Celebrating the end of 2014!

Tonight we celebrated the end of another great year!  2014 has been full of fun, and we look forward to finding out what 2015 holds!

Enjoying the "poppers"!  :-)

(And yes, we celebrated at 8 p.m. with the kids!)

Watch out snow, here we come!

As a winter break treat, we took the kids to the snow for their first time.  Anna had been in the truck load of snow at school but never real snow.  They were very excited about going and couldn't wait to leave yesterday morning.  Here is a cute video of them:

In the afternoon we made it to the snow around 2:30 p.m. at the Tamarack Sno Park by Shaver Lake at an elevation of 7,582 ft.   The kids lasted just over an hour.  Chief complainer about being cold, Olivier.  Then Anna.  And the main complaint, cold feet.  And even then I could not convince them to stop stepping into the deep snow which caused the snow to go into their boots.  Silly me!  When we first arrived I wanted a photo before anyone got grumpy!  :-)

 Anna and Matt went down the small trail first.  All smiles!

 Then Matt and Olivier!  Love the smiles!

 And Matt and Mason!  And have I said they were full of smiles!

 Climbing up so we can go back down!

 A sweet photo of Matt holding Olivier's hand with Mason right behind.

 There was a small group on the hill and the kids enjoyed watching how other people were doing.  Didn't always do the best at saying out of the way.  Mason learned that the hard way...

 But he was still full of smiles!

 Anna went down once on her own and fell off half way down the hill, did a roll and would not go alone again.  But still she smiled!

 At this point Olivier wasn't as sure about things because his feet were starting to get cold.

 So Anna and Mason lead the way as we went to check things out a bit.

 Although his feet were cold it didn't stop him from going into the deep snow....what was it that Mom said again...

 Such a beautiful spot!

 And Daddy joined in!

 Enjoying the last few minutes before we headed back to the car.

And here is a video compilation of our time in the snow today (with only some of the complaints!):

 The view of Shaver lake on our way down the hill.

 Very low water levels.

Day 2:
Today we went up before lunch, arriving around 11 a.m.  Yesterday the temperature was about 34 degrees, today it was 23 degrees when we arrived.  Ironically it was the hottest when we were leaving at 27.

Mason was the first one to go down the hill with Matt.

 Then me and Anna.

Our trooper Mason!

 Can you tell he wasn't as bothered by the cold?

 A cute smile from Anna!

 All three kids having fun, this is what it is all about!

We even had lunch outside.

 Then they started to complain more and more about being cold...

So we went for a short walk then made our way down the mountain to our nice warm home.  And the low tonight at home is suppose to be 33 degrees...  maybe we took the cold home with us.

A short video from today that included Olivier going down on his own, which he did most of the time today.  And we had the hill to ourself which was nice too!

And one last photo of the views along the way down!

Santa made his stop!

Anna, Olivier and Mason came out of their rooms right when their clocks said they could, and the first stop was stockings!  They were fully loaded so Santa had to rest them on the floor. Socks, bath wash, Chapstick, puzzles, calendars... so much fun!

 Then it was off to the tree!  Olivier got a remote control Lightning.

 Anna got an Elsa (from the movie Frozen) dress.

 Mason got a minion from the movie Despicable Me.

 Anna wanted to put the dress on right away!

 Olivier also got an off road Lightning.

 Anna got a special interactive cat names Daisy.

 And Mason got a Spiderman plane.  Santa was very good to the kids.

 The gifts continued and I started taking more random photos.  :-)  I thought this was sweet, Olivier reading the directions on one of his new games, if only he could read!

 And he was so excited by his new sheets, he took them out of the package.

 Mason checking out his new rock man.  

 Anna got some very pink and very sparkly boots!

 Olivier continued his theme of things that move, with his new Dusty plane (from the movie Planes Fire Rescue).  He also got a new small Lightning because the one he had was the victim of way to many crashes and at one point the left front part of the "bumper" had broken off.  We called it his chipped tooth, and he kept chipping it.  Now we will see how long this one makes it!

 Anna checking out her pet pals.

 The kids were playing together and checking out Mason's new dinosaur.

 Mason is working on teaching his dinosaur new tricks, very happy boy!

 A sweet photo of Anna in her Elsa dress with Daisy.

After lunch and some play time, we spent some time with the Arnold clan.  The kids had a great time playing together and Anna kept hovering around once Corbyn was awake.  Next thing I know, Anna has Corbyn in her lap.  Love this sweet photo.

And I didn't get a good shot (way too much sun coming in) but all the Arnold grandkids sat with Grandma for a photo, it is starting to get easier!  :-)

We had a wonderful holiday and have so much to be thankful for!  

Christmas Eve, Santa is on his way!

We enjoyed celebrating Christmas eve with the Remillard family.  The kids had fun playing games on the Wii, and I got this cute photo that shows Olivier playing with the grown up men watching.  Olivier is looking grown up himself with that dress shirt and tie!  

 Such a happy bunch of cousins!

Just the start of the gift craziness.  :-)

 We got home and made sure to put out some peanut butter balls and milk for Santa.  He isn't too far away from our area now!

 Goodnight!