A Smith Christmas

Christmas was wonderful. All members of the Smith family was able to be home and enjoy my father being able to be home for the first time since this summer and the last time in a long time and possibly ever in Minnesota. He has selflessly taken a job out in Montana where he is a teacher at the Job Corps. To say that he loves it would be an understatement, although our house is still on the market here in Minnesota, dad is loving the quaint cottage he is living in, that is surrounded by the Bitterroot Mountains and he sees many herds of elk on a daily basis. He is loving his dreamy homestead. He is at home, and at peace where he always imagined life when he would retire. However he has yet to retire he loves every part of it out there and wishes we could just all up and move there with him. He has dreamed of this for as long as I can remember.. and I am so thankful he is enjoying it as much as he is. It was truly one of the best Christmas's we have ever had, not just because of the wonderful Heated Blanket I got, or the other presents everyone loved receiving and giving. But because for the first time in many months our dad was with us and we were all together. We enjoyed many cups of coffee, lots of my mom's homemade lefse, reminiscing of many memories and enjoyed lots of laughs..
Pranks are def. a Smith family thing, as my dad is king of pranks. It all started when my brother Josh asked me to make sure that my youngest sister was out of the house for a little while, little did we know he took off her bedroom door, wrapped it up in wrapping paper and put it next to the tree. Let's just say that really made Abby think of some pretty hilarious ideas.. Josh unwrapped a present from her which he thought he was getting an iPhone although it was just the case from my dad's new iPhone and it held a very crappy phone inside.. than Abby brought down his next "present".. a bucket that she had filled with water the night before and put all of his clean boxers in it.. which she than left outside to freeze solid overnight… it was quite the sight.. ha.
We sure enjoyed and soaked up our time with dad, as we are unsure the next time we will all be together and be able to see him. We miss him greatly, it sure has brought us closer together as a family. We are already very tight knit, and our parents did a great job making sure we really appreciate each other, since someday we may not have the friends we do now but we will always have our family and we need to make sure to spend time with each other and appreciate each other for each other's own gifts and talents and not be selfish. I am so thankful for the parents we have and all of my siblings. We are blessed beyond measure. Here are some pictures from our last Christmas in this wonderful house that we have all grown up in for the last 19 years:

This is the way we start every Christmas morning at our house, Dad puts on his favorite Christmas song to wake us up:

Here is Josh's prank to Abby:

Here is Abby's Pranks to Josh:

Mom bought Dad an iPhone for Christmas, when we were teaching him about how to use Siri, he thought the name was Sierra so my sister Britt got him a "Siri for Dummies" but she replaced the name with Sierra, here is his reaction:

Opening Presents:

Dad reading his new Siri For Dummies Book

The girls and mom making cookies:

Some fun family pictures:

The street we grew up on:

Yes even in negative temps we had our bonfire going.. it smelled so good! 

Soaking in our moments together

Tradition has it that we fondue every Christmas and New Years

Than sledding and snowboarding comes afterwards