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<\/a>\nThis year it was my family’s turn to have us home for Christmas. My parents had TONS of snow at their house all the way up until the weekend we arrived. Then it rained. And rained and rained and rained. My dad planned ahead though and shoveled a huge pile of the white stuff so that it would hopefully stick around long enough until we arrived. And it did!<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nSilas played in it for at least an hour<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nEmbarking upon the first of many batches of Christmas cookie batter. Silas was most excited about this one in particular (gingerbread, because he could eat it!)<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nThere’s never too many cooks in this kitchen. Myself and Silas baking with his Aunt Katie, Richard and cousins Jacob and Carley as my mom ducks about making dinner for 12 while Ivan sneaks raisins and finds pots to bang from the cupboards<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nConcentrated bakers, Jacob, Silas and Carley<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nWe made gingerbread bears in addition the gingerbread men this year. This bear apparently got hungry in the oven<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nStorytime with grandma<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nuntil the boys decided to tackle her<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nThe cold temps and snow returned Christmas Eve!<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nA bundled Paul<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nGoing for a walk down the driveway<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nRichard and my sister Katie on Christmas Eve<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nMy brother Joel arrived later that day with his kids Lily and Sawyer. Here the cousins are going wild on the climbing wall in the basement<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nGrandma reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas before bed<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nChristmas morning! Sawyer, Silas and Lily<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nHazel and Paul<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nAn excited Silas<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nLily and her daddy, my brother Joel<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nSawyer playing Santa<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nIvan with a new heliopter<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nJoel with his cute kiddos, Sawyer and Lily<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nPlaying with a new gift, this neat gears construction set from Grandma and Papa<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nIvan and Silas looking really really happy (because after about 10 unsuccessful photos where Silas was pouting and Ivan was sticking his finger in his eye we finally resorted to tickling them)<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nQuick, snap the family photo now!<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nMy dad and mom (aka Papa and Grandma)<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nCutie cousin Jeremy<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nA happy Ivan with his typical drool-soaked shirt<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nThe snow continues to fall until there’s enough for a ski adventure!<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nSilas’ first time on skis. By the third run down the driveway he was on his own and loving it!<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nIvan on the other hand wanted nothing to do with the skis, or the boots for that matter. Watching his cousins and knocking snow off the pine branches was enough to quickly cheer him back up though<\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a>\nWarming up with some of grandma’s homemade soup after skiing and sledding. Silas, Carley, Lily and Jacob<\/center><\/p>\n
posted by arr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year it was my family’s turn to have us home for Christmas. My parents had TONS of snow at their house all the way up until the weekend we arrived. Then it rained. And rained and rained and rained. My dad planned ahead though and shoveled a huge pile of the white stuff so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apadventures.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}