New Year's Eve Celebrations...

Well, the day before New Year's Eve, actually! We have started a tradition of celebrating New Year's Eve by staying at a hotel with a water park. We started doing this about 3 or 4 years ago and the kids love it! Only problem is quite a few families have the same idea, so the water parks can be quite the zoo! So, we got smart this year and celebrated New Year's Eve the day before...the kids don't know any better and it is much more sane for us!!

We always order pizza and bring along some games...or dart guns! Dart guns in a hotel room is pretty fun because the kids like to jump from bed to bed...shhh...don't tell...we let our kids jump on hotel beds because we don't allow it at home :) Come on...those of you with little kids do the same thing!!

Jon was in deep thought as he carefully removes a "fizzled out fuse" from Buzz Lightyear Operation!

One of Caleb's favorite games is Connect 4...I can see the gears turning as he plans his next move!

Time to turn in for the night!

The next day I got home and found out that while we were at the hotel playing in the pool, John and Jen were welcoming my newest niece into this world...Zoe Renn!! What a wonderful way to end 2010 and to start out the new year with a beautiful little girl!

This is a black and white picture, but she has the famous fisher lips and they are redder than ever! She may have to take one of the nicknames that my parents gave me when I was little..."Miss Ruby Red Lips!"

Can't wait to meet her this summer!!

Our Christmas Break...

The boys were so excited to have TWO WHOLE WEEKS off for Christmas! We were too! We decided to celebrate by making a gingerbread train. The boys ate a lot of the candy...but that is half the fun right?! We decided to try this train instead of the usual gingerbread house this year. After we got done, the three of us decided that we will stick to our traditional gingerbread house...the train was a little tough to get together!

I made some Cranberry Pumpkin Bread sand art jars for teacher gifts. I have had several requests for the complete recipe, so everyone must have liked them :)
We were off to the farm the Wed. before Christmas to stay ahead of a big snow storm due to land in our area on Thursday. As predicted...it was big and it landed on Thursday! The kids had a ton of fun in the snow before and after Christmas!

And we did too...

Jon hooked up the tubes to the 4-wheeler and took the kids on a great ride through the fresh, powdery snow...so much fun! Jessie liked running along too!

Tubing in the snow has been our tradition since I first met the Millers...and it has been around long before I became part of the family!! It has variations...like using an old satellite dish...but the concept is the same and it is always enjoyed by all!

Before coming to SD, I would have only thought of using these in warm summer days at the lake, but when you live in COLD SD, I guess you have to get creative to make the long winter months a little bit more fun!

We had a fun Christmas Eve with Gma & Gpa, the Frericks family and Aunt Ruth!

Josh loves this new T-Rex...complete with ROARS and even snoring when not in use!

Josh got a Snuggie blanket from Gma & Gpa for Christmas (which he loves by the way)! He must have had enough of the festivities because he grabbed his new cozy blanket and his trusty Lightning McQueen backpack (that he takes everywhere) and found a quiet place in the back bedroom on the floor. He spread out his blanket and decided to call it a day. I went to look for him around 9pm and found him back here all curled up and oh so cute!

Grandma asked Caleb if he wanted to do a solo at Church on Sunday and they decided on Silent Night. He did a great job...so proud of him!

Jessie chasing us on the tubes...

Christmas Programs & Jesus' Birthday!!

I did a lot of subbing for Josh's preschool in the month of December, so I was really excited to be part of his special day for Jesus' Birthday Party at school!

We sang songs, made cookies (I was in charge of that table...there were sprinkles EVERYWHERE!), ate treats and had a book exchange. Lots of fun!

Caleb had a really nice Christmas program at school too! This is his teacher, Senora Calderon...he loves her and I think he is one of her favorites too ;)