Snow fun

Before we all left the grown ups spent more time playing in the snow. Shannon was determined to build a big snowman. George and I had fun helping. This is probably the largest snowman I have helped to build and it did not have all the grass and leaves sticking out of it that I am used to.

We convinced Katherine to come out and play in the snow again. It was really warm outside so it was more fun without all of the layers of clothing.
She enjoyed climbing on our snow cave.
And sliding down it too.

She wanted to throw a snowball at Frosty.
Making a snow angel
Emily made a mini snowman.
She made a snow angel too.
Katherine wanted me to write her name in the unspoiled snow. I hope the neighbor did not mind!
It was such a fun special treat to have a white Christmas and to enjoy the snow. Chances are we will not have the opportunity again.

Christmas Day

Actually, we pretended that the 26th was Christmas Day due to the "Blizzard '09" delays.

We celebrated Jesus' birthday by singing and eating yummy cake.
Caroline loved her cake.
There were 15 stockings to fill. It is a group effort with each family contributing to everyone's stocking. My Mother-in-law, Pam, has made all of the stockings for 7 grandkids and all of the kids in law. What a labor of love.
Caroline enjoyed looking through her stocking. 7 kids ages 10 months to 8 years. It was pretty much impossible to get all of them looking at the camera at once much less smiling or even happy.

Emily, Katherine and Hannah
Emily and Ty
Katherine and Hannah both received Fancy Nancy dolls along with a few outfits that Grammy made for the dolls.
I made Hannah, Ty, Nathan and Caroline superhero/super princess capes.
Katherine posing with all of her loot.
Uncle George with Hannah and Katherine and their Fancy Nancy dolls.

More Snow!

When we finally arrived at Sam's parents' house, we were not disappointed at all in the snow. Officially there was 7.8 inches but George, Sam's brother measured 10 inches and in some places it was 15 inches deep! That is more than any of us have seen without traveling to the mountains. The cousins had already been playing in the back yard for a day and they built a great fort complete with icicle spikes to keep out intruders. Even with all of that snow being a part of the fort, there was a ton of snow on the ground. We made snowballs and started our snowman. The snow was still a bit dry and not sticking well.


Caroline did better than yesterday but still was not a huge fan of the snow. It was so hard for her to walk and move.

They kept the front yard pretty so that we would have fresh snow to play in when we arrived. They did shovel the driveway and sidewalk and used that snow to make a tunnel.

I was surprised that even Caroline climbed through the tunnel.

Before we let them play in the front we got a photo of all the cousins - Katherine, Caroline, Nathan, Hannah, Ty and Emily. Zac (10 months) stayed inside.

Our kids did not last long outside. I was a little sad about this but they have no idea what a big deal this amount of snow is. They were cold and wanted to go inside to play instead.

This past weekend we got together with Sam's entire family-all 17 of us. Sam's brother, Justin lives in Hawaii with his wife Leah. They were in town so we all got together.

Saturday we all went to the zoo. The weather was perfect and it was a wonderful activity when the group included 7 kids age 8 months-8 years.

After the zoo we went to Sam's other brother, George's house for dinner and to celebrate Leah's birthday. Sunday we got together again to hang out and eat Mexican food. It was a fun weekend.