Happy 8th Anniversary Peter

Christmas Day

First we opened presents at our house... Then we went to the Cole's for breakfast and more presents...

Grandma Carolyn Cole and new cousin Eli

And finally to the Garrahan's for Christmas dinner and more gifts.

Bren and I matched in our attire; same brands, same colors. We've got good taste...and a connection at Patagonia.

Let the Framing Begin!

Sticking to Cole tradition, "When company comes...put them to work." Thanks Uncle Greg for all of your hard work.

And then there was a wall! The new large room under our house will be the laundry room, freezer room, work out room, craft room, mud room, music room...ha ha. The possibilities are endless. Now, how long until it's complete? I'm hoping the other Cole tradition of unfinished projects will not apply here.

Gingerbread Houses

Heidi wanted to make gingerbread houses with the girls, thinking it would be a fun activity and allow them to get creative. Once they realized that we weren't going to let them eat all the candy decorations they lost interest, leaving me the task of decorating a gingerbread house that would not disappoint. I had fun and with Heidi's help was able to create this:

Unfortunately it is not so pretty now. Peter has picked at it and eaten almost everything colorful that is not stuck too hard in the white, sugar "glue".

School Holiday Program

Taylor got to be a butterfly in the school play, a Mexican folklore tale. She did not have any speaking parts but needed to know where to move and when. Flying through the river.
Singing

Dancing with Rose.

I like this picture because it's of all the students, and it's candid. They hadn't practiced this song very much and it was in Spanish. They couldn't get the second line right during practice and so the teacher wrote out the lyrics on posterboard. Here they are trying to sing and read unfamiliar Spanish at the same time. Click on the picture for a closer look at their faces.

Christmas Tree Hunting

We got our Christmas tree on Friday. We drove up to the snow, found a somewhat sad tree with a nice top,sawed it down,

played in the snow and got cold,

went to our friends' house, gave the girls a warm bath and had dinner.

When we got home we realized that the tree was way too big so we had to cut off more of the bottom. Monday we decorated it in about 10 mins and...viola!
Merry Christmas!