Holidays!

Seeing as I'm about half a year behind on the blog, I'm just going to lump all the holidays that have occurred in the last six months here in this post. I apologize (to those of you who read the blog in real time, and to myself, Chris, and the kids for future reading) for getting so incredibly behind. It's one of those projects that snowballs in its intimidation as time goes on. The more time that passes, the more pictures we take, and the more overwhelming "work on the blog" becomes. It moves to the bottom of the to-do list, because it just seems too daunting. But I'm not ready to give up entirely, so here we go...

The Fourth of July

Here come the Fire Trucks!

Halloween

We left the jack-o-lanterns and babysitter DeeDee behind to go trick-or-treat through the neighborhood.

Thanksgiving

With the Nicolls

With the Hicks'

Christmas

Christmas Eve

Booger the cat

Elizabeth was spellbound watching Callie paint her toenails

Cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer

Christmas Day

Midway through opening presents, Addie thought to go check out Santa's plate, and came running back with it to show us that only a few crumbs were left!

Addie and Emily each got to go to the toystore with me to pick out presents for each other. I took Addie first and she chose the pink unicorn for Emily, and then asked me to make sure that's what Emily got for her, too. When I took Emily shopping, she browsed around for a bit, but eventually landed on the pink unicorn for Addison.

Enjoying presents

And then, it came...our wonderful, beautiful, perfect Christmas Snow!

Christmas in Michigan

When we landed in Michigan, there was surprisingly very little (no) snow, but it was still plenty cold for our Colorado bones.

Chris and Elizabeth with the wedding tree

Sally Cat!

Joey!

Michigan Cousins...Johnny with Ezra, our three, Hannah, Heidi, Joey, and Annabelle

Emily really got into writing on this trip

Ask Emily what she wants to be when she grows up and she'll tell you, "A dentist like Uncle Eric." She loves this guy.

A big Christmas dinner

A beautiful sunrise over the lake

Chris caught this shimmering rainbow spot in the sky...

...and its reflection in the lake

Grandma CeeCee

Mr. Joe

Dance Party!

The. Best. Fort. Ever. Thanks Uncle Eric!

Ezra James

Stickers on PopPop's face!

Emily practiced and practiced writing her name

Addie took on the role of Teacher almost every day

Elizabeth enjoyed having a high chair eating-mate