All Those Little Moments . . .: January 2017

Wrapping up 2016

The rest of the week after Christmas was full of relaxing, fun in the snow, cheering our favorite university, and visiting family.

The day after Christmas, Kelly started up the snowmobile (brought from the Stanley house) and took the kids for some rides; on the machine as well as on the sled.

It was a freezing cold day, but the bright sun helped make it feel a little warmer.

There is a field just up from our house that made the perfect place to make a little track for rides with dad.

Marlee had fun chasing Kelly and the kids around, until she pooped out.

views of the valley

When the Broncos come to town it just wouldn't be right for us to not go and cheer them on. We may have been one of only a few Bronco fans, but we had a blast and made ourselves known by cheering on our team.

It was close most of the game and of course we were please with the Broncos coming out with the win.

Ellie had fun watching the game but was quite concerned about the Aggie fans who were not so excited about the Broncos. She didn't like that the crowd would boo the broncos and try to distract them from their free throw shots.

At the end of the week we headed to Boise where we stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Krohn, got to hang out with the Ramseys, see Aunt Patricia, Shauntay and their little kids, and also visit with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Larson.

Kelly and I ended the year right with a great run on the Boise Greenbelt. Even snow covered and freezing cold, it is always a treat to get to run here.

I <3 boise="" p="">

Christmas 2016

We love to spread holiday cheer throughout the month. We didn't follow it daily, but I loved the #lighttheworld calendar that the church put out for this Christmas season. Keeping the holiday centered around Jesus Christ is always a goal of ours.

A tradition we started several years ago with our kids is a 12 day count down to Christmas where we do some kind of family activity or sometimes we give the kids a little gift.

One of our family activities included looking at Christmas lights around the valley and drinking hot cocoa. This year we tried a new little food truck called Mugg which serves cocoa and donuts. It was freezing that evening so I only snapped a pic of Kelly waiting for our drinks.

Most of the things we do for the 12 days we do every year. One of those includes visiting Temple Square to view those lights. This year we learned about an additional place to visit on that same evening at the Grand America Hotel. They have a display of 12 windows from different countries where visitors and go window to window and try to guess the country.

In the middle of the window tour was a a giant gingerbread house. So Impressive. It's made entirely of food and candy items.

The clues on the card made it pretty easy to guess the countries, but the kids still had a great time looking at them all.

Afterward we made it to Temple Square to view the lights. When we got into town the roads were packed and at a stand still for parking so we didn't go to the temple until later. By that time we were all freezing cold and tired so we didn't stay too long.

Another repeat 12 days activity is decorating sugar cookies, to eat and for our Christmas Eve visitor.

Ethan's favorite design

Yum Yum. Usually we bake the cookies and decorate, this year we got a kit with pre-made cookies from a local baker who made some super soft, amazing sugar cookies and only decorated.

Of course, Christmas Eve is always new pj's for the kids.

Christmas Morning, the kids found their stockings and the new light sabers that Santa left so they kept themselves occupied until we finally got out of bed.

Marlee (yep, she's still here) was happy with her gift.

I loved having church on Christmas day (it helped that it was shortened to an hour). After all the whole reason for the season is Jesus Christ and so the Christmas sacrament service was just the right touch for making it a beautiful day.

With such a dry December to start with we were so grateful to wake up to a white Christmas.

I'm sure I say this every year, but this was a truly perfect Christmas. It was just our little party of 4 +1, here in our little snowy home, happy, healthy, and full of love.

Merry Christmas run & brunch

This is our family blog, but I just have to include my running adventures and friends. One, my running friends are part of my family. Two, I hope as my kids look back on these they are encouraged to find great friends, make time for the things they love, and to lead active lifestyles.