Winter Break Fun

Yesterday was our first day back to school! After two weeks of sleeping in until 10am {a huge perk of having older kiddos + Alaska darkness}, it was incredibly hard to wake up to our alarms! But we spent our last day of Winter Break in the most fun way possible--snow tubing & a visit to Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights {which are truly "winter lights" here as the displays stay up until the end of February} + ice sculptures...it was truly "snow" much fun!!

There were so many cute photo opportunities at the Botanical Gardens with the light displays & amazing ice sculptures, but it was just way too cold to pull my phone out much! Brady loved the model train in the "warming station," and they also had kick sleds for the kids to use, which was super fun for our crew! Brady's most favorite thing to do was to run ahead of us and slide on the snowy/icy path throughout the Botanical Gardens.

We are determined to soak up as much winter fun as we can over these next few months! Shelby is joining the cross country ski team at her school this quarter, and I just signed up Derek, Brady, and Hadley for snowboarding lessons next month. We just need the snow to cooperate with us now. ;)  Our first two winter in Alaska came with record setting snow accumulation, and this winter has been sparse in the snow department to say the least! Today the kids are actually home from school due to an ice day. We were thrilled to have a surprise day at home after only one day back to school, and our kids didn't miss a beat--right back to Monopoly marathons! But hopefully we'll get more snow soon!

December 2024 Wrap-Up

As I reflected back on December to what the "highlights" of the month were, I realized quite a lot transpired in our world in a mere 31 calendar days: Derek's work trip to Japan, concert season for the girls (I think we had a total of five performances between the two of them in a one week span of time!), the culmination of Hadley's volleyball season, Hadley's honor band audition, a marathon of essay writing for Shelby, Shelby getting her braces off, and Christmas! And to cap off the month and year with a real bang, we discovered on the 27th that we had lice in our house. It was a doozy, and it's too soon for me to talk about yet, ha! 

I thought that I wouldn't have too many photos to include in this post as I already posted all of our Christmas pics in separate posts...apparently, I was way off! And the kids clearly played a lot of Monopoly this month!! Without further ado, here we go!

{waiting for Shelby's concert to begin!}

{Brady was eager to learn cursive, so we started that journey recently!}

{Advent reading...Derek always has to read Christmas Trolls!}

{Brady reading part of Luke to us during Advent from a little bible my Grandma Jane gave to me}

{opening a Christmas package from BooBoo (yay for mouse nut cookies!) after a volleyball game}

{ugly sweater day at church! Shelby made her ugly sweater at a "girls' night" with her small group}

{Hadley's first band concert!}

{these two stole my phone for a quick selfie before Shelby's jazz band concert}

{while we waited for the concert to begin, Brady was doing an activity book & Hadley was making bracelets}

{after Shelby's concert, the kids were having dessert and Brady was presenting his share book on otters to everyone...while Derek casually added a button to one of Shelby's shirts}

{we met Derek for lunch on base one afternoon and then headed over to the Arts & Crafts Center} 

{Hadley was on pancake duty while Derek was in Japan}

{movie night...a screening of Scrooge as selected by Shelby}

{a random dinnertime pic we snapped to send to Derek while he was in Japan}

{Hadley loved her Christmas press-on nails!}

{crocheting by the fire}

{I love watching them to do handwork while I read aloud at night}

{writing Christmas thank you notes}

Grateful for another month filled with memories!

Christmas Day 2024

We had a beautiful Christmas Day together! We told the kids they could come upstairs at 8am for presents. Hadley & Brady were awake by 6:00 & stared at their clocks for two hours, ha! The rest of us got woken up by the early birds at 8:00 on the dot, and then it was go time! We always open our stockings and check out our Santa gifts right away then have breakfast.

{invisible ink pens were a big hit!}

Santa brought all three kids a Kindle, which was a big hit!

After a quick break for cinnamon rolls, it was time to open all the gifts under the tree! I didn't take too many pictures, but it was a great day filled with lots of excitement & joy! We spent the rest of the day enjoying their new gifts, playing games, watching Christmas movies, and we had a delicious dinner of baked ziti...and lots of Christmas candy along the way. :)

{Shelby was thrilled to put her new tabs that she received in her Bible!}

It's hard to believe we have now celebrated our third {and most likely our final} white Christmas in Alaska! It's something we will truly never forget.