Winter playland

It snowed last week. To be more specific, we had Tulsa's first Blizzard last week on Christmas Eve. We got a lot of snow. I have never experienced thunder and lightning during a snowstorm before, wow. The snow was blowing so hard we had a pile of snow piled up on inside our back door as it came through the cracks in the door. It also piled up in our windows between the screen and the glass. When it was all over Christmas day, Brent had to dig a path through the drift that settled in front of our door. We still have quite a bit of snow left and we're expecting more tomorrow night. That's fine for us, I know we won't get any in Phoenix so it's nice to get in some last minute snow play.

Wait for it...

Cold fish

These are my fish in my little fish pond in our backyard. I've had these two guys for about 2 years but I've always had goldfish in a little pond in our yard, here and in Texas. In the wintertime, they just go down to the bottom of the pond and sort of hibernate through the winter. Last week my pond froze over and for the first time ever, one of my fish did not get down to the bottom in time and he froze in the ice! If it wasn't so morbid I would have taken a picture of him. I had to wait for the ice to thaw to get him out. About 2 days later it finally started melting. I saw him in a little melted whole in the ice, but still couldn't get him out. I decided to wait until it was all thawed and then get him out of the pond. The next day my pond was completely thawed and I went out to get my poor dead fish out to see him swimming around with his buddy again! My amazing cryogenic fish! So both little guys are fine and they will have a very cold Christmas. It's supposed to snow, I hope he learned his lesson and swims down.

Rhema Lights

We went to the Rhema Christmas light display last night. We go every year and it is usually freezing cold and windy. It was nice to be out on a chilly evening but above freezing.

Woolaroc Christmas Lights

We took the girls to Woolaroc earlier this week to see the Christmas light display. Woolaroc is Frank Phillips' (of Phillips 66) ranch just north of us. He named it Woolaroc because there is a lot of woods, lakes and rocks on his property. It was beautiful, and a very manly ranch. There's a museum as well as the house and out buildings to walk through. He was quite the big game hunter and there were hides and mounts all through his home and museum. http://www.woolaroc.org/index.php

The girls liked the wagon ride, and petting the animals in the barn- oh and Santa, he was nice too. He and I talked about shopping in Owasso. I guess that is where Santa likes to shop. We climbed a staircase that took us to a gazebo perched on top of one of the houses on the property. It was a good view of all the lights all over the ranch, but we really didn't get to see much else since it was dark. I'm sure it's a beautiful view in the day time.

Not a creature was stirring...

I love this photo Brent snapped of Lucy.

Cookie evolutions

So We were baking again today. I thought if I'd add some red dye to some cookie dough and make drop cookies. Then I thought I'd add some coconut around the edges and a marshmallow on top it would look like a santa hat. Karianne thought that was a great idea and we set to work. We were excited to see the results when it came out of the oven. When we put the cookies out to cool we all agreed they didn't look like santa hats at all. More like pink pigs in some hay. So we added some chocolate chips for eyes and voila!

Christmas sneak 'Peak'

I just finished up 4 little aprons and chef hats for the girls for Christmas. Even put one on Lucy when the others weren't around. It's not like she'll remember seeing it on Christmas morning. That's the beauty of Christmas to a one year old. :-)

Angie cooks

Angie's turn to cook earlier this week. She made some excellent chocolate chip marshmallow bars. We finished them off tonight. I'm afraid this baking may last well after Christmas. The girls are already lined up and knows who gets to bake next.