Our Vermont Christmas

We love where we live now, but sometimes it can get a little lonely.  The only thing that would make it perfect is if our family lived nearby.  1500 miles is a very long way away & it makes visits few & far between.  But thankfully, Mathew's brother Martin & his family were able to come this Christmas!  We stayed with them when we visited in St. Louis this summer, & it was our turn to reciprocate.  They'd never been to Vermont before!  So for ten days our two families got to spend time together.  It went by so fast I can't believe they're gone already! :( 
The bummer part was we had some very unusual weather for Vermont this time of year.  It rained for the first three or four days!!  Put a bit of a damper on a few of our plans.  But we made the most of it & I hope we were able to show them a good time.  Here are a few highlights of the trip!

First day, the kids had their Christmas concert at school.  It was nice to get to share that with family for once!  Even in Kansas I don't think we got to share those experiences with many family members.  This time though, not only did Martin & Sarah & the girls get to come, but PaPa got to watch live on the web too!!  Too cool!  I heart technology.  ;)

Natalie wasn't a huge fan of being on stage.  She was a cute little drummer boy anyway!

A classmate of the boys made up a play about kindness & the Christmas spirit.  Too cute!

My handsome guys.  Who forgot to bring a change of shoes...  Doh!

Once we were able to venture out, we took them on a couple of tours of local businesses.  First we took them to tour Cabot Cheese.  If you haven't tried Cabot cheddar... oh holy cow you're missing out.  Best.  Stuff.  Ever. 

Next, we had to take them on a tour of Ben & Jerry's.  You just can't come to Vermont & not see Ben & Jerry's!  (And it never gets old for us either. ;) lol) 

Silly girls!

There's just something extra precious about a picture of a kid & an ice cream cone.  Too cute!

Yummy!

Five happy kids with ice cream faces :)

A quick twirling interlude...

On Christmas Eve I finally had a full morning to bake some Christmas cookies.  It's a tradition I carry on with my kids (though for the moment Natalie's the only one who enjoys it.  I'm hoping the boys will like to help me again before long!).  And I was hoping the girls would like to join me.  Well they put on their new matching aprons & hopped onto a few chairs & were very big helpers!  For one batch.  Then they got bored.  Ahh well, we tried! lol  (Though Natalie hung out with me for a little while & helped for a few others.)

The best part of baking!

TWELVE dozen later & they were totally worth it!  (And yes, 4 out of 5 pictured are gluten free.  You'd never know!  They were a big hit! :))

That evening, we celebrated our Christmas.  I think the kids were pretty happy!

cousins

Martin & Sarah with Isabel & Ariana

Our family! :)

The kids & their loot

Goofy Uncle Martin ;)

Christmas morning, Santa came.  I won't bore you with *more* pictures of kids opening presents, but they were pretty darn happy!  Mark got a new camera, Gavin a new guitar, & Natalie got an American Girl doll!  Santa brought a few things for the girls too, PLUS sent a text to their mommy that he visited their house with the rest of their presents!  They were pretty excited to get home at that point. ;) lol  The rest of the day we celebrated Mathew's birthday.  Yep.  Christmas baby.  Every year I manage to mess up his cake.  Seriously.  Every stinkin year.  I guess it's because I'm so tired from the rest of the goings on with Christmas?  Or the fact that I don't plan well enough to account for closed stores?  Or the fact that I try something new because I don't want to make a cutesy cartoon character like I do for the kids so I end up failing miserably.  Hell I don't know.  Combo of all of the above I guess.  This year I made fondant & tried to play with that.  Ran out of powdered sugar.  So I tried to half it & it ended up too wet to work with properly.  Then I tried to dye it red.  It turned pink!  Then it didn't roll onto the cake quite right due to the lack of sugar, so I tried to cover up the bad spots with polka dots... so it ended up looking like a baby girls horribly done cake.  Awesome.  I nearly cried!  But thankfully my husband loves me anyway & didn't care.  (Or at least he said he didn't!)  Plus side was the chocolate cake with chocolate icing on the inside was pretty darn delicious! ;)

See?  Horrible! lol  This means I need more practice. ;)

 So finally, after Christmas, mother nature decided to snow over Vermont.  Yay!  Play time!  The girls are a little young to take to the mountain & go skiing just yet, so we went sledding instead.  Still super fun!  Plus, the kids had a new sled they needed to break in from Christmas! :)

Mark had the most fun I think!

The new sled was super fast!

This kid had no fear!  She just jumped right in & flew down the hill luge-style! 

Whee!

Mark practicing his mad snowboarding skills

 

Mmm... snow...

That night, we got to have a double date night.  God bless our babysitter who is so incredibly patient.  She agreed to watch all five kids for us so we could get a break.  Yay!!  We went to a really bad movie.  Really bad.  (Seriously, I love Will Ferrell, but Anchorman 2 was awful! lol)  Then we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Junipers.  Martin & Sarah missed out on the incredible view due to the dark, but the food was spectacular as ever.  It was so great to have a few cocktails, a nice dinner, & actually get to visit with each other.

 

Finally, on our last full day together with a new layer of snow on the ground, we were finally able to fulfill our surprise activity for our guests: a sleigh ride!  We won the ride last April at an auction to benefit our kids' school, & we'd been saving it just for their visit.  We were so happy the weather finally cooperated!!  It was a little cold, but such a beautiful day.  The kids looooved it!  It just might become a Christmas tradition for us! :)

 

 

We had such a great visit with our St. Louis family.  Although it was a little crazy having all nine of us in our little house, it was so nice to have them here & we miss them already!