Pjs!!!!

Nana made pjs again this year! The girls have always looked forward to new pjs! Such a treat!! Thanks nana!!!

Our Christmas Eve night was quiet and relaxing. I made lasagna, salad, corn and bread..... Eric made Texas sheet cake and we sang to Jesus..... We all stayed up late building all the girls' Lego sets in preparation for more Legos at Christmas time :) they were hopeful they would be adding to the Legos! :)

Listened to the Christmas radio station on iTunes Radio. It was a nice night. Thankful for the peaceful night....

Ornaments from Mimi

My mom had her friend make these for the girls. So sweet and so cute!

Christmas Eve DAY

We ate yummy smoked ham sandwiches on Hawaiian sweet rolls, dips and chips, and cut veggies.... Yummy-delicious......
Then headed to church at 2..... It was such a neat service.....
But, the day felt odd.... All the allergy tests for Riley..... Church this afternoon.....
Christmas Eve has been quiet. It's just the 4 of us.....

Furthermore, My mom had major surgery and has been in the hospital for since surgery yesterday and won't be home from the hospital till Thursday or Friday. My heart aches not being there to help. My heart is heavy not be able to take away all the pain she is having. Please pray for her! Pray for complete and total healing for her.... That the pain would subside...... Christmas is usually spent with family and my heart is tugged in so many directions..... Family spread all over the world.....

The 4 of us will reflect on the Christmas story, sing Christmas songs, and pray for our families, near and far..... And thank God for the birth of a savior..... That came to save us, teach us, and guide us..... And be our light in the dark parts of our world..... We love you, Jesus, and are thankful for your birth.....

merry Christmas, from us!

Merry Christmas Eve

On a lighter note: merry Christmas Eve.... So much to be thankful for..... A savior was born..... And today we celebrate his coming into the world....

Foods to avoid, for Riley

Here's the doctors recommended diet..... Holy moly! Gonna make some major changes to help our girl....

Allergy tests.

Christmas Eve and we are in the doctors office having Riley's allergy panels done, again. 3rd time around..... Still trying to figure out the missing pieces to the puzzle..... We learned a lot today!!! Helpful info!!!! A lot of changes are gonna be made with new info.....
We've known of her nickel allergy..... Which is why she can't wear jewelry unless its plastic or rubber, now we know how sensitive that allergy is, and its extreme!!!!! We have now new told. Whole list of things that have metal and nickel in them that we've never known of!!!!

Let it snow!

It snowed a few days in a row and it was awesome! Riley and I made cinnamon rolls and she gave breakfast in bed to Eric :)
The dogs are getting used to the snow again :)
And we are loving our home tucked in the woods. Its festive, quiet and beautiful here. So blessed to be here. Truly feels like a vacation living in this home, so peaceful and amazing.... Thankful for so much.....

Cookies!

Decorating cookies at Mrs. Denice's house :) last minute thing, and a fun time. We've gone there for years doing this. So fun for the kids. :) Evan, drew, sawyer and the girls all got into it this year..... They loved eating them! :)

Friday!!!

Yay!!!! Its Friday!! We had a great day..... Girls each got to go to the skating rink for their class Christmas parties! I skated with them! It was pretty awesome, actually. It's been about 15 years since I've skated but I really had a neat time with the girls! After skating we all walked out of the rink and there was some major snowfall since we had gotten there. It was beautiful!!!!!!! And it's been snowing ever since!!!! About 8 inches today! So happy because we haven't had much snow this year.
We are really looking forward to Christmas vacation! 2 weeks off of school!!! Here's to sleeping in, yummy baking, movies and relaxing!!!!! We plan on working on some projects too which will be super fun! Yay for time off!!!!

Winter!

Eric took the day off and we headed to schwietzer mountain for a morning of snowboarding. I feel more times than ever..... I think I'll try skiing. Lol. Neat day spent together. Love our date days.....

Drive thru nativity

Our church has done a drive thru nativity before but we hadn't gone before this year.... This is a new tradition for us and we look forward to doing this for years to come! Such a neat thing our church puts on, complete with real cow, sheep and donkeys! We listened to the whole Christmas story through a cd we played on our car radio while we drove thru. They did such a nice job with the cd telling the story! Afterwards we headed to the Coeur d Alene resort for their famous "Gooey" sundaes!!! We all split the strawberry shortcake gooey!!!!

Winter days!

25 cent ice cream cones any time any day at SuperOne! Sunsets,
Hot cocoa, movie nights and fires in the fireplace..... Winter, its fun, festive and we love it..... Yesterday we were the recipients of someone's random act of kindness, a huge box of fresh apples picked off someone's tree..... Who ever left these, thank you!!!!! Such a nice gesture of kindness..... Love it. So thankful. So blessed.....
Last night we began our usual tradition of our "what god wants for Christmas" tradition. Love doing this with the kids! Last night began the count down, 7 days till Christmas! :)

Words cannot simply express