Catching Up- December

 (Warning:  Long Post...lots of pics!)

December was a fun but, busy, busy month for us!!  Christmas started a bit early when I got this early present:

She's 40 years old, and I love her so much!  I also love being able to play at home again, and now it seems it's time for Levi to start- he's pretty excited about it, but prefers playing "his own songs" and not the ones from the book- we'll see how that goes.

We headed up to Durango the week before Christmas, and stopped in to see our friends that just moved there from Cruces.  Arissa was Levi's best friend from preschool and they had so much fun playing together while we caught up.

We headed out to go sledding the next day, and the boys had so much fun!  We found the perfect little hill and Levi was cruising down all by himself.  Weston was of course, jealous- so we know to bring 2 sleds next year.

The reason for our trip to Colorado was to ride on the Durango Polar Express.

Levi was pretty excited- can you tell???

 

Getting a gift from Santa-

The Durango-Silverton Polar Express was by far the best one we've been on.  Riding the Polar Express is already a Christmas tradition for our family, and now, we are thinking that going to Durango may have to become the way we do it!  (Although, Matt already has plans of taking Levi to Ski School at Purgatory while we are there next year, which may be another reason he's making plans that direction) :)

 

 We got some treats at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory on our way back to the hotel.

We finished off our weekend with a sleigh ride!

We had a great time being bundled up in a sleigh pulled by these beautiful horses through the middle of this snow-covered forest.  I'm not sure it gets much better than this!

 

Levi got to ride in the front for part of the trip.

We headed back home to get ready for Santa to come and were surprised by another snow storm on the 23rd.  (Yes, it was a white Christmas for us down in Southern New Mexico)

 

We had fun building snowmen and making a gingerbread house!

 Then we had a yummy dinner on Christmas Eve.  I wanted to enjoy the relaxing evening, but as soon as the sun went down (we're talking 6:30 that night), Levi was pretty anxious to get to bed.  He knew that Santa would not come until he was asleep, so he insisted on getting to bed right away!

He must have made it to bed in time, because Santa came- here's what our Christmas morning looked like:

Then we scurried off to AZ for a week to have lots of fun playing with our families there!

 

 We hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are having a healthy and happy 2012 so far!!