McKenzie's birthday

Happy birthday McKenzie!  

It was a blustery and cold day which meant that our family activity that day was going to be inside.  We decided to go somewhere new and went bowling at Main Event.  It was quite the hang out!  As we bowled we ordered pretzel bites and queso.  McKenzie even ordered a special unicorn birthday drink.  It was pretty sweet and made her smile.

  

McKenzie decided to get creative with her bowling and tried doing cartwheels during her turn.  An employee was so impressed by her creativity that he came up and gave her a $50 game card for the arcade.  Bonus!  

Celebrating great bowls.

The bowling games have certainly evolved over the years.  There was one game we played where, based on the number of pins we knocked down we built a monster.  Some of our monsters looked so incredibly goofy we had to document them.  

Once our time at the lane was done we moved into the arcade.  We burned through that $50 pretty quickly and had fun doing it.  

She ended up with 400 tickets to redeem.  Well, why not use those 400 tickets to buy 40 bouncy balls?  

It was incredible.  We took them home and dropped them all from the second floor to watch them bounce on the wood.  

McKenzie is fairly simple to buy presents for these days, she wants clothes and things that smell good.  She was determined to guess the scent of her new Sol de Janeiro body spray before she even opened it.  She also ended up with a bunch of Lululemon items. 

The boys were in disbelief over her excitement.  "I'm so glad I'm not a girl.  Getting clothes for your birthday is so boring!"  

But for McKenzie it was perfect. 

 She requested a Taylor Swift birthday cake.  Jeremy and I decided to make her a friendship bracelet cake.  

As a bonus, the kids even wore the bracelets long enough to eat the fondant off of them.  

Happy birthday Kenz!

Hammond's Candy Factory

Daxton: It was fun watching them make all the candy.  First I saw the hats and then Kelton wanted to have one, and he put one on me.  

Then the tour was ready.  We went to the candy shoppe and I looked at everything.  We started the tour with a video.  We saw all the candy makers make the candies.  We had to watch them through a big, glass window.  They were making really big lollipops, then cutting them, then spinning them.  Right before the tour ended we got "Oops!" candy canes.  

When the tour finally ended we went into the candy shoppe.  It was hard to decide what candy to get.  I decided to get Pop Rocks and a sour string that was a rainbow.  In the car, Mom gave me a piece of her candy.  She gave it to Kelton first.  We made the same noises when we pulled it out.  It sounded like, "Unnngh!"  We thought it was smooth but it was really weird to eat.  On the drive home I ate my sour string.  Next I ate my Pop Rocks.  It felt like there were firecrackers in my mouth.  Then I poured a lot of it in my mouth and it felt really weird.  It was fun.

Smash it!

The best part about taking down the Christmas decorations is destroying the gingerbread houses!

Daxton: "The first smash was satisfying.  Me and Kelton mashed up the gingerbread house.  When it was all mashed up we put them all into a big pile. Then we kind of, basically, like smashed it.  We kept smashing the big pile more.  Then we got tired of doing it because the crumbs became so small that, basically it was hard to smash.  And I got tired so I went back inside."

 

Zoo Lights

The kids are still on Christmas break which means we still have Christmas activities to do!  Zoo lights!  The last time we went to Zoo Lights was when we first moved here, so the girls were little and the boys weren't even born.  For some reason they were just calling to me this year so I bought tickets and off we went.  As soon as we walked into the zoo I knew we made the right choice.  The lights were magical.  We wandered throughout the zoo not seeing many animals, but seeing a lot of glowing displays and simply enjoying being there.  I made the kids stop about every two minutes for another picture, but I just couldn't help myself.

We were surprised to see an artist carving ice with a chain saw.  That was really cool to watch.  Although I had a hard time connecting the Christmas carols over the loud speakers with the Star Wars in front of us.

They did a good job of making it feel like we were traveling through different areas; tropical, jungle underwater, or Asian.  I loved the lanterns near the elephant exhibit.

(Photo credit of this one goes to Cambrie)

Cambrie was absolutely beyond giddy while in the reptile house.  She stopped at every exhibit to swoon over the snakes, frogs and lizards.  She was so happy that she made other visitors her giddy to be in the reptile house.

McKenzie desperately wanted to see the penguins.  Even though the weather was right, they were all tucked in for the night.  She contented herself with the penguins lights instead.

Warming up in the giraffe house.

The real hippo was sleeping, but this guy was still awake for the evening.

Daxton positively glows in that coat. I'm surprised we could get as much of our faces as we did in this family selfie.  Ultimately we asked another guest to help us out.

I don't know if this will become a yearly tradition, but it was easily one of my favorite family activities we have done over the holidays.  I loved the lights.  I loved the peace and simplicity of it.  I loved being with my perfect little family.

Winter break fun

Winter break came after Christmas, which meant we had to get creative with how we were going to spend all of our family time.  I made a list on a stick-it note of ideas and we went from there.

Pizookies!  My kids hadn't eaten these cookie, ice-cream skillet creations before and their minds were blown.  The boys went back for seconds, which they regretted about an hour later when they had a huge tummy ache.

The boys found the silly straw and got creative with their drinking glasses.

Helping mom frost cookies...and eat the extra frosting.

One of my Christmas gifts from Jeremy was tickets to see Jim Gaffigan down in Denver. It was such a fun date night.

I decided I wanted to learn something new and tried painting on canvas for the first time.  It took me nearly four weeks but I had so much fun and learned quite a bit.  No wonder Cambrie likes this.

Check out another incredible Colorado sunrise.  The moon was still up and framed perfectly in a pink sky.  I will never tire of the sunrises here.

 

New Year's Eve

Every year the Skinners host a New Year's Eve/birthday party for Chuck.  We're typically traveling so don't get to go.  This year we were able to make it.  I didn't think we'd last until midnight but every time I checked in on the kids they were having a blast with their friends, even Cambrie who typically has hated these kinds of parties (thank you Schontzes!).  

Before we knew it, it was 11:00 and we were still going strong.  Chuck pulled out LRC and we got down to the one and most exciting party game of the night.  We had the kids go first, each with a $3 buy in.  

The kids slowly were eliminated, yet Daxton and Kelton were still in the game.  Eventually it came down to just the two of them and they were so excited for each other.  Ultimately Daxton won and the pot in the center was his!  $48 and he's a rich man!  It was so much fun seeing him win and seeing his brother's genuine excitement even though it meant he lost.  

Jeremy and I weren't quite as lucky but that was just fine.  It was a blast.  We all kept visiting and before we knew it, it was five minutes to midnight.  We cheered as the ball dropped then gathered everyone up to head home.  I was as shocked as everyone else that I made it until midnight.  But while the rest of my family seems to have bounced back from the lack of sleep I'm apparently no good at this.  I'm crying over butter, pants, blankets, and books.  I'm hopeless.  So while it was a ton of fun...next time I need to make sure I get to bed by my bed time.