Dawson's new friend!

Dawson has always had a fascination with turtles. After having the baby snapper here for a few days he really wanted a turtle he could keep of his own. He was trying very hard to save up enough money to by one, but I knew that would take a long time. So yes we added another little critter to our family of pets! It worked out perfectly. Two days before Christmas while Dawson and Kortney were at Sara and Shayna's house I took the other two kids with me to pick out a turtle. We then came home, set up the aquarium in the basement all without Dawson knowing! Then Christmas Eve once everyone was asleep, Dan and I moved the turtle to the living room for Dawson to find in the morning! He was very happy and surprised!! Here are some pics of him and Flash!

Christmas upnorth

Every year we are blessed with nice weather to travel to LionsHead. We are also lucky to be able to stay for a few days to visit with family. Here are just a few pics of another wonderful Christmas!

The girls and Great Grandma.

Kaitlin and Dan

Travis and Dan

Playing with dominoes

Little Miss knocking them down!

G&G B playing Blokus

The VERY long game on Nintendo Monopoly!!

One of many

Today was our first family Christmas of the season. The kids were very excited to be celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa H in their new house!

Mackenzie

Ty and Wyatt

Kortney and Kevin

Kevin and his favourite gift....a wooden calf to practice his roping!

Kortney and Alex riding the calf!

Travis with his gift card which was hidden in a baby book! Took him a while to figure out why he was given a itsy bitsy spider book from Sandra and the boys!

Travis, Chris, David and Dawson. The big boys!

My little angel!

Ty and own stick horse!

Kaitlin

Dawson who LOVED his new broomball gloves and football!

Our great idea!

This past fall the store flyers we receive in the mail changed from coming in a plastic bag to being bundled up in paper. A change for the environment I guess, but I saw it as large blank paper coming to our door every week - perfect since the kids go through paper like crazy with all their drawing. I started saving this wonderful paper in a drawer. After Christmas shopping one day and coming home to wrap, it dawned on me that this paper would make great gift wrap! I had seen before the idea of making your own gift wrap, but never searched out where to buy the rolls of paper I would need. But now, these perfect sized sheets of blank paper were being delivered to us!! So out with the box of Christmas stamps and it didn't take long for the kids decorate all the paper we had been collecting. When it came time to wrap presents it was great and the kids were proud of the work they had done and their contribution to every present!