White Christmas

We were able to spend our Christmas up in McCall this year.  The town had just got dumped with snow and was truly a winter wonderland.  Brooklyn, Diane, and I headed up on Dec. 23 so that we could have all day on the 24th to work on Christmas Eve dinner.  On the 23rd the 3 of us headed to the Pancake House for dinner.  We were all just in awe of how beautiful it was with all the snow and the Christmas lights. The morning of the 24th Brooklyn and I played in the snow for a little while and then we all started on dinner.  Mark and Paige got there about lunch time with their family and Brooklyn and Audrey were right into the snow with Mark.  Craig had to work that morning so he and Stan drove up that afternoon in the middle of a snow storm.  Luckily they made it safely, it just took them a little longer.  That evening we had a super yummy dinner and then had the kids decorate sugar cookies to leave out for Santa.  We then let the kids open up one present, their matching Christmas jammies. Stan then read the kids "The Night Before Christmas" and then we all read the nativity story together.  We then got the kids to bed and got all of their stockings ready for the morning.  I was so excited to see Brooklyn the next morning that it took me a while to fall asleep.

one went down and they all went down

 Brooklyn slept in until about 8:00 Christmas morning, so by the time we came downstairs the other kids were already playing with the things they got from Santa.  Brooklyn was so excited to see that Santa had come.  She would get so distracted by each item that it took a while to get through the entire stocking.  We let the kids play with their stocking toys for a while before we started opening up the rest of the gifts.  While they were playing I got the breakfast casserole in the oven and started getting the monkey bread ready.  We then slowly opened up all of the presents, taking breaks to play and to eat breakfast.  We finally finished opening presents around noon and then we all headed outside to play in the snow.  After the kids were all worn out and Brooklyn was down for her nap, Craig and I headed out in the backyard to do some snowshoeing.  I had never snowshoed before, but it was a ton of fun and will definitely be doing it again.  That evening we just took it easy and ate leftovers for dinner.

"Dr. Brooklyn" as she calls herself

our two Rapunzel's

enjoying her new paint set that Santa brought her

not sure what I'm doing here, but Brooklyn sure looks adorable

Saturday morning, the 26th, we headed to the tubing hill.  Brooklyn was so confused why the tubes were on the snow and not on the lake behind the boat.  We were able to go down together holding onto each others tubes.  Brooklyn loved it and just yelled the whole way down, "this is so fun!!"  She did get cold the 3rd time up.  It was only about 10 degrees out and we had to wait in line for quite a while in between rides, so after the 3rd time down we went in and drank some hot chocolate to warm up before we went down one last time. That evening we went out to Pueblo Lindo for dinner.  Sunday morning we went to church, cleaned up and then headed home with all of our Christmas gifts.  The next day we headed over to my parents house so Brooklyn could open her gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.  To say the least, we had a fantastic Christmas.  We all got a lot more than we needed.  Brooklyn loves her princess dresses and shoes, her doctor kit, her stuffed lamb, she can't wait to go to the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa, and all of the puzzles she got.  Craig got some shoes and shirts for work and I love my new SoniCare toothbrush and Oakley sunglasses.  I'd say that we are all pretty spoiled.  Brooklyn is already seeing things that she likes and asking if she can get them for Christmas next year.  I don't think she quite understands how far away that really is.  She was at such a fun age and was just so happy the entire time.  She constantly had a smile on her face.  It was a lot of fun to teach her what Christmas is really about.  I know she doesn't totally understand it but I think that she understands more then we give her credit for. I am already looking forward to next Christmas with our little family.

this is when Brooklyn was really cold, so she wasn't super cooperative with the pictures

at Pueblo Lindo for dinner

opening  up presents at Grandma and Grandpas

Eric and Kim's family were in town the week after Christmas and Brooklyn loved playing with her cousin Kiley

Pre-Christmas Celebrations

Christmas dress from last year that still fits her

This years Christmas dress, which left a trail of glitter wherever she went.

We were able to do quite a few things leading up to Christmas to get us all in the Christmas spirit.  We were able to go to the Garden-a-glow at the Botanic Gardens (which is where Craig and I got engaged 8 years ago).  There were a lot of lights, Santa, hot chocolate, Rudolf, and freezing cold temperatures (15 waping degrees).  We all dressed warm and had a lot of fun looking at all the lights.  Brooklyn loved getting a picture with Santa and Mrs. Clause.

 A week or so later we went over to Mark and Paige's for a Grinch night.  We ate a lot of green food, dressed in green clothes, played fun games and watched The Grinch.  Brooklyn had a blast with her cousins and loved every minute of it.

Brooklyn had a lot of fun decorating her room.  Since we are living with Craig's parents we didn't need to decorate the house (but really let's be honest we barely have any Christmas decorations).  We let Brooklyn have the little 4 foot tree in her room and let her put the ornaments on.  We also put together a little chain to count down to Christmas day.  She loved taking a chain off every morning and counting how many days we had left until Christmas.  Brooklyn also was able to make a lot of different ornaments and decorations at parties and the library.

We also had our ward Christmas party.  Brooklyn was able to get another picture with Santa.  We had a delicious dinner and a good Christmas program.  Brooklyn loved when the primary kids sang and she insisted on going up with them.  It was so dang cute.

Needless to say we had a lot of opportunity to get into the Christmas spirit.  She always got so excited to see Christmas lights and decorations.  She was truly just in awe the entire holiday season.  It was so fun to watch her little face light up all the time with excitement.  I think I got more excited watching her joy then I have ever gotten for Christmas myself.  Craig and I also had the opportunity to go the Nutcracker, a yearly tradition in the Moss family.  We had a lot of fun just leading up to Christmas, I couldn't wait to see how she would be on actual Christmas day.

Thanksgiving

We did Thanksgiving with my family this year since we are going to spend Christmas up in McCall with Craig's family.  Everyone in my family was there except Tiffy's family went to California.  All of my Dad's brothers were in town so we decided to just do a huge Thanksgiving dinner all together.  I think there ended up being 43 people, including all of the kids. We had to do it at a church building but that allowed the kids to run around, which was nice. Brooklyn loved having Sunni's family in town, she is absolutely obsessed with Kobi and Kira.  Everyone was assigned a few food items to bring and everything turned out great.  We had plenty of leftovers to split between all of the families.  it was so good to see so much of my extended family.  I really love Thanksgiving and thinking about all the many things that we are blessed with.  I need to be better about showing my gratitude year round, because we have been truly blessed as a family by our Heavenly Father.

Do you want to build a snowman?

We had the opportunity to go up to McCall two weekends in November and both weekends there was quite a bit of snow.  The first weekend we went up my parents were able to come up with us.  The first thing Brooklyn wanted to do was build a snowman, of course. Luckily the snow in the backyard was great packing snow and grandma was willing to help her out.  We also drove up to Brundage, the ski resort, and played around in the snow up there.  Brooklyn was the only one with proper snow gear so the rest of us were a little chilly, but it was worth it to see how happy she was making snow angels and throwing snowballs.  It was really nice to be able to spend the weekend with my parents and Brooklyn loved the one-on-one time she was able to have with Grandma and Grandpa and it was nice to see my parents actually relax.

We were also able to get up to the cabin the weekend before Thanksgiving and Diane was able to come with us.  We had a lot of fun sledding.  Brooklyn was a little nervous at first and wanted to go with Craig but after a few times she then wanted to go all by herself.  One of us had to be at the bottom of the hill though so that she didn't end up in the lake. She kept wanting all of us to take turns sledding and even Nana took a turn. Once was enough for her though because she almost had to bail out when she was heading straight for the garbage cans. We went to Pancake House for breakfast one morning and while we were in there it snowed about 4 inches and it was the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen.  Brooklyn and Craig of course needed to throw a few snowballs on our way to the car.  One evening we went out to eat at a place called Lardo's.  Craig's family used to eat there a lot when he was little, but they hadn't been back for a while so we decided to check it out.  It was very good, but Brooklyn was not a fan of the green jello that came with the kids meal.  She made the funniest face I have ever seen, I wish I had gotten a picture of it.  It was at that moment that I realized my child had never had JELLO before, how awful is that?  Now whenever we go out to eat she asks if we are going to Lardo's, I think she just likes saying the name.  Brooklyn and Craig had a lot of fun making snowmen and Craig even made her a snow fort.  Craig and I have decided that we really need to invest in some snow boots.  We had a lot of fires and drank a lot of hot chocolate.  It was a super fun and relaxing weekend.  Can't wait until we get to go back up for Christmas!

Fall Fun

This fall we were lucky enough to have some really great weather.  It was warm enough for us to spend a lot of time out doors, which was good for us because we are used to Memphis and being able to go to the park and zoo all winter long.  We spent a lot of time at parks this fall and most of the time we would take a picnic lunch. We also spent quite a few Saturdays at the Eagle Farmer's Market with Paige and the kids when Craig and Mark had to work, they always had some fun kids activities. We were able to get to the zoo once before it cooled down too much.  I have already been having a hard time staying inside with Brooklyn the last month and we still have a lot of winter left.  Hopefully we can continue to find fun things to do inside. Luckily we have cousins that are close that we love to have play dates with.

King of the mountain

This was October.  I love that we got to wear shorts in October

She loves playing dress up with her cousin Audrey

Fishing at the Eagle Farmer's Market

Watching cartoons with LJ 

She kept running around saying "ride 'em cowboy, giddy-up"

trying on mommy's new boots

She loves to dress up, luckily she Santa will be bringing her some of her own dress up clothes for Christmas

Playing in the leaves at Nana and Pops

Up close and personal with the Lions

Brooklyn did not want to share the tiger

Petting the goats

Watching the duckies