Christmas In Canada

We had an awesome time being with family over Christmas break! We drove up to Canada to be with my (Krista) family and we had a blast! It's been a while since we've all been together (minus Josh, who's on his mission) and it was great!

One thing my family always does is play basketball, so we used all of Josh's old high school hoodies to gear up! Thanks Josh :)

For Christmas we all got official olympic wear :)

I had to put this one up. It's just funny.

One of our Christmas traditions is going to see the Nativity Pageant. Every year the Church puts on this pageant and the actors in it rotate through the stakes in Calgary, all on volunteer basis. I'm impressed they do it in this freeeeezing cold weather. I love going to the pageant and feeling the spirit of Christmas and being reminded why we celebrate Christmas. This is our family bundled up. It was -4 Farenheit!

The Nativity Pageant

We had a girl's outting to the Nutcracker! Anna loved it! She insisted we all pose like the ballerinas :)

I think my favorite part of Christmas was just getting to hang out with the family. This is TJ and Katie just hangin out :)

I will admit this is slightly staged....but only slightly! They squeezed me on the couch, that's all :) The Mac Family

Christmas morning was the height of excitement for Anna and Katie. They ran downstairs and saw Santa had left this doll house they both asked for and were jumping and screaming and were not able to speak at all. So cute.

Blaine had a pretty fun Christmas too with this cool toy from Santa

Skating is one of our favorite things to do in Calgary. There is a lake down the street from our house, so we always go there. There is a rink on top and when it's cold enough the lake freezes so you can skate around it. That's a lot of fun! This is little Blaine in his polar bear outfit. So cute and keeps him toasty warm!

This is Katie all geared up with her bob skates.

The girls both did really well with skating, and then Katie discovered that it's much more fun to just be pulled around! Go Angie!

Us on the rink. They make it really cute with tons of Christmas lights all around (even though you can't really see them in this picture)

My skates. Most people use the hockey style skates, but I like these ones :)

TJ's skates

Tobogganing was also a must-do! We love it! This is Christian and Katie speeding down the hill.

Me and Katie

Grandpa (my dad) and Katie. Love the faces.

Grandma (my mom) and Katie!

Among all the fun things we did Anna built this huge tower out of dominos all by herself! We were quite impressed.

And that about wraps up Christmas! We loved every minute of the snow and cold and being with family :)

Mini Date and Festival of Trees

This is a little bit of catch up, since we haven't blogged since November......

Just before Thanksgiving we did a "mini" date with our friends Chris and Emily (who just got married in December! Yay!). Everything we did was mini-themed. For dinner we had tater tots, mini sausages, pizza rolls, and baby carrots. And we ate everything with toothpicks. We also had some mini glasses for our drinks that didn't make it in this shot.

Then we played some mini bowling!

What can you make with teddy grahams, mini marshmallows and mini chocolate chips???

After you roast the mallow....(over a candle)

Mini S'mores!!!! So delicious. And cute and fun :)

Then we ate some popcorn and watched...

And that was our mini date! We had a lot of fun, and something funny we realized afterward was that Chris and Emily's last name is Little. They were engaged at the time, but it's close enough! Haha. We didn't even do it on purpose :)

Now on to the Festival of Trees! We went up there with Brad and Angie and had a lot of fun! They have a TON of Christmas stuff in this place. There are rows upon rows of Christmas trees that are decorated in super creative ways and there are gingerbread houses, quilts, (they're all for sale and the proceeds go to a children's hospital cancer something or other) lots of food for sale, and lots of other stuff you can look at! Here's a view of half of the place.

This was our favorite tree. It's a race track wrapping around the tree with motorcycle riders on it.

Here's a close up so you can see the riders better.

This was another cute little tree that I liked.

One of the gingerbread houses had a little sign that made us laugh. Just keepin' it simple I guess :)

And I also made a gingerbread house! Not for the festival of trees, just with the kids at the elementary school I work at. Here's my work of art!

Coming up next.......our Christmas post!!!! :) And it won't be as long until we post it this time since I actually have time because I'm graduated :)