We’re up in Tahoe for Paul to do some extended study time on Galatians and to have some nice family time in the evenings. And this morning is started snowing. We totally weren’t expecting snow in April and it has been really warm here. But it was really coming down for a while. Check it out - it was really beautiful!

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Silas is really into Lightning McQueen from the movie Cars. A few months before his birthday we were in Michael’s and he saw a Lightning birthday cake pan. I told him I’d make it for him on his birthday so we bought it. Somehow I forgot that cake decorating is something that people go to school for - it’s not a trivial matter. All the same I was pretty proud of my Lightning McQueen cake and we had a great birthday celebration for Silas.

We started what may end up being a family tradition today: a Christmas Eve hike. In between getting some last minute stuff done in the morning and other errands and getting to church by 5 PM, we got away to Fremont Older Open Space Preserve in Saratoga. It is so great to be able to be at a beautiful and easy hiking spot in 20 minutes from our house. Ava got to ride in the backpack, but the older kids walked up to a great vista and had a really fun time. It was a beautiful chance to get away and enjoy some time outside during the busy time of this season. If you want to see some more pictures (there are some REALLY cute ones of Eliana and Silas holding hands on the trail) click on the picture to see our whole album.

Here’s another something we like to do in our house. The rules for the “naked” dance are that you must have your underwear (or diaper) on (so it’s not really a naked dance), you must stay on the black carpet, and you must dance as long as the music is playing. Here’s a Christmas version of it that we had fun with the other night. There’s nothing like toddlers running around in their underwear to pass the time…

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The holiday projects continue. We had an old fireplace insert in our fireplace when we bought the house, but it didn’t work because the fan on it was broken. We wanted to be able to sit by the fire, so we took it out and just replaced it with a fireplace door. Today I installed it and tonight we sat down by our first fire. S’mores are forthcoming, but we feel an obligation to eat dinner first. Take a look. The funny thing is that the picture actually looks prettier than real life (perhaps because the picture doesn’t show the normal chaos of our family life in the background).

We got this a few weeks ago, but I just now thought of posting it. Our little schoolgirl…