Christmas

Christmas in Montana was COLD!  The girls ventured out to help Grandma feed the animals a few times and jumped on the trampoline in the freezing cold.  It was painful to go anywhere because of the windchill and so we hung out at the house a lot.

We improved one of my new favorite traditions- Gingerbread houses!  This year we did tiny ones of Graham crackers and therefore got to spend a LOT more time on the fun part- decorating!
Plus the crackers actually got eaten in the end unlike the hard and stale gingerbread.

Heidi was pretty meticulous about hers.

Until it the roof collapsed and she got disheartened.  She then ran off and Tyler finished it for her.

The best part of the whole things was that Tyler built my house and then helped the kids with theirs so I could decorate in peace (I can get pretty cranky if i'm interrupted during a craft project).

Christmas morning was fun.  That night we had set out the stockings, cookies and milk.  Sprinkled the "magic reindeer food" on the porch and tucked the kids in bed.  Bridger came and woke us up in the morning by crawling all over Alex- who was pretty resistant to getting up.  

The kids discovered the stockings and were content cram their faces with chocolate and snacks all morning.  Opening gifts was especially fun because the kids didn't need to be poked and prodded and instead ripped through the gifts and even had to be reigned in a few times.

After gifts and a warm delicious breakfast I got a nap while the girls played and then everyone went outside for some sledding!

The boys drove the truck around the front pasture pulling sleds and inter-tubes!

Heidi was adamant about taking the milk box outside to play in the snow.

It was freezing, but fun.

Even Bridger was a trooper and suffered the cold for the thrill!

This picture makes it look like the girls are going a hundred miles an hour while the responsible adults are running to keep up- but it's not the case I swear.  We are more responsible than that.

New Year's Eve the houses were allowed to be eaten!  I still can't believe the kids didn't get sick from the sugar overdose on Christmas.  The next few days candy was banned!

The girls loved having Bridger to dote on and were pretty sad when he had to leave.  He was a fun little guy to have around and helped make mealtime entertaining!