A Group Of Stahrs

Christmas & New Years Wrap Up

There are a few big celebrations coming up in the next few days so I figured it’s time to close out last year and get on with the new year.  Just before Christmas we had a Winter Wonderland here on base.  It was simply breathtaking and I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera after taking the kids to school to drive around and take a few pictures…

 If you follow me on instagram or facebook, you’ve seen a few things our Elf was up to over the Christmas season.  While we do not use him for behavior purposes, it was fun to see the kids’ expressions when he up to something.  Here is one of his last “stunts”.  He was having tea with Snowboarding Barbie…

Christmas Eve was fun.  Jacob and I started (what I hope to be a new tradition) dancing by the Christmas tree.  Maybe someday he will actually be able to dip his dance partner without throwing them on the floor…

 I’m pretty sure Dad wouldn’t mind it becoming a tradition either.  The dogs probably could do without it 😉

We set out the carrots (shredded this year because someone may have forgotten about the baby carrots for the deer), reindeer food, milk and cookies…The kiddos went to bed and we went to work setting out all the gifts for the morning craziness.  They actually slept in!  It was at least 8:30 before we really got started.  I couldn’t believe it!  We took our time and opened everything completely before moving onto the next thing with breaks for cinnamon rolls.

We spent the rest of the vacation playing with our new gifts.  We also went on a few outings over the break.  We went to the planetarium in Salt Lake City.  We went to the movies to see Frozen.  If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it.  It is one of the best Disney movies we’ve seen in a long time!

New Years Eve was fun.  We broke out Monopoly (the M&M version) and introduced the kids to the wonderful world of investments and managing their money!  Jacob was a little too young to fully understand but with help had fun with deals and such.

I made a new family favorite.  Tater Tot Bacon Bombs…

Seriously, it’s the first new thing in a while that we have all agreed on!  That’s saying something.  I mean, really, how can you go wrong…bacon, tater tots, cheese.  Did I mention bacon?

We had our traditional fondue…

Thanks to Pinterest, the kids were able to pretend to be older for the night.  Milk shots!

The kids got a kick out of the cute drinks.  We also had some sparkling grape apple juice to toast in the New Year when the ball dropped on the East Coast at 10pm our time! (there’s a benefit to the time zones).  Mom and Dad had the champagne.

We had our traditional good luck meal of pork and sauerkraut on New Years Day.  The kids started back to school and Jeremiah went back to work and life got back to normal.  That’s our end to 2013 and beginning of 2014.  Happy New Year!