December, Already!?

To think that we're almost halfway through December is mind-boggling to me.  That means Christmas is about 10 days away!  Yikes!  We have had holiday activities galore these past couple of weeks.

This is Abigail's idea of playing with Dad.

We had a couple weeks of glorious weather--in the 50's!

This has been Abigail's favorite activity in the kitchen--building towers.

Sarah, testing out Abigail's sleeping bag she is getting for Christmas

finding the perfect Christmas tree

fun with boxes

Precious!

 One night, we went to our friends' house to decorate cookies.

Katharine is one of Emma's very good friends.

This past Thursday was the girls' holiday party.  Since the child care center is in the high school, the party was held in the high school cafeteria.

licking the frosting off of her gingerbread cookie

only 19 months olds and already roaming the halls of the high school

This is pretty typical on the weekends.

Emma and I went to a friend's white elephant party one night.  They even had a kids white elephant exchange, but it turned out that each little one just picked a gift.

We finally got a couple of inches of snow!!  What better way to celebrate than by going for a family hike!

I guess her 5:40 a.m. wake-up caught up with her on the way home.

Thanksgiving Vacation Fun!

Andy and I are very fortunate to both be able to spend our vacations with the girls.  Exhausting-yes, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Wednesday:  Family ski day at Park City Mountain Resort (Okay, let's get real here.  It was more like a couple of hours.  Not bad for our first day.)

Andy and I took turns skiing with Emma while the other stayed with Abigail at the bottom.

Emma and her friend, Henry, chattin' it up in the PCMR parking lot after skiing.

Thursday:  Andy and Emma went back to PCMR to do a little more skiing.  Later that afternoon, we went to Jim and Robin's for our Thanksgiving feast.

 This was the best we could do for this picture...

Friday:  We watch Ben's dog, Sarah, while he is up at work on the North Slope.  While it is a little weird having Sarah without Cooper here, it sure is nice to have that doggy companionship back.  Sarah is still quite active, so we make sure to get out on walks when we can.  

This is how Emma likes to roll on walks around the neighborhood.

  

Saturday:  We went for a little hike, followed by the lighting of the Christmas lights and electric parade on Main Street.

Sunday:  Enjoy our last vacation day before it's back to reality tomorrow.

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The One and Only Cooper

I knew this day would come.  I just didn't think it would come so soon.  Andy and I had talked about when we would know it were the right time to put Cooper at peace.  Last night, November 10, 2014, we had to say good-bye to our companion and side-kick, Cooper.  Cooper was full of spunk and always ready for the next adventure.  He never wanted to be left behind, especially when his back left knee got worse and worse.  He put on hundreds of miles, from the mountains of Alaska to the desert of southern Utah.

This past weekend, Andy and Emma went on a daddy/daughter camping trip down by Moab (pics to come).  Abby, Cooper, and I stayed home and had some bonding time.  I could tell that something was different about Cooper.  He hardly ate, didn't want to go outside much, and stayed right next to us a lot.  At first, I thought that maybe he would bite Abigail (since he was a tad grumpy in his old age), so I was pretty cautious about his proximity.  Andy and Emma got home on Monday at about 5:45 p.m.  At about 7:15 p.m. we were standing in the kitchen talking about their camping excursion.  Cooper got a drink of water and then it all happened.  His backside fell into his water bowl and he had a seizure.  It lasted about 20-30 seconds.  Andy and I were both in shock for the first few seconds.  I got the girls out of the kitchen, gathered some towels, and waited.  After the seizure, Cooper seemed to lose movement.  He tried to get up but just couldn't.  It was a matter of comforting him at that point.  Andy called the vet and let him know he would be bringing him in.  Hearing Andy say that he would be leaving him there was when I really lost it.  It all seemed to be happening so fast.  I put Abby to bed and then helped wrap Cooper in a blanket to get him up to the car.  At the vet, they took Cooper into a very nice room, with a fireplace, leather couch, and dog bed.  Cooper was at peace.  He did not put up a struggle.  Andy stayed for the first shot, which put Cooper into a sleep.  It was after Andy left that the vet gave him the second shot.  Cooper is not in any pain anymore and can romp through snow just like the good ol' days.   We love you, buddy!

Halloween 2014

We had a spooktacular Halloween this year.  Andy's sister, Whitney, was in town so it was fun for the girls to celebrate with their Auntie Whit.

The daycare came to our school for our Halloween parade.

The Man in the Yellow Hat and Curious George

Our 2nd grade team has a "superhero" theme this year so we all dressed up at superheroes (not any one superhero, in particular)

trick-or-treating at Papa's house