Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we spent the day making cookies and taking them to neighbors. We made Gingersnaps, and Sugar Cookies, which Lucy, Katelyn, Matthew and Steven frosted. Lucy loves frosting cookies, or her hand, whichever.

So apparently Christmas Eve was the day of funny pictures. Shawn had the camera and either everyone he took a picture of decided to protest and not smile, or Shawn is really bad at taking pictures. As you can see, he has a nasty habit of saying "Hey..." Click.

Katelyn's really catches her in the moment, Matthews isn't too bad, but he's kinda like "whoa, did that just happen?" And Steven, well there is nothing we can do for him.

This picture of me is also one of Shawn's pathetic attempts at photography, and my face proves how bad he is at heads ups. But I have had so many people telling me to put a picture of myself up so that they can see how big I am. In all honesty, I'm to the point where I will no longer be taking pictures of myself, at all, not for 6 months at least. I'm to the point of no return where my face is starting to swell (especially in my nose), and there is nothing flattering about any other part of me. Even my hair which is my saving grace on most days (or the only thing that can't get fat) is nasty in this picture after spending the day in the falling snow. So just let it be known that I am posting this picture obviously very much against my will and better judgment.

Even Lucy who isn't great at picture taking anyway couldn't escape Shawn's unpredictable trigger finger. But her eyes are so pretty, and even if she is pulling goofy faces, and the camera angle slightly distorts her face, she is still so dang cute. Naughty though.

My family's tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve. Usually it is pajamas, which is what Lucy got, but as my siblings get older, the rules started to bend a little. Over the last few years we've been opening gifts from our sibling name swap. This yeah Shawn and I got Steven. What could be more fun? I have to say shopping for teenagers is impossible, they are so dang expensive. But I do think that shopping for my brother Steven is hands down the worst. I don't know what I would have done without Krista's help. I knew I had one easy out, and that was to feed the fire of Steven's unhealthy obsession with Gwen Stefani, but Shawn made me swear I wouldn't. As the weeks passed and I could come up with nothing else, Krista told me about a Gwen doll that Toy's R Us was on clearance (big surprise). Well, Shawn and I drove all around Colorado Springs looking for this stupid doll only to find it was sold out everywhere. Later I found one online at Target, also on clearance. When Steven opened it on Christmas Eve, his Christmas was complete.

I know, it's unhealthy and very concerning, but it's so Steven.

Shawn got to open Office Season One, since that is the one that was missing from our collection. I opened a really cute sweater that I didn't help my mom pick out for myself from Katelyn (wink wink). We had a picture, but it was just really really really bad, like a whole new level of bad. Shawn took it.

Lucy all ready for Santa to come. She is sporting her new Walmart special Wall-E pajama's. They are no Carters Footie pajama's which are my favorite, but to this little girl who is obsessed with Wall-E and Eve, they were the greatest jamies ever!

Beating the Storms

Our original plan for this Christmas was to leave Colorado Springs on Friday December 18th, and spend the night in Highlands Ranch with Shawn's family, then tackle the drive to Utah on Saturday, then head up to Idaho on Sunday. As we watched the weather however, we decided it was best to get as far as we could Friday night, or we weren't going to make it out of Colorado for Christmas. So we took off an made it to Price, Utah before we had to stop and get a hotel. This is a picture of Lucy in Vail where she had to stop and play in the snow. She is so my daughter.

We got to Idaho on Sunday just as we had originally planned. We spent all day Saturday visiting friends and family in Utah. Lucy got to see her long lost love Cole, and they mended things up nicely. They had so much fun that we had to stop and see them again on our way back to Colorado. But we definitely picked perfect times to travel because as we pulled into Rexburg it had just started snowing, and it didn't stop until the day after Christmas. Here is Lucy and my siblings living it up!

I totally played the pregnancy card when it came time to shovel the driveway, but honestly, a part of me really wanted to get out there and shovel. I get the same way with mowing the lawn, it's just so satisfying. But you can see the snow drifts here, not bad, but they were going to get a lot better. This is still a good two days before Christmas, when we totally got snowed in.

Seven Falls

For family night a week before Christmas (December 15th) we went into a Canyon here in Colorado Springs. This place is amazing! The rocks shoot up on both sides of you, and the canyon itself is just wide enough for a road. At Christmas time they light this place up, they put lights on any trees (which are actually very few since it is rock walls all around you), and shine lights on the rocks, and put all the lighted works in there. The canyon is a mile long, and at the end of it are Seven Falls. This is Shawn and Lucy at the base of the falls. They were so cool all frozen over.

The lights on the falls were awesome, they changed color every few seconds as you can see.

Lucy didn't care much about the water. She actually loves frozen water, or as she calls it "Silly water", but she loves snow even more. It didn't take her long to find a snow covered bench and bury her face in it (since she can't pick up snow very easily with her gloves on).



After about 5 minutes at the base, we got too cold and had to go inside to warm up for a minute. We picked the coldest night of the year to go do this, but I guess that just meant the falls were frozen better. This was one of the last days that I was able to get my coat to zip over my belly, and I am so glad it did. I think it was right about 0 degrees, maybe colder. Once we warmed up, we headed to the elevator which is at the end of this cave. As we entered this cave, we walked through this house of lights which Lucy loved.


Here is the view of the falls, all Seven of them from higher on the mountain. We took the elevator to get up here.



When we were done we headed back to the gift shop and got ourselves some of the hottest hot chocolate known to man! In order for Lucy to drink any we had to trap some in our straws and let it cool. It was so good! All it took was walking from the door of the gift shop to our car (about 100ft) and it was cooled to the perfect temperature, even in the insulated cup, it was that cold!

Sitting on Santa's Lap

One Saturday before Christmas, Shawn decided we needed to take Lucy to go see Santa. So we got her all dressed up and as cute as we could so that he wouldn't know how naughty she is, and got ready to head to the mall. Shawn had the brilliant idea of sitting Lucy down and looking up pictures of kids sitting on Santa's lap on the computer before we left to help her understand what we were about to do. When we got to the mall we found out we weren't the only ones with this idea, and I stood in line for more than an hour while Shawn and Lucy killed timed roaming the shops. Finally we got to the front of the line, and Lucy was more than excited. She was very disappointed to find that the snow in the Santa area was fake, and therefore not edible, but I guess life is full of disappointments.

Here she is finally at the front of the line, she is pointing to show us where Santa is.

When she got to sit on his lap he didn't even say anything to her, they just posed for some pictures, which you better believe we took with our own camera. We were so not about to drop $20 on some picture they took when we could do just as well with our own. Lucy LOVED this though. She was in awe! She just stared at him as we walked away, and for the next two days, her most prized possession was the little cheap coloring booklet he gave her.

When we finished with Santa we had to quickly rush Lucy into the Build-A-Bear to distract her from the seperation anxiety from Santa she was feeling. We totally would have built her a bear, or in her case a dog, like this one she picked out, but I think the line for the Build-A-Bears was longer than the line for Santa. That could be because they stratigically placed the Santa right in front of the Build-A-Bear store. We'll make it up to you Lucy.

The Joy of a Toddler Bed

We got Lucy a Toddler bed in the very beginning of December. She LOVES it. I tried to convert her crib to a toddler bed, which it does, but she freaked out! She loved it until it was time to actually sleep in it and then she was begging for the side that was missing. So in tradition with my Craigslist addiction, I started looking and found this little bed for $25. So we picked it up, wiped it down (with bleach, never can be too careful), and showed it to Lucy.

She didn't quite get it that first night, as you can see, but she has gotten better.



And this is how we found her one night a few weeks later.



My favorite one was while we were up in Idaho, Lucy slept in my little sisters room on a cot. Katelyn told me that one morning she found Lucy sleeping on the floor under the cot, with her legs from the knee down hanging out the side. All I can figure is that she rolled off the bed, and was too tired to climb back up, but too cold to stay where she was, so she crawled half way under the bed and fell back asleep. She's so funny. I wish I could get inside her mind sometimes.