Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we had a little quite family dinner at home just the 3 of us. The rest of the evening was spent at Richards house retelling the Nativity Story with the kids acting, Ricky narrating, and Steph playing the piano. It was a low key relaxing evening with family and neighbors.
Clara was not feeling so good, but she was a good sport and played the wise man.
Angel Lucy
The Shepard's, Holden, B and Jake
Hannah was another Angel. Its always fun to see the kids dressed up and watch there reactions and expressions to the story. Thanks Little for a nice evening.

Live Nativity

In a nearby City, Eagle the Young Men and Young Women get together at someones Farm to reenact the Nativity complete with a live Camel and Donkey. This was our first year going so we were not quite as prepared as we should have been for the cold, but we had a good time anyways. You park a little ways away from the house so they bring you in on a tractor/hay ride to the gates of Bethlehem. You are greeted by a fire, camel and 2 Roman Soldiers from there you are escorted to the Inn Keepers by the Shepard's. Then you learn that there is no room so you are then escorted to the shepherds being greeted by angels signing. Then you journey down a candle lit road to the Manger where you see the Wise Men giving gifts to baby Jesus. As part of a donation they ask you to bring a gift to the babe of canned goods for the local food bank.
Brooklyn has admired the nativity we have at the house and always wants to see baby Jesus so when we took her here she was excited and waved at the baby. It was cute even when we walked away she turned around to wave bye.
Being escorted by the shepherds and donkey to see the Manger.
After it was over they had Hot Chocolate and a fire for everyone. It is only for 2 nights and they do an amazing job everything is very welled timed and done. I could see us making this a tradition as long as they keep doing it. The first night they had over 1500 people.
The Camel, it was a baby one.

Ya for Visitors!

As you probably could tell from the previous posts that we have had guests at our house since Thanksgiving. It is always a good time to have friends and family come to stay with us. Here are a few pictures of when Mike and Nicole Givenrod and Kristian Barnett came to visit. They came the weekend it decided to snow for the first time all winter. It is a true way to decide if you really like it here. I know we enjoyed it come again!
It was a long morning playing in the snow at the Farmers Market.
Some of the Neighborhood kids shoveling our driveway so they could build a giant snowman in the middle of the street.
The big hill at Hyde Park that some crazy people where sledding all the way down. As you can tell it was the first official snow so it was more like dirt sledding.
The Capitol Building in the background
Some fun people that live here dressed as reindeer. We thought it was funny so had to take a picture then later saw a trolley driving around town full of people dressed as reindeer and Santa.
The tree downtown.

Christmas Family Pics

Here's some unedited pictures of a quick little photo shoot Danny took of Brooklyn for the Holidays. Nothing like throwing a sheet on the wall and a tablecloth on the floor and Ta da this is what you get.

Our little Sassy Girl, this is her new pose face she loves to turn her head and smile!
When Danny's mom was here we went to the park about 15 minutes before the sun went down and took some pictures for our Cards. We got a few good ones. Thanks for helping Nana.
It's the chubby cheek family!

Early Christmas with Nana

And we wonder why she loves to give us BIG Hugs!
Playing with Toys after the Trauma of Santa went away, she loves music and the Piano. Hopefully she will grow up to play as well as cousin Miranda.
She loves to play with these toys at the library, good thing they are not cheap.
Mom trying the second time to get her to see Santa this is as far as she got only touching his hand, progress from crying and death grip on your arm. This Santa was at the local novelty toy store you could take your own pictures and it was FREE to see Santa, love it! He even looks good.
Nana tried first to put her on Santa's lap and no way! She was not to sure. Later he came by when she was playing with toys and she looked up at us like someone going to come save me from the man in the big red suit. Perhaps next year!
All Bundled up to find a tree, we settled for the $20 tree from Fred Meyer, maybe one year we will brave it and cut down a tree with Ricky and his family. I think we will wait until she can walk and care about playing in the snow.
Brooklyn "helping" decorate the tree.
Brooklyn signing for food, she loves pasta especially with Nana's homemade sauce
CHEEEESE! The true Italian side comes out when Pasta is for dinner.
B hanging her new ornaments on the tree, so fun now that she can start doing things and kinda understands.

PRESENT Time! Since we were not going to see Nana for Christmas we has it with her. Yummy homemade lasagna then lots of gifts. We were completely spoiled. Thank you Nana and Grandpa Karl all the gifts were great.

Nana was watching her, when I went downstairs to get her for nap time she was already asleep in the corner of the couch. SO cute she has never done that before, just to much fun when Nana comes.

Some fun with Nana

Thank you Auntie Claudia for the beautiful quilt you made. Brooklyn sleeps with it everyday she loves to look at the bear.
Can't wait to use the hair clips!
We went to the Botanical Gardens downtown to see the Christmas lights. It was very pretty but COLD we did not come as prepared as we should have, learn for next time. They did have hot chocolate and Apple Cider at the door so that helped.

Nana was freezing! B and her tried to stay warm wrapped up in blankets
Dinner before seeing the lights, she stole Daddy's pizza right off his plate and shoved it all in her mouth, ha ha Daddy you didn't want to eat that anyways, right?

Brooklyn at Story time at the Library. We go every Friday for a half hour she loves to play with the toys, puppets and sing the songs.

B's new advent calendar from Aunt Jen she gets so excited to do this everyday, it was a lot of fun thanks Jen for thinking of us!
Brooklyn's favorite things to do always wants to help with the dishes
B got a new puppy named Buttercup from Uncle Mark she LOVES it as you can see!

Brooklyn showing off her whistling skills