Christmas Eve

My sweet nephew, Simon (from Colorado)

Laura & Shane were pretty tired. Their flight in Denver was cancelled and they had to deal with that and a tired 15 month old. They spent the night in Denver and thankfully arrived safely the next day.

Here we are making preparations for Santa! Baking cookies (well, laying the pre-made ones on a pan--much easier with 4 young kiddos) and making some yummy reindeer food

My kids were pretty excited to have Simon there to help "make" the cookies

We had quite the houseful for Christmas Eve. We were thankful to have Skip's sister and her family visit us from Telluride for Christmas. That meant some fun times with my sweet 15 month old nephew, Simon. We haven't seen him since we were there in July. He has changed so much--and he is mobile! I loved watching him walk all over the place and interact with the kids. They had a long trip here, getting stuck overnight in Denver and not arriving until the next day. What a hard day with a very tired little man! We also had Skip's brother and his family and his parents. It began snowing heavily around noon or so, and we ended up not attending 6:00 mass b/c of the weather. Skip's dad's car doors were frozen shut, and we were fearful of the roads after mass was over. We attend a church that is about 20 minutes drive away (about 15 miles south) on a good day. Luckily Jeff & Heidi made it home safely. Walt and Cheryl ended up staying here that night. The next morning we woke to a very white Christmas! 5 of us went out to shovel and spent about an hour shoveling our drive and helping a couple of neighbors. We loved having them all here. My kids really enjoyed having everyone in their space. Emerald had a fun night. Due to extra guests we had daddy sleep in her bed and she got to sleep in her closet. She thought that was the best thing ever!