Christmas Part Two

It's been a long time since we've had a family picture taken!  In fact, it was before Elsa and Annalise arrived!  So....we seized the opportunity on Christmas Eve.  Some good friends of Grandma and Grandpa came over and took a picture for us.  Too bad Annalise was not in her happy place. 
Oh well...we do the best we can do! :)  9 out of 10 is pretty good!

 We had a great spaghetti dinner and then did our annual Christmas Caroling!

Then it was time to get ready for Santa's arrival....

Avery wrote the note....

Annalise prepared the goodies....

Avery says she heard some foot/hoofprints on the roof in the middle of the night.  

And lo and behold, when we woke up in the morning...Santa had visited!!

We waited for the cousins to arrive and then we dug into the stockings!

We opened lots of presents and snacked and played all day!

We were even treated to a magic show!

It was a great celebration with family!
Merry Christmas!!!

Mark's 40th Birthday

We took a brief intermission from the Christmas festivities to go to Las Vegas for Mark's 40th birthday!! :)  Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Paul and Aunt Katrina kept the kids and we boarded the plane in Spokane.

We met Geoff, Robin, Bill and Stacy there.  Geoff's 40th birthday was Dec. 6th, Stacy's was the 21st and Mark's was the 22nd.  We all surprised our birthday spouses with the trip! :)

We had a great dinner at Roy's.  When we got there, they were ready for the birthday trio!  A personalized message inside each menu.

 

 Dinner was AMAZING!!!

Then they were treated to a beautiful birthday treat!!!

It was a great start to our trip!

We wandered around the strip a little...the Bellagio at Christmas was AMAZING!!!

Then we headed over to Fremont street for the light show....

A bit of a FREAK show, too!

It was a little cold, but we still had to visit the shark tank at the Golden Nugget!!

A little coffee (don't think they were prepared...love the "insulated" cups the bartender "MacGyvered" for us!) and we were good to go!

The next day we explored the strip some more....

The Venetian had a GIANT Christmas tree and ice skating rink out in front...

Then we went and saw the Blue Man Group....

So cool!

They had these crazy balloon things floating around inside when people were arriving.

(The video is sideways...but it's kind of cool anyway!)

They wouldn't let you video or take pictures until the end of the show.  

It was a great celebration for the "FORTIES"! :)

Happy Birthday Mark, Geoff and Stacy!

Now it was time to hop back on the plane and celebrate Christmas! (Again!)

Christmas Part One

We started off the Christmas celebrating at the Cota's this year.

The snow started falling the day after we got there so it was timed perfectly!

It was a beautiful WHITE Christmas!

Lori, Jeff and Mallory came for the day on Sunday.

 

The girls were spoiled rotten!!!

We had a great Christmas celebration!!

We spent the next few days hanging out with Grams and Gramps.

We played in the snow....

We baked cookies....

And we had some good, quality snuggle time with Grams and Gramps....

It was a great Christmas celebration.

Thanks for everything Grams and Gramps!!! :)