Snow Day!

We got a little bit of snow. School was canceled, much to the boys' delight! They spent the morning playing outside.

Gingerbread House Competition

Our little family split into teams to see who could make the most creative gingerbread house. Peter and Clifford think they won because they added a little gore to theirs, while Kristjan and I definitely think ours is the winner with all the colorful candy we added. 

The gingerbread man seemed to have a little accident involving his gingerbread wife!

Which do you prefer?!

Zoo Lights

This last Saturday we tagged along with Erik and his boys to Woodland Park Zoo's WildLights. This was another activity that we hadn't been to for a couple of years, plus Erik was able to get us in for free, so we decided to get out for some family fun. We walked around looking at the light displays. All the boys wanted to go inside the kids play area for the snow ball fight that they do, so we spent a chunk of time in there. Everyone was starting to get hungry so we cut the light tour short and headed over to Dicks for some burgers before parting ways for the evening.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love this time of year! We've been busy getting in the holiday spirit. First, we decorated the Christmas tree as a family. Without my asking, Peter got in and put the lights on the tree. I told him how much I appreciated that because I really dislike that task AND I didn't even have to ask him! We then decorated the tree as a family. We're getting quite the ornament collection. We have so many that I actually ended up packing some back in the storage container because we were running out of room! It's time to look at getting another tree for the basement living room area so we can use all our ornaments to decorate.

 This years individual and family ornaments

 This isn't even ALL the ornaments!

 Our Christmas Angel has been replaced with the Mario Star. Peter printed it off on his printer. We've gotten lots of compliments on it, and friends have actually requested Peter to make them one for their trees!

 Madeleine has been anxious to help us decorate (Mel and James are actually looking at moving a few blocks from us, so they're postponing their own decorating). Here she is being Peter's helper with the lights.

 I've been keeping busy wrapping up all the Christmas gifts. This is actually round two. As we purchase more gifts, I immediately wrap. I don't want to take any chances of anyone in the house accidentally finding a gift.

 I've also been busy baking! There are so many cute holiday treats that I find on Pinterest. Pics are as follows:

1) Peppermint Bundt Cake (new recipe; definitely a hit!)

2) Elf-size Cookies (got the idea from the Elf on the Shelf. Boys thought it was cute)

3) Classic Sugar Cookies

4) Melting Snowman Cookies

4) Snow Globe Cookies (Peter printed me the cookie cutter!)

 Kristjan also got in one evening to decorate a few cookies of his own. He asked me to show him how to use my decorating tools. He did pretty good on his first try.