What we're up to...

Every year, we take a group of our high school students to Colorado for a ski trip...This year we flew to Denver, and drove up to Winter Park to ski and be a part of a high school retreat called Powderburn. When Tim and I lived in Colorado, back in the day, we were also a part of Powderbun, so it was fun to see some old friends and reconnect with that group of our Covenant family.Tim and I enjoyed skiing together most of the time & meeting up with different groups of our students on the mountain! My glasses look kind of silly here - probably because I was wearing them on top of my hat - I don't like it when the wind gets in my ears...Brrrrr.

So, one day...I was doing the dishes/cleaning up the kitchen, Caleb and Josiah were playing around, and Josiah came into the kitchen with his blankie...played a little bit laying down, then I noticed he wasn't moving anymore - sure enough, it was nap time! Such a funny kiddo he is.
I just love this little plaid shirt he was wearing, and he posed here so nicely. I put those 'drumsticks' in his pocket and said, "now josiah, put your hands in your pockets and I'll take your picture"...so, of course he listened & here we have our little man.
Caleb had worn this adorable hat and matching coat (hand me down from our MI friends Laurie, Russ and Ben Carlson - it was Ben's about 15 plus years ago) to church, and before I could get it put back in the closet, Josiah was trying on the hat & looking at himself in the mirror - he thought he looked pretty handsome too!
This is just the boys, waiting for me to let them get in the car and go to church. I wanted a picture of Caleb in that cute coat outfit, but he was not feeling very well, so this is the best I got.
We invited our friends, Scott & Jan over for dinner one night & Caleb was helping me do the dishes before they came over, so he 'made coffee', using all the dirty cups from the sink. He really wanted me to leave them there for our guests, but I explained that they really needed to go into the dishwasher, so he settled for a nice picture that we showed our friends when they came. What a compliant child!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

It's a tradition!  So, when it came time to go hunt down our tree this year, I did what all saavy mothers and wives would do...I enlisted the help of my Facebook friends to help me find a great tree farm near Overland Park, Kansas!  The responses I received went something like this...

• Tree farm?  We go to WestLake Hardware here in Johnson County, Kansas!
  

• My husband is somewhat of a penny pincher, so we go to Home Depot. 
  

I won't go on any further about the comments regarding cutting your own tree in Kansas.  You would have thought I had lobsters crawling out of my ears!

Anyways...I found an online site and we headed out...

These strong and mighty men with their hacksaws in hand, will now go and hunt for our 2008 Christmas tree!!!  Even Josiah found a toddler friendly saw to use.The first tree farm was a bust...they didn't even have snow, never mind the fact that there were maybe 50 trees growing in their fields, and their best trees were being trucked in from Michigan as we were leaving.  Unbelievable!!!  So, we packed up the truck and headed down 'south' - to the sticks some would say.

We found a 'real' tree farm - yes folks, they had it all...except snow.

We had a great time hunting, cutting, cidering, shaking, bailing, santaing.

All in all it was a great time & we will be going back next year!  Hurray!!!!  Maybe next year they'll find some snow for us too.

December started with a Visit from Cousin Clark

We enjoyed hosting Unkie Steve, Auntie Stephanie and Baby Clark (3 months old in these pictures), the first week of December.

The boys loved having their cousin around to play games and just hang out.

Unkie Steve got to give the boys lots of cuddling and craziness while they were here too - Caleb and Josiah loved every minute!!

We took an excursion (which might be a Christmas tradition now) out to Missouri somewhere to look at a ton of animated Christmas lights they use to decorate a state park.

We piled into Papa's truck that Steve and Steph had driven down to KC and away we went. Steph, I and Caleb were joyfully in the back row! Caleb took an upfront seat for the viewing of the lights however.