Christmas Afternoon at the Gillis Grandparents

Jason & Rose

Owen is ready for sledding!



Emma got some dress up shoes and butterfly wings and loved 'em!

The kids really loved the horse that Grandma Kate and Grandpa Paul gave them. Hope named her Daisy and Daisy is so strong that even grown-ups can sit on her! Hope spent her first night away from home at the Gillis house on Christmas night and did great! Thanks for the fun day Grandma & Grandpa

Desi and Rose's Christmas

Well, we had a lot of fun opening gifts! Thanks a ton to David & Sharee for the under-cabint CDplayer/Radio. Desi just installed it yesterday and it ROCKS! We LOVE it! It's great to not have to blast our CD player from the living room, or to listen to something else as we cook or clean. Thanks to Jan for the book. Thanks to Uncle Neil for the check...this is the camera we bought just in time...our 6 yr old camera just died. Soooo, with the higher mega pixles, we'll be able to print great photos and still post great pictures online! Thanks to all for the great and generous gifts...we are blessed beyond belief!

Emmaline's Christmas

Emma was an unwrapping machine! It was hard to keep track of her and keep her from opening gifts that were not hers. She loves the baby doll that prays and sings Jesus Loves Me...she has started to sing along. She pretty much likes everyone's toys, but the gift that made the biggest impact was the mermaid dress-up dress that the Ebert family sent. Emma was already dressed, but tore off her clothes to get the mermaid outfit on. She wore it all day! Thanks everyone for the great gifts!

Owen's Christmas

Owen was SUPER excited about EVERYTHING Christmas morning! He was even excited about clothes (is that normal for a 3 yr old?). He really likes his armor of God, remote control dinosaur and spiderman motorcycle. Thanks again to all for the great gifts!

Hope's Christmas

Hope says thank you for all her gifts. She tried the ballet and her sister had to get right in on the action! Hope loves the new clothes too! Hope says her favorite present was the new playfood for the toy kitchen and her ballet set.

Christmas Morning

The kids stayed up late on Christmas Eve, so they slept in 'till 8am (a nice gift to mom and dad). Owen and Hope didn't notice their stockings in their room and ran right into us. We convinced them to check their room and soon heard ooohs and wow's coming down the hall. Emma got a stocking for the first time this year and loved the candy best of all! This photo was the last calm moment of the morning. Unwrapping gifts was a bit hectic-Emma was crazy with her unwrapping skills-not caring who's gift she had in her hands! We had our neighbor Steve over for quiche and cinnamon rolls around 9 and ended up at my parent's house for lunch. Thanks again to all who sent and gave such great gifts! Uncle Neil, thanks again for your generous gift...because of it, we'll be able to continue to post pictures with our new digital camera! I'll be posting seperate posts for each of our kids to show some of their gifts and pics. ~Rose

Christmas Eve with Family!

This past week, I got really sick and didn't think we'd be able to have my family over for dinner on the 24th, but God is good and I was feeling a lot better by Saturday morning! We had waldorf salad, crab linguini and not yo mama's banana pudding...yum! The kids got to open one gift, which was some classic tv Christmas shows on dvd-Rudolph, Frosty, ect... We put on Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and once the kids were settled we played a quick card game.

Dad, Owen, Mom and Hope...

Jason (Rose's brother) and Desi...

We are so blessed to have our family close! ~Rose

Sparkling Cider Give Away

This year our church decided to go Christmas caroling and give away bottles of sparkling cider and small toys for the kids. Well, the Sunday we planned on going out it snowed and was very cold, so we stayed in! A small group decided to go out Friday, Dec. 23rd and they had a great time. They gave out 40 bottles and about 35 toy bags in less than 2 hours. They did not carol (not enough people) but had a great time talking to people and meeting people who live around the church that we will be meeting in starting January 15th (Antioch Baptist-about 3 blocks from our house). Even Hope and Owen went and had a great time helping!

Karen, Mattie, Carrie, Kate, Desi, Hope and Owen

Two Peas In A Pod!

I do not recall Hope and Owen ever enjoying each others company as much as Owen and Emma do. Emma is a little monkey see, monkey do and Owen doesn't seem to mind at all! A majority of the time they get along really well and just laugh and laugh. Hope was with her Grandma Kate yesterday, so Owen and Emma got the bath to themselves. They were putting bubbles all over their faces and them rubbing it off and laughing...they are really fun to watch!


Emma is even sitting on the potty when Owen does for potty training! Wouldn't it be great if she got potty trained at the same time?! I seriously doubt that will happen, but she's having fun! Owen is on day 5 of big boy underwear...my hopes are not high...but this is the first time that he really wants to do it, which is great!
~Rose

Candy Cane Festival

Last Saturday (December 10th) we decided to get out and visit Hammond's Candy Factory. The kids and I have been twice for a free factory tour. Hammond's has been around since 1920something and is still family owned and operated. They make candy canes 6 days a week-50 weeks a year! Their treats are shipped all over the country and we are just lucky enough to live a couple miles from them! They hold this free festival every year. There were free mini train rides, music, Santa, free horse drawn wagon rides and reindeer! We waited about an hour to ride the wagon, and these were the lucky horses on the job.

The Dokes family joined us and their boys, Moses and Ezekiel, along with Emma paid a buck to decorate a big gingerbread man cookie...lots of frosting and tons of candy on top. Here Emma shows off her creation.

Hope and Owen brought their spending money and decided to by a lolly pop and candy cane, respectively. As you can see, they were very excited!

One of the two reindeer they had for us to gaze at in wonder and awe!

My wonderful friend Aimee, her daughter Trinity and me and Emma of course.

~Rose Starr

Thank You Grandma Maxine!

Hi Grandma Maxine! I love the dresses you sent!
This one is my favorite! Thank you and I love you! Love, Hope Starr

Snow Play

It was sooooo cold earlier in the week! It got down to 2 one day....too cold to go out! The condensation on the inside of our windows froze! We store some food in the back room (which is not insulated like the rest of the house and is closed off from the kitchen) and found a can of soda had burst over night-frozen soda all over! My olive oil even froze! On Tuesday, Owen and Emma could not resist. We played for 10 minutes and then came in crying because it was so cold!

Wednesday was so much warmer...in the 40's...our mailman Ed called it a heat wave! Snow play is just too hard to stay away from. Emma knows where her hat, gloves, boots and coat are and brings them to me on a regular basis. Isn't she just a ball of cuteness?! Our little Emma Bear!

Hope and Owen love throwing snow balls and making new tracks in fresh snow. We hid behind a car and jumped out at Desi to scare him when he got home that day!

Waking up to snow

It was pretty warm last night at the parade...didn't think the snow was coming till today sometime, but low and behold we woke up to a winter wonderland. Even though this is our 3rd winter, we still get excited to see all that white stuff everywhere! We never get a ton of snow, so the roads usually stay clear which is great. How fun!

Parade of Lights

Denver has this big Christmas Parade of Lights every year and we have wanted to go but it's always been so cold. This year the weather was agreeable, so we decided to go to the Friday 8pm parade. The Kylander family and Brent Larson came for dinner. We filled our travel mugs with hot coco and headed for downtown. We got there about an hour early to get good seats at the beginning of the parade route. We laid down sleeping bags and all sat down to wait.

Emma, Owen and Ezra were in awe!

Even the marching bands had lights!

There were 4 or 5 balloons. We were near a signal so we got to watch them lower the balloons to get under the lights.

The whole gang...

A lighted Wells Fargo stage coach...

If the weather agrees next year, maybe we'll do it again...it was great!

Decorating the Tree!

Well, December 1st came before the snow, so we pulled up all our Christmas stuff from the basement. Hope was so excited...and helped by filling in the advent calendar with 3 kisses per pocket. Each night we are celebrating advent by reading and talking about christmas and the kids get a chocolate kiss. We got to put up house lights for the first time ever thanks to Josh Kylander putting in an outlet. We splurged on an outdoor timer so the lights go on and off without us having to go into the cold!

Owen came down from his nap and we were decorating the tree in no time! He declined a photo, but the girls agreed.

Emma cannot keep her hands off the tree and is really getting into the spirit of things by dancing to the Christmas music.

What a great time of year it is!