Christmas Day

Christmas morning Joe was the first to rise! Amelia eventually made her way upstairs to find that Santa had come! Santa used light-bulb wrapping paper this year and Amelia was so excited about it that she could hardly unwrap anything.


Amelia was excited about the wagon Santa brought her and Joe!


Mid-morning we got ready and went to Jason's sister's house for Christmas with his family. We had breakfast/brunch this year and it was really good!

Amelia and Joe dressed up for Christmas Day:


Even Cashew was fancied up!


Family photo:


Truthfully, I am glad Christmas is over and the new year is here! We, once again, let the stress of the holidays get to us. It probably didn't help that I went back to work (in a retail setting) just two weeks before Christmas! That's a hard time to get back into the swing of things.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day I worked my usual 8 hour shift. My day surprised me - it was pretty fun! I spent a lot of time in the electronics and entertainment department trying to put movies away but ended up helping guests all day! I was pleased that the ones who I had interactions with seemed to be in a good mood. I was even thanked by a few for working which I appreciated.

We stopped by a gathering of Jason's family briefly and then spent the night at my parent's house. Kim made stuffed peppers for dinner and we did presents around the tree. Amelia couldn't even get through present opening before she needed something opened so she could play with it:


Joe on his first Christmas Eve:


Family photo by the tree:

Christmas Tree 2011

This past Sunday we went to the St. Croix Tree Farm to get a tree for Jason's sister's house! This year it snowed the night before we went - just like last year!

We brought a sled with this year for Amelia to ride around on and she loved it!


She also figured this year that throwing snow is fun!


While the tree was being trimmed our family snuck off to get a picture of the four of us for our Christmas card! All three of them turned out ok but this one was our favorite:


Thanks Auntie Liz for being our photographer!

The group shot this year wasn't as good as last years...


...the spot we chose had the sun right behind us! We'll have to plan better next year :)

This was the second year that I went to cut down a real tree and I am starting to think that once we are living in our own home I might want to give a real tree a try! We never had one growing up because cats got sick from eating the tree and needed medicine etc. For now, we will use our artificial tree which we hope to have up this weekend!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day we spent time with Jason's family at his sister's house. Amelia wasn't in the best of moods for most of the day and this is pretty much what she looked like all day:


She is cutting more teeth, the gathering got going at her naptime and she's not used to being around more than a few people at a time so we really couldn't blame her for being confused and upset. We put her into a spare room (that we quickly babyproofed) for some quiet time and that helped immensely.


She just chilled out on the bed while the adults and older children opened gifts.

I didn't manage to take many pictures and we remembered family pictures after mostly everyone had left but we got one of us with Jason's mom, sister, Kory and Cashew:



Our little family:


We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas :)

Christmas Eve

This afternoon, after I got home from work, Jason and I made our way to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with them. On our way we stopped at the marina to drop in on Jason's mom's side of the family Christmas gathering.


Amelia spent a lot of time eating cookies and "talking" with her Great-Grandpa.

We've had dinner, opened gifts, put the squirt to bed and now are just relaxing.


Merry Christmas, everyone!

Playing Catch-Up

Today I finally did something I have been trying to do for an entire week now...laundry. In fact, I did this much laundry:


And there is still more going down there! Life just got in the way of doing any laundry this past week. Last Wednesday Amelia and I opted to spend the day with this guy


and his mom and sister at the Mall of America! We had a blast and were glad to spend the afternoon with them!

After that there was work and more work. We also had a bout with a fever:


She finally accepted a little (off-brand) Pedialyte:


After that, she seemed thrilled about life:


(see all her teeth!!!)

Now we are just trying our best to enjoy this week of Christmas and not let ourselves get too stressed.


This little girl helps with that :)

I will end with a better picture of Jason's great Christmas surprise:


I'm still not sure how he managed to pull it off!

Santa Came Early

I got home from work this afternoon, went up to our room and found something on the bed. "Santa" came to visit us early this year.


Jason did a little Black Friday shopping this year and got us these personalized Bears and Vikings jerseys online. I had no idea he had been saving his "allowance" (we each get a little cash each pay period for ourselves) for months to get me a gift. I felt awful that he had done it and I hadn't done anything special for him. After I said that a few times he stood up, took his sweatshirt off and said, "don't worry, I got myself one too!"

We're wearing them tonight as we watch the Bears and the Vikings play the first outdoor, professional football game in Minnesota (at the U of M's TCF Bank stadium) in 29 years. In fact, tonight is the 29th anniversary of their last (outdoor) home game at Met Stadium. This is a game that almost bought tickets to earlier this fall but didn't after he lost his job in September. I don't know if we are happy that we aren't at the game or relieved... It is -1 windchill in Minneapolis tonight with yet another winter storm in progress. We are due to get another 6-10 inches this evening (on top of the 17-20 inches we received just over a week ago). I wonder how many people will still want an outdoor stadium in Minnesota after tonight's game...

Tree Cutting Day!

Today we went to cut down the Christmas tree for this holiday season! I have never had a real tree so it was very cool to go with to cut down the tree for Jason's sister's house (she is hosting Christmas this year.) We rode out to the trees on a covered wagon


After being dropped off we walked through the woods


Following posted signs


Admiring the beautiful trees


Until we found the tagged lot


We found our tree and Uncle Kory cut it down



He and Auntie Liz pulled it on a tarp back to the wagon


Where they bagged it up...



...and loaded it up on the back of the wagon


and we rode back to the barns where Liz and I warmed up with some hot apple cider


Once our tree was ready Kory carried it to the car


Where he and Jason loaded it up!


It was a nice, crisp, 13-degree day here in northern WI...complete with a light snowfall! It was pretty perfect out!

Christmas Lights!

Yesterday we put up Christmas lights at grandpa's house! Jason and I got a pretty good deal on LED lights so we got a bunch and are happy to have them to use in the following years! Grandpa ok'd us putting them up at his house and he even helped us (well, Jason) put them up in the cold:


They look so, so great up! I think we may even get a couple more boxes :) Amelia even has her own twinkle lights in her room which she loves to admire:


Yesterday after her nap it was dark out already and this was her reaction to seeing the lights outside through the windows:


pure joy

Christmas lights are my favorite Christmas decoration and it seems that Amelia is following in my footsteps. I just love how excited she gets when she sees them. Car rides are a whole new ballgame at night now.

It is starting to feel like the Christmas season this week and Jason and I are doing great on our gift shopping. We have a lot of gifts already and a list for the remaining people. Now all we have to do is get the remaining gifts as we can and we are done! For now, we will enjoy seeing Christmas lights each night and remembering the reason for this season.

A Little Holiday Spirit

Today has been spent getting into the holiday spirit. This morning Jason and his grandpa tried their hand at making the family recipe cranberry relish:



This afternoon my sister and I put up our parent's tree:



We didn't put any ornaments up again this year since Amelia is even more curious this year and Shad (my mom's cat) broke a few ornaments last year! Instead we have the ribbons and six different kinds of candy canes adorning the tree!

Now we are watching A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving while Kim wraps gifts and I eat oreos. It's been a pretty good day off!