Christmas 2008

Christmas was spent this year at my parents house in Pagosa Springs, CO. Their house is almost all complete now and it is soooo nice. My mom and dad have worked so hard and have done such an awesome job. It is especially nice to have our own rooms when we stay there and my kids love every bit of it. (In fact, Caiden hides from us every time it is time to go back home). They got a TON of snow while we were there. It dumped almost everyday. It was very pretty. We definitely felt like we were in a winter wonderland....

The first morning we woke up to a herd of elk surrounding the house. (I technically did not see them because I was still asleep, even though my dad tried to wake me. So whoever took pictures with my camera, thanks!)


Caiden and Paige had a lot of fun playing with their cousins....

Caiden LOVED hanging out with his cousin Tanner. He definitely was his little tag along all week long. (Let's just say it's a good thing Tanner is so nice and patient. Caiden never gets tired of playing). They had fun eating ice cicles and playing in the snow....but it was pretty deep.

Casey even got to ride a little bit on Rodney's snowmobiles. The snow was so deep that he kept getting stuck....

All the kids (and me and Jessica) made gingerbread houses. Paige especially loved the finished product. I often found her next to the houses trying to break all the candy off and eat it.

On Christmas Eve, everyone helped make cookies for Santa....YUM!

....and carrots for the reindeers....

Then, as tradition goes, we all got together and read "The Night Before Christmas" (original version) and Kim read "The CAJUN Night Before Christmas" too. And Grandpa read to the kids the story of the birth of Jesus from the Bible....

It is also tradition that everyone open one present on Christmas Eve (which is always pajamas) and if we're all together that year then we get matching pajamas (well, just the girls). If you haven't notice, our traditions are serious business!

Instead of pajamas for the guys, they got T-shirts....Papa looks like he's been drinking some spiked egg nog....

Merry Christmas!

One of Caiden's favorite gifts - the Black Spiderman costume. I think I've mentioned before how Caiden loves to pretend he is superhero of some sort. At the moment, it's spiderman. Now he can be the red and the black one....

Paige got a purse with pretend make-up that she loves. She is always trying to get into my make-up. If she only knows that some day she will hate having to put in on everyday...

My sister and I made a scrapbook of the construction of my parents home. We secretly stole all their pictures and had some of our own. This is a major accomplishment for my dad. He has always dreamed of building his DREAM home and he did it! Literally, he and my mom nearly built this home by themselves. It is amazing! We felt after years of dreaming about it and then making it a reality, it needed to be documented...

Santa was good to Paige and Caiden this year!

Then we got back to Washington and had Christmas all over again with Grandma and Grandpa Gubler....Grandma Gubler was very excited to give Paige her first doll house and it was a big hit. She loves it! Caiden and Paige are lucky to have such good grandparents.....

Family Pictures

In an attempt to get a cute family picture to send out with my Christmas cards, I asked my friend Jami if she would take some pictures of us with her fancy camera. (Thanks Jami!) Here are some of them.....

Casey turns 30!!

Casey celebrated his 30th birthday on the 22nd. We were in Colorado at my parents house for the holidays. He, of course, spent the day snowboarding (which is a tradition every year for him) with my brother at Wolf Creek. I did not go with him because 1) I can't keep up with him on his snowboard or my brother at all and 2) it was BITTER cold. So while he was gone we wrapped presents, bought a cake, and Caiden, Paige, Tanner, Maddie, and Lauren made "Happy Birthday" signs to put around the house....

(Isn't it amazing that after 30 years of life he still can't manage to keep his eyes open in a picture? I love ya, babe, but seriously, open your eyes!)

He had lots of help blowing out the candles....

I tried to get a shot of my magnificent wrapping job. It's about 3 different patterns of wrapping paper. That's when you know you got a good present!

Happy Snowboarding! (thanks Becky!) Well, I was a bit of a dummy and didn't realize that bindings for a snowboard can be screwed right on, instead of being mounted like skis. So I didn't bother to give him the board early since I figured he would have to take it to a shop anyway. When he opened it and I saw otherwise, I felt bad that he snowboarded all day on his old beat up snowboard. Whoops! Sorry! At least he has a whole season left....

Here are the kids coloring the "Happy Birthday" posters....what artwork!

Happy Hearts Christmas Program

I'm a little behind in posting this (December was a busy month...Christmas pictures will be coming). This is Caiden at his preschool's Christmas program. All the kids sang songs to us and it was soooo cute. Caiden was very happy to see mom and dad and Grandma Gubler out in the audience watching him. He kept doing little waves to us. It was very cute. These pictures aren't the best quality. I hate the camera I currently have. I can't wait till I drop this one so I can get a new one (yes...it happens ever year).

After the program, there were lots of cookies to eat. I think that may have been his favorite part.

Vegas, baby!!

A few months ago, at one of Casey's work meetings, there was a raffle for a free 5 day trip to Las Vegas, and guess who got to go?? Yup! We were so very excited and had been looking forward to this every day since. We were also SO excited to take our first trip without the kids. (Not that we don't love our beautiful children, but sometimes you just need a break, ya know?) We stayed at the Treasure Island. Neither Casey or I had ever been to Vegas, (although I've driven through it a million times) so everything was new to us. I was thrilled to not have to cook the whole week and eat out every meal. I love eating out!! And we ate some good food! I came back feeling very fat. Although, I don't think I've ever walked as much as we did each day. So much to do! So many people told us of things to see and do there, but even with 5 days, we still didn't have time for it all. I captured some pictures of the things we did get to do and see.

This is right outside our hotel in front of the Treasure Island pirate boat. Each night they had a show out here. I hear it used to be all pirates (which makes sense because it is a pirate boat, right?) but now it is just a bunch of half-naked girls running around trying to be funny. However, they drew quite a crowd. I can't imagine why..... There was a show put on by the Cirque du Soliel (I think I spelled that right) "Mystere" at our hotel that we went to see the first night. It was amazing! The dancers did every kind of acrobatic thing you could think of. Much of the show was high up in the air, where they flipped and jumped from person to person. It was unbelievable.Almost everyone we spoke to mentioned the "dancing water" show at the Bellagio, and let me say, it is so cool!! I loved watching it. It was even prettier at night. It's amazing how high they can get the water to shoot. It was higher than the Bellagio.

This is right outside the Luxor hotel (the one shaped like a pyramid). We saw a Criss Angel show here. Anyone who's ever seen him on TV knows he a pretty unbelieveable magician, so we were really looking forward to it. Unfortunately we did not know it wasn't a magic show. It was more a look into "his twisted mind" (that was literally the description of it). And let me say, he has a very "twisted" mind. I think there was a story line to it. I'm not sure what it was, though. I think only those high on drugs could follow it. It was very dark and pretty disturbing at some parts. I know I wasn't the only one who thought so. I looked around at all the people and everyone had a look on their face like "what the @#$% is this??" So that was a bummer...

At the MGM Grand, there is a lion exhibit. That was fun to see. I sent a picture of it on my phone to Caiden and now he thinks I've seen the REAL Lion King. Yes, I'm very cool. There is a tunnel where the top is glass and at one point both the male and female lion were sitting on the top. That was pretty fun to see. One of them was chewing on a bone and man, their teeth are HUGE!

This is at the top of the Stratosphere, which was also very fun. We weren't brave enough at the time to ride the rides on the top and now I totally regret it. (I don't think Casey does. Heights are not his friend.) But I want to go back someday and ride it. The tallest point of one of the rides puts you 1150 feet from the ground. FUN!...and maybe a little scary too. It was just as enjoyable to watch the people on the rides completely freak out.

This is a picture of me with one of the dancers from STOMP OUT LOUD, (another show we saw) at the Planet Hollywood. This was my favorite thing in Vegas by far! They were so fun and entertaining, and pretty funny too. There is no music at all in the show. They create their own music by banging around on all different kinds of objects (like garbage can lids and plastic bags and brooms) and dancing to it. It was so cool! I will never sweep my floors or take out the trash the same way again...

At the Mandalay Bay, there is an Aquarium and I touched the sting rays! Very slimy. This is one where I wished my kids had been with me. Caiden and Paige would have loved it.

And, of course, how can you go to Vegas without a little bit of gambling? Just a little. Our hotel gave us $20 to start out with and I must say it is very fun to gamble with someone else's money, rather than your own. But Casey got lucky right away and won about 80 bucks. I got a little here and there. We ended up walking away when we got down to 50 bucks. We were having so much fun and it was so easy to say, "Okay, just 5 more dollars, just 5 more." I definitely can see how people lose TONS of money when they go to Vegas. But not us! We came home $50 richer. Ha!Ha!Ha!

A Happy Thanksgiving...

We had a very happy Thanksgiving this year. We spent the holiday with Casey's family and dinner was DELICIOUS as it always is. It was fun to visit with Casey's grandparents who we haven't seen for a while. Before dinner, Papa Gubler had put together a Treasure Hunt for the kids. (Caiden had been looking forward to this for weeks!) He hid clues all over outside and Caiden and his cousin, Keenen, ran from place to place to get the next clue. Paige tried real hard to keep up. It was pretty cold outside (and since I HATE being cold, I only got a few pictures of them running around before I went running back inside).

The last clue led to a "treasure" buried under ground. The boys were supposed to do the digging but I think Papa ended up doing most of it.

And sure enough there was gold and silver coins deep in the earth. Well, ok, it was gold and silver chocolate money, but isn't that the best kind of money?

Not only did they score with some chocolate money, but a cool toy for each! A transformer (of course) for Caiden, and a Dora toy with a pony for Paige. All-in-all a very happy Thanksgiving indeed.