MERRY CHRISTMAS! (holiday season 2012!)

Started off the season by making a gingerbread house out at Grandma & Papa Lee's house with the rest of the family! Not too shabby!

Jacob clearly very proud of it! ;)

Now lets just fast forward to Christmas morning! Our house looked like a bomb went off, but boy did we have some happy boys!!

Shelbster opening part of her gift from Ryan on Christmas morning!

Papa being... well, silly Papa!
Ryan apparently loved his new hat so much he took a picture of it with my camera!

Kim & I

HAPPY Jacob!

Talk about two cuties!!

Austin Billy & I... he LOVES his picture taken (so this was a stretch!)

Table set beautifully for a delicous Christmas Day dinner!

Shelb giving Ryan some pointers with his new DS3D from Grandma & Papa
Ryan & Papa testing out Papa's new bench that Grandma got him! Lookin' good!

Christmas cookies left out for Santa- Ryan thought that a bottle of water might be more logical this year so Santa can just grab it and hop back on his sleigh.... so smart that boy! ;)

Miss Megan & Auntie Ally Christmas Eve night! Were going to take this with HER new camera, but didn't have a memory card in it yet. :) CHEESE!!!

Jacob grinning ear to ear playing with his new wheel loader

Ryan's new ferry boat with cows and cars already loaded on it from Kylie!

Jordan opening his grass head from Ryan- very excited!!

Megan got a new CAMERA! Do you think she was excited about it or WHAT?!!!

Jacob patiently waiting for Daddy to detach his new tractor and wagon from the box that he got from Gma & Gpa Boon!

Jacob & cousin Austin

Ryan loved his new Lego sets from Aunt Bonnie & Uncle Gil that he got at our Christmas Eve eve gathering at Kim & Greg's. He didn't think he'd be getting any presents that night so this was a big bonus! He sat and put them both together before we left!

Cousins :) Ryan, Austin & Jacob

The whole gang of cousins: Craig Gilbert, Carlee, Ryan, Shelby, Anna, Makenna, Austin & Jacob! Good lookin' crew!

Baby Jesus' icr cream birthday cake we made for Christmas Eve- yummers! Oreos, mint chocolate chip ice cream, hot fudge, oh my! ;)

Melting Peppermint Moments cookies I made for the first time.... certainly do melt in your mouth!

Peppermint white chocolate covered Oreos!!! A big hit!

Homemade peppermint patties- wowza!

Christmas cookies decorated by Shelby, Ryan, Grandma Lee & myself- with Jacob's supervision, of course!

Can you say Christmas treats?!! Tray of goodies for Christmas Eve eve gathering.

Homemade peanut brittle- I'm a big girl now and made it all by myself! ;) Usually make it with my mom at her house, but didn't work out this year AND the good news is it turned out great!

Employee Christmas Party, Friday December 16th, 2011 in our new shop! Went fabulous! Had Eeeeeeks BBQ cater it, rented a bouncy house AND we had heat! Love the new shop!

This picture is from right after we got everything set up and ready to go for the night!

Some of the group looking on to where we were having the kids hit the pinata!

The pinata was just about as big of a hit as the bouncy house was... definitely a fun night had by all!

My little helper Ryan, waiting for the peppermint cookies to bake- always fun to try new recipes!

HOLY CAKEBALLS! :) Melinda and I made a ridiculous amount of cakeballs for the MVCS Cookie Walk December 10th. I believe there were almost 350! Various flavors- all were sold out 30mins into the cookie walk! Guess we'll be making more next year!

December 8, 2011 (Mine & Jeff's 10th anniversary!)

MVCS Elementary Christmas Program- great as usual. Beautiful Christmas songs about Jesus were sung by sweet little voices- doesn't get much better!

Caleb (aka Joseph), Kera, Jordan & Ryan after the program for a quick pic- great job kiddos! Next year Kera & Caleb will have a separate program for middle schoolers- time marches on!

National Milk San Diego

Jeff and I had the privledge to go to the annual National Milk Meeting, this year held in San Diego, CA along with 3 other couples from our YC group. A great time to escape to some warmer weather in the sunshine, but we also did enjoy the meetings and meeting other dairy farmers from all across the country and hearing how they do things in their neck of the woods.

Here's a group photo from the trip which including the Steve Rowe and our YC leader, Michelle Carter.

In between meetings (or maybe during a few of them!) we ventured out around San Diego a bit. One free afternoon we took the trail/rail car to Old Town San Diego which was alot of fun with the Dorsey's & Van Dyk's.

Becky and I also enjoyed the 'scenery' at one of the largest malls in the country which happened to be located directly behind our hotel.... darn the bad luck!

We also got to hear Tampa Bay football player, John Lynch speak to us during one of the lunches- he definitley had some great 'behind the scene' stories to share!

Ahhhh, palm trees- they always make me happy! :)

Last night at dinner!

Special day for the Boon's!

Yesterday our family and Steve & Melinda's family got to go down to the Darigold Headquarters in Seattle for a tour to see the pictures that they used from the Fresh Vol. 4 magazine and blew them up to hang on the walls. We came up to the landing of the 2nd floor and this is what we saw! Very cool. Had to get the "Boon Boys" picture taken in front of it, of course!

Three of our pretty girls :)
After a tour of the building, we went into the main Board Room to look at a few minutes of tape that they'd put together from a video they are putting together to show not only nationwide, but internationally! It'll be called "Feeding the World"- so far they just had some rough pieces, but was fun to watch and will be really neat to see when it's all done!

On our way to the plant our, Ryan showed me his goodies he got at the office... a brand new Darigold shirt, some Refuel chocolate milk and a cow toy :)

Jacob saw me take his brother's picture and said, 'Me too!' so he gave me one of his fabulous poses. :) Fresh milk-stache and all!

The whole fam getting ready to head out on our private tour of the Rainier plant where our milk gets shipped! We got to see from the bottles being, being filled, sealed, wrapped, put on pallets and loaded onto trucks to head to the store. Pretty darn cool!