Since we were spoiled with such nice weather during our break, we celebrated by taking Angela to the zoo with us. 

The highlight of the day for Alexandria was seeing baby Kenzi, the newest elephant at our zoo.

As far as elephants go, she was pretty cute.

Working hard at the children's zoo.

I was especially glad to have Angela along because otherwise my pregnant self would have been sliding down this tube slide with Alexandria....real cute.

On the carousel.

These guys were putting on quite a show for us, and splashed us a few times.

Everyone's favorite part of the zoo--the train.

Angela pointed out that Blake was sitting like Uncle Dace does, so we had to capture that.  I've noticed it him doing it several times since then too. 

Fun times!

We LOVED just about every single minute of our holiday break week together.  Matt took off on Monday and Friday, so it was nice to have him around for a few extra days.  The kids and I had the perfect mix of days where we wore our PJs and played all day and days where we actually had plans and left the house. 

On December 27 we had a perfect snow day.  We woke up to snow on the ground that lasted for about three hours and then melted away, just enough time for sledding and then the mess was gone. 

Blake was thrilled to wake up to snow.  He went outside right away for some sledding.

 

 

 

 

 

Still loves to shovel.  He even went over and shovled our neighbor's driveway.

Once Alexandria finally woke up (10 a.m. was her break week wake up time), she loved playing outside too.

So excited to see the neighbors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent some time trying out our new Kinect games too!

And the kids put on several plays for us during this week too, at least one every night.

Thanks to Blake even the play house got some festive decoration during the holidays.

   

 

 

 

 

And I may have suffered the kids through a photo shoot or two as well.

Just getting some work done.

The present piles, the night before.

Blake's stash.

Alexandria's goodies.

 

We sort of rushed through presents on Xmas morning, headed to church, and then went to Dad and Mom's house for the afternoon, where there were even more gifts!

Blake and Alexandria had to follow a series of clues to find their gifts that were hidden throughout the house.

 

Lots of gloves at this Xmas celebration.

Angela got some boots to wear in the forest.

Dane got a fire extinguisher, just in case his car catches on fire again on his way back to KC.

 

After church that night we came back to our place and played some more games and laughed a whole bunch.  I have a greater appreciation for my siblings and their humor the older we get.  We must be getting funnier.

Let the record show that the team of Angela, Matt and Kelly was the superior CatchPhrase team.  I expect a rematch at some point.

What used to be an annual gathering has now turned into an every other year gathering due to the big Hartman family vacation that we've been taking every other winter.  So we were happy to host the whole gang for a fun afternoon of snacks and games.

After we ate, we played a snack game that Kathy T. had organized.  The kids really loved it!  Everyone had brought and wrapped their own favorite snack, and then we played Rob Your Neighbor's snack.

 

 

 

 

After the snack game played out I had a few Minute to Win It games that I stole from someone on Pinterest.   The first game was to throw marshmallows through a wreath and into a basket.  Most marshmallows in the basket at the end of the minute was the winner.  Drew and Angela were the big winners of this game!

 

 

Then there was the ever embarrassing Cookie Face game, where each player tries to get a cookie from his/her forehead into his/her mouth without the use of their hands.

I think Brian won this game in 7 short seconds!

 

 

 

 

The cup stacking game was up next.  Jessie and Tiffany took away the WIN on this game.

 

 

 

 

 

After most of the guests had gone homel, Blake and Drew had some WrestleMania time.

 

And then we tested out some of Matt's new presents, new Kinect Sports games.

And worked on some Legos too.

Not sure how this started...

Blake was just sure that he could dip me...I was slightly less confident in his dipping-a-pregnant-woman skills.

 

CATCHPHRASE time!

 

Finally, we got the kids settled all snug in their beds.

 

WHEW!  What a fun day!

With Christmas being on a Sunday this year, we knew that would add a little extra chaos to our typical Sunday morning, so on the kids first day of winte break we had an early opening of the gifts (Harv gets the credit for this great idea).

I got to open my gift from Blake first.  Lovely, isn't it?

 

 

 

Blake and Alexandria had their holiday parties on the same day.  Fortunately, Alexandria's party was in the morning, while Blake's was in the afternoon.  So Matt and I were able to attend both of them.

Mrs. Garrison always has such fun activities for the preschoolers during their party.

Candy cane golf.

Tree decorating.

Books and puzzles.

More tree decorating.

Make your own ornament.

This was their cute gingerbread man tree.

Snowman bowling.

Snack time.

And the kids had a fun gift exchange.

After we left Alexandria's party I told him that the easy party was over, and that Blake's party would be a slightly more chaotic affair.  Preschool only has 8 kids, while Kindergarten has 22. 

There was a lot more sugar at the K party too.  Luckily Blake was satisfied with his cookie and left that giant cupcake for me.

Later that night we went to see some lights in town.  Some members of our family were more impressed than others with this light display.

How would you like to be their neighbors?

There was no horse or sleigh, but there was a delicious meal, lots of relatives and a beautiful day.

With some help from Uncle Bob, Blake climbed up the tree that at least a few generations of the Foiles clan have climbed.

After I told him the story about the huge black snake that Ma saw in that tree when she was a kid, he was ready to get down.

Keegan wasn't afraid though!

Alexandria and Lucy(just three weeks apart in age) had a great time playing with their pet deer.

He got a the total spa treatment while I was out there with them--massage, pedicure, and false eyelashes (grass).

And Alexandria got to hold her newest cousin (Tom and Amie's little gal, Elise) who was just two weeks old.  Blake declined. 

The past couple of weeks have been full of these kinds of mornings with the kids being on their winter break.  I am really going to miss them today when they head back to school.  I am helping at Blake's school today though, so I will get to see him about an hour after he leaves and then will pick up Alexandria at noon when preschool gets out.  Easing back into the routine here, but it sort of feels like the first day of school all over again for me.

Homemade doughnuts and hot cocoa--yum!

December was a fun month for some new recipes and crafts via Pinterest.  I think all of them were a success too!

First up...baked doughnuts.

I don't own a doughtnut cutter, so we improvised with cookie cutters.  They were cuter anyway.

Then Blake had a little Gingerbread man project for homework that he wanted to start on the moment he brought it home (I don't expect that attitude toward homework will last, but I can enjoy it while it does).

And then an annual favorite activity--decorating Gingerbread houses.  This year they had a selection of things to decorate at Target, so Alexandria chose Santa sleighs for she and Blake.

Alexandria was a big fan of the "bling" for Santa.

We tried a new sugar cookie recipe and an equally tasty new frosting recipe this year as well. 

Sprinkles Queen!

And now for my favorite (and easiest) Pinterest-inspired project. 

We painted these clothes pins, taped this ribbon up on the cabinets and used them to display all of our holiday cards.

I LOVE how it turned out, and I plan to leave this up for a few more weeks at least.

And finally, the kids have been busy with their own crafting and wrapping.  It seems like every time I walked by the tree we had a new package under there.

These were easily my favorite gifts this year. 

Dad started out the early gift giving with the gifts that he bought the kids a couple of weeks before Christmas.

They had to hide their eyes because Dad's not much of a gift wrapper. 

Blake had some sort of weird fascination with rubbing Matt's ear that night.