Christmas

I can't believe Christmas has come and gone! It happened so fast! We are all back to the hustle and bustle of every day life. Usually I go to Montana with my family for Christmas and have a week of lounging in jammies, reading books, playing games and just having fun. But this Christmas was still special. I am thankful Zanna is old enough now to make Christmas feel magical again.

Santa came...

Oh what is this?? A new TV? Why yes, yes it is!!! We may have spoiled ourselves a bit with this one but we felt justified!

Jathan and I did not go to sleep until like 2:30 or 3:00 because we were setting up this bad boy. We had to rearrange lots of furniture... we made a huge mess then had to get it all tidied back up for Christmas. After getting the TV set up we had to try it out! So we started a movie at about 1:00. Luckily our children like to sleep in!

The stalkings... Hmmm... Santa got a little skimpy with Jathan and my stalkings...

Troop was so funny Christmas morning. He just thought the presents were for playing on. This present in particular was his favorite. I love the photo of him sitting down swinging his legs! So Cute!

The bambinos! We had to wake Zanna up at 9:50 to get the show on the road. She was so excited to see the presents but was most excited to see her stalking.

Troop is eyeballing Zanna's candy cane. He is thinking... I could grab the candy cane and make a run for it... she would never catch me!

My little family!

Zanna got a pack of all the disney princess barbies. You know, I thought that she was just going to die over this. And now I am thinking why didn't I just buy one or two. Who needs that many barbies all in one Christmas? Oh well. Lesson learned. (she does like it... it is just a ton of barbies)

Troop got lots of trucks and trains. Zanna liked playing with his toys much more than her own. She really is quite the tom boy. She would rather play with a dragon or truck. Although she does like her dress up's, make up and finger nail polish... hmmm... She is actually really well rounded... ha ha ;)

The after math.

Basking in the mess, thinking... I really don't want to clean all this. I want to take a nap!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Holiday Randomness

Well, since I am trying to catch up on my blogging I am just going to do a huge post!

We went to a friends house a few weeks ago for some fun night sledding and Salmon Chowder, which was delicious I might add!

The kids had a blast sledding! Zanna was also loving the rope swing and making snow angels.

Zanna got into some of my shimmery lotion. She wiped it ALL OVER her face and hands. Then she looked at me and said "I look like a pirate lady mama" - The night before she had watched part of Pirates of the Caribbean with Jathan and I think she thought she looked like Calypso. She gave me a chuckle!

Did anyone see the eclipse on the winter solstice? It was awesome!! That is the first time in hundred's of years there has been an eclipse on the winter solstice. Which also happens to be the shortest day of the year.... Hallelujah... we are now gaining day light!!!

Zanna sporting her reindeer antlers... and some of mommys makeup. That seems to be one of her favorite things to do these days. Put on my makeup. Funny girl~!

My little Troop is getting so big and is such a handsome little stink! He did surprisingly well staying away from the ornaments on the tree. Much better than his big sister at his age. She was always all over the ornaments. I should have gotten Troop some antlers too. He loved wearing Zanna's. Next year I suppose.

I love this picture of my babies! And I also love picture of the kids by the Christmas Tree!

On Christmas Eve we went to our friends the Newells for some delicious soup and cookie decorating. They had an X-box Kinect which was pretty sweet. It was fun to watch everyone play. Check out their living room windows. Aren't they beautiful? And their view is to DIE for!
I am so thankful for the new friends we have made and for being included in their holidays! It made it so much easier being away from family!

When I asked Zanna to come eat, she said "Okay mom. I gotta feed my kids first." Little cutie!

Decorating cookies for Santa

The men folk

The lady folk

My friend Cathy's little boy, getting down with the frosting!!

Zanna and Troop making Carrot juice. This is one of Zanna's absolute favorite things to do. Make Carrot juice with her daddy!

Painting mama's nails. She actually did a really good job. She is quite the little artist!

Another one of Zanna's favorite things to do is help with the dishes. She really just likes playing with the water and making bubbles. And Troop likes to do anything where water and climbing on chairs is involved. Oh and try not to be jealous of my beautiful cabinets... ;)

Helping daddy make popcorn. My children are really lucky to have this man as their father. He is always doing cute things like this where the kids can be involved. Thanks love!

Zanna rarely goes anywhere with out one of her dress up's on. This time she even had her feather boa. She is radiating excitement over her outfit!

Making Lot's of cookies at my friend Emilyn's house. Wow... we were all on a huge sugar high that day. The kids were pretty excited to use the cookie cutters on the gingerbread!

Santie Clause

At Jathans work party a few weeks ago they had Santa Clause give all the kids a little present.

How cute does Troop look in this little flannel? Love it!

Troop was not at all scared of Santa. He sat on his lap like a little champ!

Troop with getting his present from Santa. A Handy Manny truck and Tools.

Zanna was not a fan of Santa at all. Which is so strange because she has been talking about him all season long. When it was her turn to sit on his lap and get her present, she walked up to him, grabbed her present and ran off. It was HILARIOUS! I got it on camera... but erased it on accident. Oh I could jut cry over that one.

Merry Christmas Moose

DO NOT BLOW UP THIS PHOTO IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH

So Jathan got a call on Christmas Eve morning, asking him if he wanted to help harvest a moose that had been hit on the freeway.
One thing I love about Alaska is that they don't let things go to waste... such as a moose that has been hit. Unlike many other states where they throw away a perfectly good... I don't know... buffalo or what not!
You can have your name put on a list and when your turn comes you have to come get the moose. This is not a small job! These are incredibly large animals.... and it is a DIRTY JOB! In fact I think we should call Mike Rowe from the show "Dirty Jobs" next time! I love him by the way!
I sent Jathan with the camera and asked him to get a few photos. Uhhhh I did not realize how bloody these photos would be. I guess I don't really know what sort of photos I was expecting to get. This photo was the least gory.

(I can't believe I am posting this photo. But hey this is a blog about our lives... and this is part of our lives!)

All the men involved in this project split up the meat. So we will soon have about a hundred lbs of ground Moose. Nothing like free organic meat!

(these guys were doing all this at 8:30 in the morning (still so dark) in -20 degree weather! brrrrrr)

Reindeer

We went to a tree lighting ceremony in Eagle River (our neighboring city) a few weeks ago. It was FREEZING but really fun! Many of the local businesses set up booths with free hot chocolate, cookies, hot dogs, hand warmers, etc. They had a choir of carolers singing and Santa made an appearance with his eight tiny reindeer!!

Troop was a pop cycle!

Zanna thoroughly enjoyed her hot dog. She has mustard all over her face! It looks really pretty on her! ha ha. Oh and she doesn't like to leave the house without one of her pretty play dresses.

Here is cupid. Isn't he so cute? The kids were loving him! They really did have eight little reindeer and all of them had cute little name tags.

Troop was loving Cupid. These reindeer really were small. I was a little nervous his antlers were going to poke out one of my childrens eye balls!

There was pretty much a mob around Santa, so this is the best shot I could get of him. We did not wait in line for the kids to sit on his lap. They were more interested in the reindeer.

Thank you Alaska for a memorable evening!

Oh Christmas Tree

This year we ventured out into the wilderness and cut down a Christmas tree! It was a fun little family adventure. I forgot my camera but luckily I had the camera on my phone. Some of the photos are a little weirdie but it is better than nothing, right?!

So Jathan got a permit to cut the tree down on base (base is MASSIVE by the way). They closed down part of base due to aggressive wolf activity (check out this link). Through most of our excursion Troop was really whiny and crying. Jathan was getting really stressed out and finally yelled "Troop you sound like a wounded rabbit. You are going to get us all killed!!" ha ha ha. It was really funny. Thankfully we did not have any encounters with wolves!!

It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to find a tree that we liked. There are SO MANY TREES HERE and all of the trees looked beautiful until you got close to them... Then they looked straggly and the branches were few and far between. And they were all so thin.

We bundled up the kids until they could barely move...

Zanna enjoyed eating the beautiful white snow.

Cute little Troop! He was not too sure how he felt about being so bundled. He just stood there and didn't move!

Here is Jathan cutting down the tree. From a distance it looked like a beauty but as we got closer it was thin and didn't have very many branches either... but it was the best one we could find. It took him all of ten seconds to cut it down. The trunk was like two inches in diameter.

Zanna following Jathan through the woods as he carries the tree back to the car.

Everyone looks a little creepy. My camera phone doesn't have red eye reduction ;)

Afterwards we went to Sports Authority and got the kids some sleds. They had fun in the parking lot as Jathan pulled them around!

All of the parking lot's and most of the roads here are totally packed with snow. It is so stinking cold and the sun is rarely out... it never has a chance to melt.

Here is our skinny little charlie brown Christmas tree in our house.

It looked a lot cuter all decorated. Although half of my ornaments were either too heavy or simply did not fit! Oh and I don't have a tree skirt! I always used one of my moms. So we put a sheep skin around the bottom of the tree and that turned out pretty cute.

Tissue paper poms dressed up the dining area. I might be obsessed with these things. I seem to use them for everything lately! And they kind of look like big beautiful snow balls.

Well I am not the only one obsessed. The kids favorite thing to do is get on the table and blow all the decorations so they can watch them sway. Little stinkers!