Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with the Gahan side of the family.  We had a wonderful time at Nonnie and Grandpa's house, and loved seeing all of the extended family.  There was good food, good company, and a couple of cute little dogs!  Here are the pictures from the day. 

 

Nonnie has about 1,000,000 puppets, and Luke has been loving them!

Aunt Kath taught Luke all about riding horses.  She showed him videos of horses jumping fences, and even gave him a horse ranch for Christmas!

Somehow, wrestling always ends up on the agenda.

Audrey even got in on the action.

She figured out she could sit on Luke and would jump up and down on top of him. Too funny!

 

Sweet Luke.

Audrey carried this drum around for the majority of the day.  She kept carrying it like a purse, it was too funny!

Luke was a big helper with the presents.

 

Audrey also carried gift bags around like purses. It was cracking me up!  Oh the difference between a girl and a boy!

Luke was very excited about this present from Aunt Connie and Uncle Joe.

And Audrey just lit up over this horse from Aunt Kath and Uncle Jim.

Audrey was also very into the dogs. Howie.

Gus.

Our cuties before church.

After church we changed into PJs and put out cookies and carrots.

Luke's class also made reindeer food, so he made sure to sprinkle it all over the yard. 

Stay tuned for more Christmas... I have many more posts to come. ;)

Preschool Program

Luke's Christmas Program was on Dec 20th, and was just too cute!  Brian, Audrey and I were able to go, as well as Aunt Ali, Benjamin, and Tula.  Luke's teachers had been telling me for weeks that Luke was very into it, and was very "entertaining", well he did not disappoint! He did a great job, and was so precious!  Way to go Luke!  Here are the plethora of pictures from the event.  (I went a little overboard, but had trouble narrowing them down.)

 

Audrey was running around crazy before the show started, and tried numerous times to climb onto the stage.  Looks a little sneaky here.

Uh oh... looks like the kids might be coming in now!

Benjamin enjoyed himself as well!

 

Here is Luke walking in with his class.

Looking for us in the crowd.

Standing next to his best friend, James.

 

The whole school sang together, but each class got to go up front for one of the songs.  Luke's class did a great job, and as you can see, Luke was spot on with his dance moves! ;)



 

He finally spotted us in the crowd.

There may have been an incident where he fell off the stage!

 

And while he was very into the program, he did have time for a nose picking break.  Not his best moment!

 

After the program, the families were invited to his classroom for a little party.  Audrey loved being in with all the big kids!





She even took it upon herself to find a little table perfect for her.

 

Way to go Luke!  We are so proud of you, and have really enjoyed hearing "Glory, Glory, Glory Be To God" all over the house! ;)

First Annual Christmas Cousin Breakfast & 4th Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating!

Tula decided to start a new tradition this year and have all her grand kids over for breakfast for a Christmas celebration.  We had eggs, bacon, yummy donuts and "cold coco".  The kids got to open some fun treat, including these snow hats in the pictures, and then we all watched a Christmas movie.  It was a ton of fun, and something we will look forward to yearly.  Thanks Tula!
 

Benjamin apparently takes after his Aunt and isn't really a morning person. ;)

Tula wore a fun Santa hat that sang and danced, and Luke just had to try it on.

Enjoying his donut, and some Tula love.

Uncle Grant even made it!  We were all so happy to see him, and his bedhead! ;)

Sharing secrets with Tula.

Ali apparently is a morning person. :)

 

Brian has been off of work, which is such a blessing, so yesterday afternoon, we decided to make cookies.  It was quite the mess, but oh so fun!

Luke sure was excited.

He took his decorating job very seriously!

Love this picture.  Oh and yes, my husband has a full beard.  He gets a lot of time off in December, and just decided not to shave.  He did this last year, thus the "Christmas Beard" has returned.  Yikes!!

Audrey even got in on the action.  She wasn't so much into the decorating...

Obviously she was more of our "taste tester"

I guess she needed a second opinion.

Love that icing face!

What A Weekend!

Last weekend was a crazy one, but so much fun!  On Friday we went to see Santa (see previous post), and then Saturday, we woke up and headed to the Gaylord Ice!  We had never been before, and had a great time.  Tula and Pop were treating for my 30th birthday. (Yes 3-0!!- It is not until the 23rd, but we celebrated a little early).  The Schmids tagged along, as well as Rett and Ashley.  We missed Grant!!  We started off at the Gaylord, and the Christmas decorations were so neat.  

 

Luke and Daddy watching the trains.

Benjamin was into the trains as well.

Audrey and Luke were wearing matching Reindeer shirts, and for some reason, Luke was loving holding Audrey's hand and leading her all over the place.

Audrey had a good view!

The kids were a little confused by the huge coats, but eventually thought they were fun!

 

We were freezing inside, but the sculptures were so neat and well worth it.

Best shot we could get with Tula and Pop.  Boo!



Luke loved the ice slides.

And so did Pop!

Cutest couple around.

Thanks Tula and Pop for a fun outing!

 

Sibling love.

Cousin love.

Enjoying lunch at the Gaylord.  Again, best pic we could get!

The ice adventure would have been enough fun for anyone, but we decided to squeeze in a little more.  Since Ali and I used the same realtor, they were kind enough to gift us with vouchers to The Great Wolf Lodge.  We decided to use them this weekend, since it is just across the street from the Gaylord.  I have heard wonderful things about this place, and it did not disappoint!  There was a huge water park, characters, a magic hunt (too old for us at this point, but when they get older, would be great), a bedtime story, and snow falling in the lobby.  We were in kid heaven!  I highly recommend this as a family vacation, but next time would try and go on a week day, when it wasn't so crowded.  Here are some pics.  (We didn't get any water park pics, because we were too busy having fun!)

 

The bedtime story was precious!  They read a story in the lobby and all the kids wore their PJs.  At the end of the story it snowed in the lobby!

Audrey kind of missed out on the story, and was mesmerized by this guy eating chips.  Haha!

Getting into the wolf spirit!