Colorado Christmas Trip

We spent the week before Christmas in Colorado visiting family and enjoying the snow.


Aunt Karen, Aidan, Darren & Uncle Ben went skiing at Copper Mountain.

Aidan posing like a pro.

Concentration, even his tongue is working.

Crash into Uncle Ben (aka the ski instructor)

Ready to snowmobile.

Kiersten asleep only a few minutes into the ride.














Snow-angel break.















Aidan at the wheel.















The whole family (Kiersten is still asleep).














Back to Copper Mountain for some tubing.





























Kiersten wasn't tall enough to tube so she played in "Critterland". She got to ride on a tube-carousel.

Playing in the playhouse.

Trying out the mini-hill.

All that play wore her out. She fell sleep sitting up on a bench.

Horsedrawn carriage ride. There was not enough snow for a sleigh.

A little more sledding before heading back to Texas.

Christmas Merriment

These are some random shots leading up to Christmas.

I asked Aidan to help me unwrap the kisses when I was making cookies. He created this long process, his 'machine', to help with the job. I think I ended up unwrapping most of them myself. He tended to drop a lot of them so he had to eat them :)



This was the day of their Christmas parties at school.

Kiersten and the goat at the church's Happy Birthday With Love event.

Funny story...When we pulled up, Aidan insisted that the goat was the same one as last year. He said he recognized her face but she had grown bigger. Darren & I thought he was crazy. Sure enough when we walked up (before we asked), the person holding the goat explained they brought the same goat back again this year to show how she had grown. In the words of Aidan, "What are the chances?"

No tears this year, no smile either, but that is progress.

Christmas Eve

Kiersten's first time in "Big Church". She even got to hold her own candle.

At the children's moment. Aidan tells us he was trying to get her to pay attention.

O Christmas Tree

We made our annual trip to chop down our Christmas tree. Our favorite tree farm was open again this year.



This was Kiersten's choice.

Here was Aidan's choice.

This was the final family choice.

A little sawing...

A little more sawing...

...Timber

And some hot chocolate to finish the day.

Big Girl Bed

We moved Kiersten to a toddler bed at the end of November. She is doing really well and has only rolled out a couple of times. She enjoys the freedom to get up and play whenever she wants.

This is how we found her one night about a week later.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a quiet dinner at home with our little family of four.

It was uneventful until dessert time. Somehow the pie recipe called for too much butter. It caused the batter to overflow the crust and then burst into flames at the bottom of the oven.

This was the paper that Aidan brought home from school the next week. It was a "What I did over Thanksgiving" report. He wrote "My pie caught on fire." I can only wonder what his teachers thought.

Go Stars!

Here are a couple of pictures from before the Stars game.

Here is Kiersten after the game. She was on the late news during the weather segment. In case you are wondering, I am holding her up above my head to be able to see. Aidan & Darren walked off right before the guy came out so they missed it. It kind of looks like she is alone :)

Happy Birthday Darren

Aidan decorated Darren's entire bedroom to look like a jungle for his birthday. There were animals and vines all over the place.