Christmas Day

After we leave Morris behind, we head home for Christmas Day.  This has become the day that we spend as a family of 4 1/2.  We typically have something for lunch and then let the kids rip open their gifts.  We watch a Christmas related movie and then play with our new toys.  That evening we head over to St Cloud and have Christmas with the Dusha family.  All in all, we run around like crazy making sure we see everyone and take in all the joy of the season, but it's so fun.  I am always so sad when the days have come and gone. 

Can't sit still long enough for a picture with her new "Unicorn" riding thingy.

He really was excited about all of the legos and games he received!



A lonely tree without any gifts...

The best I can get of them...

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas.  I love the look on the kids' faces to experience all of the traditions that I had while growing up.  I love passing on these traditions to my kids.  We always get very dressed up for Christmas Eve (at my parent's) and then go to Christmas Eve service.  This year we chose to go to Christmas Eve service at Faith Lutheran Church as they bring in a LIVE NATIVITY!  It was very cool - the kids loved seeing the animals.  After church we come back to my parent's house and prepare a very elaborate meal (or one that we wouldn't typically have during any other day of the year).  This year it was prime rib, shrimp skewers and many lovely side novelties.  Yummmmmmy!  Growing up we always would fondue, which we loved and Ryan and I have now passed this tradition on to doing as just us 4 (soon to be party of 5) and the kids LOVE it as well.  When dinner is done we always read the TRUE Christmas Story from the Bible and one of the kids gets to open the present (baby Jesus from the nativity scene) and place him in the manger.  After that the kids put on a program for us, that they have usually been practicing all afternoon (thanks to Skylar who organizes this event and puts a lot of time and energy into it, sometimes weeks or even months ahead of time!).  After the program we open gifts, do an adult elephant gift exchange, open stockings, eat some more and fall into bed comatose! IN the morning we have brunch, oh and of course see what Santa brought the little ones...

Teague just woke up, wasn't happy about a picture.

She refuses to smile...

Still no smile...

Oh, there it is.

The Christmas Program begins...

Nana and Papa with all the kids

Santa brought an ipod!

Santa brought Lola her own version of an "ipod" as well!

                                             Here's a snippet of the Christmas Program.  So cute.

Making Gingerbread Houses

Two weeks ago I took my little cuties out in a semi blizzard to mess up someone else's kitchen make gingerbread houses! Every year the Cold Spring Bakery offers this activity so we took advantage this year. Teague had been taking about it all week so I surely didn't want to disappoint him with bad weather spoiling the plans! Needless to say they seemed to enjoy putting as much stuff on the house as possible. I just needed to be quick with putting on the frosting. Afterwards we enjoyed a cookie and hot chocolate and were on our way home!

Merry Christmas!

Miscellaneous

Visiting Santa in Freeport before daddy's first basketball game of the season They love practicing changing the diapers and feeding Lola's "baby alive".

Minneapolis for the Day

My mom and I took the kids to Minneapolis last Friday to Macy's in downtown for Santa's Workshop. The kids love it and we always get there early enough to avoid any crowds. This year we also were able to go to the puppet show. Next we headed out to the Mall of America to Nickelodeon theme park. The mall was a zoo but the park was so quiet we didn't have to wait in any lines. All in all a fun and successful trip! As you can see he prefers the big kid rides now!

Prepping for Christmas

The weekend after thanksgiving we got to spend some time getting ready for Christmas and Skylar even got to spend part of the weekend with us as her mom worked and her dad and brother were in Chicago for the Vikes game. We picked out a Christmas tree (and Ryan subsequently tried to saw his own hand off, though sad for him, it made the kids incredibly scared of the tree - they thought the tree might have the same effects on their precious little sticky fingers. Lose-win perhaps?!)

We also made yummy cookies. Well mostly Skylar did with help from Teague and even less "help" from Lola.  I think I ate all of the frosted cookies in about 2 days.

Teague really understands his Avent calendar this year. We buy them from a student in German at school. It's their fundraiser for their German trip in the summer. This year Ryan bought 3...one year too early, we only need 2 this year! Well in years past Teague just wants to eat all of the chocolates at once. Most years I just give up on the fight and let him eat them all in one sitting when I realize he had no idea what this concept was. This year he gets it and loves the idea. Lola....yep ate all of her's last week...and wants the rest of Teague's.

We love this time of the year!

Gender Reveal

Yes, I know you all know we are having a boy. But I wanted to show off my mad "Cake Boss" skills that I used to show the Dusha family the gender of 3.0.

Date Day with Teague

Two weeks ago my parrnts took lola for a night so we could spend some one on one time with him.  Unfortunately he woke up feeling crummy. I drugged him up and we were on our way to have breakfast at Charlie's in Freeport. After that we headed to St Cloud and did some groceery shopping. Then we were off to the movie teague had talked about for a month, "Wreck it Ralph"...he loved it and then we took him out to lunch at  Fuji Steakhouse.  While he loved all the fun things they do there to show off their cooking skils, he wasnt crazy about the food. Go figure!

After that we headed home, picked up Lola and hunkered down for the snow storm that enabled us to have a 2 hour late start the next Monday!

No Longer...

SOON we will no longer be a table of 4.  BUT, we are so excited about that!  Don't worry, our blog address won't change, but the name "table of 4" won't make much sense after May 8, 2013...

So Thankful...

I am very thankful for many things (so many I could ramble a whole long post about them), but here are my three favorite faces that I am thankful for...

We had a great Thanksgiving. I spent the day baking and getting ready for a great time with the entire Dusha family in St Cloud last evening. The meal was great and the company was better! Only downfall; the weather. It was glare ice when we left and we slid all the way home past cars in the ditch and semis jack-knifed. Yikes. It did clear up near Melrose, which is good because my mom and I had some serious shopping to do at Sauk Centre Walmart. Well, thanks to the GREAT weather, I was 10 minutes delayed from the start of the sale and literally was unable to get ANYTHING I had on my list. Everything on my list was gone in that first 10 minutes! I couldn't believe it. Today my sister, mom and I went up to Alexandria and I can't say I had much better luck. I have yet to buy a gift for the kids. Oh well. At least I have a few more weeks!

Bball has officially started in our house and things are off to a good start for Ryan and the boys. They have their first scrimmage tomorrow. I know he is looking forward to the season and the kids and I are looking forward to taking in a few games as well!

Look at what I did last weekend with the wonderful weather. I got all three of my outside planters finished for Christmas. Seemed weird to do in 55 degree weather!

Tonight we went to the Melrose Mini-Dazzle Parade. There were lots of pretty lights and we didn't freeze as much as I thought. It was just the right length of time and the kids, plus one pre-teen and two adults, really enjoyed it!