A Day on the Lake at the Eggiman's!

We headed over to Waverly to hang out on the lake with the Eggiman's.  The weather was beautiful and the temps were above 30 degrees!  Here are some pictures of all the activities from the day!

Gavin playing some boot hockey!

Gavin posing for a picture!

Kaitlyn ice skating. 

Sledding behind the four wheeler!

Kaitlyn and Ashlynn

Four Wheeler fun!

Kaitlyn snowboarding behind the four wheeler!

Getting ready to go!

Kaitlyn did awesome!

Let's try this again!

Kaylee, Aimee, and Gavin taking a spin around the lake!

Gavin helping me check all the tip ups!

He loved to pull the line up to make sure we still had bait on the hook.

Look mom we caught a fish!   Gavin that is the bait to catch bigger fish!

We had a great day hanging out on the lake!

Christmas

Wow, Christmas arrived with a beautiful snowfall and sickness at our house.  Nate wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home on Christmas Eve.  The kids and I headed to my sister house for a fun night of family, food, and presents.  When we left there was a nice blanket of snow on my car and a slow drive home.  Even though Nate wasn't feeling well he still had to plow Christmas Eve.

I found this on Facebook and it is so true.

Nate left when we got home and I just hoped he would be home in-time to see if Santa visited our house.  In the morning the kids woke me up at 7 wanting to know if Santa came... We went downstairs and found that he did come...

All our stockings filled with presents from Santa!

The good news is that Daddy was able to make it home to see that Santa came.  Unfortunately, he still wasn't feeling well so he went back to bed.  So we spent the morning playing with our new toys and waiting for Grandma and Grandpa McNeilly to come over.

In the afternoon Kaitlyn, Bopa, and Mommy went to see the movie Frozen.  We had so much fun eating popcorn and watching the movie.  When we got home we spent time with Grandma and Grandpa!

Nate ended up going to the doctor and he found out he had Pneumonia.  Not a fun way to spend Christmas, but at least we were together for most of the time.  This is also the reason there are a lack of pictures from Christmas.  

Lucy Came Back!

Lucy our elf made it back to our house for the month of December.  She surprised Kaitlyn and Gavin right after Thanksgiving.  I tried to take pictures of all her locations, but since she moves every night I wasn't able to capture all her events on camera.  Here are a few places she appeared.  She did have to stay at the North pole for a few days as Kaitlyn and Gavin were not on their best behavior... but in the end Lucy did give a good report back to Santa.

 Lucy arrived with cards for Kaitlyn and Gavin!

Hanging from the light in the kitchen!

Reading stories to her friends on the counter.

We also found her having a snowball fight with marshmallows, Riding the Barbie scooter in the basement, hiding in the shower and the Christmas tree.  Lucy went back to the North pole on Christmas Eve.  We hope she is having a great vacation until next year.   

Family Christmas Celebration #1

It's that time a year again!  We spent Saturday in Mora celebrating with Nate's immediate family.  We had a great time hanging out and keeping the kids entertained until Uncle Sam got off work.  Now that some of them can tell time the anticipation happens a lot earlier in the day.

Kaitlyn and Cousin Hailey being goofy!

Trying to get all 5 kids together for a picture.  Take One!

Take 2!  Someone doesn't want to participate.

Take 3! Let's try giving him a phone and hopes that he will look up when we call his name.  Nope!

Take 4!  Everyone is looking except Gavin!  This will have to do.

Close-up of pouting Gavin!

Minutes earlier... Auntie Mandi captured these photos of Gavin!

Look he can smile for the camera!

Kaitlyn's New Adventure

This fall Kaitlyn wanted to ride a BIG horse, so we got connected with MaryEllen and Roudy!  On most Saturdays Kaitlyn will spend an hour learning about horses and actually riding Roudy.  She has learned everything from grooming, different types of saddles, getting on and off a horse safetly, how to talk to a horse, and the list goes on and on.  Honestly I did not know much about horses, but now I do.  They are amazing animals and can give children the confidence they need.

A few weeks ago Kaitlyn and Nate went for her weekly riding lesson.  I had asked Nate to take some pictures since it had been awhile.  Well, he delivered and got a lot of cool pictures.

A couple of things...
1. I had never seen a horse in the winter... only in the summer.  Their fur (if that is what you call it) in the summer is smooth and silky... but in the winter it is thick and very teddy bear like.  They look so different.

2. During this lesson Kaitlyn rode bareback.  Here are a lots of pictures from her lesson!

Gingerbread House

Kaitlyn and I had ventured off to Michael's on Saturday!  They had a display of gingerbread kits on sales, so we decided to get one.  Sunday we put it together and started decorating it.  Here are some pics.

Gavin got to decorate one side and Kaitlyn got to decorate the other side!

Kaitlyn's side!

Gavin's side!

Close-up of Gavin's side.  He did pretty good.  We helped a little but he did the roof by himself!

Kaitlyn's side!  She did a great job adding all of her candy!

Monster Jam

We headed to the Metrodome for the last time on Saturday night.  We decided to take the kids to Monster Jam.  Gavin has really been into his Hot Wheels Monster Trucks and since they are tearing down the Metrodome soon we thought we should go.  We bought the tickets on Friday, so our seats weren't the best, but we had a blast.

Kaitlyn was a little nervous because we were really high up.  She got used to it pretty quickly and never said another word about being scared of heights. 

I had never been to a Monster Jam before so I honestly had no idea what to expect!  It was loud and exciting!

Kind of blurry, but we were happy we brought these.  Even though we were near the top... it was REALLY LOUD!

Gavin being silly!

Gavin loves to take pictures of himself!

Everyone knows that when you leave events like this... getting out of the venue and the parking lots is a nightmare!  We ended up staying to the end, but got to the stairs immediately after the show.  This allowed us to get ahead of the crowd.  Once we got to the main hallway... Gavin went on Nate's shoulders and I held onto Kaitlyn.  The kids loved being pushed out the door.  (My favorite part as well.)  Than we high tailed it  back to the car.  We were out of the parking lot just as I finished buckling Gavin into his car seat.  I was impressed with our speed and we were home in no time.