Christmas

The girl cousins skiing with Grandpa. He is very brave, but these girls are great skiers. We had perfect weather for skiing. It was over 40 degrees.

All packed up and ready for the long drive back to Colorado. The kids are great travelers. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a minivan with any other children. We made great time. It took me 7 hours and 55 minutes with no speeding tickets.

Justin and I skied together. He is a beginner, but he is improving. He worked so hard and I learned that snowplowing backwards down the mountain is extremely tiring.

Hans' favorite gift was this golf club.

Cute Mia.

Katelyn is so expressive and I love the joy that radiates from her body.

Cute girls. They love each other and are so good to one another.

Santa brought Justin a basketball hoop. It was a great gift. It's gotten a lot of use.

This is what Santa came up with for Mia's request of a triangle top and a mermaid tail. She was thrilled.

Justin loves getting things.

Ashley was pleased with Christmas.

Christmas morning anticipation. Justin woke up at 4 am.

Justin and his remote controlled helicopter. He loved it.

Justin gave Mia a bitty baby. He is a great brother to her.

Christmas Eve. The kids were anxious to open a present.
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We had a Christmas party for Ashley and two of her friends. They made bracelets, decorated and ate sugar cookies, and watched Tangled.

We had a great Christmas this year. We had a lot of time together as a family, which seems is happening less and less the older the kids get. We did a lot of fun things. We went skating at skate city. This was great fun. Hans decided to impress the kids and I by skating backwards in the backwards skate. He was one of 3 or 4 on the rink and fell hard on his first corner around the rink. It was very funny, but he is still sore from it. We also went sledding since we got so much snow this year. Some nice people let us borrow their sled they weren't using so we could all get down together. It is a steep hill and a lot of work to get up, but we had a great time. My favorite part was watching Katelyn do somersaults up the hill. I could tell she hadn't been to gymnastics for a week. Mia started gymnastics during the season as well. She got promoted after 1 class to their advanced class and can already do 5 pull-ups, a pull over, and a bridge kick over. She told her coaches that she is going all the way to the top. They love her. They told me that she will be my best gymnast since she is so short. We will see. Now I am driving to the gym 7 different times a week. We also went and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks, which the kids loved, and was okay for me since I had a big tub of popcorn on my lap.

Christmas Eve we did a live nativity. The kids did a great job. Ashley directed the whole program. We opened one present and spent the majority of the day at home. We shared dinner at a friend's house and played games. I'm pretty sure the kids understood the true meaning of Christmas and for that I feel successful.

Christmas Day we enjoyed opening presents and eating waffles. I was grateful we were able to go to church and listen to beautiful music. I then, in all my craziness, took down Christmas and packed to drive to Utah the next day. The drive was uneventful and we had a great time visiting grandparents and cousins. The kids love being there. We skied at Brighton. I checked Justin into ski school where he learned how to snow plow and the girls skied with Grandpa and Melanie. We met Mindy up there as well. The weather was fantastic, which made up for the lack of snow, and we went home happy. We also went tubing at Soldier Hollow, which is always a highlight. Grandma Heath took all of the kids shopping to spend their Christmas money from her. We met up with Egberts at Chick fil a for lunch. We had a New Year's Eve party. Mainly the highlight of visiting Utah is letting the kids play endlessly with their cousins and running with Melanie. She was nice enough to run 8 of my 12 miles with me one Saturday. I wish I lived a 4 hour drive away at most so we could visit more often. I am hoping we will get visited this year. Overall it was a great Christmas Season.