was Grinch night at Pop's and Mouse's, hosted by Paige.  Always such a fun night with Christmas bingo, green food, Grinch Jeopardy, and a cousin gift exchange.  Thursday I then got a bunch of baking and cooking done for Christmas Eve including 2 batches of cinnamon rolls, gingerbread cake and sweet potato casserole.  I made my first batch ever of caramels and needless to say I will be making them again and again.  I have vowed not to bake again for the rest of the year, well maybe just a few months. We also had Grandma over to help us decorate gingerbread houses.

By this point we were all on a sugar high, well maybe not Craig, and were ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities.  I was also exhausted by this point, but when you see the magic in your kids eyes it is totally worth it.

Fantastic Fall

 

Our fall was full of a lot of soccer, watching of football, trips to the cabin and fires.  Both kids played soccer.  McKay played with the Star Park and Rec and Brooklyn tried out a new team out in Middleton called the REAL.  McKay really dominated his league.  He was just a lot more aggressive, competitive, coordinated, and quick than the other boys.  He was also one of the older ones, which definitely added to his advantage.  Most games he scored at least a couple of goals and ran around like a mad man playing both offense and defense.  He had a blast and is looking forward to spring season.  We decided to have Brooklyn jump up to a more competitive league this fall.  We had her try out for the U-9 team but there were only a few girls that age and there were also only a few girls for the U-10 team, so they combined the U-9, U-10 and U-11 girls to make a team and even then they only had 10 girls, they play with 9 on the field at a time so they would only have 1 sub if everyone showed up.  Because all of the other teams try-outs were on the same day, it didn't leave us with many options, so we decided to give REAL a try.  She really enjoyed the girls on her team and her coach.  Since they had girls that were U-11, that meant that they had to play all other U-11 teams. They may not have won a single game, but Brooklyn's skills did improve and she had a lot of fun.  I did a lot of driving since they both had practice on T/TH and then Brooklyn would have at least one if not two games a week, but I guess I'm just at that stage of life right now where I am a glorified taxi driver.  As long as the kids are active and are having fun, then I am content.  Brooklyn is looking forward to the spring season and hopefully we can get a W and maybe I can remember to take a few more pictures.

 We headed up to the cabin as often as we could.  We love seeing the trees turn colors and enjoying the crisp air.  We did get one last hike in at the start October to Snowslide Lake.  Luckily when we were up in McCall in November we decided to go to The Pancake House, because we hadn't been there in over a year.  We waited for over an hour, which is typical, and enjoyed a huge cinnamon roll and other yummy goodness.  We are so glad that we went because shortly after they announced that they were closing their doors for good.  We will miss The Pancake House, it was such a staple in McCall for so long.  A sad day for sure.  If we weren't up at the cabin we would try to have a fire and s'mores and enjoy the weather for as long as possible.

We were also able to make it to some BSU football games.  Craig was also able to head down to the UofU vs. Oregon game in Salt Lake with his Dad.  We enjoyed having our new hot tub up and running.  McKay also finally got a real big boy bed and is pretty stoked about it.  He better love it cuz it took quite a while to set up the bed frame and dresser.  All in all we had a wonderful fall, enjoying the outdoors and family as much as possible.