Christmas Day...

Christmas Day was wonderful as always!!! Lots of family.... Lots of food.... Lots of fresh air.... Just an all around fun day!

We had our happy birthday Jesus party! :)

Some of us took a hike in the woods, others ran in the snow in their swim suits after sitting in the steam room.

trust me it is tons of fun! ;) - but I did not do it.

Merry (late) Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve Abram and Aaron and Jennifer arrived home for their short visit!! Right after they came, Grandpa Neal and Grandma Judy arrived for Christmas Eve dinner... The Sweetish Meat Ball and Mashed Potato tradition is very well liked.

After dinner we sat in the living room....

...and watched the kids' Christmas play! It was even better the second time! Talia sang a solo - "Mary did you know" and played Mary, a shepherd and an angel. Noah was the director, stage manager and narrator. Seth played Joseph and King Herod. Behn was the inn keeper, one of the wise men and a guard. Tovala was an angel and a wise "lady". AND Asher was the last wise man with his "myrrh". :)

It was fun to have to have Aaron and Jennifer here - a wonderful unexpected surprise!

On Christmas Eve evening, after Grandma and Grandpa left, we had our family gift exchange. It was a fun time! All of the gifts were very thoughtful! and some incredibly creative and artistically done! To see Joel's foot stool, which probably won the prize for the "most time spent" gift, you will have to visit Aaron and Jennifer. It is very nicely done!!!

Since Nathan was not able to come home for Christmas, he stayed up almost all night (because of the time difference) and was with us on the web cam... we were able to watch him open gifts that we had sent to him and he was able to watch us all open ours! It was a lot of fun... although next year, I hope you can come home Nathan!!! ;)

Evening With G & G...

On Sunday evening Grandpa Don and Grandma Polly came over for dinner...

and brought many very nice gifts!!

It was a fun evening! Noah had planned a play to do for them with all of the kids in it.... I will post pictures in a future post.

reading a book....

At the end of the evening we had ice cream w/ hot fudge sauce, raspberries and pecans!!! It was very tasty!!

A Gingerbread Train...

On Tuesday we decided to make a gingerbread train! So, I ran up to walmart to get some very healthy candy. ;) Eli helped me make some gingerbread and put it together with me...
Then we called all the little ones to help decorate it!

I think when Hannah found my camera that must have been the time when Eli had to run and get Joel from work, so Eli is not in the pics. :(

Asher, Tovala and Sylvia were a very big help in the decorating part... actually they probably ate about half of the candy before it touched the train!

It was a lot of work... kind of hard to make it all stay together, but by the time we were done it did not look too bad!

We brought it on Christmas day for everyone to enjoy!

Christmas Caroling....

Last weekend we were invited to four different Christmas Caroling parties; we only ended up going to two of them because of some snow storms. First we caroled through Forest Lake at Walmarts, Targets, and Nursing homes.... For that party Eli, Joel, Noah, Talia, Behn, Tovala and I went. We started at Starbucks - it is nice to start out with a nice hot cup of coffee/hot cocoa...

Here we are at Cub....

and Walmart.... it was kind of fun to do, because they bell ringers like us sooo much! I can imagine that the days get long for them, so some carolers make it a little more fun!
After caroling with the "Forsman Group" we went to their church and played volleyball, basket ball, hockey and lot of other games... and we ate Christmas cookies!

On Monday night Hannah, Eli, Joel and I went to some other friends house in Osceola and caroled around the neighborhood.... It was freezing!!!! When I left the house that morning the thermometer said -17... and later in the day when it had really warmed up, it said -7 - much warmer! NOT!

Despite the FREEZING weather we all had a lot of fun! After caroling we went to their house and played Apples to Apples and another game that I have never played before called Four on a Couch. It was a very fun evening!!!

Christmas Time is So Fun!!

Since we have been having so much fun we have been a little slow not only in posting, but in getting our Christmas Tree! Actually we waited too long - the place where we usually get our tree from was closed for the holidays so we got our tree from somewhere else. :)

Dad and Mom picked it out this year and brought it home and we all decorated it together.

Sylvia had a lot of fun! She would put the decorations on and then take one off and put it on somewhere else.

lots of decorations...

and lots of decorators!

After our tree was all decorated, Dad read a Christmas story to everyone.

And we had hot apple cider.

Talia is working on a project... I think she is making a hat.

Sylvia....

Mom and Sylvia...

and the beautiful snow outside.

Christmas Program...

Yesterday we went to a Christmas program/concert at Uncle Matt and Aunt Ruthie's church... Before the concert the kids got to decorate cookies and we all had apple cider and christmas cookies.

Uncle Matt sang in their church choir...

Then the main event was the Gamble Family Christmas... If you have never heard of them, they are just a big family - all very musically talented! They have been doing a Christmas program at Uncle Matt and Aunt Ruthie's church for 30 years.

They even include the little kids.... yesterday their were 4 generations from their family who sang together.

One of the sons, Jeremiah, and his wife, Vanessa, also have a separate program that they do called Theatre For the Thirsty. They have been to our church a couple of times to do various musical dramas. It is always a lot of fun to watch them play and sing!

:) Here are Dad and Mom, while we are waiting for the concert to begin.
We got some kind of fun seats because we were there so early... we sat on the front row of the balcony...

The church is very beautiful! Lots of stain glass windows...

the car ride.... - the picture is thanks to Eli! :) :)

1st Sledding of the Year.

This afternoon, after Mom and the kids finished school we went sledding!

It was a perfect afternoon for it! Last night we got a couple of inches of snow and today the sun was out! Beautiful!

It is pretty nice having a sledding hill next door!

Lala got cold!!!

Asher loves sledding also!

nice crooked hat...

Asher.... exploring.

Sylvia loves to sled!!! We would get to the bottom of the hill and she would say, "I want to do it again!"

Lots of races.....

Mom got some snow in Seth's face... then Seth decided to white wash Mom! I think they are both just waiting for next time they go outside to complete their snowball fight! :) :)

Granola Bars.

We have just finished another week of helping some friends with a new business called Olympic Granola... The automated machines are not yet completed, so we have been helping make them all by hand.


Miss Smiles - A great worker!

Hannah had a day off of work so she got to come help one day.
We have made THOUSANDS of granola bars since we started helping. It is pretty time consuming and kind of hard work, but we have a fun time together.


lots of fun!

...the granola bars are really good! You will have to check them out! Right now they are sold at coffee shops and several specialty shops, I think. But after they get the machines and the plant running they will be a lot easier to find. OlympicGranola.com (website almost done) Azure Standards is one vendor- website: Azure Standard if you would like to buy:)

Snow!

Since Friday it has been snowing off and on... It has been beautiful! Seth and Noah spent most of the day today making snow forts.

Stillwater.

On Saturday evening, Hannah, Eli, Joel and I met a few friends in Stillwater... we went for a walk and enjoyed the beautiful(ly cold) evening!

Hannah and Abby...

We played Apples to Apples in Starbucks... It was a fun evening! We always love Stillwater!