Selfie Fest

We took the kids to dinner one night so I didn't have to cook lol. We took them to our favorite...the Wynn Buffet. It was the first time for Hayden and Christina. We still have to get Ashley & Benjy there sometime too. The food is amazing and so pretty there.

Made our gingerbread look puny

Family Fotos

None of us really enjoys getting our pictures taken so this is always quite a challenge. We were lucky enough to find a great Photographer who was willing to work over the Christmas break so off we went. We picked some place new and different, Lake Las Vegas. What a pretty place. We got the photo shoot over with and surprise we even got some great looking pictures too. 

We clean up surprisingly well!

The Mission Report

 We decided that since Hayden's mission report was at nine am we would have a fabulous brunch for everyone after Sacrament Meeting. You can't send family home on an empty stomach. So we made french toast, sausage, bacon, breakfast casseroles, funeral potatoes, ham, fruit and muffins, cinnamon rolls and cakes. We might have even had more stuff than that but oddly enough I can't remember it all there was so much. Let's just say we ate breakfast for days afterwards, haha. That was a bit hard since we had all this to get through too.

Elder Beard and his family came down to hear him speak. It was really great to meet them and get to know them a bit too.

It was such a great day. Hayden did a great job on his talk. I loved that he wrote SLOW across the whole thing in pencil so he would remember to talk slowly so we could all understand him better. He speaks so fast now! We loved having all the family over too to visit. It's always good to have a house full of Coopers.

Hayden the Chef

So Hayden was missing Chilean food pretty bad after a couple of days. He made us some completos. He even made the bread from scratch so we could have a typical Chilean lunch!! I especially loved the avocado. It was surprisingly good as we say around here!

Valley Of Fire

Usually we like to get outside and do some hiking during Christmas and have a little break. The weather is usually so nice that it's the perfect time to get outside and run around a bit. Especially if you have a houseful.

Christmas Eve/Day

What a fun Christmas. We had everyone here for Christmas Eve for the first time in at least two years.

I love these kiddos!!

And these kiddos

We had a wonderful family dinner and played games together. As you can see we even had the traditional English crackers again which are now part of the tradition along with apple cider. We visited and played some kinect for a laugh and had a great time. Christmas morning we opened the stack of presents.

This is pretty cleaned up actually. 

Hayden even got in some skype time with the folks down in Chile!

That afternoon we went in to Henderson and visited with Ashley's family. We got to see the grandkids presents and watch them run around with their new stuff. Ashley prepared their traditional soup buffet for us that was super yummy. I wish I had pictures.

Just like the good old days...

So it was like Hayden never left around here in no time. Add a couple of Grandkids and here you go.

Gingerbread Fest 2013

It has been a long standing tradition to build gingerbread houses on Christmas eve at our house. This is supposed to help me have a little more time to get other things done while they entertain themselves with graham crackers and royal icicng. But every year I seem to get sucked into doing one too. This year we received an amazing gingerbread creation from Shona at OPD so there was no room for yet more creations. I gladly helped referee and help instead of making my own.

This is the OPD marvel. It is a power generation plant and a substation and two homes. Everything is connected with licorice wire and it takes an entire table top!! You should have seen me and Mendis getting it home from the OPD Christmas party!! We just loaded the whole table on the back of his pickup late at night and I carefully drove it home. It was crazy. So basically I tried telling everyone I made it so I won hands done. Funny nobody bought that story.

Cooper was hilarious. I have this picture and fabulous video of him enjoying the roof of one of the OPD houses when he thought no one was paying attention to him. He kept saying yummy and went back for more!
So here is the real competition in action:

Looking pretty intense!

Reeses house with Cooper's in the back ground.

Jeff & Rachel's Masterpiece

Side view

Christina's house is going...going...pretty much gone. The roof was super heavy  :(

Hayden's Santiago Temple

How are you supposed to pick a winner out of all those masterpieces??? I won.

Or is it really Cooper as he helps himself to a few candies along the way? Quite the village this year I would say.