Christmas 2012: Minnesota Part 1

We arrived in Minnesota around 2:00 PM.  Elsie did okay on this drive but we had to stop three times for her.  Once for her to eat and twice to change her diaper :(.  Oh well, we finally got to my Dad's family Christmas celebration.  This celebration typically takes place the weekend before Christmas and is held at the Community room at my Grandma's Senior Living Apartments.  It is a great location and is perfect for the large family.  My Grandma has six children, 17 grandchildren, you add in spouses to those children and grandchildren plus the great grandchildren and you need a very large space to fit us all.  So it works out great! Unfortunately, we arrived late so we weren't there for very long but it was still great to see family for a little bit anyways.

We stayed at my parents for five days and did a lot of Christmas celebrating.  It was a VERY special Christmas because my brother was home from Idaho.  Being in the military makes it hard for him to get away over the holidays and this was the first time in four years we were actually all together on Christmas.  

Christmas Eve

For the most part, Christmas Eve was a relaxing day, we hung out at my parents, I did a little shopping at the outlet mall by my parents house, and my mom prepared a DELICIOUS Christmas Eve dinner for Elsie, John, me, my brother, and my dad.  Elsie got to eat more of Grandma Bonnie's Krumkake cookies.  She just LOVES them.  This was one of her first "cookies".  

After dinner, we put Elsie to bed and my brother, John, Mom, Dad and myself played a game of Phase 10.  Of course I was the winner ;).  

A couple years ago my mom bought this light up glasses so of course I had to use them for my drink this year.  

Christmas Morning

Looks like Santa found Elsie all the way at Grandma and Granpa's ;)  A bigger pink sock monkey to go with her two little ones.  

All of the family stockings hung above the fireplace.  All made by Grandma Bonnie.

Merry Christmas Little Elsie

Elsie checking out her presents from Santa.  This year Santa brought her the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon"in her stocking along with the monkey and then she got Melissa and Doug Shape Sorter, Melissa and Doug Pound a Peg, and the Little Tykes Basketball Hoop.  

A Christmas morning family picture-yes I had already gotten ready for the day.  

Not sure what Elsie and Grandpa were watching but it must have been surprising. 

Magda is in Poland right now so we were able to share Christmas wishes via skype.  Maybe one of these years we will all be able to celebrate together.  

Christmas 2012: Spencer, IA

Christmas in Spencer, IA

Saturday morning we drove up to Spencer to celebrate Christmas with John's extended family. Elsie did such a good job on the way up.  She slept for the first hour or so and then she just sat in her seat and look at her books.  It was so cute because she was sitting back there making noises and talking to the book.  Or maybe she as "reading"  either way it kept her occupied for a VERY long time.

Every year around Christmas we go and stay with his Grandma who has this huge house so she can host her family for Christmas.  It is so cute!  Each room had a family name on the door so we would know which room was ours and she prepared some treat for us and left them on the bedside table.  There are four bedrooms in the basement and the rooms are set up to accommodate each family. So our room had a king bed and a crib in it ready to go.  It is so sweet how she puts so much into our visits.

John's parents, his sister's family, his uncle's family and his cousins Bill and Carol all made it up Saturday night.  His Aunt Sandy and her daughter Jennifer and her family were not able to make it until Sunday afternoon so we were unable to celebrate with the since we were leaving Sunday morning to go up to MN.  Saturday evening we ate a delicious pork tenderloin dinner and then played the dice game.  As always it was very competitive and a great time.  Elsie went to bed around 8:30 and we visited for a while longer before we hit the hay ourselves.

Sunday morning we got up and began packing up our stuff to leave later in the morning.  We had the traditional breakfast of waffles and little smokies.  Elsie had her first taste of little smokies and couldn't get enough...I can't blame her.  After breakfast we finished packing up, opened a few gifts and we were on our way once again, this time to Minnesota.

Elsie did pretty good for being in a non-baby proofed house.  It was a little exhausting but was all worth it.  At Great Grandma Ev's she loved these pictures on the side table.  Thankfully they were all in plastic frames.  

Now the Nativity Scene was not safe but thankfully she really only wanted to play with the battery operated candles.  She kept coming back to this place constantly.  

One of the traditions when we go up to Grandma Evelyn's is to play the dice game.  You can't tell in this photo but this year we played with jumbo dice.  

Uncle Denny and Cousin Kyle 

Elsie thinks this is one of the best prizes.  

The Young Ones:  This is the best you get :)

Elsie with Grandma Evelyn

Falling Behind But Moving Right Along

So that is how I feel right now...I am falling behind on the blog...I still have Christmas posts to do but am getting a lot of other projects done. Right now I am okay with that.  I have been super motivated to get some things done around the house these days and that is where I am spending a lot of my time.  Checking off little projects off of my to do list.  One of these nights I will sit down and catch up on my blogging but I love getting the other stuff done.  So don't be surprised to see some December posts popping up on your computer screen.  It has been a little nice to take  a little break from dealing with photos on the blog and on Shutterfly.

So lately I have been feeling a bit anxious about the clutter, etc in my house.  If you know me you know I have trouble with clutter and things not being organized.  I like to "get rid" of things.  I LOVE to get rid of things I don't use or don't need because I hate having stuff just sitting around.  One thing I want to focus on is not buying this stuff to begin with.  But with Christmas and the inflow of the wonderful Christmas gifts we received I knew I needed to get get our house back in order and I have been really motivated lately.

Normally I just jump in and do everything as fast as I can and spend way too much time cleaning/organizing and then get stressed because I am not getting it done.  Well this time I came up with a plan so I have a week to focus on something.  That way I am keeping things balanced and not stressing myself out.  If the cupboards are cleaned/organized right now it is going to be okay.  So this past week my focus was getting our Christmas decor put away and clean and organize our basement and laundry-this was a huge task and took a lot of time but I am so glad I got it done.  Also this past week I cleaned out my dresser/closet and got rid of 75 articles of clothing...that felt so good to do that.  I also cleaned/organized my "junk" station in my kitchen which included three drawers and 3 cabinets.  Those weren't things on my list but glad for it to be done.

This week is getting around to cleaning/organizing our kitchen cupboards, wiping down the outsides, and cleaning the tops of them.  WE are also hosting a game night at our place on Saturday night so I will be getting ready for that.  Not much else on the agenda for the week.  Hope you all have a wonderful week!!

Elsie's 1st Birthday Party

December 9th we celebrated Elsie's First Birthday!  We had it at the local church fellowship hall which was nice because we didn't have to worry about fitting everyone into our house.  I spent quite a bit of time preparing for the party and had fun making the decorations and cupcakes (John helped a lot too).  We had about 40 people there including babies, kids, and adults.  So many family and friends were there for Elsie's special day!  My sister and her family were unable to make it at the last minute due to bad weather so we definitely missed them :(

I knew for quite a few months that I wanted the theme to be "You are my Sunshine".  We sing that to her every night before she goes to bed.  I really enjoyed finding ideas for her party and have already started to think about her next one (which will be on a much smaller scale :).  We had lots of help from my parents and John's parents getting ready for the party the day of and help with the clean up from John's aunts, Grandma, parents, and cousins.  Here are some photos from the day! 

Grandpa Craig helped with frosting her little smash cake

Ta-Da!

All the kiddos

 Front Row-Elsie, Aubrey, Orson, Bryson, Greta and Parker, and Danny

Back Row:  Ella and Briggs, Wyatt, Jaden, Emma, and Olivia

We first started out with presents because the casseroles I made for dinner took WAY longer to bake than I thought.  Oh well... I guess you learn to adapt. 

Elsie got this Rockabye Rocker from John and I.  I was shocked when 

she got on it and actually knew how to rock.  

Elsie and Cayden checking out one of the presents. 

Elsie got so many wonderful gifts!  Lots of books, this awesome busy box, a turtle bouncer, elephant ball popper, some puzzles, and some toys.   She is one spoiled little girl!  

Enjoying her cake...this is just about as messy as she got.  She just wasn't too into it.  Maybe next year :)

One tired little girl-I actually think this was taken before the party.  She took a nice long nap with Grandpa right before heading over to the church.  

Elsie just loved walking around with these balloons.  

Here are some decoration photos.  Most of the stuff I got from Hobby Lobby and I did a lot of it by hand thanks to my awesome Cricut Machine.  

I made this photo garland showcasing each monthly photo to show how much she has grown.  

Thank you to everyone for making this such a special day.  John and I are so blessed to have Elsie in our lives and all three of us are so blessed to have all of you!  Cheers to a wonderful first year!!!!

Christmas 2012-At Home

Wow this past month has been quite a whirlwind! We have been so busy with Elsie's Birthday party and all of our Christmas celebrations but we have thoroughly enjoyed it all.  We have been able to spend so much time with family, enjoying each other, catching up, playing games, and watching the joy in the children and I would never trade that for anything...even for a few quiet days.  Of course I am a bit behind on the Christmas posts as it is already 2013 but. . .  here we go!

Christmas at Home
We celebrated the first of our Christmas celebrations the Friday before Christmas.  It was just John, Elsie, and myself.  We were leaving the next day for 5 days so I made sure to be packed and have the house clean so I could just enjoy the night.  We ordered pizza for dinner ( I didn't want to have to clean) and we opened our gifts.  Elsie wasn't too interested and I this year I wasn't certain she would even get into it so I didn't have too many exciting gifts picked out for her.  From us she received:  "God Gave Us Christmas" Book, a couple of Melissa and Doug Chunky puzzles, a new winter jacket, hat, and mittens, and a little chair to match her daddy's. John received a photo mug filled with Elsie's photos, a couple of new sweaters, a belt, a boot dryer and some new insulated Muck Boots for cattle work.  John got me a new set of diamond earrings and a North Face jacket.  I was spoiled :)

Elsie did enjoy her gifts for a little while and then went to bed.  After she went to bed, John and I enjoyed a glass of wine and then he fell asleep out on the couch (he had been working pushing snow the past few nights so he was pretty tired) and I watched my FAVORITE Christmas movie ever "White Christmas".  It was a great night!

Christmas in Minnesota Part 2

We had one more final celebration in Minnesota for Christmas and that was to celebrate with my immediate family.  So our first celebration was with my dad's family, then we spent Christmas Eve with my family minus my sister and her family, and then Christmas Day with my mom's family and then finally celebrate with my whole family on Christmas Day Evening.

We got back from my aunt and uncle's house and opened presents and hung out before my sister and her family left to get back home.  Here are some pics from the evening.

Christmas Around the House

I wanted to take some pictures of how I decorated the hosue for Christmas in 2012.  I definitely did not do a good enough job of getting all the decorations and I am dissapointed that I failed to take pictures of the outside of the house, especially of how I decorated the window boxes.  So this is all I guess I will have for 2012.  

I made new blocks for the dining room which were Christmas themed.  I was going to do some pictures but decided I liked them better without.  

I ended up ordering our family Christmas stockings from Pottery Barn.  My mom has made stockings for our whole family but we keep them at my parents house.  

I have always had a hard time figuring out how to display our Christmas Cards.  I don't have enough magnets to keep them on the fridge and don't have enough room to put them all on the front, which is the only part of the fridge that is exposed so I found this idea on Pinterest.  Super easy...I bought Christmas inspired ribbon, looped it around the cupboard door and then hot glued the ends together.  Next year I hope to paint the clothespins green and red to make it a bit more festive.  This ended up working really well.