Snow Surprise and Christmas Re-cap

Ok, before I get to the Christmas re-cap, I want to share some fun pictures from our surprise snow dumping the other day. The ever-on-the-ball weatherman said there COULD be (not definite) some snow mixed into the rain we were expecting that night, but mostly at the higher elevations in the hills. No sticking. Right. Where do they get these guys and why does their job accuracy never seem to determine if they're a "good" weatherman or not? Seriously. Anyway, stepping off my soap box, we were really excited that it was snowing - the first snow of the year. After Pumpkin went to bed (he's not a big fan of the slushy stuff) we went outside with Mister to build the snowman he'd been begging for all afternoon and evening. We bundled up in our snow gear (Mister, for some reason insisting on wearing his snowsuit from last year that was too tight, then complaining that it was going up his bum....) and headed out.

First Mister got down to business making the obligatory snow angels. But after a few minutes he decided that he didn't like how he kept sinking into the snow so that was over.

While Scott was hard at work rolling ginormous snowballs for our ginormous snowman, Mister and I had a little snowball fight.

He was determined to catch snowflakes on his tongue, but apparently his progress was too slow so after a minute he just picked up a handful from the ground and ate it that way.

Meanwhile, Scott was making lots of progress on Frosty. If you know anything about Scott you know his mantra in life is "bigger is ALWAYS better" (yeah, like the 8 tomato plants and 16 lettuce plants from our garden last year or my wedding chest that he made for me that we affecionately call "the coffin" because of how huge it is). He got a little over-ambitious with the size of the balls though and couldn't lift it on his own. So he had to get a little creative. One wheelbarrow, a large stake and 15 minutes later though, he'd managed to lift the middle snowball onto the bottom one. He was really proud of himself.

And here is the finished product: Our 8 foot tall snowman! Mister was soooo excited about it and Scott was really proud of his huge creation.

Ok, now for the mini Christmas re-cap. We spent one night with my parents and had a lovely dinner with them and some family friends who we adore. We all got spoiled with amazing food (homemade Venezuelan ayacas, anyone?) and amazing presents. The highlights of the gifts were a tent for Scott (yes, he's finally worn me down and I've agreed to give camping a try this year), an external flash for my camera, a Lightning McQueen scooter for Mister and a Lightning McQueen trike for Pumpkin.

My brother-in-law Tyler was with us for a few days and he and Mister have this little tradition that they do called a "shaka" high-five. This is Mister doing his best "shaka".

After spending time with my family we went to visit Scott's family. When we went for Thanksgiving, our normally 2 hour drive took nearly 4 hours, so the boys were not excited to repeat that drive. Mister certainly never holds back on expressing himself.

I kept trying to take a picture of him but he kept blinking right when the flash went off, so I told him to make sure he kept his eyes open next time. This was his solution. :)

These are my amazing in-laws. I love this picture of them. So cute doing the dishes together after dinner. I'm so glad they live so close so we can see them often.

The day after Christmas we took a trip out to the coast. It was foggy and 30 degrees at Scott's parents' house but it was sunny and 50 at the coast. Perfect weather! Such a cute shot of my 3 favorite guys in the world.

I love this picture of Janice and the boys. So cute. :)

We hiked to the top of the hill to see the lighthouse. I've been here many times but this time we were actually able to take a tour of the lighthouse which was really cool. Mister got tired after the walk and convinced his Papa to give him a shoulder ride on the way down.

It's been a wonderful holiday season and I'm looking forward to what the New Year brings.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!