Family Christmas Celebration

Another family get together, over Christmas break, is in the books! Our family just keeps growing. This year Josh and Rachael and the kiddos flew in to spend time over Christmas with us. It was so fun getting to meet little Eli. He is so sweet! It was a nice time of relaxing, playing games, eating and visiting. Kevin and I enjoyed having all the family join us for Church. It was fun to let everyone see and experience our new church home.  A few of us gals even took a late night sauna!

Merry Christmas!

Fun was had by ALL today! Last night, before we went to bed, I let Logan know that no matter what time he got out of bed in the morning we were not opening gifts until after breakfast. Breaking it to him the night before always makes for a better Christmas morning. We woke up to one happy boy! Logan chose to have pancakes for Christmas breakfast. He often asks to have dinner by candlelight, so I gave him a special treat this morning and lit the candles. Loved seeing his smile when he walked down the stairs and saw the candles burning. 

After breakfast we sat around the tree and read the Christmas story and open our gifts. It is always hard to change things up when it comes to getting gifts for Kevin. He either wants a game or clothes. I thought long and hard on something to get him that was unique. I landed on a Gua Sha. He is starting to get in our sauna more these days, so I thought a Gua Sha would be perfect. He can now get those pores wide open before his sauna!

Logan has been playing with his toys all afternoon. The dart board was a big hit and Kev is in bed  now reading his new book with him. It is so much fun seeing Christmas through the eyes of our children. 

We thought this year Logan was old enough to build a gingerbread house from scratch. We have always bought a prebuilt one and just decorated the house. I am not sure how we managed to get through today still loving each other, but we did. There were some high emotions during the building process. We just used graham crackers, frosting and candy. The fun began after we got the house to finally stand and stick together. We were very happy with our final result. We could not have done it without Kevin....he kept it all together!

We ended our day by playing a game and watching the movie Togo. Logan was all smiles today and that make this mom's heart happy and it makes Christmas perfect!

Little Moments this week....

Each year Logan seems to enjoy helping me with things more and more. I sat down last week to start stuffing my Christmas cards and Logan said he would take over and do the stuffing and stamps this year. I am not a fan of licking the envelopes so that was a huge help to me. His personality is definitely starting to show that he likes traditions. Each year he is remembering more and stepping up to help make each tradition happen. 

                                       

This year his school went to see the Nutcracker. This kid would wear PJ's to school everyday if I would let him, so getting him dressed up was a treat for me. He was even the one that suggested wearing a tie!

                                       

One afternoon we were fooled by the sun and decided to go sledding. We can normally handle the cold, but this day we lasted about 30 minutes and were DONE. 

We have started going to a new church over the last two months. This Sunday our church closed the doors and we all went downtown to pack bags for the homeless and underprivileged. It was overwhelming to see all the items that were donated and all the people that came. We are in love with the heart of this church and look forward to seeing all that God has in store! 

Today my sister in law came to Rochester for a quick visit. She stopped by to drop off this beautiful Christmas center piece. I was needing something for my table and it is perfect!

Zoodazzle!

For the last three years we have made it to Zoodazzle! This is the first year we took the time to stand in line to see Santa. He was in a heated igloo and that sounded comforting to all of us.  It was a whopping 17 degrees outside. We ended the evening by treating ourselves to some yummy cookies. We will continue to make Zoodazzle one of our yearly Christmas outings in the years to come!

Two of the Best Helpers....

Every year decorating for Christmas gets easier and easier... because of my two guys. We are getting a little system going and everyone seems to know just what to do. I snapped a few pictures earlier on during the decoration process to capture them in the moment. I want to make sure they remember when next year comes around that they DO know how to help me! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for this year! Every evening at dinner we each took time to write down one thing we were thankful for that day. I wish I would have taken a picture of our finished "Thankful" pumpkin. Some of my favorites were: Logan's laugh, school,imagination, stay at home mommy, big backyard, sauna nights, and games as a family. We truly are blessed even in our hard times. This year for Thanksgiving we headed to Iowa to Kim and Dan's place. We spent the day with family. They did a little surprise 40th Birthday celebration for me. Made me feel special!