Christmas Morning

On Christmas morning, the kids awoke to find that Santa must of believed they were good because he left them each a present plus a huge together gift. Hmmm I wonder what he left??

The kids got together for a sibling shot in front of the tree and even managed a hug photo to start the morning off on a good note. See they really do love each other, they aren't always fighting.

The tree was set and presents awaited being ripped into.

But first they just had to get into their stockings to see what treats Santa and mom and dad had stuffed inside.

The kids all took turns being Santa's helper and after all the gifts were handed out, they took a moment to pose in front of all of their presents.

Reindeer Food

On Christmas Eve, right before bed, the kids made some reindeer food to sprinkle outside for Santa's reindeer. It consisted of Oatmeal, sugar for energy to keep going on their long journey, and glitter so that it shown in the moonlight and was easy for the reindeer to see.

Sprinkle, Sprinkle, Sprinkle.......the moonlight will make it twinkle. Notice the tree they are sprinkling it around. Doug and I bought them that tree for $1 so that they could string together peanuts, popcorn, cranberries, and raisins for our little feathered friends. (and the squirrels too!) Everybody needs something special for Christmas. Buying and decorating a tree like this will now become a yearly tradition for them.

If you look hard, (or enlarge the picture) you can see some of the reindeer food that was scattered all about.

The Aftermath

After cleanup, the kids had mountains of snow that were enjoyed immensely. They spent hours outside during thier Christmas vacation sledding.

Of course Winston had to get out and have some fun to. He was somehow able to find "Wilson" (his basketball) through all the snow.

And of course the kids were completely amazed by the size of some of the icicles that hung from our roof.

First Snow Storm

For those of you who wanted to know what it looks like when winter hits BFE, or for those of you that left here because of it, here is a small reminder. These pictures were taken from in the house and by Doug who bravely ventured out into the storm putting his life in danger in order to keep you all up to date. Luckly he survived without frostbite. (The temperature at the time was approximately 40 below zero.) Doug's work was cancelled for Monday and school ran two hours late due to the snow and subzero temperatures.

Zoo Animals

Here are some of our many animals. First is our chihuaua Angus who will take advantage of any sleeping body to cuddle up to. Next to him is Maverick, he was the first of our baby goats born this past summer. He has a little playmate named goose (can ya tell Top Gun is a favorite of someone in the house). Goose was born a week after Maverick and we will try to get a picture of him on here soon. In the second row there is Winston our doberman who we rescued from the pound in Minot on our way to state bowling in Williston. Last but certainly not least is Dutchess Scarlett O'Hara (dutchie for short) our first baby. We also have pepper our black cat, 2 bunnies (we did have 3 however we recently lost one) Millie and Cocoa (our 2 oldest goats) and 2 horses Dakota who belongs to paige and Rosie who belongs to Chynna.

Christmas Decorations

These are photos of some of the decorations in our dining room. This tree was the first tree done this year which was completed right after Thanksgiving. It was the easiest tree to get done taking only about 2 days to complete. This tree usually has approximately 1300 lights on it.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. These are the kids' stockings filled with the goodies that Santa left for them. Hunter's is the far right one, he was so proud of this stocking because he got to decorate all by himself (it was a project that his headstart teacher Erin brought for him to do) Next to that is our big Christmas tree. This tree takes the most time, usually 2 weeks to wrap the lights although this year I was able to complete it in about 4 days with two of those days joining together to make one long one as I did not go to bed on Christmas Eve because it needed to be done by the time the kids got up on Christmas morning. This tree has approximately 4500 lights on it this year. I had so much to do this year with school and everything else that my decorating always got put on the back burner. I didn't get all of my decorations up this year, but I made sure that the most important one was done for Christmas morning.

This is a shot of the outside decorations on the South side of our house. This is all that got done this year because Doug also had a lot of other things going on as well. Or like he says he is getting older and can't deal with the cold the way he used to. There are a lot of people around here who compliment him on our house. We are one of only a few people that decorate around here and ours has been called the best and dubbed "the gingerbread house". Next year the decorating will commence on October 1 just to make sure that it gets completed all the way around.

Jack-O-Lanterns

The kids had fun making a mess of the house as well as themselves. As usual we waited till the last minute to carve the pumpkins. But a good time was had by all.