Joyeux Noel!

This year for Christmas, my side decided to do a theme Christmas. The theme this year was the country of France in honor of part of our heritage. Danielle and I decided to take it a little further and dress the part. We found some vintage dresses to wear and looking at these pictures makes me laugh even more!! Danielle's dress was from the 50's and she looks like a cross between a homemaker and Mrs. Claus. My dress was from the 40's and all I see is Mary Poppins crossed with Tom Petty. Maybe we weren't as cool as I thought?!? Hahaha!
Sawyer loved having his Chrissy around and when we said goodbye to her yesterday he kept saying, "No go bye bye!" That made me all the more sad to see them leave again for Colorado.
Here we are whipping up the French meal. For Christmas the French serve a 5 course meal. For the first course we served French onion soup. It was delicious but the younger kids only focus on the onions and didn't eat very much of it. The second course was a salad (can't remember what we called it) with almonds and strawberries in it and then it was on to the 3rd course-the ham, potatoes and bread. Doing the courses was a lot of fun and everyone not in the kitchen was excited to find out what we would be serving next.
The fourth course was fruit and the final course (we did this one later on) was the desserts. I made 2 Yule logs and there was a cheesecake and some other desserts. Yum!
Mom definitely needs a bigger kitchen to fit the five of us cooks in there (:
After the meal, my dad sat down and told us a little about our ancestors from France. He has been studying our family tree for awhile and it was interesting to hear what he found out. I didn't like finding out however, that my ancestors owned slaves in Haiti at one point.
Here's Ashley, Jonnie, Mitchell, Phil (Allison's boyfriend), and Allison.
Next, we opened you guessed it-french gifts! It was so fun to see what everyone came up with that was french. Some of the gifts were truffles, vanilla noir body lotion, french bingo game, kids french cookbook, french photo board, homemade soaps and body oil, french wine, french note cards, make-up, jewelry with french words, etc. It was challenging when finding the gifts, but fun to see what everyone else came up with!

Here Jonnie is reading a gift from Mitchell. It was a book he made called "Remember when, Jon" and it was memories of all the things him and Jonnie did together. It will be cherished forever and made me cry when I listened to Jonnie read it out loud....Another French tradition is having the kids do a puppet show. We had the kids all make sock puppets and I loved what everyone came up with. When we asked Sawyer what his puppets name was he said "Santa" in this high pitched voice-so adorable! Jonnie's was named Billy and Alaina's was named Annie. I laughed when Aidan created a Llama-so cute.

Here they are making their puppets.
Here is the show! Neve was the queen who ordered her family and animals to do all the chores. It was simple and Neve lost interest pretty fast, but it was adorable (:

It was a lot of fun this year and we also found out that next summer we will be expecting the 18th grandchild!! Jonnie ended up staying overnight at my mom's that night with Mithchell and Aidan. They had a lot of fun and made some lasting memories-thanks mom and dad!

Christmas Day

Christmas morning came and Jonnie was completely reassured that Santa is real and the two of them were beyond excited! They woke us up around 8:00. Sawyer was sleeping in our bed with no signs of waking up. After waiting for a little while and checking out the presents under the tree Jonnie went up to check on Sawyer.....
He obviously woke him up and Sawyer was just not ready to deal with everything.

Once they checked their stockings and Sawyer saw that there was chocolate in them, he perked up and was ready to open presents.

Even Dexter and Ollie got a special treat.
"I love you dad"

Here are a few pictures of the kids opening gifts. Some favorites were the fish tank Alaina got, the cd player and walkie talkie's for Jonnie, and the Handy Manny tools and blocks for Sawyer.





After Christmas at our house, we headed to the church for the Wiegmann (Jon's mom's side) Christmas. It was smaller than usual this year as quite a few families were headed elsewhere. It was still nice to see everyone, esp. Jon's grandma (:

Here are Jonnie, Sawyer, and Tucker......I was trying so hard to get the perfect picture, but Sawyer was trying to be funny-it's still cute, I guess (:
Grandma brought some things to paint and the kids had fun doing that for awhile.
You know Sawyer is concentrating hard when his tongue comes out.

A Christmas miracle happened and we may never witness it again. Grandpa Jon is doing dishes?!?!

Here they are singing Happy Birthday to Jesus!

We had a great Christmas once again and I will cherish these years forever.

Christmas Eve

Christmas has arrived and as usual everything got done as it always does. We started out the festivities at Old Mamrelund Church in the country. I didn't bring my camera this year as I just wanted to enjoy it without worrying about taking pictures. If you want to see the old church go back to my Christmas Eve post from last year (:

After the church service, we headed over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house.......once there we enjoyed our traditional feast of Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, Ost Kaca, and bread pudding. It was delicious as always!

Here is Tucker, Alaina, and Kate. The kids seem to be growing up so fast all of sudden.

Hunter didn't get a nap today, so he was a tired boy (: Grandma's cheeks were sure rosy!

After dinner it was time for presents. We all received some some very nice things, and I thank you all again for everything!

It's surprising we don't lose the kids in all the wrapping paper!

Ho, ho, ho!

Family photo and we were all looking with our eyes open!

After a great night at grandmas, we headed home and put out our cookies and milk and Jonnie wrote Santa a letter.

I wasn't sure how to respond to this. He is so sweet and innocent about it all and wants Santa to be real so bad. I was a little sad as this may be his last year believing in Santa. He told me tonight that there are a couple kids in school that are so naughty and mean and they seem to get the most gifts. He then asked me why they get so many when Santa checks if your naughty or nice-that is what he is basing his "maybe there is no Santa" thoughts.

After getting everything ready we sat down to read our three books-Room for a little one, Polar Express, and Twas the Night before Christmas. Alaina and Jonnie really love this tradition and I am sure it will be one of Sawyer's favs, too.

Jon and Alaina then slept together in Alaina's room. I checked on them 30 minutes after they went to bed and they were already sleeping! I remember when all my sisters and I would sleep in one room together and we would be up all night (well it felt like that anyway). We were so excited! I could just feel their excitement, too!

Santa came a little later and left Jonnie a response and ate his cookies.

He also filled the stocking with books, cd's, bubblebath, and candy. It looks like he left a few presents, as well! I cant' wait for morning-there is nothing that fills me with more joy than seeing the excitement and happiness on my children's faces!

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope your holidays are filled with joy, love and laughter!

Playing with Play-do

Oh, remember the days of playing with squishy, colorful play-do? There is nothing like opening up a brand new container of it, just waiting to create snakes, balls, and hamburgers. Sawyer received 4 containers today from his teacher at school. He carried it all the way home and immediately started playing with it as soon as we walked through the door. He was excited to start creating.I love watching him work things out. Every piece has a specific place to be. And he is definitely a builder-he likes to stack things on top of each other. He had just as much fun with the containers as he did with the play-do.He is also not one to keep the colors separated. I used to know people who would flip out if the colors got mixed together-honestly what fun is that? Here is my own creation....it looks like a piece of art, don't you think? I could play with a ball of play-do for hours......I love it!When I walked into our bathroom tonight, I was surprised to find Santa in the tub!! I guess he came early to our house to take a bubble bath!!!

HO HO HO!

Christmas is in the air

Well, it's that time of year....busy, busy! I looked back at my posts from last Christmas and I was pretty much done everything at this time last year and had goals. Well, this year is a little different. I don't know about the rest of you, but time is flying and I am standing still it seems. I have so much left to do, but I refuse to stress about it. It will all get done eventually. Right?

Here are a few cute friends I found for our tree. I finally bought some new things for our tree and these little guys fit in perfectly and they are so darn cute I had to take a picture of them (: Meet porcupine, owl, and squirrel.

Alaina thought they were pretty adorable, too.
Here's "Midge" in his new house complete with bed, welcome mat, and trees!

We decided to put the tree downstairs in the family room this year by the fireplace and I think it looks cozy. Notice the spirit over looking the stockings? I blew this picture up and had Alaina and Jon totally freaked out!! It was hilarious......Alaina kept saying, "WHAT IS IT!! MOM!!" With a horrified expression-it was the best! In case you haven't figured it out, it was a reflection off the tv. I just happened to take the picture right when a man was on the screen (:

Last Sunday the kids and I went to a Christmas party for Grandma Karen's work. There were different tables set up with different activities and games, lots of food, and Santa. Everyone had fun!

Here are the boys on Santa's lap. Sawyer looks real stressed, don't you think? I really wish she would have pulled his pants leg down....

Last night the Santa train (aka semi truck) came to town carrying you know who. He seems to be everywhere these days (:

Everyone was dancing and singing. Here Alaina and Jonnie were Attacking Melanie-not sure why (:

There was a train started and a girl pulled Jonnie to the front of the line. He loved it at first, but then he didn't know where to lead everyone. I laughed when I saw him kind of slowly walk away-hahaha (:

Here's the family in front of the truck.

And once again we have my boys on Santa's lap. Sawyer doesn't like Santa's lap but he seems fine on Mrs. Clause. He wasn't real thrilled here, but at least he didn't cry! Notice we are missing the ten year old. She always seems to run off at these moments.

At the end Sawyer told Mrs. Clause-Mewy Ditmis. It was adorable and he is adorable (:

I hope you are all doing better than me this year on getting your shopping done! I hope to do some Christmas baking tomorrow. We are having a snow storm so I have no excuses. I hope not anyway (: