Saturday, March 3, 2012

Christmas 2011

Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year and it's even better with the kids...to enjoy it all through their eyes is just the best. We had another fun holiday season this year. First of all, the kids were so excited for snow...after our awful winter last year, we didn't know what to expect when it came to snowfall. Unfortunately for the kids, we barely had any snow at all this time. Just a dusting here and there that melted quickly.

The first weekend of December started off our holiday fun. The first Saturday of December is always the Rommegrot luncheon at the Mindekerken church in Minneapolis. My mom grew up attending this with her mom, I remember going with my mom and my grandma..and we are continuing the tradition. Caleb went last year for the first time and he went with again this year, along with my mom, Laura and Steph. He doesn't care for the rommegrot but he loves the Norwegian bread. This event really is not too fun for kids, but Caleb is so well behaved and patient..I'm glad to bring him with. That same day in the afternoon we went to see Santa at Andover Floral. Ella was a huge fan of Santa this year, pointing him out anywhere and saying 'Ho ho ho!' Caleb, on the other hand, has always been a little nervous about Santa and this year was no exception. He was nervous about this for weeks beforehand and kept saying he wasn't going, but he was worried about how Santa would know what to bring him. My mom and I were just in shock when he sat down with Santa, listened to a story and even gave him a hug! I could tell he was being so brave and it literally brought me to tears. Ella loved seeing Santa, of course. We ended up going to the Holidazzle parade that night too. This is the holiday lights parade in downtown Minneapolis..it started years ago, and I haven't been since I was a teenager. It was a lot of fun to do that again, really brought back memories for me! Caleb was kind of freaked out by the people in costumes in the parade but Ella just LOVED it. She sat on Grandpa's lap on the curb and he had to hold her back from walking into the street, she couldn't get enough! That next day we went to a tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. My parents, Laura and Joey & Steph have been doing this for years but we usually have our artifical tree. This year we decided to go for a real tree, too, and I am SO glad we did! It feels more like Christmas to have that real Christmas tree scent in the house, I think. We all went together and hauled the trees back in my dad's trailer. This is my new favorite Christmas tradition. It was so fun walking around looking for trees with the kids, watching Marshall cut it down by himself (and even losing Steph's camera when it fell out of my pocket..oops! We found it!). I can't wait to do this again next year. That night we decorated the tree and the kids had so much fun. I bought Caleb a little tree for his own room (we always had these as kids) and he loved decorating that, too.

The next weekend was my sister's 21st birthday! I could go on forever about how I can't believe Laura is actually 21...every year her birthday throws me for a loop because I just can't believe how fast the time goes. To celebrate we had a lot planned...her birthday was on a Sunday, so that morning we all got together for breakfast and mimosas (and bloody marys!) at my parents' house. The kids and I stuck around for awhile and we did our annual Christmas cookie baking. Ella had a great time helping out this year for the first time. That night we went out for dinner, too.

Every weekend in December was full of Christmas events...the third weekend was Christmas in Osakis. We went up for noon dinner with the Waldvogel family and it was nice to see everyone at Grandma's house. Caleb went up the night before and stayed at the farm with my parents.
The week before Christmas, we got some sad news about Marshall's uncle Roger (his dad's brother). He had been battling lung cancer since October and passed away. We decided to run up to Minot again for the funeral (we had just been there in October when Marshall's grandma- his dad's mom-passed away). It's a long trip but we had the time off from work and Marshall really wanted to be there for his dad, so we made it work. The kids stayed with my parents again and it all worked out fine..we got home the day before Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve we had dinner with Marshall's mom and stepdad and Chelsea. It was a quiet night and the kids had a great time opening gifts at their house. We had quite a surprise earlier in the day when Caleb lost his first tooth! That morning while eating breakfast he told me something was wrong with his tooth..we hadn't known it was even loose before then! I suppose he didn't know what was going on, since this was the first one. We hadn't really even talked about it yet because I wasn't expecting this to happen so soon. I have a group of friends with kids all born in September of 2006 like Caleb and none of them have lost teeth yet. So we were all very surprised, especially Caleb. He was super nervous about it and didn't want to eat. He kept telling me he'd be ok not eating for a few days. We kept encouraging him to wiggle it and it was getting really loose..finally Marshall took a look and it just popped right out, this was right before we were leaving for Christmas Eve dinner. I'm guessing it had been loose for awhile. Caleb just couldn't believe he lost a tooth! He kept exclaiming that over and over that night. He was pretty excited about the tooth fairy coming the same night as Santa! We let the kids open gifts from us Christmas Eve as well, and then had presents from Marshall's dad and stepmom, they sent them from Arizona. The highlight for Caleb was a pogo stick, for sure..he had been wanting this for a long time and was so excited to see it from Grandma and Grandpa. Ella just enjoyed opening up everything...she especially loves clothes. She got a pair of Elmo jammies and proceeded to whip all her clothes off and put them on right away, she loves them so much. The kids were ready for bed and anxious for Santa to come (and the tooth fairy)...Caleb put his tooth in a cup in his room and we left cookies out for Santa in the kitchen, along with a picture Caleb drew.

Caleb woke Christmas morning very excited because the tooth fairy left him a dollar in his room..also perplexed because the tooth fairy left his tooth! (The tooth fairy was not prepared for this and decided to leave the tooth instead of trying to get it out of the cup and risk waking Caleb up! I told him she probably thought his parents wanted to hang on to those for memories...it's in my jewelry box now). Santa left the kids a letter and mentioned the lost tooth...Caleb thought that was pretty neat..maybe the tooth fairy and Santa ran into each other in the middle of the night? Ella was her usual grumpy self in the morning and didn't get too excited about running downstairs to get stockings. She was mad when I tried to take any pictures of her. She warmed up though and the kids had a great time opening gifts from Santa. They both got new suitcases of their own and backpacks, among other things...that was a big hit! We went to my parents' house for breakfast and to open gifts there. I love this part of the day. It is so fun to see everyone's gifts and just enjoy the time with family. We had Christmas dinner later on with just my parents and Laura. We usually have my mom's side of the family over too but it didn't work out this year (we all got together on New Years Eve instead)...so we felt kind of lonely but we still had a good time. The kids played with a lot of their new stuff and we just hung around. My dad
was dealing with a kidney stone..this came on a few days before Christmas and he ended up in the ER (what a surprise phone call that was..I'm used to hearing about my mom's medical issues, not my dad!) so he wasn't feeling well because of all the pain meds..so it was a low key day but that was just fine!

Instead of posting all the pictures here, you can see them by following this link to my Snapfish album: http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/shareereg/p=88731330790076183/l=14179270013/g=94853533/cobrandOid=1000/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/campaignName=ShareeNewReg_30FreePrints_2010Feb/otsc=SYE/otsi=SANR/pns/snapfish/share/p=88731330790076183/l=14179270013/g=94853533/cobrandOid=1000/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/campaignName=ShareeNewReg_30FreePrints_2010Feb/otsc=SYE/otsi=SANR/retusr=true