Celebrate!

Some friends of mine decided it was necessary for me to have a party to celebrate finishing all my breast cancer treatments, and since December was too busy, we had it today.  It was GREAT!!!  Everyone wore pink and we had lots of yummy food and good chit-chat.  Glad I could give everyone a reason to have a get-together and celebrate!

Ski Eagle Point!

We took a little ski trip for a few days over to Eagle Point (otherwise known as Elk Meadows) to enjoy the mountains of snow that Utah has received.  And there was a ton of snow!!!  I was quite impressed.

We stayed up at one of the little condos for two nights and enjoyed two days of skiing.  Tyson grew up skiing at this resort, but I have only been skiing a handful of times and I am not good at all.  But somehow, because I didn't want to ski alone, I had to brave my way down the 'blue' runs to stay near Tyson and Tyler (who could nearly do two 'black' runs in the same amount of time).  One run I got stuck on...way too hard for me, but I actually got pretty decent by the end of two days, only crashed (more like fell, nothing too serious) a handful of times, oh...and crashed getting off the chair lift the first time, embarrassing Tyson. He he!  We had a lot of fun!

Up they go...I didn't dare get on the lift with them the first time on the triple chair, for fear I was going to crash and it would have to make the dreaded stop again!

Tyson coming through the trees, where he liked to ski the best!  Guaranteed I'd hit one of those if I ever tried that!

Enjoying our day on the slopes!

Tyler and Tyson...yes, they are twins.

Tyson and me with Mount Delano in the background.

I don't think they were going to be headed out anywhere soon, and that was just from the last storm around Christmas!

So Day 2 of skiing, we had the kids come up and stay and we took them to ski school.  Neither one of them had any idea of what to expect, so they were a little scared, but found they loved it! 

Collin and his ski teacher headed up the hill.

Mackenzie on skis!

Mackenzie headed up the hill with her teacher.  I think she's going to be quite the little skier.  She really impressed me, and she was even able to figure out how to snowplow.

Christmas Festivities

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love everything about it, except the hecticness (is that really a word?) of it all which I felt a little too much of this year.  But it was still a fun month and fun time for us with friends and family.

The kids had a preschool Christmas program that was quite adorable.  It's amazing at how much joy you find just by watching your kids sing these cute little songs about Christ and the fun of Christmas.

Ready to go sing!

Singing at the program.  Collin is in red on the front row, and Mackenzie is in green on the 2nd row.

A week before Christmas we were going to have a dinner party, but my life got a little too crazy for me with unexpected company, or should I say companies (although we were still glad you all came :) and me getting sick, so party cancelled.  Instead, I did a test-run of the party...the food and most of the set-up and we enjoyed it all with our family that came to stay that week.  I couldn't let all my preparations go to waste anyways!  It was fun and the food was delish!

We (or should I say 'I') made another gingerbread house this year.  The kids loved to decorate it with the candies, and about 5 minutes after it was complete they were already eating all the candies off of it!  I couldn't keep them away from the poor little house.

Christmas was super fun.  This year the kids were very excited, especially Mackenzie.  They finally are understanding the counting down of the days.  Mackenzie walked around the house for several days holding a little present that she had under the tree, just begging to open it.  Collin just kept saying how he wasn't on the 'naughty list'.

So kids went to bed at a decent time and it was show-time for Santa and his elves, only to run into a few problems in trying to deliver the toys.  The basketball hoop that was Collin's biggest request was missing THE HOOP!  Yep, just not in the box!  It was 9:45 pm!  What to do....hmm, I realized that I bought it at Kmart and they just might happen to still be open.  Yep - it was a 20 minute drive for us though, but we called the store and they let Tyson in when he got there.  Shew!!!  Next problem, wrong pieces sent to the kitchen so there is no back to the oven! Argh!  Oh well, that could be dealt with after Christmas.  Moving on to the table/chairs that went with the kitchen, only to find that the back of the turquoise chair was really baby blue that went with the pastel set which I did NOT order! And the pink chair had nail holes in it that had been puttyed and sanded, but not repainted.  And Collin's Dino-track land had missing wooden track pieces!  I have never been so disappointed in the quality of toys and furniture that is put out by companies these days.

I think the most memorable thing about that whole night was at 3:30 a.m. (Santa had just barely dozed off to sleep about 15 minutes prior), I awoke to this crash coming from the living room.  I ran into the room to find Collin playing his bowling game!  He had woken up in the night and discovered that Santa had just shown up.  It was extremely difficult to get him back to bed to say the least!  And he kind of ruined the big surprise for in the morning, darn it!

 Our place Christmas morning!  Notice Collin's little bowling alley game, which was his big request along with the 'basketshooter'.

 Santa brought Collin his request...a new 'basketshooter'.

Mackenzie with her bright kitchen and the accessories, including the requested 'turquoise' toaster.  Mackenzie's big Christmas toy request was actually a xylophone and flute.  I have no idea why she wanted those, but she was pretty excited to get them.

We had a wonderful Christmas!