In the Eyerly family there is a nightly December tradition of singing Christmas carols as a candle burns down. We start with the youngest member of the group and once everyone has had a turn anyone can just yell out a song. The rules are 1) stop singing when the candle has lost all light 2) no 12 days of Christmas until the flame is almost out 3) Mom sings 'O Holy Night' when it's done. That's it, otherwise anything goes, including songs that no one knows more than a line or two of.
As we were spending the Christmas holidays with the Eyerly family we got to participate in this family tradition. We were joined at Mom and Dad's house by Wade & Kelli, David & Dana, Casi & Jonathan, and Dane (plus Mom & Dad, and Kadi). It was a full house but lots of fun. On Christmas Eve Wade and Kelli left to fly to Utah but we were joined by Dan and Kat Herring and Aunt Kerry.
We had such a blast. The kids loved getting to pick songs and trying to learn all the words. They also loved seeing so many aunts and uncles in one place. What a treat!
Since my pictures include most of the Eyerly side of the family, I'll post them on that blog.
Thursday morning we got up to this gorgeous snow and thought how beautiful it was. At 3am there was nothing, by 7am, this was the view. The kids still had school and loved the chance to get all bundled up for it. Well it snowed all day! Seriously, it was 24 hours of big, fat, wet flakes, each with as much water as possible without turning into rain.
By mid afternoon we had 5 inches on the back porch and it was still falling. I know you can't really tell from the picture but Jack is measuring with a blue ruler, full 5 inches. The important part of this picture is that you look around the deck and take note, especially of the big tree in the background.
This is 8am Friday morning. Christopher and I both heard the noise during the night but assumed it was just snow falling off the roof or some icecicles or something minor. Obviously it wasn't, and boy am I glad that we didn't spend the time and money putting the tree house in this tree. I measured this morning in the front yard 9 inches, much of the city is under a foot of snow. 
