Christmas Day-Merry Christmas

Wow!

What a day of presents, food and fun. We spent another Christmas here in Billings, and were able to send our leftover food (lots of them) to a friends house where they have a newborn and more pressing needs than cooking a Christmas feast. We heard they greatly enjoyed it! Lots of time on the phone with friends and family too.


Tomorrow we may hit some sales in the morning and then Scott has to work the evening shift (starting at 1pm). After 4 evenings for Scott, we'll have another 3 day weekend for the New Year celebration.


Merry Christmas again, and we hope you all enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.


Scott, Kelly, Nolan and Barrett Carpenter

Gifts from Santa. Playing Clue Jr. w/ Dad.

One of many gift pics today.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Happy Holidays From the "Montana" Carpenters!!

Nolan continues to heal well from his surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids.

We had a great Christmas Eve meal with the "traditional" shredded roast beef sandwiches after both Scott and Kelly braved the local grocery store on two occasions today.

Prior to church services this evening, we also found time to take a family photo by our Christmas tree and real Michigan wreath.

After we got home from church and viewing nearby Christmas lights, we also let the boys get updated on Santa's location. The picture below is them "tracking Santa" with the NORAD web site.

Nolan and Barrett's Birthday Party

This year we decided to combine the boys birthday parties and have them in between the birthdays on Sunday, December 17th at the local ice rink. We rented the rink for 1 1/2 hours and had a great time. Many kids tried skating for the first time, so that was a great experience for them. We've even heard that a few may take up the Learn to Skate program this winter or next. Here are a few pictures from the party.



The Billings Bulls (our Junior B team) had a game immediately after the party, so Kelly arranged for the coach and a couple of players to come by the party. The boys, especially Nolan, thought this was pretty neat. In a picture soon after the one below, Barrett went right back to eating cake while Nolan gave "high fives."

We had the boys open gifts after skating, and during this both teams were walking by to warm-up on the ice. It was pretty funny because the kids got quiet and just watched all the players walk by the benches we were sitting on.

It seems everyone had a great time and the boys really enjoyed getting to skate with so many of their friends!

Happy Birthday Nolan and Barrett!!

December 19th...Nolan's Surgery

As of 130 pm, Nolan is home and doing great recovering from his tonsil and adenoid removal. He had this done this morning, and is now relaxing watching some TV and enjoying some quiet time at home before we go get Barrett from day-care.

December 18th...Kelly's Birthday

Kelly celebrated her birthday on Monday this week and had a great day. Although she taught in the morning, tutored in the afternoon and played hockey Mom in the evening, it was still a fun day. We made time for cake, ice cream and presents in the afternoon, and we all went out for dinner a few days ago since we knew it would not happen Monday.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Church Christmas Program

I wrapped up my string of midnight shifts this morning...slept a few hours and then headed off to church for Nolan and Barrett's Church Christmas pageant. As the picture shows, Nolan was a shepherd singing Away in a Manger and Twinkle, Twinkle, Christmas Star, and Barrett was a sheep.



After church, Nolan, Barrett and I went to the local ice rink for the afternoon public skate. One of Nolan's fellow IP participants was also there so they had fun racing around the rink. In addition, we found out that other IP kids who are also in Learn To Skate this session were in the Learn To Skate Christmas Program (along with the daughter of one of Scott's co-workers), so we stuck around for an hour after public skating to watch the boys' friends participate.

Happy birthday to Brother-In-Law and Uncle Art today too!

Scott

December 7th...Nolan's Birthday

On Thursday, Nolan turned 5 years old and had a great birthday. His party will be combined with Barrett's on the 17th and will take place at our local rink. We decided to rent the rink out for part of an afternoon for the party and thought it would be nice to have it between Nolan and Barrett's birthdays for a combined party.

Some pictures from Nolan's fun time opening gifts are below.






After an excellent dinner at Outback Steakhouse (our Montana source for Texas' Blue Bell Ice Cream), we returned home for a green Mickey Mouse snowman cake. I'm not sure where the snowman came in, but this is what Nolan asked for in his birthday cake so Kelly complied. In any case, it was a delicious cake created by Kelly (as always).



It will be a busy year for Nolan, with starting school next Fall just part of the fun that awaits him!

Scott

December 2nd...Coaches Clinic

On December 2nd, I completed the first level coaches clinic for USA Hockey so that I could help out the main coaches during Nolan's IP sessions. This was a fun day of classroom time and on-ice time with some kids. The organizers arranged for some Mite kids to come help the coaches learn, and they said at lunch that Nolan and the other Dad's kids were welcome to come out and skate. So Nolan came out to help Dad learn too, and had a good time learning some new drills.

As of Dec 10th, Nolan's main coaches have welcomed the Dad's who took the course to help out during IP and we've been taking advantage and having a great time with the kids. It is nice to be involved when work will allow.

Scott