Christmas

I finally get to my Christmas pictures here, yeah! Sorry for my late updates, I just don't have the energy to get to my computer where all the pictures are stored on. I thought I had more time doing PC work during the kids' winter break but somehow these 2 weeks just flew by!

Anyway, Santa Claus deposited all his gifts at the fire place for the kids on Christmas Day. Olivia was happy to receive 3 more unicorn ponies for her family.

and she got a nice feathery dress up hat that she wanted so bad and never wore it since this picture was taken ... :-(

..but she got a cute beanie hat that has two openings in the back for her piggy tails. Olivia absolutely loves this hat! (yeah!). And she got a round scarf neck thing that she loves, too. Finally a 'scarf' that stays put!

Jonah got a light saber sword (or something) . It lights up and makes noises and of course a week later it is broken already :-(

And there were more presents from us under the tree

We celebrated Christmas Day at our house with the entire Gates clan. All together we were 17 people and we had 6 dogs. Thanks to a spacious house it never felt crowded. Everybody pitched in with food so we could eat from 11 in the morning to 8:30 pm when everybody left.

John, Chris' Dad, got this flying shark (sky swimmers). It is really amazing and is definitely fun to fly around. It can go up and down and right and left. You hold the remote in your hands and wiggle the tail fin to make it move forward, under the chin is a device that moves either between the flippers to make the shark lift up (forward) or it moves towards the mouth, makes it top-heavy and therefore let the shark swim down (backward on the remote). It is super quiet and it really looks like it is swimming through the air. For $40 a quite amazing toy!

At the bottom I have a video of the shark swimming through the house....

GreatGreat Gram (who is now 102.5 years old) was quite amazed to be able to skype with her daughter Deanna in New Jersey and see her grand and great grand kids over the computer. I honestly don't know if she really 'got it' that the PC was real life broadcasting but everyone thought it was a great idea to wish extended family a Merry Christmas!

Here's the shark swimming video.

Sledding!

Today it was such a great day, warm and sunny, to go sledding behind our house on the little but safer, hill.

Here are a couple of videos of the crazy kids...

...and again

We got pretty good snow again in the past 2 days. It is more than a foot high! Nevertheless the kids do have fun in it!

Christmas Decoration

We decorated our house about 2 weeks ago and finally I remember to load pictures up for you!

Our dining table in the front room

I needed to move one leaning bookshelf away from behind the Christmas tree due to space and i put it next to the dining table (see picture above). Olivia helped me to decorate the tree while the boys got some coffee and hot chocolate from Starbucks.

Next to the door we have a small lit-up tree, too.

These two faux plants hide all the cables from the fishtank and I just put red lights on top of their leaves.

The mantel and the entire shebang. Finally my stockings can be held up by the holders I have since 8 years but the mantels never were the shape that was needed for them!

The garland on the steps to the upstairs bedrooms.

Some close-up pictures of the tree. When I came to America I really disliked the tacky trees full of 'toys' instead of just lights and normal, old-fashioned round ornaments. But now I came to like this 'toy' style since every special ornament has a meaning and you get already your kids some ornaments so when they move out, they already have some ornaments to hang on their tree in their house! And it makes your tree so much more personal than just normal old-fashioned glitter.

The tree in the dark

The fireplace all lit up

Olivia our artist

Olivia drew these amazing pictures in art class in the last weeks. Finally she brought them home and both Chris and I are really impressed with what they do in school and how good Olivia seems to be in art! We should enroll her in an artsy afternoon activity I think!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving got celebrated at Chris' parents house. We had tons to eat and drink, the kids at fun playing, we adults were just chatting, it was a great day!

Olivia and Jonah started out being dressed up but since it was a pretty warm day I packed play clothes...just in case!

Yep, that's why I packed play clothes...the kids played in the back yard good and bad guys. I don't know what Jonah resembles for a goofball kid....

And a family picture of all of us!

A coyote in the back yard

Finally my first encounter with the wild life here in Parker. Neighbors told me that there are coyotes around but I have never seen one, even not during walks at dawn. And now, at 4 in the afternoon, there it was....a tiny youngster, trying to get a German Shepard to play with him!

The lady who owns Digo (the dog) always has him run free but he is very obedient and she let him chase the coyote away. The coyote ran off but immediately came back in a very submissive manner...crazy! And this happened right outside my house, Tobi got bezerk at the window!

The reiling down at the bottom of the picture is our deck and the fence at the top of the picture is the street behind us. The coyote was really here, where the kids go sledding in the winter!

Finally!

After a wiggly waggly tooth for weeks, Olivia lost it finally at school today! She got a little tooth carrying case where she put the tooth in. She's soo happy to finally lost it! There is a little bloody hole where the tooth was but she said it only hurt a teeny tiny bit when she pulled on it.

More Frisby pictures

I neglected my blog for a while...so much going on and of course I hit a big birthday, my brain starts to shrink with proceeding age!LOL

Here are some pictures I got from Lisa, the new owner of Frisby.

The day after the snow hit us for the second time this winter

Frisby and me

I finally downloaded the pictures of the phone and can show you some pictures of me riding Frisby:

Fall

Some nice fall pictures, I am posting them LATE!

..and Popcorn in action!