Gingerbread house

My girls, Chelse and I have a tradition of getting together and making a gingerbread house each year. Normally we do it before Christmas, but the weather didn't cooperate with us this year so we did it after. In the past we've bought the kits and one year I made the house. This year Chelse made the house, it was huge!!! The girls loved it; they had a ton of room to decorate :) We pulled out all the candy and let them go to town. They are always very creative and this year was no different. It turned out very cute, the girls were very pleased with their creative candy placing skills.

Christmas Trip day 2

Day two's tickets came from Santa. We got tickets to the Heber Creeper's Tube n' train.

we rode the train up past and back down to Soldier Hollow. Then we went tubing for a while. Once back at the railroad we took a little tour and looked at some of the trains. The kids had fun, the girls enjoyed the tubing the most. Matthew, however, even though he fell asleep for a while on the train, enjoyed riding on the train and seeing the trains the most. He was so excited about the trains he asked about it over and over before we even got there then couldn't sit still he was so excited waiting for the train to leave the station.

Tubing at Soldier Hollow- they had a tow rope to take us to the top. Going down was fun and fast! The girls went down alone! Matthew didn't like the snow kicking up in his face so he went down with the biggest grin on his face and his eyes squinted as tight as he could get them, it was SO cute :)

The train ride. The tickets weren't that exciting as a gift, but again once we got to the station, and for Matthew once he realized he was going on a train ride he was excited! We let the kids choose the seats, by the windows of course! We saw deer and I saw a fox hop into a ditch. Lots of wild life to see and lots of snow and frozen lakes, it was very pretty.

Christmas Trip day 1 part 2

One of the presents we gave the kids was tickets to ride on a horse drawn sleigh ride. They weren't that excited when they received the tickets, but once the horses showed up and it was real, well they were very excited!!! They all agreed that it seemed to go by really fast, but it was a lot of fun.

Waiting for the Sleigh to arrive. The kids played in the snow, had a good time throwing snowballs at each other!

Warming up by the fire at the lodge :)

Christmas Trip day 1

First stop was at the hotel pool!

this snowman was catching some rays outside the pool-he made us laugh!

Lyss swimming with her swim to me dog (the one toy Santa brought) he really swims with her in the swimming pool-she got a kick out of it :)

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was over in a flash of wrapping paper!

There wasn't many toys this year, we decided to go on a trip instead.

The kids got pillow pets and some movies to take on the trip! Santa brought them one toy each. The one toy they each asked for. They were all very excited :)

Christmas Eve Traditions

I'm very strong on tradition. I don't give them up easily! There are some holiday traditions we've had for years, seeing the lights at the park on Christmas eve is one of them. We get bundled up each kid gets a mug of hot cocoa and we head over to the city park. They've changed things over the years, it's not as "walk-thru-friendly" as it use to be. TOO many lazy people drive through and so the city is trying to accommodate them (which is lame if you ask us!) But the kids still enjoy seeing all the different animals and creatures and such that they have made out of lights. We had to go for a little extra walk to see their favorites (again because of the accommodations for the lazy drivers) like Ariel and the unicorn and Pegasus and Dragon they were all together and all across the street from where the rest of the lights where. But the kids got to see them so all was well :) Another favorite tradition is that we let the kids open one gift each on Christmas eve; but the gift is always new (Christmas) PJ's! We have several Christmas eve traditions-but these are the two that I actually took pictures of this year.