Christmas and New Years

We had a good Christmas and New Years this year.  We stayed here in Minnesota.  My two little sisters were both here as well, which made things extra fun (and Ann loved having a cousin to play with too, in addition to two aunts and an uncle).

Rebekah and Grant flew in early Christmas Eve (Janelle arrived a few days earlier)

Ann decided she wanted to wear Archer's Santa hat (which is obviously a little small on her)

Archer flew up to Minnesota dressed as a cute little elf

Our Christmas Eve program.  We first watched a video of the Nativity story, then we sang one verse of each of the Christmas songs in the hymn book

More singing

We then all got to open a present.  Ann got a new sleep sack, as her old one was getting to be way too small (this girl is growing up so fast!)

Archer got a new sleep sack too!

Christmas morning!  It was absolutely beautiful outside!  A fresh coat of snow on the ground, while it continued to gently snow

Janelle looking at her "Santa Visa Card"

Looking at some new books

Ann got some play food.  Each piece of food comes in two halves, connected by velcro.  There are cutting boards and knives so you can then "chop" the food in half.  Ann has loved this!

She also got quite a few puzzles, which she has also enjoyed playing with a lot.

Later in the afternoon, Ann finally decided she wanted to go outside and be in the snow (she didn't want to go out earlier in the morning when Archer went out to play).

"Come on sweetie, let's get in the snow..."

She wouldn't just walk over to the snow herself

Kind of a repeat reaction to last year.  I think she doesn't like how unstable she feels trying to stand/walk/anything in the snow.

Going for a sled ride

Unfortunately, the sled isn't too stable either, so she wasn't a huge fan of this either.  Tom was able to get her into the backyard before she declared herself done and had Tom pick her up.

Cute cousins playing together

My mom made some caramel, and while Rebekah was helping wrap it, Archer grabbed a piece and stuck the whole thing in his mouth.  This is Rebekah trying to pull some of back out

Ann was helping Grandma sweep the kitchen floor

Drinking some sparkling juice to celebrate the New Year!  She really liked it.

Archer liked it too!  We celebrated around 8:30 pm because the little ones needed to go to bed and also because Rebekah, Grant, Archer and Janelle were all flying out the next morning - so they all had to get up really early to head to the airport.

This was from this past Monday, during our "Polar Vortex" freeze.  We had planned on hibernating all day long, but Tom realized he really needed to get to school to get some scanning done before Tuesday.  We drove him down and dropped him off instead of letting him just keep the car, because we were 99.99% sure that the car wouldn't start again for him after sitting out in the cold for a couple of hours.  Ann didn't mind getting all bundled up, and actually thought it was pretty fun to wear a scarf (it was pulled up over her face so only her eyes were showing when we were outside - I also put on her tights under her pants to help keep her legs warm).  While we did survive the cold (hello -45 windchill), we are glad that it's starting to warm back up - it's a balmy 14 degrees outside right now!