Magical Moment #2

We were so glad to see more snow coming down today. Eleanor's favorite song this year has been "White Christmas," so we were definitely hoping to have one!

Took some poinsettias to the cemetery today and that's when we noticed these amazing snowflakes. The conditions were perfect to see each individual six-pointed snowflake on the flowers and our coats for just a second before they melted. They were so beautiful it was like seeing jewels fall from the sky. Make this our 2nd Magical Christmas Moment (for #1, read our post from Thanksgiving). And this might be my new favorite catch-your-breath picture of the season.



It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas Visit

We were lucky enough to have my sister's family come visit for a week while her husband had a work conference in Denver. Don't often get to see them since they live on the east coast. Lilly is the only cousin on my side of the family, and it was so fun to see the girls play together. Katie took to Jenny and Christian really well too.

All the ladies went out to The Nutcracker together which has become a fun Christmas tradition.

Another favorite tradition is making Graham-cracker houses. Jenny made some nice observatories, Christian made a lovely snow-princess castle for Lilly. Eleanor created a nice A-frame house - requiring all of Gavin's engineering skill to hold up the decorations. I went for Tudor style this year.

It was so fun to have company to start off the Christmas season. Thanks for the visit guys!

Beloved Grandpa

Gavin's Grandpa Payne passed away this week. He was such a wonderful man. In my opinion, he is the perfect example of a family patriarch. Loved and respected by everyone. He's raised amazing children and left an incredible legacy for his grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Gavin, his dad and grandpa all share the same middle name, which we also gave to Solomon.

Love this picture of all of them together. Grandpa was a gifted pianist who recorded several cds for his family. Gavin even used one to woo me on one of our first dates! We will sure miss Grandpa, but always remember his talents and faithfulness.

Deck the Halls

I love the magic of decorating for Christmas. Especially when seeing things through a child's eyes. I sat Katie in a string a lights to catch this reflection. I have a similar picture of Eleanor that I've always loved.

Thanksgiving Vacation

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving vacation to Iowa last week. Never been to Nebraska or Iowa before, so we got to add two new states to our list. We had the best traveling weather we could have asked for and enjoyed spending some great time with the Iowegian Paynes. :)

We spent an afternoon touring the bridges of Madison County. This bridge is at the city park in Winterset, Iowa, which is famous for being the birthplace of John Wayne. As we looked around the park, suddenly all these Christmas scenes lit up. It was just a magical moment. Eleanor was running from scene to scene singing Christmas songs.

These are the cool skywalks that connect most of the buildings in downtown Des Moines. Brilliant idea for a cold city - need to get these in Denver!

We went with Ryan and Sara to the Omaha Zoo on Saturday. They have some really cool exhibits like this domed desert world. They have a great jungle exhibit too where we even got buzzed by some bats.

Stopped to see the Winter Quarters temple on our way back. They had a fun gingerbread house exhibit at the Visitor's Center. Got lots of ideas for our graham cracker houses this year!