Sophia, in all her glory.

Sophia received a microphone for Christmas (thanks Grandpa D. and Grandma S.)! Here's a little clip of her practicing for the big time - I'm pretty sure I see a star in the making! ;)

Christmas eve and Christmas morning.

Of course, as I'm sure is the case with many of you, we have tons of photos from the past week, and I'm just now getting around to editing them all. After returning from our visit with family, we've all been sick, so I've just been muddling through the past couple of days. We let the kids open a present each (their new jammies), on Christmas eve. On Christmas morning, we woke up to about a foot and a half of new snow, and it continued to snow the entire day. It has actually been pretty much snowing on and off ever since. Chris returned to work on Friday and has stayed pretty busy.

Family time.

Our Christmas festivities began this year with a trip to the other side of the state where most of our family lives. We gathered at Dean and Suzanne's home for the annual Nativity presentation acted out by all the little cousins. Here's a slide show of the pictures I took. There aren't many, but a few to remember our trip, which was short. It was good to see everyone, though, and hopefully in 2009, we'll get to see more of them!

What the snow brings down.

This morning the dog was barking at the back door, so I thought he wanted to be let out. As I came around the corner headed to the door, I saw this coyote standing about 5 or 6 feet from our back door. By the time I was able to grab the camera, he had run back up the hill, but Chris used his coyote call to lure him back a little and he showed himself long enough for me to snap this shot from a distance.

The reality of living in Idaho.

Some things last from year to year, but the kids' clothes don't seem to last anymore. As you can see from the above picture, uh, it appears that Sammy has outgrown his snow pants from last year!

Christmas Memories: A fun tag!

My "cousin-in-law", Jen, tagged me for this one. You have to post a blog about a favorite Christmas memory. It can be a video clip, photos, or a story, anything fun you want to share. She posted a darling video clip of her daughter being quickly ushered to bed on Christmas eve as she heard what her parents were telling her were Santa's sleigh bells jingling. I'm not quite technilogically equipped to post a clip of any of our old home movies, and of course, the Christmas ones are always the most fun to watch. But at any rate, I'll just post a few pics and a memory.
One of the things that always makes our Christmas most memorable, is a tradition that the kids' Grandma and Grandpa Blanch always give us new jammies to wear to bed on Christmas eve. What I love about it, is the fact that our kids have always been so excited to open and wear them, almost as much as any toy they might receive. I've always tried to get a picture of them in their cute, matching pj's, so here are a few from the past! I tag: Julie, Annjilla, Jen G., Jen Y., Katee and Suzanne.

Christmas Program and Cookies

Last night was the children's elementary school Christmas program. I only got a couple of decent pictures because we were sitting in the far back. At least I can always count on Sophie to give me something clever to write about on the blog. As we gathered the kids together when the program was over, I was telling them what a good job they had done. Sophie chimed in: "Mom, I almost got the staged-fright, because the stage, it was soooo huge and there were too many people watching us!"
On Wednesday evening we made Christmas cookies. The kids had fun decorating, and eating their creations. As Chris finished decorating the ones that were left, I read a book to the kids. I liked watching Chris working on the cookies; he seemed to really be enjoying himself!