Christmas at the Gundersen's

I am not a writer.  I much prefer to tell my story in pictures.  So get ready for a whole lot of them!

The Nativity- Christmas Eve

Starring:

Cooper-Joseph

Maddy-Mary

Carter-"little" baby Jesus

Jade-Shepherd 

Grandpa-Narrator

Tender Mom & Cooper moment 

Playing in the snow

Sledding in Leavenworth

Christmas Eve Sledding

 Carter's first attempt at skis

 

Christmas Morning

Favorite Gifts

Louis (Princess & the Frog) and Nemo

The reaction we got after his favorite gift.

Cooper: Mom, who got this for me?

Mom:  Daddy and I did.

Cooper:  From where?

Mom:  The disney store

Cooper: (pause, insert the most sincere voice you've ever heard) Thank you Mom! (insert hug)

  No prompting needed, I about cried!  That was my favorite Christmas gift.

Nephew Crew; Presents from my parent's Israel trip

 Our present to Dad, a night in Cougar Town.

As with any Gundersen family reunion, it was packed full of fun things, some of which I did not get on camera.  Just to name a few; volleyball, tennis social, snow sculpture, snow walks, movies, singing to old folks, gingerbread houses, skiing, etc.  There is no such thing as downtime in the Gundersen household...unless you schedule it in.  I wouldn't like it any other way.

Merry Christmas from the Popes

Tree

So we got our tree a while ago, just haven't gotten around to posting it.  Here we are, in front of our "perfect for us" tree.

Cooper was ever so excited to decorate it.  He was so good at it too!  

Super careful and very aware of placement.  

After all that decorating, we sat down for some hot chocolate together.  

I love my big boy!

Happy Christmas!

Santa vs The Grinch

So the boys had no problems sitting on Santa's lap this year.  Kinda makes for a boring photo without the screaming child.  But I do like Carter's Shrek face.  He's just trying to show his toothy smile!

On the other hand, Caleb's boss showed up as the Grinch at his work party and don't let this picture fool you because Coop broke down in sobs when he saw him and Carter stayed attached to my chest the entire night. (Thank you Grinch!  It made for a much easier night not having to chase down my 1 year old)  With a little explaining and some coaxing, Coop decided he was a nice Grinch and was ok for the rest of the night.  Carter was still leery even after the Grinch gave him some candy.  I was too...I mean look at his eyes...bright green!  Little freaky!  (Oh and little Cindy loo-hoo is his daughter in front)

We had fun the remainder of the night eating, stealing Toy Story 3, and ice skating.  

Fun, fun!

Jingle Bells

This boy loves the microphone!

Family Ski Day

 We bought passes at Sundance this year and today was our first ski day altogether.  It was so fun for me to see Coop skiing since usually he goes with Daddy and I stay home.  Carter enjoyed going "fast" on Daddy's back.  We just went up for a couple hours and it was perfect!  Amazing that it only took us 20 minutes to get there too!

And here's a little video of our big guy skiing.  Caleb's got a harness on him just in case he gets going too fast but he can turn and stop on his own now.  I love seeing it!