The Christmas Season

This year, James' 2nd grade class made and donated a tree to the Festival of Trees. His teacher is a runner, and he has been focusing on exercise and good health with the kids, so they decided the theme of their tree should be "The Human Race". James was so excited to go see it all put together, although the look on his face in this picture doesn't scream excitement. Danny was the overseer of the project (I lovingly call him the room-mom) and he took a lot of time to get things taken care of.

Our annual Bill's Christmas party was a lot of fun. Everyone in my Grandma Cardwell's family comes, and it's really fun to see all of my great cousins. Santa comes and the kids get to sit on his lap and recieve a gift. Carly, Easton, and James are little buds and they wanted their picture taken together!

Danny and I decided for the major part of the boys Christmas that we would surprise them with an overnight trip up at the beautiful Homestead Resort in Midway, Utah. Little did we know that we would pick the weekend of a huge snow storm. We're talking three feet of new snow. When we looked out our window the next morning, they hadn't shoveled the walks and the snow went almost 1/4 of the height of the door! Danny had to help push a Honda out of the parking lot. I was really grateful that we had a 4 wheel drive. Here is our trusty Explorer (we like to call it the Exploder for fun) buried in all the new snow. A pain in the butt, but oh so beautiful! The boys had a blast!

We took some pictures on our patio...you can't tell in the pics, but it was snowing. We saw a family of deer out in the pine trees just beyond our little cottage. Later, we took the kids over to the dining room for dinner. They sat us by the fire place, and the boys enjoyed their first "fancy dinner". As we were walking to dinner James asked me if this was where the rich and famous go. I had to laugh about that...it's funny to hear how your kids perceive different experiences.

My Boys!

After dinner, we took the boys for a late night swim. The pools at the Homestead are heated naturally by a spring that is on the property. The kids thought it was great to swim in hot water. I wish I could have joined them, but the pictures would have scared everyone....I only have bikinis, and they look slightly inappropriate right now....I've grown in many places! My favorite part of the trip came at the end. We took our desserts back to our cottage and watched Kung Fu Panda and ate pumpkin cheesecake and chocolate bread pudding. We all had a great time, and James wants to go back next year! It was definitely a great surprise for the boys.