Last Friday (12/5) we packed up and headed to Boone for our annual Christmas tree hunt with the Ryan's. This was our 8th annual trip and we always have the best time. We were especially excited this year, because the forecast was calling for snow on Saturday! What better way to kick off Christmas than that!? We always stay up on the mountain in Seven Devils. This was the view from the back porch of our house this year.
We got to the cabin Friday afternoon, unloaded two Odysseys packed full of "stuff", then just hung around for the rest of the afternoon. The owners of the cabin had a great board game collection, so Stevie, Ryley, Papa/Jackson and Aunt Amy played a little game of Sorry. Jackson did really good waiting for their turn and not moving any extra pieces!
Playing games is always the highlight of the weekend. Every year we each bring a game to play with a prize for the winner. Some of the games may be Christmas themed, made up games, board games, whatever. This year Ryley brought a couple of games of her own. Her first game was Candycane Hunt. She hid little candycanes all throughout the kitchen, dining area and family room, then we all came up and tried to find the most. Here she is helping Jackson find one that she had hidden in a pitcher...
Even Kate got in on the action! She's got two!!
When we asked Ryley what the prize was for the winner, she told us that they would get to keep 1 candy cane. That's right, just one! Kids are too funny!
I lvoe this picture of Kate with her Aunt Amy!
Stevie brought the Santa Hat game. We all had to wear Santa hats and couldn't take them off until Stevie took his off. Once Stevie did, the last one to take their's off was out. Yeah, I didn't do too good. I was the second one out. This silly guy here ended up winning...
Aren't we cute w/ our little hats on? :-)
Mamma and Papa looking all festive!
The Pridgens!
This was Amy's Skittle game. There was a bowl of Skittles and peanut M&M's and we each had a straw. We took turns rolling the dice until somone rolled doubles. Once you did, you grabbed the bowl and candy and using the straw had to get the candy out of the bowl and into your cup. It got pretty intense w/ lots of bowl snatching! Papa was a machine though and waxed us all!
Look at Mamma! Showing no mercy for her son! :-)
See that water bottle there in Stevie's lap? Yeah, he's got finger stuck in there! Ha Ha Ha!
We always celebrate St. Nick in the mountains, so we all put our shoes by the fireplace before we go to bed Friday night and St. Nick comes and fills them with little gifts while we're sleeping. It's been fun watching the row of shoes expand over the years. This year our shoes extended across the entire mantle!
The kids all love waking up on Saturday morning to see what St. Nick brought for them! Here's Jackson checking out his sweet new Seseme Street school bus! He has had his eye on that thing at Target for months now! And he loves it!
Here's Emma peeking in to see what she's got!
Oh cool! She got a school bus, too!
Check out these awesome reindeer that Pat made for Amy and me. There are four of them, in different sizes with a little red nose and a red bow. They are so Pottery Barn esque! I love them!! The picture here really doesn't do them justice. I'll post a picture of them up on our mantle, so you can really see how cool they are!
This picture of Papa and Kate in her little Santa's helper hat is priceless! I love it! Too sweet!
So this was what we woke up to Saturday morning... SNOW!!!
Jackson couldn't wait to get (all bundled up!) out there! It took forever to get him all layered up! "Two pairs of pants, Mom. Really?" 
He was lovin' it out there! It was soooo cold, but he didn't care! (I must confess, I'm taking these pictures from inside the house...through the sliding glass door!) 
Mmmm...Snow! This little boy loves eating ice, so this was the perfect snack!
It was just Jackson and Uncle Stevie playing in the snow for a while before Ryley finally got layered up to go out and play! I love this picture of her! They were having the best time throwing snowballs at the glass doors!
The Snowy Pridgens! 
By lunchtime the snow was still coming down pretty good and baby, it was cold outside! We all made it out to play at some point during the day. Well, almost everyone....
Hey, someone had to stay in and keep Kate warm! And Mamma didn't seem to mind! :-) This is another priceless pic!
Ryley had been having real snow cones all morning, so Amy decided to make her a flavored one with a little apple juice!
Yummy!
By mid-afternoon we had already played hard, so it was time to cozy up by the fire for a little siesta!
But the little ones couldn't stay in for too long! Time for making snow angels! Jackson watched Ryley do it first, then got down to make his own. He was so cute flapping his little arms. He looked more like fish than an angel! He was lovin' it though!
Here's a picture of our snow covered cabin!
I'm just out trying to take a few innocent pictures of the gang in the snow and then all of a sudden I'm ambushed! By these two...
Jackson was all about the snowball fight! He was trying his best to hit his Daddy! You can tell by the looks of the back of Jackson's coat that he has already fallen victim to a couple of snowballs himself! Sean got him good with one right in the back of the head!
This snow shovel made an excellent bulldozer!
Jackson was circling the house with the shovel saying, "Buuuuuulllllllldozerrrrrrr!"
After a day in the snow the fun wasn't over yet!! As a matter of fact, it was just getting started! Ryley's second game was pin the nose on Frosty! Here she is getting it right on target!
Now it's Jackson's turn. First he gets his instructions from Aunt Amy...
And after getting blindfolded with the Santa hat and spun around a couple of times, he goes in with the carrot...
We should have lowered Frosty for little Emma! She's peeking out, probably thinking, "Come on guys. This is no fair. I can't even reach his nose!!!"
I think this next picture speaks for itself! :-)
It's Happy Birthday time! We all know the real reason why we go to the mountains every year is to celebrate Stevie's birthday!
These next few pictures are from Sean's game, which was inspired by a game on Ellen. He hung a piece of plexi-glass up and stuck Ritz crackers on each side with Easy Cheese. Each couple raced to eat all of their crackers and be the first to whistle Jingle Bells. This was hil-ar-i-ous!
Since the plexi-glass was swinging, you had to really time it right when you tried to get a cracker! If you didn't have any resistance, it was next to impossible to get one off! Even though Stevie looooooves him some Easy Cheese, he was no match for Amy! She was crowned the champion of this game!
Even though this was Sean's game, everyone insisted that he play so they could laugh at him like he had laughed at them! And for the record, I think he did have the best time.
Amy got some beautiful pictures of the sunrise Sunday morning.
Our 2009 family pic! (The best that we could get w/ four little ones!)
Now time to attempt a few family shots.... Emma wasn't too happy about pictures at this point!
Papa and Mamma sure know how to cooperate!
But throw the kids in with them and..... Well, at least Jackson and Ryley were all smiles!
Let's try again... Nevermind, I think Jackson's had enough now!
So in the past we always go out to the tree farm on Saturday. But since we woke up to such a snowy scene this year, we decided not to make the trek down the icy mountain and waited until we were headed home to make our stop by the tree farm.
Ryley had been having real snow cones all morning, so Amy decided to make her a flavored one with a little apple juice!
Yummy!
By mid-afternoon we had already played hard, so it was time to cozy up by the fire for a little siesta!
But the little ones couldn't stay in for too long! Time for making snow angels! Jackson watched Ryley do it first, then got down to make his own. He was so cute flapping his little arms. He looked more like fish than an angel! He was lovin' it though!
Here's a picture of our snow covered cabin!
I'm just out trying to take a few innocent pictures of the gang in the snow and then all of a sudden I'm ambushed! By these two...
Jackson was all about the snowball fight! He was trying his best to hit his Daddy! You can tell by the looks of the back of Jackson's coat that he has already fallen victim to a couple of snowballs himself! Sean got him good with one right in the back of the head!
This snow shovel made an excellent bulldozer!
Jackson was circling the house with the shovel saying, "Buuuuuulllllllldozerrrrrrr!"
After a day in the snow the fun wasn't over yet!! As a matter of fact, it was just getting started! Ryley's second game was pin the nose on Frosty! Here she is getting it right on target!
Now it's Jackson's turn. First he gets his instructions from Aunt Amy...
And after getting blindfolded with the Santa hat and spun around a couple of times, he goes in with the carrot...
We should have lowered Frosty for little Emma! She's peeking out, probably thinking, "Come on guys. This is no fair. I can't even reach his nose!!!"
I think this next picture speaks for itself! :-)
It's Happy Birthday time! We all know the real reason why we go to the mountains every year is to celebrate Stevie's birthday!
These next few pictures are from Sean's game, which was inspired by a game on Ellen. He hung a piece of plexi-glass up and stuck Ritz crackers on each side with Easy Cheese. Each couple raced to eat all of their crackers and be the first to whistle Jingle Bells. This was hil-ar-i-ous!
Since the plexi-glass was swinging, you had to really time it right when you tried to get a cracker! If you didn't have any resistance, it was next to impossible to get one off! Even though Stevie looooooves him some Easy Cheese, he was no match for Amy! She was crowned the champion of this game!
Even though this was Sean's game, everyone insisted that he play so they could laugh at him like he had laughed at them! And for the record, I think he did have the best time.
Amy got some beautiful pictures of the sunrise Sunday morning.
Our 2009 family pic! (The best that we could get w/ four little ones!)
Now time to attempt a few family shots.... Emma wasn't too happy about pictures at this point!
Papa and Mamma sure know how to cooperate!
But throw the kids in with them and..... Well, at least Jackson and Ryley were all smiles!
Let's try again... Nevermind, I think Jackson's had enough now!
So in the past we always go out to the tree farm on Saturday. But since we woke up to such a snowy scene this year, we decided not to make the trek down the icy mountain and waited until we were headed home to make our stop by the tree farm.All the little snow capped trees were so pretty!
And even though it was snowy, it wasn't nearly as cold out as it was on Saturday!
So we all tried to get some pictures of the kiddos. These are great of Emma and Ryley!
And even though it was snowy, it wasn't nearly as cold out as it was on Saturday!
So we all tried to get some pictures of the kiddos. These are great of Emma and Ryley!
Here are our Christmas trees loaded up on our Odysseys!
After such a fun and exciting weekend, it's time to head home!
And we weren't even out of Boone before...
After such a fun and exciting weekend, it's time to head home!
And we weren't even out of Boone before...
I think those last two sum up the whole weekend! We had a blast!! We made more great memories to add to all those from the previous 7 years! This was Kate's first tree hunt and she did great! I already can't wait til next year when we're all together for a weekend in the mountains again! Merry Christmas!
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