Christmas Morning

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Christmas Eve

Dad's Christmas Party

On Sunday, December 23rd my dad and his wife Julie had a family Christmas party at their home. We had so much fun. We played a great game that Julie's family plays each year. The Patterson's (Janae's family) took home most of the gifts from the game. They are one lucky family. We had so much food and presents. Everyone had a great time. Julie did an amazing job putting the party together and making sure it was enjoyable for everyone. Donnie went to Utah with my mom this year and couldn't be at Dad's party. We really missed him. We had a great time with all the family. With the split families we had about a week long of Christmas parties. Each one was a lot of fun and it was great to spend time and create memories with each family. We are very fortunate for the amazing families that we have.

Dad's Quilt

For Christmas this year Janae and I decided to make our dad a photo quilt. We have been working on this for a month and I finished it about 3 hours before our Christmas party with our dad. Here is the finished product. We were so excited about how it turned out. We did a John Deer theme in memory of his dad that passed away at the beginning of the year.
Here is Aaron enjoying the cozy quilt. The backing is a very soft flannel. Now I need to make Aaron a nice cozy blanket. Aaron is so great. I was in a hurry to finish the quilt for my dad's party and Aaron came in and helped me tie it. I really have the world's best husband!
Here is my dad opening his gift.

He really loved it. He just kept telling me and Janae how great of a gift it was. Everyone was saying Janae and I are in the wrong business and that we should be making quilts. I like to do them every once in awhile. I don't think I could do it all the time. He was so excited about his quilt that he took it to Iowa with him yesterday to show it to my grandma. I am so glad that he liked his gift. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. I am going to do something similar for Aaron's mom. I just got the fabric in the mail the other day so that is my next project. I hope she likes hers too.

Gingerbread Houses

Last night my mom, Merrill and my brothers came up from Tucson on their way to Utah to celebrate Christmas. We did Gingerbread Houses at Janae & Ryan's house and then we opened gifts. Here are Janae & Kinlee (Janae's step-daughter) working on their houses.
Kinlee and Janae did a great job on their houses. They both really get into it. I wasn't really in the mood to make a house, but it was fun hanging out with everyone while the kids made houses.
Blake didn't want his face in the picture of him with his house. I caught a side glimpse of him. He only decorated the front part of the house because no one sees the back on a normal house so he didn't need to worry about it. He is such a funny kid.
Here is Kinlee with her masterpiece. She did a great job. She even put in a mailbox with a message to Santa for what she wanted for Christmas. It was so cute.

Here's Kevin and Blake working on their houses. I think these 2 ate more of the candy than they put on their house. That's the best way to decorate a gingerbread house. We had a lot of fun watching these kids and Janae make their masterpiece. My mom did a great job making the gingerbread and frosting for everyone.

Decorating the Tree

We had a great time decorating our tree last night. Aaron always does such a great job putting the lights and star on the tree.
Linda and Ricardo came over to watch a movie and help decorate the tree. It was fun having them help us with the decorations.
Here I am adding some decorations at the top of the tree. We like to collect ornaments for different places we travel to or special memories. It's nice to reflect on those memories as we put the decorations up.
Here I am with my handsome husband. We don't get too many pictures of the two of us together. It was very nice of Linda to take it of us.
We had a great weekend with Nonny & Poppy. We were so glad they came with us on our adventures yesterday. Our favorite was sledding at their cabin. They are such great hosts. Here is a picture of them warming themselves by the fire. Thanks for the fun weekend!

Snow Much Fun!

After we cut down our Christmas tree we went over to Nonny & Poppy's cabin in Heber and went sledding down there hill. We had soooo much fun!!! Here are some of our photos:
Aaron and Ricardo were trying to sled down the hill, but the snow was so deep and dry that we couldn't get a nice slick run to sled down. I decided to have Precious pull me down and she loved it! She loves to run and had a great time pulling Aaron and I down the hill. She didn't want to stop.
Armstrong, our King of Comfort, wouldn't think of pulling anyone. Instead he prefers to go along for the ride on the sled. He is so funny.
Here's Precious pulling her daddy down the hill. She is such a work dog and loves to run and play. She had the time of her life yesterday.
Aaron decided to be daring and go down on his stomach. We had so much fun sledding.
Poppy made us a fire to stay warm. It was the perfect day. We found our Christmas tree, went sledding and had a nice warm fire to keep us warm. We had the best time at the cabin and want to do it again soon.

Finding Our Christmas Tree

We went to Heber on Saturday to go find our Christmas tree. Each year we wait until it snows so we can get our tree in the snow. Here is Aaron, Precious & Armstrong as we begin our hunt for our perfect tree.
Armstrong really like this tree, but we felt it was a little bit too small.
Armstrong took off and he ran right by this tree. I thought it would fit perfectly in our home. Here is our family posing in front of this year's perfect tree.
Father and Son cutting down the tree. Linda and Ricardo came with us to find our tree. We had a great time hiking through the woods for our tree. We like to go off the beaten path to find our trees and we were glad they could join us.
Here are all of the men hauling out the tree. It was too heavy this year for the dogs to pull it out of the woods. They all look so handsome.

Finished Tree Skirt

I finally finished our tree skirt on Thursday night. I had some obstacles I had to battle in order to finish. Here are some photos of the obstacles:
While I was hand stitching the binding Armstrong had to be covered by it the whole time. Aaron was looking for Armstrong and I had to show him that he was laying under the tree skirt while I was sewing it.

Armstrong took over the tree skirt as his cuddling blanket when I got up to go check on something.
He was very comfortable and didn't want to move. Ta-da!!!! Here is the finished skirt. I am very excited with how it turned out. I didn't realize it would take so much time but it was definitely worth it.
Aaron loves it too and says it is definitely a keeper that will be passed on. I am so glad I finished it before Christmas. Aaron said once I was done with it we could get the tree so I finished Thursday night and we got our tree Saturday morning.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

It snowed even more last night. This is a look from our house to the park. I love the trees covered in snow. They are so beautiful. We received probably 8 inches so far of snow and it is still snowing. I love this time of year!
I thought it was so pretty how the snow was on the tree trunk and the branches.
Here's my snow boy running through the snow. He loves to play in the snow. Look at him go.
Here's my little snow bunny galloping through the snow. Both Precious and Armstrong love the snow. They've been out there most of the morning.
Here's Armstrong trying to get Precious to wrestle in the snow.

Backpacking Trip

Here's Armstrong in his backpacking gear. On his last trip he tore up his pads so we got him some ruff wear boots. He kept them until the last 1/4 of a mile when he ran off of the trail and came back with only two.
On Thursday, December 6th Aaron and Armstrong set out for their long overnight backpacking trip. They left around 1pm and arrived at their destination after dark. Aaron took his GPS and saw that they hiked in 8 miles. It was very windy and cold as they hiked. Aaron said it was very steep and a hard trail. There had been a forest fire and they had to climb over dead trees. It was very difficult to follow the trail. That night they made camp and it was so windy it was hard for them to sleep as the wind made the tent bump into them as they slept. Armstrong went immediately into his sleeping bag I made him and went right to sleep. Aaron watched a movie on his IPOD to fall asleep. Aaron said the wind was so loud that he ended up turning on music and listened to that as he slept so the wind wouldn't distract him any more.
The next morning they saw the waterfall they had hiked to. They started hiking out and it started to rain. It rained so much that Aaron had to stop and empty the water out of his boots. They were both drenched by the time they got to the car and were still very wet after the 1 1/2 hour car ride home. Precious and I were so excited to see them when they came home. All Armstrong and Aaron did for the next couple of days was rest. They were both very tired and sore. They had a great time though and Armstrong looked so cute in his backpacking gear. Aaron looked handsome too, but he didn't take a picture of himself.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

It started snowing lat Saturday morning and has been snowing off and on ever since. This is the first snow of the season and it really feels like Christmas now. The dogs love the snow. They've been running around chasing each other and rolling in the snow. They sure enjoy playing in the snow.
Here's Precious out in the snow. You can see some of the battle scars in the snow from Precious and Armstrong chasing each other.
Here's Armstrong looking at a bird on the fence. He is our snow dog. He's from New Hampshire and gets so excited about being out in the snow. He rolls around and tries to bury himself in the snow. He is so much fun to watch.
Here's my pretty little girl checking out the snow.
Here's another one of Armstrong. He has spent most of the day out in the snow.

Decorating for Christmas

We decorated for Christmas this weekend. I was so excited. I love Christmas and have been wanting to do this for awhile. We had a lot of fun decorating and we love the way the house looks now. Here are some pictures of some of the decorations around our house. We will probably go cut down our tree this week.

Armstrong's Sleeping Bag

On Aaron and Armstrong's last overnight backpack trip Armstrong got very cold and shivered all night. Aaron asked me to make him a light weight down sleeping bag to keep Armstrong warm. I finished it this past week and am very proud of how it turned out. I didn't have a pattern, you can't find one for a dog. So I had to look at different sleeping bags and then went for it. I had to make baffles for the down so there wouldn't be cold spots for my little guy. It was kind of complicated, but I feel that I have really accomplished something. It packs into a very small size and is easy for Armstrong to carry.
I wanted to take a picture of Armstrong in his sleeping bag, but Precious jumped right in it. They both really like it.
Here's Armstrong lounging around in his sleeping bag. Aaron said when they went backpacking he jumped right in his sleeping bag and didn't budge. It kept him warm that night.
Here is another cute picture of Armstrong.
Here's another one of Precious