Rocking around the Christmas Tree

The festivities began on the 23rd.

Matt and Mason headed up to the mountains a few hours before me to help my Dad split a cord of wood. For those of you who don't know that is an actual measurement, its a 4-ft x 4-ft x 8-ft pile of wood.  A splitter is a loud piece of machinery that splits the wood....it has a lever,smells of gas, and requires the use of ear plugs...if you want to still have your hearing. I got to man the lever for an hour, the vibration is AMAZING, if you know what I mean:) My Dad wanted a picture in front of the pile, he is weird

but than we took a family one too and that is even weirder. Is that a word?

Any who after the wood was stacked we turned in to the warm house to sip libations by the Christmas tree.

Matt worked on his art skills

WOW  that is one excellent Santy Claus! Fridge material if you ask me....

We ate yummy dutch oven chicken enchiladas and turned in early for the night. Here is the thing about staying at my parents that I sorta dislike. They have a huge king bed in the guest room but we have a three year old who is insistent on being in it too. I love to fall asleep with him in there but about 4 hours in to the night he is perpendicular to us and kicking. SO we are always tired when we stay there....I decided about 4 hours in to move up to the couch. Unfortunately my parents are old conservative hippies (oxy moron right?) and refuse to sleep in clothing...YA so when my dad got up to let the dogs out I caught a blurry glance of a nude dude!  It might be the first time I thanked God for my really poor eye sight...my poor dad was so embarrassed. AND I WAS LIKE  "people when we are here underwear are required!"

Mom got him a robe for Christmas.

The 24th brought beautiful weather and we took advantage of it...just after my Dad and Matt finished snaking the sewer line. On a quick side note I would like to announce that Mason is 95% potty trained! Well Mason hadn't been feeling well the day before and had a massive blowout...Matt put a few too many disposable wipes down the new toilet. It took a while to figure out what was going on and when we did it was Christmas Eve morning! Luckily the guys had to return the splitter and could rent the snake, saved all of us a fortune on a plumber!

Oh the holidays....

Well back to sledding...I am a real speed demon.

And Matt is quite the louge master. Look at the use of that hand.

And Hunter is a snow maniac. He could have been an avalanche rescue dog IF he were searching for a tennis ball and weighed 40lbs less. Sorry Hunter but thanks for finding 40-frozen tennis balls under there.

Frisky pups...

After some fresh mountain air 

I put on my Christmas best

set the table by the fire

and watched my Momma find this little bling left by her Hubby for their 39th wedding anniversary! Go Dad, hubba hubba.

with these two napping at 5:30 

and this one drinking it was shaping up to be a late evening.

which is always fun because the next morning you know you will be woken much to early by that sweet voice asking "did Santa come?"...and what did we find but three new mountain bikes, a new all clad set for me, new snow gear for Matt, and a play kitchen for Mason! That Santa sure does spoil us.

After some of Mom's delicious quiche (seriously delicious) we packed up and got ready for round 2!

I stunk at picture taking this year at Dad Gilbreaths but I managed to get a few.

Sweet Ellie adores Mason and takes such good care of him.

And this little guy is the newest member to Gilbreath clan. Nick and Angie got Duke about a month ago. He is a golden-doodle and one of the coolest dogs already.

Mason got a lot of cool stuff from the fam but these were toys of his oldest cousin Luke, who turns 16 in March. Mason hasn't stopped playing with them.

Oh did I mention this guy? Love him!

Well the holidays are exhausting but were a lot of fun this year too!

The 26th was spent doing a lot of this....

By New Years we were still into taking it easy

We headed up to, yup you guessed it, my parents! Aww brothers...I love when these two hang out because they make fun of each other only like brothers can.

It was so fun to have Nick, Ang, and Duke join us.

I again did not pick up my camera a lot but I did have this little gem of a photo from their wedding I have been dying to share. Angie is such beautiful person inside and out, couldn't have picked a better wife for Nick and sister in law for me:) I love them and the way they love Mason too!

New Years was spent taking a lovely mountain walk with the dogs, babying my Dad who had shoulder surgery on the 28th, and cooking beef tenderloin and mushroom orzo. For dessert we ate chocolate covered strawberries and toasted with a bottle of Dom I had been saving for such an occasion. We all (minus Mason) made it to midnight. AMAZING!!!

It was a wonderful way to bring in the New Year!