Christmas

As we always do year after year, we packed up the family and headed to Rupert for Christmas even though we didn't know if we were going to make it because of the snow storm we were having. It is probably a good thing we did because I can't cook and I don't know how we would have made it on our own. Anyways....We usually spend Christmas Eve with Dereck's family and Christmas Day with my family as my dad usually has to work on Christmas Eve. This sure beats rushing around on Thanksgiving and Easter to do two family things and eating two huge meals. So I usually tend to enjoy Christmas more. This year, our Christmas Eve plan fell through when a couple of Dereck's family members became sick. So we did a small thing with his mom and his grandma. Haylee made Santa cookies with Christmas cookie cutters, frosting, and an array of sprinkles and she had a blast. She would not let anyone touch the cookies or eat them because "they were for Santa." I love the fact that she is starting to understand how things work; she is such a little smarty pants (she must get that from her mother). On Christmas morning, everyone woke up and went through their stockings and we all took turns opening our presents. Brooke was even able to grab onto the wrapping paper and try to unwrap her own presents (with a little help of course). After a while, she got tired of trying to unwrap presents and decided she was going to start eating the wrapping paper instead. Haylee got a toy kitchen from my parents and Santa got her a toy gun that shoots rubber bullets and a sled. The gun is a special thing to her because now she can go hunt ducks and birds with her daddy. So here are some of our pictures from Christmas......

Dereck had to work Friday night at midnight so we headed back home that afternoon. Despite the weather being decent and the sun shining, the roads were still horrible and it seemed like it took us forever to get home. When we finally did make it this is what we came home to.....

So I know this post is a little late but I got it done. This next week (January 5th) we are packing up the family and heading to Denver, Colorado for a week. We are going to visit my family and check out a few of the area hospitals as well as the housing. And since we don't do things like this very often or ever, we are also going to take the kids to a couple of fun things and have a mini vacation. So anyways....I probably will not be posting for at least a week or two so until then.....