Merry Christmas everyone!

We've been having a Merry good time.

Over the past few years we have grown into a couple of traditions. Making a gingerbread house and smashing it on Christmas Day is tons of fun and yummy too. Tortiere for C.Eve supper is one of my favorite and opening one gift before bed is a hit with the boys.

One of the coolest things about living in Okotoks is on Christmas Eve Santa comes around on top of the firetruck with a parade of cop cars, blaring music and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. The parade always swings by close to bed time for the boys so it's a perfect exciting topper before bed. Aidan was so excited this year when he finally saw the lights down the road he ran into the house shouting and screaming for us to get outside.

Although we didn't see any Reindeer we had a couple of deer visit behind our house. Must have been scoping out the place for the big guy's landing.

On Christmas Eve we were invited to head to the mountains to Sandy McNabb provincial park for some skating, sledding, bonfire and great company. It was loads of fun and I even tossed on the goalie equipment for the little guys and big guys too...Sorry we were so focused on getting everything in the truck we forgot the camera!

Santa was good to everyone this year even for some little boys who were probably on the "Second chance" list.
Riley jumped into our bed around 6am on Christmas Day and we had a riveting conversation about the health concerns of Santa. "Papa, Santa ate all of the angel ginger bread cookie and took a bite of the tree cookie." "Well Riley he has to eat a lot of cookies in one night maybe he was getting full?" "Yeah, maybe he's going to have to eat more vegetables as he gets older".

Jessica has been baking and cooking up a storm and has pulled out some amazing meals. Uncle Matt and Auntie Tina joined us for Christmas supper and some Lego building help.

The Dagg tree

She's a little bottom heavy and we almost knocked the whole thing down trying to put up the Star but she sure is purtty!

Aidan's Christmas concert

Aidan's concert was performed at the church this year and went off without a hitch. It was a modified version of the birth of Christ with lots of singing. We were very impressed by Aidan as he has been having some difficulty with staying focused as of late. He didn't have any acting or reading parts but sang his little heart out up there! Great job A.J.

The Daggs Christmas tree adventure

We had a wonderful, yet cold adventure getting our tree this year. I had been talking about heading out and cutting down our own tree for sometime and happen to mention it to some friends who have been doing it for years, so we all went together. Unfortunately Jess was fighting a cold so she couldn't come but she enjoyed the quite time for resting.

We had just gone through our first snow dump/blizzard and now were in a bit of a deep freeze but we dressed the kids up warm, packed the buck saw's, hot chocolate and toboggans and braved the cold!

The snow was deep and fluffy and the temperature around -20 so I can't say we were too picky on the tree selection, in fact I like to say that our tree is beautifully tall yet sparse... Having the truck made it super easy as we just tossed all 3 trees in the box and the rack held them in nicely. It was actually a bit funny that when you squished all 3 of the somewhat sparse trees together they looked like one big full tree!

The kids had a great time trudging through the snow, finding big sticks and tobogganing. It was a great time and the start of a new tradition!

Thanks Lana and Dylan for getting us out there.