Christmas 2009!

We know that we are actually posting this in March but that is so that we can take full advantage of the 2010 Christmas shopping season. It should be starting any day now.
Our season started with home made hats.

It continued with decorating.

Here we are making cookies to deliver to all of the neighbors we still have not met. We did not meet many of our neighbors because we ate most of the cookies and decided that delivering an empty paper plate and forcing them to listen to our caroling was not the way to make a first impression. From our caroling experience we recommend "We wish you a merry Christmas!" sung quickly and enthusiastically. Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer was waaaaay too long and made both performers and forced listeners clearly uncomfortable.
We went to cousins in Salt Lake City to celebrate part of the time. I do not know if this is a photo of elves or what.

Finally a posed picture for posterity. Happy Holidays come and gone!

Happy Solstice!

Our anniversary and Sonja's birthday are right in the middle of the holiday season. We intended on skiing into Hogan's cabin to celebrate both. We do not have any pictures of the celebrating, or cabin for that matter. The cabin has a combination lock and we neglected to write the combination down before we left civilization. Luckily Sonja remembered our forgetfulness before we had skiied the whole 6 mile approach. We ended up returning to the van and spending the night in a rental cabin just down the road from our old house in Whiskey Gulch. We did enjoy some nice sledding and snow-angel making out in the middle of nowhere.

King for a day

I did a search for "king for a day lyrics" and several came back. Based on your age you may recognize these lyrics: age 15-20 years, 20-30 years , 30-40 years (click on years and scroll down to watch the video). I do not know the demographics on this one but it is kind of catchy............... Okay I am back. I just finished break-dancing and doing the robot to my age appropriate "King for a Day" song. After watching the Thompson Twins video I also got a haircut.

We had another birthday to celebrate and it involved trains big and small.

The small train was Ivan's birthday present.

The big train was the Copper King Express. It is a pleasurable ride beginning just a few blocks from our house. I think we rode on its final trip. It had a couple of more rides scheduled after ours but they may have been cancelled due to weather. It was nice. Santa and the Grinch were both part of the trip. The kids each had their own response to seeing Santa approaching our booth.

Ivan seems excited and pretty confident that he is on the good list.

Liza had more of a detached, "I hope he does not see me, I am not positive which list I am on and I would like to improve my qualifications for the good list before I talk to him and force him into a decision" look about her.

As birthdays should, this one came with numerous presents.

One was a nifty Firehouse wooden piggy bank. It involved some assembly.

A little hammering.

Our rule around here is: Once you turn five years old, that's it you're out of the house. At least three mornings a week anyway. Ivan started preschool the day before his birthday. He was psyched to start and still likes it a lot.