Dog Sled Races

It's kind of a tradition of ours that every year we go down and watch the Dog Sled Races when they come to town. Those dogs are pretty amazing. Last weekend was the Wilderness Classic (better to post late than never, I guess!)...

The weather was pretty great for the events. The kids didn't mind being outside all day because it was fairly warm. We met up with friends and played in the snow while we waited for the racers to come in.

I could have taken pictures of these beautiful dogs all day. Every year I come away from it saying someday we'll have a Husky!!!

After we went to the Family Sledding Party, put on by the ECD (Early Childhood Development) Committee. There was sledding, skating and hot chocolate with all our friends.


Days like this, I actually think Me and Winter could maybe someday be friends....

Feelin Thankful

Random things I'm thankful for today:

My Family. I have this good friend, who grew up with less than ideal family members and I tell her all the time that I wish she could have been raised in my family. I have supportive, loving parents and siblings, and I realize how lucky I am to have them.

Our Kids. I snapped this picture of them watching a movie together on the ipod. These two are just best little friends and they do everything together.

Our Mountains. The other morning we woke up to this beautiful sky out my kitchen window. I heart this place.

Carter-man. He turns 8 years old in February and that fact blows my mind. We have such a helpful, fun-loving little guy and we are definitely glad to have him around!

Spunky Hayley. Look at that face, would ya? She is just delightful. Yesterday she came out of her room when she heard Jared getting up for work at 6am. Jared said her eyes looked so red and tired, but she excitedly told him, "Dad! I just counted to 900!!!!". Hahaha

Road Trips with the Fam. We can't sit still on weekends, even when we specifically plan to stay home. But the most fun times have been in the truck on an adventure together.

My Job. I get to hang out with some of the cutest kids I know for an hour every single day.

Our Cute Puppy. I just really really love this sweet little pooch!

A Shoveled Driveway. We've had alot of snow. And it's cold. And I hate shoveling. But while I was shoveling today, I realized how thankful I am that I'm physically able to shovel the driveway. There's been times (after I had my babies) that I wasn't physically capable of doing simple tasks. I try to remind myself to never take our family's good health for granted.

Aaaand there's plenty more. But it's late and I am also very thankful for my nice warm bed :)

Winter Fun

Over the past few weeks, we've been able to do lots of fun things together as a family. The other day we took the kids to public skating:

We've been enjoying all of our snow too. Especially on the big pile in our front yard.

We were able to ski Fernie as a family too. This next picture is what my living room looked like the night before we went. Jared laid everyone's stuff out for the morning...he was a tad excited.




Hayley took a lesson since she is new to skiing. She did great and had so much fun with her instructor and the other kids.

Fernie is amazing! I am so happy we live close enough to go every once in awhile. We had so much fun spending the day on the hill, surrounded by mountains and each other.

Christmas 2011

This year we were lucky enough to have visitors come join us for Christmas. Jared's parents came, as well as Jared's 2 brothers Tim and Jonathan, and Tim's wife Ashton. We had so much fun together, laughed hard, ate too much, and kept busy in the beautiful outdoors we live in.

We took the kids tobogganing at the elementary school. Jared and Papa brought the snowmobiles and tied the GT Racer onto the back, giving us rides around the snow covered field.

We went for lots of snowmobile and quad rides together.

Tim found us an even better tobogganing hill and we took the kids again. Hayley is a little daredevil and never got tired of sledding down the hill, by herself or with anyone else she could convince to take her.

There was a little snow jump that some kids built and we all took turns sledding over the jump. This was the funniest picture of Tim, mid-air after taking the jump (He was not injured in the making of this footage...although the pictures makes it look like a broken tailbone waiting to happen).

On Christmas Eve, we watched the Nativity movie and then the kids opened their Christmas Eve pajamas.

Ashton and I embraced the spirit of "Christmas Pajamas" as well in our matching pajama pants:

Tim and Ash's little dog Ruby even dressed up for the occasion. Reluctantly.

In our little town, Santa tours around on the fire truck every Christmas Eve. It was blaring Christmas music, covered in lights, and Santa had a candy cane for every child who came out to see him.

Christmas morning came and Carter and Hayley were ecstatic about all the gifts, giving and receiving. We just love watching how excited they get about the holidays.

Our little resident Crafter hand-made gifts for everyone this year and was so excited to give them out.


I love this next picture: How many Whiddens does it take to put together an Easel???

No pictures of the following; but we also dipped chocolates with Nana, had a Christmas Eve appetizer night, a big Christmas Day turkey dinner, went to Fernie for a day of shopping, played Catch Phrase and Xbox Kinect, and watched the 2 dogs wrestle The. Entire. Time.

It was such a nice visit and we were happily surrounded by family for the holidays. What a perfect Christmas! Hope everyone's was the same...Happy Holidays!