Fall and Holiday Recap

In October, we inherited this baby sheep from Ricardo's dad. He was orphaned, and so we bottle-fed him and kept him until he started needing more grass to eat after Thanksgiving. Oreo was the cutest sheep. He dutifully followed the kids, especially Ana, everywhere they went. It was so fun for us and all of the kids who came by our house during that time. Everyone loved Oreo!

The kids' attempts at keeping him warm on a cold day.

Helping me bake:

Fall festival fun!

This corn maze is always pretty difficult!

Family Home Evening with friends. Sheep themed. :)

Aquarium day with our good friends:

Halloween-themed ice skating for this daddy-daughter date night.

Heading to our yearly family Halloween party. Ana loved being the bearded lady this year.

Church day when everyone dressed in pink to support our good friend with breast cancer-it was the sweetest day.

The kids' antics while we were setting up for the church trunk or treat.

Ana loves her preschool! Bringing home the class pet, a raccoon.

Cute school fall festival.

We love our family photographer that we have used for years now. She is the sweetest and always gets the best shots of the kids.

More sheep antics:

Caroline is the best big sister. She is so patient with Ana and loves to make her happy.

Always with a good book.

Field trip to the outdoor pioneer musuem of course ended up on the coldest day of the year!

Field trip with Tommy the next day to the marine science center.

Other highlights in November. Throwing a baby shower for my childhood friend who lives close by now!

Comedy show the night before Thanksgiving to see Mike Vecchione who we loved when he opened for Nate Bargatze. He was awesome!

An early morning 5K on Thanksgiving. My mom and Ana got to sleep in!

Our thankful pumpkin! It rotted out just in time to be thrown out on Thanksgiving Day. We had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends coming over for a big feast. The kids each made a pie and they turned out wonderful!

These fun friends came to visit the week of Thanksgiving so we loved doing some park days and hangouts at our house. Thomas' first friend when we moved here! We miss them!

Picking out our live Christmas tree. After 16 years Ricardo might finally be talking me into a faux tree next year. We'll see!

Thomas' hamsters got a ride in the Christmas train, and it was so funny.

Thomas has always been interested in food and cooking ever since he was a toddler. He's been doing so much cooking lately, especially if he wants something specific and I don't have to make it. He's just been whipping it up on his own. So awesome!

Ragnar Race-Ricardo and the boys and my dad all participated this year! Happy Birthday to Ricardo during the race. All of his friend brought him his favorite, apple pie.

December chores: cooking large vats of hot fudge sauce.

Sheep photoshoot to help advertise for the Giving Machine.

Santa came to preschool! She consistently asked for a "big ball" all December.

Christmas parade with friends!

Squeezed in an overnight work trip to Nashville for Ricardo! And I got to tag along!

We did a Hanukkah night with my parents. The boys made latkes-so yummy.

Cutest little preschool Christmas program.

The Nutcracker with friends! Ana had a lot of questions during the ballet, but overall, she did pretty well for the 2-hour show. We loved seeing our friends perform!

The boys were doing some holiday volunteering while we were at the ballet.

Dressed in disguise for the hot fudge drop-offs.

Playdate with her buddy.

Squeezing in the gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. We made a barn this year.

We had Christmas Eve with Ricardo's family. It was a lot of fun! The kids played some of my traditional family games and put on a cute nativity play.

It was a great Christmas! My parents came over on Christmas Day, and it was fun playing games and hanging out with them.

Christmas lego craziness. Good to see them all working together!

The next day, we went to the movies with my parents and then went to the Giving Machin,e which was in our area this year. I helped with marketing for it, so it was fun to see it finally here after many months of working on it.

Russell left with my parents for a special trip with them and his cousin, who is also his age, so he was gone for the second week of winter break. They first flew to DC and then headed to New Hampshire for some skiing and Boston for some sightseeing.

Weekend in DC picking up Derek.

Boston Tea Party museum -throwing tea into the harbor.

They visited the Boston temple. Crazy boys ditching their coats.

When Russell was gone we visited Ricardo's parents for the weekend so we could go to the temple and see his nephews give their homecoming talks. They both came home from missions in December!

Reunited with Oreo!

Catching a turkey!

Cousin times

We brought home a new baby sheep. He is wild and got loose several times the first week we had him! He's finally calming down, but he's still not the same as sweet Oreo. Caroline loves bringing him into the house, though, and having him follow her around.

New Years Eve! We spent the morning back at the Giving Machine for a snowball fight. While we were there, our sheep got out and our neighbor called, but luckily our good friend went over and caught him for us!

New Years Eve we had dinner and games with our awesome friends. Didn't get any pictures except the random ones Ana took while we were playing games! But we had a blast ringing in the new year with them.

On New Year's Day we spent the whole day revamping our pantry! It was a huge ordeal but it looks so great now! Took a little intermission to go ice skating. Ana and I just watched this year but she's dying to go next year.