January Going Ons

Lola and I had a breakfast date!
Teague celebrated his 1/2 birthday (a huge deal when your birthday is in the summer and you're school aged) with breakfast in bed, presents, a party at school...
...and dinner at Charlie's!
Ryan and I had a night away in Minneapolis and took in a TWolves game and good food!
Lola continued to be cute.
After Lola had her follow up allergy appointment (she's doing great with some modifications to her diet), we had a date at Applebee's.
Teague showed off his mad diving skills at swimming lessons.
Ryan got really excited at the "Coaches vs. Cancer" game when his team was destroying a team that hadn't lost in 55 games straight.
Teague passed swimming lessons!

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!