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The Holiday Season

Whew! This season has been a busy, busy blast! We managed to keep busy the whole winter break, in the best possible way. We worked hard to enjoy every minute of the season and took advantage of every day of no school.
We started winter break with a fun weekday ski date with Grandpa and the Jones clan. We ended up with a beautiful day and the kids ended up lasting all day. A lot of great, long runs were skied.
The day was full of sunshine and great snow. The mountain was absolutely beautiful!

Everyone got to ride together because Crystal Mountain has 6 person chairs

Clara and Callie had so much fun skiing together. A bit timid at first but as the day went on, Amy and I were told we needed to stay behind them because they were the "leaders"

Love my ski buddy!

Part of Callie's Christmas present this year was a date night with just Preston and I. Liam got to stay home and snuggle with Grandma as we headed out to the Fifth Avenue theater to watch The Little Mermaid. It was so fun to have one special time with her and watch her face throughout the play. It was a magical experience for her and she couldn't stop talking about it. 

We also did our annual Knowles cookie baking day. We missed Sarah this year because she was out of town but we were lucky to get the Sarion girls to join us (as well as our own personal dishwasher - thanks Rey!). Each year is a little bit different with the kids but each year it gets a lot easier. My kiddos were definitely more interested in playing with their cousins than cooking, but Maya picked up everyone's slack and baked with the grown ups all day. As always, I failed to take many pictures....





 The rest of the time, we visited the reindeer farm, made gingerbread houses, visited Snowflake Lane, went sledding, and enjoyed cold park dates and overall silliness being together.

Snowflake Lane

Taking a ride on Santa's sleigh

Checking out the real and pretend animals at the zoo

Feeding the reindeer.


We took advantage of some sunny days and had some parks all to ourselves. 


Gingerbread houses were fun this year. Both kiddos got really into it and wanted to do everything themselves. 


This year we went to see the holiday lights from the comfort of our car. The lights were amazing and the kids loved that they could roam around in the car with no seat belts. 

With both kiddos home we had some fun breakfasts and dinners - happy that they are getting old enough to do this stuff and I can help. Quite the little chefs I have!

Christmas Eve Preston and I taught Sunday School during an early service and then brought the kids to our candlelight service afterwards. The kids loved the singing but didn't focus much on the sermon (to be expected :)). Liam laid on the ground in front of our seats and drove cars while callie drew some beautiful pictures. We came home, set out cake for Santa and everyone fell asleep quickly. Christmas day we enjoyed a quiet morning of opening presents and playing with our new things. Then we headed to the Knowles household and enjoyed amazing family time there.I have to say....now that we have a devoted kids table, dinner is much more pleasant :) After dinner, we headed down to Vancouver to celebrate Christmas with the Graham side of the family. It was a wonderful visit and we were so happy that our kids got to spend so much time with all of the family. We enjoyed our time so much together that we failed to take any pictures...


For New Years (and the Husky game), we drove over to our cabin and were surprised by snow! Such a wonderful surprise for us and the kids. We spent most of the days outside having a snowball fight, sledding and making snow angels. 

We had a lot of fun sledding and enjoying the snow

She was determined to climb up the giant hill...and she did








Although it was hard to come back to reality, Callie was excited to be back at school and see her teacher and friends! (and I think Liam was happy to have the house back to himself. Ha!)



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