Derek and Ethan went to Crystal Mountain the other day. Derek was anxious to get on his board and wanted Ethan to take some lessons so Ethan didn't get to use his snowboard. He has to be 7 to take lessons. He did really good though. I will update with some videos tomorrow. He is such a cute little skiier and did pretty darn good.
Merry Christmas a few days late!!! I just wanted to share some pictures from our Christmas celebrations. Derek and I grew up with different holiday traditions so we have been working on creating our own traditions that work for us. Beginning last year I think we figured out how it will work every year when we are at home. So, Christmas Eve we head up to my parents house to celebrate Christmas Eve with a seafood feast and open up all of our presents to each other. We leave all of our gifts for the kids and for me and Derek at home. After we have gotten full of food, dessert and all the presents are opened we slowly mosey on home. The plan is for the kids to be asleep by the time we get home so that we get them up and tucked into their beds then get everything all set up for Christmas morning.
The next morning Ethan woke up first and came into our room. We told him it was too early and that we were all going to go back to sleep. So, we grabbed him and snuggled back into bed and then Derek jumped up and said "We can't go back to sleep. It's Christmas!!" So the three of us piled downstairs and started opening presents. We went ahead and just let Addie sleep until she woke up. Alisha made us some cinnamon roles that we ate for breakfast that were extremely yummy!! Nothing like homemade breakfast!!! After breakfast we watched the kids play for awhile until it was Addie's naptime, then I took a nap. I don't know how I will deal with Christmas once Addie doesn't nap. Eeeek!! After naptime I made risotto and took it over to the neighbors for dinner and we hung out there, ate, played guitar hero and just had a good night. It was a great, successful Christmas. Here are some pictures from our christmas celebrations!!
Addie really loves Ethan's toys.
After sledding we went to Yvonne and Cristian's to make cookies. I turned my back for a minute and this is how Addie thought I needed help. I shouldn't have let her but it was too funny not to let her and to get some great pics.
As I mentioned previously we got a lot of snow here recently. I think we have about 15 inches right now. It is finally starting to warm up a little bit and hopefully it will all go away. Derek and Ethan have been loving it though. I took a bunch of pics on Sunday of all of going out sledding. Addie does not like the snow but she did okay with us out there. She didn't like putting on all the layers and so we had some trouble getting out the door. Once we were out she lasted about an hour although she wanted to be held the whole time. We had fun out there though. Here's the pictures. I'm also including a video from th eother night when Ethan and Derek went out. The sledding itself is uneventful but Ethan is a funny little guy. 
Merry Christmas everyone!! Today is Christmas Eve, which is one of my favorite days of the holiday season. Today we are going to go up to my parents house for dinner but first I have to work for a few hours. Then off we go. this is the first of a few posts today. I think there will be 3 total of the pictures I have to put up. This first one is our trip to Cabela's on Sunday to see Santa. We brought Cristian along with us so that he could also tell Santa what he wanted. Addie wanted nothing at all to do with Santa so we don't have any pictures. As soon as she saw him she started panicking and kept repeating "All done! All done!!" It was kinda cute and we didn't make her go. Afterward we went for a little walk around Cabela's and got some fun pics while we were there.
Here the kids were "camping"
These pics were taken around the animal mountain
