The Holidays 2014, Minnesota Style

This year has been amazing--so happy and so hard, so many changes and so many blessings. As the new year approaches, we like to talk about our "bests and worsts" for the year. Here's our short list for 2014.

Bests:

Baby Samuel

Disney World trip

So many fun visitors in NC

Our beach trip with our favorite NC friends

Living by the Driskills in MN

Baby Samuel

Hill and Hansen family reunions in Utah

Thanksgiving with family

Baby Samuel

Happy kids in school and activities

Worsts:

Packing up and leaving our NC life behind 

Dealing with our yucky first house in MN 

Moving twice in one summer

So, as you can see, our bests far outweigh our worsts this year. Hooray for 2014. We'll see what 2015 has in store!

We've had a great holiday season so far. I always love the weeks leading up to Christmas, with all the decorations and Christmas cards and fun outings and Christmas books and Christmas music and shopping and sugar cookies and parties and gifts and making time to focus on the Savior.

Here are some pics from our recent partying.

Christmas Eve with the Driskills: a yummy dinner, acting out the Nativity, reciting "The Living Christ," exchanging gifts... It was so fun to celebrate with family this year! We sure love this Driskill family.

 

Christmas Day at home. Samuel was really sick on Christmas, so we had a different sort of day than we'd anticipated. We had a good time playing with the kids and enjoying the magic of the day, but it was hard to be so worried about our feverish, sad, congested baby. We were all happy to see him looking and acting more like himself after a couple of days. 

I gave Eliza my American Girl doll, Kirsten, from when I was a little girl. I'm not sure who was more excited about the whole thing, Eliza or me. :)

The boys got a flag football set, so there has been some intense football going on in our basement this week. They've all had a lot of fun with their Nerf guns too. And of course, we've played LOTS of board games and card games and read fun books and watched lots of fun movies. (We even went to see the movie Big Hero 6--it was awesome, by the way!) It's the best to have so many days off of school and so many new toys to play with. :)

All dressed up for church on Sunday

Just yesterday we decided to sign the kids up for some quick ski lessons. We're so excited to be coming out to Utah to go skiing with the Hansen fam in February, and we want to be ready! So today was Kimball, Eliza, and Grant's first time on skis. They were awesome, despite the cold. Seriously, it was -4 degrees when we got to the hill! Samuel and I were happy to watch from the lodge. :)

Yes, that's a horse in his mouth. He loves that little Bullseye figure (from Toy Story), and he likes to crawl around with it in his mouth like this. Samuel is getting to be such a fast crawler that Grant has started calling him Bullet Bike. :) Hard to believe this little guy is almost 9 months old.

As you head into 2105, know that the Hansens in freezing Minnesota send our love and warmest wishes your way. :)