Sunday, January 8, 2017

Christmas/New Year

Finally, Christmas came! We started Christmas Eve with a new tradition - going out for breakfast together. On Christmas Eve we attended our church service and had dinner with our friends from Kentucky. The kids did a little exchange together and enjoyed getting ready for Santa. We woke up Christmas morning and delayed the gifts by having breakfast together. I had prepped a sausage and egg casserole and a pumpkin french toast casserole the day before. Then it was present time, and the kids went crazy! They loved everything and enjoyed playing with things as they opened their gifts. After a long day of opening and playing and showing our friends what we got, we hosted two families from church for a delicious Christmas dinner, including lamb as the meat. It was fun to fellowship with adults and come together to celebrate the wonder of Christmas. For New years Eve we ended up having an impromptu party with our neighbors and kids. We played Pie Face, watched football, and the girls got out the disco ball and kareoke machine. We stayed up until 10 and let the kids experience the countdown from NYC. This is one beautiful thing about Mountain Time! On New Years Day we introduced some friends to Japanese nabe. We wanted to order osechi but did not place the order in time. Now we know better for next year. So, we did nabe and everyone loved it. 2016 has brought many changes for our family. We still do not feel settled and probably wont for awhile. But we are thankful for God's provision and guidance in 2016 and look forward to seeing what he does for us in 2017. We owe everything to Him, who saved us and redeemed us and calls us by name. To him be all glory and power forever.

Homeschool Christmas party, the Nutcracker, Christmas tea, Gingerbread houses, and Christmas lights...oh MY!

We have joined a local homeschool community and they had a small party hosted by different families for the holiday season. Each family brought a favorite cookie and Christmas book to read aloud. I was really proud of Miss M for reading our book, The Nutcracker, out loud to the group. Speaking of new traditions, we continued our tradition of the mother/daughter date to the Nutcracker ballet in Denver. We went with our neighbors/good friends who moved here from Kentucky two years before us. It was so magical and special and both moms and daughters enjoyed a nice evening out to kick off the Christmas break. We also hosted a Christmas tea for the little girls in our neighborhood that play together and their moms. The girls exchanged books as a gift and had a lot of fun eating cookies and drinking tea with lots of sugar. We decorated gingerbread houses, looked at Christmas lights with neighbors, played at a park without a coat on...all before Christmas!

Georgetown Railroad

We are trying to create new traditions in our new home for the holidays. We decided to take the Georgetown Railraod train ride with Santa this year. It was a beautiful drive through the mountains and the kids had fun, although they could not figure out why the train was so slow. I like creating new traditions and memories for our family. Another activity we have taken up in Colorado is skiing. The first pictures here are the kids after our first day on the slopes. They were quite exhausted but they are doing great and we are really proud of them. We got season passes to a local mountain and are trying to go as often as we can.

Scrapbook Day 12/16/16

Scrapbook Day this month fell on our last day of homeschool for the semester, a Friday. We played games, baked cookies, and did some fun Christmas worksheets to help us review our first semester. The kids are progressing well with homeschool and did really well this first semester. I am proud of them. Also on this night the husband and I went on a double date with some good friends we have made from Georgia. The food was great and it started snowing while we were there so we had some beautiful scenery.