Our own little Christmas, early

We spent Christmas in Las Vegas, so we had our own little Christmas in Denver before we left - at 11 p.m. Better than waking up early! We enjoyed opening our presents at home, so we didn't have to haul everything.

Colorado Christmas

Christmas in Colorado came a few days early this year. We celebrated for 5 days!! Above is our family picture - thank you Emily for being our photographer! It was fun to have everyone together, and dressed so festively!

Below - posing for our holiday card.

Gingerbread houses were taken too an entire new level this year, as an enchanting village.

Good looking cousins!

New baby & wonderful cousin!

The men, after the baby blessing. We had the blessing at my parent's home - it was very special, all family.

Beautiful family! Baby's first Christmas.

Great-grandma & some of her cute girls.

Love that baby! Oldest & youngest boy cousins.

Father & son - good looking!

Cousins enjoying dinnner.

We had a music recital & talent show as part of our celebrations. The kids/family had 6+ recitals & performances during the month of December, so we had everyone perform again when we were all together. Kids played piano, sang, Uncles sang, Grandma played the violin, kids comedy, ...
Uncle playing the violin!!! Western shirt & all (fiddling?).

The kids gathered around Grandma as she played the violin.

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a very quiet & peaceful holiday at home. It was the smallest ever, except when we were on our honeymoon. Grandma spent the day with us - we had a big meal, and packed up 8 meals for Grandma to bring home. Grandma played Monopoly with us for 2.5 hours! Later that night we decorated the Christmas tree (helps to have a motivated & capable 9 year old son!)

Fall Break 2008

We had a fun fall break this year. We stayed in town because we had 2 football games, football practice, and our end-of-season football party. It was still an action packed week. Besides all the football, we enjoyed:
- museum outing with grandparents, great aunt, great-grandma
- mall outing & lunch with great grandma, grandma, great aunt & uncle, cousins, aunt, uncle
- fun block party & trick-or-treating - sleeping in!

Houston Trip

We really enjoyed our trip to Houston in October - to meet my cute new nephew! We enjoyed a trip to NASA while we were there, playing with the baby, visiting with family, and playing our favorite game, Settlers of Catan!

Cheerleader & football player

We had a special cheerleader at Andrew's football game yesterday. Isn't she cute? Cute Mom too! Andrew loved having his family at the game. Go team!

Love my new Wii Fit

For 4.5 months, I have been trying to find a Wii Fit. They have been impossible to get. But I finally found one!!!

At 8:30 p.m. tonight, Andrew got it out of the box & hooked up, and made us start. It is fantastic!

Stand on the balance board, and it knows your weight, BMI, and "real" age (based on your balance, strength, ...). My real age is the same as my actual age - so that is GOOD news for me!!! Unfortunately for Andrew, his real age is 33, not 9. So the Wii Fit exercises will be great for him as well.

The Wii Fit works on your balance, strength posture. It shows you where you are now, and then through exercises, helps you improve. There are many different exercises, in the categories of: yoga, balance, strength training, & aerobic. It tracks your progress over time.

Tonight I tried every single exercise that was unlocked. And I did 61 minutes of actual exercise (the time between exercises does not count). I had my Bodybugg on (tracks calories) - and I burned between 5-12 calories per minutes. The most was on running. Yes - I ran, at least in place.

Here is more info on the Wii Fit.
http://www.nintendo.com/wiifit

Andrew was mad that he had to go to bed. But I wasn't going to bed until I had 60 minutes of exercise!

This picture is obviously not me. It shows the hula hoop aerobic exercise. I was pretty good at it. Boy, does it BURN the upper thighs. Ouch! Same burn as my Tahitian dance class last year.

Great investment!

The boy cousins at the family birthday party tonight - celebrating Grandma & David's birthdays.

Cousins at birthday party

John and Tanja had the family over to celebrate Alex's 6th birthday. The cousins had a fun time playing together. Alex is a good looking pirate!

Zoo Outing

We had a warm day AND a day off of school, so we headed to the zoo with Grandma, auntie & cousins. It was a great day!

Beads!!!

I am not a crafty or artistic person, but I sure had fun this weekend with beads! In March, we celebrated my Grandma's 90th birthday at YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado - including an outing to the Craft and Design Center at YMCA. I went to the Design Center to fulfill my babysitting slot, but while I was there, the jewelry section staff member kept encouraging me to come back & make something. I resisted for a while, but finally gave in. Wow, was it fun!

This picture is of the necklaces I made in March. The hot pink/black one on the left is my favorite - everytime I wear it, people literally stop me to compliment the necklace. It is fun!

So this weekend went tried out the other YMCA of the Rockies, at Snow Mountain Ranch. The weekend was fabulous, we had a wonderful time, there is so much to do there (see below post) - a very special weekend. I spent a few hours at their Craft Shop, which was fine, but I was missing the Estes Park location. So I talked my husband into going home by way of the YMCA at Estes Park. I took the necklaces that I started at Snow Mountain Ranch, and finished those, plus made a few more, at the Estes Park YMCA.

If you are looking for a fun weekend of jewerly making & crafts, I highly recommend the YMCA of the Rockies at Estes Park. Their selection of beads is amazing, the prices seem reasonable, and the staff are very attentive and helpful.

More beads!

Here are pictures are the necklaces I made this weekend.