Thursday, February 21, 2013

A little 'Snow-cation' to the Ranch

We'd been planning on taking our kids to the Ranch sometime this winter to experience the snow for a couple of days.  President's Day Weekend was the perfect time for us to do it!  We drove up Friday night and spent Saturday and Sunday there and then drove back Monday.  Nathan's parents came along and Erin, Kasey & cute little Beckham joined us as well!  It was a blast.  Just relaxed inside, ate good food, played board games, watched movies, and, of course, got our fill of sledding, snowman making, and 4 wheeling.  The whole experience reminded me that the snow is a little bit of a pain, though :).  The kids weren't too crazy about getting all their snow gear on every time we went outside...but they sure looked cute!!
Nathan went down with a neighbor boy and was sitting on his knees...his shins ended up getting completely rocked by the plastic lip at the back of the sled before he finally bailed.  
The truth is, that's about as far as we got in making a snowman...the snow was about a week old so not the best for rolling...
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Nathan won 'daddy of the year' for building the kids this igloo out of the available snow on the porch. 

Unfortunately the kids didn't seem to appreciate it as much as he'd hoped :(...thanks anyways Nathan!  At least you got a workout!!
  
Despite Violet's expression, she was obsessed with riding on the 4 wheeler.  She couldn't get enough of it!
Sure makes sledding easier when you don't have to trudge up the hill every 2 minutes!

Nathan bought some Chinese Lanterns online so we brought them up to the Ranch for their maiden voyage!  It was pretty sweet.  Everyone enjoyed watching them float into the starry sky.









Violet's other favorite activity...swinging
I love that the collar of her coat is completely blocking her view!

Nathan's mom's cousin, Russ, lives on the ranch property and he had some of his sleds out for us to use.  This was the coolest little thing we'd ever seen!  It had a brake on it too.  Sawyer LOVED it!  And I have to say, he looked pretty cool riding it with daddy's snowboarding goggles on!








Friday, February 8, 2013

Christmas 2012

Christmas was with the Larson side this year and with us living in Las Vegas, it made it possible for everyone to come down here for Christmas.  Brooke and her family were not able to come up because Mark had to be on call that week.  We missed them!  Ashley and her family stayed at Ned & Julianne's along with Erin and her family.  And we were excited to have Paul and Andrea stay with us!  It was actually really nice not to have to travel for once.  The kids had a blast going to Grandma and Grandpa's everyday to play with their cousins!  We did some fun activities here and there, but spent a lot of time just hanging out and enjoying each other's company, too.  On Christmas Eve we let the kids sleep at Grandmas'.  Sawyer was excited to sleep in the 'bunkbed room' room with his cousins and Violet was used to napping in Grandma's closet anyways so she was happy as a clam.  By the time the adults finished getting everything ready for Christmas, it was after midnight when Nate and I finally went home and went to sleep!  And we were up early so that we could be back before our kids woke up over there!  Not much sleep...but fun nonetheless!  Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve...

Poor Ashley got cut out of the picture!  We were all so anxious to eat no one bothered to check the camera and make sure the picture turned out!


Love Violet's huge Doggie!

And Christmas morning...

Violet and her usual 'stink-eye'





She was more interested in Beckham's toys than her own!

As you can imagine, this stroller got a lot of use over the next few days.  And Nathan became the proud new owner of a 'Polar Express' Train!  

Nathan also built a workbench 'just like daddys' for Sawyer...so cute!

When Sawyer opened his workbench, he was so cute!  He looked at it in shock and amazement and ran straight over to his daddy to give him a hug!
These two had a good time together with this stroller
We got to be 'secret elves' one night and provide a few things for some families in need...this was picking out a Christmas tree for one of them!
We went down to Henderson and visited the Chocolate Factory.  They had a fantastic lights display surrounding the area.  Since we don't have temple lights here in Vegas, this was almost as great! :)
And of course we made sure to visit a breakfast buffet.  Unfortunately Ashley got sick this day and Ned was sick later that night.  Always seems to happen on family vacations.  Needless to say it cut our time together a couple days short but we were glad we had already had a good solid week of fun together!