Christmas

As with most families, we have had several times and places to celebrate Christmas this year.

Lucy had a couple of occasions to wear her Christmas dress. Here are some pictures of her in front of our tree posing in it.

Here is Christmas morning at our house. Lucy was excited to see presents under the tree. . . then she realized that she had to wait for a little bit to open them.
Here is Jer reading the Christmas story from Luke 2.After reading the story, Lucy got to pass out the presents for her, Mommy and Daddy. She handed them all out.

Here she is opening her big Lion.

Later that day, we went up to Grandma and Papa's house for Christmas with Jer's side of the family. Here are all of the grandkids: Ryan, Allie, David, Lucy and Emily.

Here is some of the family with Papa reading the Christmas Story.

Here is David reading the Christmas story.

He's not only smart, he's strong too! Here is David bringing his dad, Sam, a huge present. Here are Grandma and Papa leading the family in some Christmas carols.

Katie, Kim and the kids singing along.

We also had some special visitors all the way from Alaska this year. Here are Molly and Scott reading with Lucy before they headed to Viroqua.

Once the rest of the family got to Viroqua, they got a chance to have some reading time with Mindi too.Here is Lucy opening her new suitcase from Gram.

She also got some new jammies that she wanted to put on right away. She didn't quite get her pants off first. The girls gave Auntie Sandy a new moose that had their voices recorded in.

Lucy found a neat new chair.Here are the girls in their moose outfits and Auntie Sandy in hers.

Here Lucy is learning an important part of family celebrations in Wisconsin. Playing cards and having a Leinies. I'm sure there is some cheese on the table somewhere too. The 'girls' all got new jammies again this year. Lucy and Mindi, come on over for a picture!

Got 'em.

And, the annual cousins picture.

Thank you to all of you for great Christmas celebrations.

Merry Christmas

We would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas

More Sledding

We were in Milwaukee this weekend to visit with family. Before we got there, Uncle Jim built a snow fort in his back yard for Mindi and Lucy to play in.

After the girls played in the yard, we all got bundled and went to the sledding hill that Jim and I used to sled at when we were little.

Here is Mindi getting a ride to the top of the hill.

Here are Lucy and Jer getting ready to go down.

Since Mindi went down by herself, Lucy had to give it a try. Here is Mindi giving her some pointers before she went down.

Here she goes. . .

Here is part of the gang at the bottom of the hill. Jer and Geno are building a jump for them to go over and Lucy is getting a ride back to the top from Uncle Jim.

I'm thinking there will be more pictures to come on Mindi's blog soon. These were the only ones I got, since my fingers were too frozen to hold the camera any longer.

Sledding

Jer took Lucy sledding for her first time this week. I headed over to the hill for some pictures, but it was hard to find Jer and Lucy through the snow flakes. This is the best one I got of them on the sled.

I had to include this one of Lucy all bundled. I could hear the little brother from 'The Christmas Story' in my head: 'I can't put my arms down!'.

St. Nick

It has been my family's tradition for as long as I can remember to fill stockings to be opened on the morning of December 6th. We remember the European tradition of St. Nicholas, who filled children's shoes with gifts. This morning Lucy founds gifts in her stocking and in a special box that was sent from Gram.

This year Lucy found books, a toy, a cup and a coloring book from her favorite movie, Madagascar.

Her favorite gift came in this special box from Gram.

It was a very cute, very large gingerbread cookie.

Then, she immediately developed two 'owies' on her knees when she saw that there were some special band-aids in the box as well.Of course, the cute monkey band-aids fixed the owies.

Growing up, St. Nick was our first reminder that Christmas was coming soon. This was when we got our Advent calendars and would start the count down to Christmas Day. Lucy received a nativity set this morning. We will continue to talk about the Christmas story so she will understand that on Christmas Day we celebrate receiving the greatest gift, Jesus.

O Christmas Tree

Yesterday we bundled up and headed to the tree farm to cut our own Christmas tree. This is the first time I have ever done this and I just loved it! It was fun to watch Lucy run around in the rows of trees. Of course, she could run because there was no snow. . . She got her own branch to carry and was very excited to help.

Here are Jer and Lucy getting ready to chop.

And here is our beautiful, perfect for our house, little Charlie Brown Christmas tree!

Later that night Lucy got to help dig through the storage bins and decorate the tree. We have set the bottom of the tree as a 'Lucy zone' with non-breakable ornaments that Lucy could put on herself. The one below is a music box tree that has a train inside that goes around in a circle. It is Lucy's favorite. I don't think it will ever actually make it on the tree, she loves to carry it around with her.

Does every kid go through the phase where they close their eyes when they say cheese? Does this drive every parent crazy? For the next few months, or years, my only smiles might be candid ones.

Here is Lucy putting an ornament on the tree .She thought the tree skirt was a blanket and wanted to lay on it.

She didn't sleep on it all night, but she did try to bring an electric candle to bed.