Van Sickel Christmas 2011

For Van Sickel Christmas this year, Chris convinced us all to come out to Colorado to him. Though it takes a lot of stuff to take us all out to Colorado for just a couple of days, to stay out in a lodge at a camp where Chris used to work, it was totally worth it. The kids were all excellent travelers across the ridiculously boring state of Nebraska. (We love our portable DVD player!)

I don't even think I included any pictures of opening presents in this post. There was too much awesomeness in our surroundings to bother with picture of presents here!

Getting ready to take a hike.

Pretty in pink

Livi and Grandma walking together

Our family, on a bridge over a mostly frozen stream.

Aidan with his rock he collected from the mountain. He will let you touch the rock if you would like to know what a mountain feels like. :)

Cheesy Livi

Aaron, Justin and Carrie were down the hill beyond the fence collecting firewood. Then the kids were trying to get it up the hill the rest of the way so Chris could cut it to the right size if needed.

"HELP!"
She had worked on getting this one stick up the hill for about ten minutes before she finally gave in and called for help.

It started snowing while we were outside. Just a beautiful perfect fresh snow covering the mountain. We didn't notice til later that the flash on the camera bounced off all the little snowflakes. :)

Mom wanted a family picture so we tried out the timer on our camera. I think it turned out really well. Aaron doesn't even look too winded sprinting to get in the picture. :)

Friedel Christmas 2011

We celebrated Friedel Christmas at Grammy and Papa's house. Aren't they adorable in their new Christmas outfits Grammy picked out for them.

Quick, fairly decent family photo before opening gifts.

Cool new signs for Aidan's room.

Ella peering into the box of her new Cinderella Castle.

Livi with her new Toddler Cinderella.

Emilie opening the canvas of baby James we got for them. :)

Hard to tell who was more excited about Aidan's new AT AT Walker, Aaron or Aidan. :)

And if we thought it was hard to get a family photo before presents, try taking a picture after presents, 30 minutes past bedtime, with all 5 grand kids and Grammy and Papa. Livi is holding my iPhone just to get her to sit still in the picture, Aidan is holding the iPod to keep Mason sitting in the picture, and Ella just can't figure out how to look at the camera and smile. So here is about the best we got on our camera.

Halloween 2011

Tonight was trick-or-treating in Urbandale! The kids were so cute and had a lot of fun. Before trick-or-treating, our awesome neighbors, Amy and Ed, invited everyone over for some chili, grilled cheese and pumpkin bars. YUMMY!

After that we came back over and got our costumes on. Here are our Snow Princess, Tiger, and Astronaut:

"Hey, where's my tail?"

They sure are cute, but boy is it hard to get the three of them to look at me and smile nice.

Little Tiger and Daddy

Our handsome little astronaut

Our Tiger

Snow Princess says "Eeeeek!" to someone's Halloween decorations

We asked Mason and Brad and Jenny if they wanted to come over and trick-or-treat with us. Mason was a little monkey and was so cute! He kept saying, "Follow Livi" and was super good at picking just one candy. What a nice little monkey. :)

Howell's Pumpkin Patch

We finally made it to the Pumpkin Patch this year! I asked the lady sitting across from us on the wagon ride to take our picture. Isn't it so nice that my children are so cooperative and all look and smile at the camera so mommy can have a nice family picture. :P

We rode the pedal go carts again this year, but they weren't quite the hit they were last year. Aidan must have had a bad cart cause he couldn't work it very well and he did great on them last year. Plus it was super busy, so they just rode around once or twice.

They loved the maze though. Aidan loves that there are maps throughout so he could always check and decide where we needed to go next.

And here is Miss Sassy Crabby Pants yelling at me. She was just pure joy for the first 45 minutes of our time there before she started to mellow out a little bit.

We have decided that maybe all we need is a big pile of hay bales or a pool of corn to entertain our kids for hours!

"I'm the king of the world!"

Ella said, "I'm teetering and he's tottering!"

She was pretty excited to ride the "wiggle cars".

The new thing this year was the Corn Cannon. Ella was first to try it (with daddy's help) and hit the big ol' jack-o-lantern up on the silo. She was very excited. Aidan also hit it but was weird about the sound of it as usual and kept trying to cover his ears.

Oh, look! There is a happy little Livi!

After waiting for about 10 minutes while another family did about every combination of pictures of their family at a great photo op set up, I was losing control of the kids and had to move over to a less appealing photo option and this is the best I could get of the three of them. :(

Kinda cute of Livi though.

And a lovely picture of Aidan, taken by Ella!

Meeting Owen Henry

Last night at 10:39 pm our other new nephew Owen Henry was born! We had been in Cedar Rapids for the breast cancer walk yesterday and since Carrie had been in labor since Saturday afternoon, I thought for sure we would get to meet her baby yesterday. But unfortunately, little Owen was being a slowpoke and did not make his appearance until late last night. So after we dropped Aidan off at school, the girls and I headed back to CR! Had to go meet the little man!

The girls LOVED being able to hold him.

Such a cutie!

She is not excited at all is she? ;)

Little mama Ella taking good care of Owen.

Yep, that's me, proud Aunt Amy!

And proud Papa Van. :)

New family of 3!

I think she likes him a little. :)

Welcome to the family little Owen! So glad we were able to meet you today!