Before the snow hit, we had some nice weather and I took the kids and cousins on a hike to try to find the "living room" in the mountains made out of rocks, but we took too many interesting deer trails and never made it to our goal location. Still lots of fun though bushwacking our way up and over a very steep hill to try to find the trail.
I think it was the night after Thanksgiving that we also went with the Nuno cousins to temple square to see the lights and got hot chocolate, soup, and cookies in the Joseph Smith building.
I love it when CD does Dre's hair. Don't know if you can tell, but that's a brush in CD's hand and he's makin' Dre look slick.
Found my kids out meditating on the trampoline during a warm spell before the storm.
Then the storm hit and this is what we got to walk to school in. It took almost an hour to walk to school and back because the twins were dawdling so much and we stopped and built a snowman in a parking lot. Why not?
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| They actually look like twins here. |
This snow and ice stuck around for over two months. Since we were gone and didn't get our walks shoveled over the holidays, it turned rock hard and we had a 3 inch layer of indestructible ice down our sidewalk that we and the mailman had to tiptoe over every day for over a month and hope we wouldn't biff it.
We did Kindermusik for a couple of weeks and Dreyton was the little drummer boy.
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| Another benefit of having a twin. |
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| It was so cold even the running rivers froze over. |
I heard Reagan tell Santa she just wants a flower for Christmas. And she wasn't kidding. From then on she kept talking about how she wanted a daisy flower for Christmas.
The Rockwell Christmas party was another fun one at Bear River Lodge. I snuck out the next morning to ski some of the beautiful trails around the resort. I was alone so I had to get creative with the picture taking.
CD's first year of basketball with Carlos as the coach. He was pretty much the only one on the team that could dribble down the court, but he LOVED it.
And I loved taking him out to Sugarhouse park after school to practice his skiing before heading to the real mountains.
Luckily Tanner came to town and pulled him all around the block and up the Sugarhouse hill like a rope tow. Lots of plaid goin' on in this photo.
With my brother's in town I decided to throw a Christmas Party, and I have to say, it was such a good time with such great people.
We ate dinner, then played Christmas trivia, which I knew this group would get into. Jason and Amanda were the victors and Carlos was the MC.
Dessert was traditional Danish rice pudding with warm fruit compote I made out of berries I still had in the freezer from picking in Oregon. The Bushnell family makes this pudding every Christmas (usually with cherry topping) and we put one almond in the batch and have to guess who ends up with it in their mouth. The lucky winner got german chocolates this year. This is our attempt each year to remember our Danish roots from my Mom's side of the family.
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| We also had fun with the kids and pulled traditional English poppers in teams which had little gifts inside. Then we handed out wrapped Rockwell socks to everyone:) I could hang out with that group all the time. |
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| Little Swede |
The next day, we drove to Oregon for the holidays. I love how Cassidy always gets in our family pictures :)
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| Oma kicked her out for an official Nuno shot. |
The Sunday before Christmas was sooo beautiful. It hadn't been over freezing for weeks and weeks in Utah, so 55 degrees felt so good.
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| The triplets back together again. |
And of course lots of playing in the ditches. This time rescuing a rubber ducky over and over.
Christmas Eve we went for a night hike to the top of Bald Hill with little electric candles and a few flashlights. Thanks Mom for the cute animal mittens and hats for the kids.
The kids were such troopers and loved it. There really was a "special" feeling in the air when we reached the top and looked out over the few city lights of Philomath.
Glad to see my old letterman jacket from BYU coming in handy.
A beautiful shot of Oma and Reagan. Then we came home, acted the Nativity, ate more rice pudding, opened a present, and got all the kids bedded down in a bed we made on the floor of my room.
The kids made it until about 7am before heading down to scope out what Santa had left. It apparently was too early for Rivs who tried to then get a little nap in on the bearskin rug with her new doll before present opening began.
I love this. Out of all the things Reagan got, she was most excited about these real pink daisies. She carried them around with a huge smile on her face and showed everyone. I finally made her put them down because there was water in the vase, but when asked what her favorite gift was, she always replied "my pink daisies". Oh please don't change!
This little ball thingy from CD's stocking entertained everyone.
I love the woodburning stove, so I tried to curl up and rest next to it's coziness.
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| One of my presents from my Mom was an antique chest from the Farm Antiques store that she hid at Whitney's house, so after present opening, the girls walked over to the Smart house to check it out. Unfortunately I couldn't bring it back with me to Utah, but it is awesome for "someday". |
The next day we headed to the coast to enjoy the blue skies because the Corvallis/Philomath valley was fogged in making it cold. It was such a beautiful day in Newport, OR. We went over with Cody and Whitney.
The littles are sooooo lucky to have this girl to make everything more fun for them.
The girls.
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| We missed CD, who got a fever Christmas night and stayed home with Oma. I wish I would have gotten a picture of Dreyton falling down in the water and just laying there kicking as waves went over him, too shocked to get up. |
The loft of the barn is a favorite place for Reagan. She is such an animal lover and loves throwing hay down to the cows and sheep.
We also took time to relax and watch movies. Well, Carlos and the kids did. I still have a hard time laying there and watching a whole movie:)
The covered wagon. My Mom's new toy to pull the grandkids around.
For New Years this year we made chocolate and cheese fondue for dinner. Dre liked to make weird combos like dipping his cauliflower in the chocolate instead of the cheese. He munched it like it was delicious though, so whatev.
Around 11pm we went outside and my Mom had a bunch of relays and tests and stuff that we did in pairs to compete for giftcard prizes. It was really fun and the Whitney/Jason team won big. Doing Insanity must have worked for Whitney cause she could wheelbarrow like nobody's business.
After the feats of strength and relays around the house with glowsticks for the kids (they kept going and going and going, like an eternal relay, so we eventually had to make them stop), Jason, Tyler, Rivers, and I ran to the top of Wooded Knolls at midnight.
This quick 1 mile run from the house replaced our usual tradition of running a 5k race that starts at midnight. Since the races are in Eugene or Portland though, we decided to stay closer to home this year. Love this family... and love that my Mom forgets that we are all quite old now and still makes up fun games for us to do. Cheers to 2014!!
