Our Christmas Present from Nathan...and he took our picture!
Santa was kind enough to visit our Ward Christmas Breakfast. This was the first year both Brittanie and Nathan were brave enough to sit on his lap. Brittanie was amazed that Santa knew her name and that she likes to dance. Brittanie requested a "Pet Shop Store" from Santa this year. Let's see if she has been good enough.
I was impressed that Nathan sat on Santa's lap. I had to be very close to him, but I convinced him that if he really wanted a present from Santa, he needed to tell him. Nathan got enough courage to say he wanted "Thomas Splash" for Christmas.
Brittanie comes home from school with a craft or artwork almost daily. We really enjoyed the "Rudolph" costume. This could be a picture she regrets when she gets to be 16. I love being the evil parent who plans these things out....
Of course, Christmas time has to include a varitey of treats. These next three photos show how the Snelders enjoy the season... WITH FOOD! Brittanie and Nathan love a good spatula full of brownie mix!
You can't get through the Holidays without making sugar cookies. Mom wanted to make a batch to take to work. We had both Nathan and Brittanie help frost the cookies. After realizing they licked their fingers in between frosting each cookie, we decided to not take the cookes to work to share. Not to worry, we were able to finish them off in a few days.
Mom got really ambitious this year and decided to make ginger bread houses. Of course there are kits you can buy at most stores, but no, Natalie wanted to spend all day making ginger bread from scratch. They turned out pretty awesome, but it was a lot of work.
Grandma Gog asked to see the finished work on the Christmas lights. I didn't really get a good picture, but you get the gist of it. We have a lot of variety and a lot of lights. I guess growing up in Preston where the whole town goes nuts for lights makes you like to see the yard lit up.
We made a quick trip last weekend down to Utah for little Teigen's baby blessing. Brittanie and Nathan got to meet a couple of second cousins they haven't met before. They all had a lot of fun playing together in Adam and Julie's house.
While in Utah, we took the train down to Temple Square to see the lights. All of the kids loved the train rides. I quite enjoyed them as well. It was pretty convenient to ride the train down, hop on the light rail and hop off in front of Temple Square.
Temple Square was beautiful. With a fresh dusting of snow, the lights lit up the night. The kids loved looking at the trees, all of the Nativity Scenes, and seeing the SLC Temple. I think Natalie liked this picture the best out of the ones we took. 
Setting out for the hunt. Natalie and I in the forest up Lanes Creek in Wayan Idaho. How sad, we are at about 6500 feet with very little snow.
We found the perfect tree! The tree is pretty thick and tall, but we think it will fit in our house.
After a good 10 minutes of hacking at the tree, I finally got the beast cut.
We had to carry the tree about 200 yards to the road. From there, we took it back to Wayan and had my cousin, Kevan bring it back to Star for us. Thanks Kevan, I don't know if the tree would have made it back strapped to the top of our van.
After I cut the tree and jammed it through our door, Natalie hung the lights and started with the ornaments.
Both Nathan and Brittanie soon got into the action. I think they liked climbing up and down the ladder more than hanging the ornaments, but at least they had fun.
The finished tree. We think the beads kind of look sad, so they will likely be taken down tomorrow. Natalie also thinks she needs to buy more ornamanents. We have a huge tree with little ornaments. What do you think?
It's good to have a cousin live so close with a bunch of cool man toys. Kevan brought over is man lift to help us put up our Christmas lights this year with some fun. Natalie took a little joy ride above our house to check out the neighborhood (No naked sun bathers today!)
Grandpa gave us this big blow up train last year. Nathan and Brittanie thought it was pretty cool to put up this year
Kids going for a little ride with uncle Kevan
Uhm....does this look right? 
Daddy like....
I didn't know Lucifer lived in STAR!!!
Trick-or-Treat here we come!!
Yeah, if someone got this picture without a hand, I would really like a copy. Thanks!
Nate doing the Cake walk.
Pre-party smiles. It kills me that Nate won't wear his hat.
Isn't that a sweet spider hat? Another reason
Isn't that one Pretty Pumpkin?
It is our new home, but we are not moving.... at least not yet. We made sort of a sad, but happy decision this summer. We felt it was finaly time to sell our first home. Our little duplex we bought in Pocatello in 1999 was a sweet rental for us since we moved out in 2003. We've debated every year whether or not we should sell it. We finally felt this year was right. The market in Pocatello had remained fairly strong, and we felt like there was opportunity to find a good deal here in Boise. We ended up selling the home in August and rolled the equity over into this home. It took us a while to find something we liked, something we thought would work for us in the future. The home has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. The best part about the home is that it has an unfinished basement. We have really missed the wonderful breakthrough builders have discovered in East Idaho called basements. For some reason builders don't build many houses in Boise with basements.
Pre-cooked. Isn't it beautiful?
Post-baking. It smells as good as it looks! No more "veggie tray" assignments for me next Thanksgiving!!!
This beautiful pie and my kids had ice cream instead!
