McKinstry Winter Carnival

The kids meeting Santa for the first time in 2008!

.

Jenna's first time meeting Santa EVER!
.

Jenna getting her first face painting!

The lady did awesome, did it in like one second flat!
.

YAY! Success!
.

The Chow girls with their faces painted (I sure love my neices) :-)
.

Juliana getting a candy cane on her arm.

.

"You always catch me on camera under compromising circumstances, Denise!"

(my previous boss, Mari, she's so awesome) :-)
.

Mari's Christmas Tree

.

McKinstry provided Circus themed entertainment while we were eating dinner.
.

A balancing act, they did great!
.

McKinstry never ceases to amaze me with what they come up with next!
.

Yet even MORE entertainment!
.

She looks like a star :-)
.

Jenna enjoyed the entertainment too, apparently!
.

Jacob, Juliana and Gabe providing entertainment of their own!
.

The boys chasing each other :-)
.

Jacob finally decided to get a candy cane of his own.
.

He sure is growin' up :-)

Just Catchin' Up!

Jenna having fun at the "Empty House" (Papa Earnie's House)
.

Juliana being silly at the "Empty House"
.

Our real Christmas tree :-)
.

Ol' Blue Eyes
.

Jacob is SUCH a great big brother! Look how grown up he's gotten!
.

I don't think she could be any more excited, do you???
.

Jacob and Juliana putting together our cool new magnet set!
.

We LOVE these new magnet sets! We have a snowman one too :-)
.

All Done!

Fun With Juliana & Mommy!

Family Pictures!

We go to the Picture People once a year, always before Christmas, and today was the day! We now get to switch out all our family pictures that we proudly display all year round. We're excited to have Jenna in the pictures now, and Jacob has been itching to get new pictures so he won't have glasses on in them anymore!

And on a complete side-note, we are extremely THRILLED to say that we are done painting at Earnie's house!!! That has taken up soooo many weekends (and various other days), and we are SO ready to put that behind us! We have to go back to do a little clean up and a dump run, but overall the house looks great and we are SO happy to be done painting!!! What a HUGE project that was!

OK, back to the pictures :-)

Our 2008 Earnhardt Family Picture
.

The Siblings: Juliana, Jacob & Jenna
.

Jacob: What a stud!!! This is my new favorite picture of him!
.

Juliana: As usual, being less than cooperative, but she's super cute!
.

Jenna: Her first Christmas picture!
.

She was MUCH more happy in this one ;-D

Mountain Hunters!

Today was a beautiful day, wasn't it?!? All day yesterday I kept thinking to myself, "oh my goodness, it is SO nice outside, PERFECT weather for going up to the mountains to find a tree!" So today was the day!!! We headed up 410 as usual in search of this year's Christmas tree!

The kids were SO excited, to say the least! It's so fun as they're getting older and are really "getting it." We stopped at a beautiful clearing to look for a tree, didn't find one we were thrilled with, so we just took the opportunity to get a few family pictures before we continued our hunt. No snow yet, but that didn't make it any less fun, the kids had a blast, and boy was it cold!!!

Gave Jenna a bottle, walked around some more, drove and drove and drove...and drove...and finally as Jenna was crying, Juliana was sleeping, and Jacob said he wanted to stay in the car and sleep, Matt and I finally looked up "what about that one?" "sounds good", cut cut cut, throw it on the Jeep, one last picture, let's go while there's still an ounce of light outside! It was a very dark long ride home, but very peaceful. And as the bridge is still out on Maple Valley Hwy/Black Diamond Rd, we had to take another loooong detour, and ended up eating dinner at a Godfathers (yuuuuuummmmmy, and the kids were happy to get out of the car for a while). It was a long, but very fun, day! I'm so glad we do this annually, it's such a great tradition, full of wonderful memories and great pictures!!!

The kiddos piling into the Jeep.

.

Juliana posing for the camera.

.

Jenna's first time on our annual Christmas Tree Hunt!

.

Matt and the kids out on the hunt, he's such a great dad!

.

Juliana and Jacob, they're really growin' up!

.

Jacob being a silly pants :-)

.

Jenna's so sweet :-)

.

Juliana showing her muddy boots, and look at that amazing view behind her!

.

Matt and Jenna up in the mountains.

.

Matt helping Jacob cut Juliana's stick...Jenna's having fun!

.

Our annual family photo up in the mountains.

.

Another family photo up in the mountains.

.

A tree at last!!! Get it on the Jeep and let's go!

.

The kids are wiped out!!!

.

Larry helping carry our tree :-)

.

Look at that beautiful sky!!!