More Family Christmas

 We had a night with just Grandma and Grandpa before Paul, Katrina and the girls got back from their vacation in Mexico.  Brody was representing their family!

He and Charlie did pretty well together.

Not the best of friends, but at least tolerated each other!

One of those 'familiar' things at Grandma and Grandpa's house are the books.

It's always fun to get out the same books we've always read at their house.

Some from when Mark was a little boy.

 

The girls had a yummy hot chocolate spoon the next morning while they were 

anxiously awaiting the arrival of their cousins! 

 They finally made it!

The brothers.

The bigs.

 

The littles.

 

 We settled in and started some serious present opening.

Again....so spoiled and grateful for what we have.

Lots of laughing!

Silly Bella....bows are for packages.

 

After presents, the bigs decided they wanted to go play in the snow for a bit.

The dogs were happy to go out with them!

 

The littles were happy to stay inside and build some Lego Friends!

 

When the bigs had finished in the snow, Avery curled Bella's hair with her new curling wand.

Only one minor burn when Bella was trying it out on Avery! ;)

It was a great day with family!

 

The next day we went out to Patty and Rhys's for a visit.

The Marciels were in town from Hawaii for Christmas.

It's always so nice spending time with them and catching up....

.....and Patty is seriously the best hostess ever.

She always makes us feel so comfortable.

Love this extended family of ours!

 

That night we had one last chance to play cards.

The game 'Perfect'.

It's always a fun game...and the winner gets the honor of being 'Perfect' for the next 24 hours!

It can get a little tense....especially with these three....they're just a little competitive.

  

Avery even joined us and she hung right in there!

We left the snow behind the next day.

Another awesome Christmas in Spokane.

It's never easy leaving all of our family behind, but it was so very nice 

to see everyone and spend some good, quality time together.

A White Christmas

There are many things we look forward to in Spokane at Christmas.

Of course time with our family tops the list.

Next up...we LOVE the snow!

This year didn't disappoint!

So. Much. Snow.

When we are at the Cota house, Annalise asks for the "village". 

It's a Playskool toy that was mine as a little girl.

Nothing fancy...but it's one of those things that is familiar there.

She loves to play with it! (So did Avery!)

 Christmas Eve day was spent playing in the snow for some...

working in the snow for others!

 We were ready for Lori, Jeff and Mallory to arrive!!

We couldn't forget the cookies!

We needed something to set out for Santa.

So, we got out Grams' old cookie cutters and Great Grandma's cookie recipe and got to work! 

We did some catching up then got to the present opening!

Gramps got Avery a 22!!

Look out!  She's almost a black belt and is now armed.

Boys beware! ;)

We were all spoiled and so grateful for all that we have!

Dinner was smelling good...prime rib.

Ohhhhh boyyyyy!!!!!

After dinner we talked to Aunt Pat and the rest of the Santa Barbara 'familia'.

We had to show them all the snow we had up north, so we posed for a family picture!

Lori and Jeff left and it was time for us to get ready for bed.

Annalise got things ready for Santa!!!

(She also had a little reindeer food to sprinkle outside.)

 Mallory spent the night and woke up with the girls out in Gramps' trailer on Christmas morning!

They made the cold trek in from the shop!

Santa had stopped by!!!

How does Santa do it?

He knew exactly what Annalise was talking about when she said she wanted the giant stuffed horse!

It seemed to be the EXACT one she saw at the store!!!!

Amazing!

So happy!

Santa also knew just what Avery wanted!

A bluetooth speaker for her room!

Perfect!

 More presents...

more time to be grateful.

Even Charlie was happy.

He would run around in the snow for a while, get a crazy icicle slobber, come in to warm up 

and then want right back outside! 

Oh yeah...there was a dance party, too!

Mallory left to go be with Lori and Jeff's family.

So we enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL day in the snow! 

The girls were anxious to get outside and do some sledding.

The three of us headed out and found a great place to make a sledding route.

We got to work packing down the snow (it was DEEP!!!!) all the way down into the trees.

It was about that point that I saw this....

the moose!!!!

I honestly didn't know what to do.  It was so cool!

It was sooooo close.

Then I sort of panicked.

I slowly and calmly told the girls to start heading back up the hill.

I wasn't sure if it was a mama with a baby or what....I certainly didn't want us to get in the way of it!

We watched from a distance until we saw it head down the hill and cross the road to the neighboring field.

 

Phew!  Ok....now it's time for sledding!

 

So much fun!

We were all tired and ready for some hot cocoa after a couple of hours playing on our little sledding hill. 

We had a lovely ham and scalloped potato Christmas dinner!

Finally, a game of cards for everyone!

Skip-Bo....a favorite of MY grandparents!

What a great Christmas.

The next day we were off to Grandma and Grandpa's for another Christmas!

As we were pulling out of Gramps' driveway, we saw the moose back in the same spot.

This time Mark got to see it!

Goodbye Moose!!!