Nikki

A few of our gifts being cherished

Christmas activities

Finishing up puzzle number one (of four)
There was ALWAYS a game of Ticket To Ride going on somewhere, day or night
Group shot before saying goodbyes
Goodbye hugs Saturday morning, just before the house got very quiet and empty.

Christmas Day ride

Some Christmas Day photos

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Jordan and Oma are almost done with this 500 piece puzzle -- and it's only the first day!
On a blustery walk, calling the runaway dog.
The runaway dog.
This could be your next Christmas gift being knit...

Jordan's school party

A few photos from Jordan's school Christmas party, where they all got "tickets" on the Polar Express, with delicious things to eat and drink along the way...

More Jordan photography

Family photography by Jordan

Take a peak into our house

Healthy eating

One of Claudia's recent creations

More Christmas decorations

We're just finishing up the Narnia series with Jordan, who's 7 years old, and found this ornament given to me when I was 7 also! It's the castle of Cair Paravel. Did we just get read the story at that age too?

Christmas decorations

A few decorations from our tree

Jordan's best day of horse back riding :).

Dressing the tree

Morning read

Jordan loves being read to, but strongly dislikes having to read himself. He can read quite well, but hits a mental block after about three sentences when he'll complain that it's just too hard. But this morning instead of coming to our room as usual to make sure he wasn't the only one awake, he let us sleep in. When I came down at 7:30 to see why the house was so quiet, I found him curled up on the couch reading through this book that Mom and Dad made for him last Christmas, diligently moving his finger down line by line as he read, and laughing at the pictures. It's a big step for our little boy! :-)

Perhaps even more impressive for Mom and Dad is to see who the competition is, that this book got selected over!

Middleburg Fox Hunt

Today was the annual Christmas in Middleburg celebration, starting off with the Middleburg Fox Hunt parading down main street.

Busy Beaver

This beaver dam appeared over the course of a couple weeks, at the exact same place on "Cockerill's Creek" where the kids and I have built stone dams the past several summers. The beaver dam is twice as high and a whole lot stronger than anything we ever built! It'll make a nice skating rink when it freezes over this winter.