A Perfect Holiday!

This year we spent Christmas with Andy's family in MN.  We were so excited to go back as all of his brothers were home with their families and it's been way to long since we've all been together!

Madison was in the news to be hit by a large snow storm a few days before we were suppose to start our seven hour drive to MN, so we decided to to leave early.  Which was a great decision as as Madison was hit with 20 inches!!! 

As soon as we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's it was total spoiling!!  It started with fresh nail  polish for Claire with in five seconds of being there!

So this is Claire "helping" make the crust for our homemade Christmas Eve pizza!  The best part was Mary Lou (Andy's mom) and I just let her have at the flour and she had a blast in it!!

The cookies are ready for Santa and the kiddos are beyond excited!

Andy in his Christmas jammies Christmas morning

One of our daily activities in MN was ice fishing.  Let me be more specific...one of the boys daily activities was ice fishing!  

Andy's parents have a great set up for it owning two ice houses, so it's pretty comfortable!

(The boys walking out to the ice house on the frozen lake in the photo above)

One of the fishing houses has bunk beds in it and a heater!

The first morning out we caught 20+ fish!!!  

Andy's twin brother Aaron 

Andy could not ask for a better fishing buddy. Drew would fish ALL DAY.  He wakes up at 5 am with the big boys for the early bite and is usually dressed and standing at the door before them ready to go!

Drew caught this one!!!

There front yard is a perfect sledding hill!

Claire looking at the large hill she now has to walk up

Right behind his parents house is about 40 acres of woods!  We would take the four wheeler out and pull the kiddos on sleds

Something kind of sad, however beyond exciting was meeting our niece and Drew and Claire's cousin for the first time!!!  Parker was born while we were living in Spain and is just a year behind Claire.  The two of them were in heaven with each other.  I love the military life, however this is for sure the hardest part!!

Trouble....

To top off our perfect vacation Drew lost his first tooth!!!

Our holiday couldn't have been better

Gingerbread House Making

We were in Home Depot the other weekend and saw a Gingerbread kit and thought it would be fun.  The kiddos loved it and we got a good laugh out of it!

 

Helping with the frosting to make glue to help hold the house up

Then Andy thought he better look at the directions as something wasn't going right with the house and it wasn't standing up....

With a little more frosting and lot's of candy the house was coming right along!

Um.... the house became really heavy and Andy said it was "missing" peaces out of the box. 

(Or maybe it was assembled wrong...)

This is how the house was suppose to look..

And this is how ours turned out!

Snow Day!!!!

Last week we had our first accumulation of snow!  Drew and Claire woke up and went running to their windows to look and I think we were outside in less than an hour!

Andy had school unfortunately, however we took advantage of the fresh white powder and had a blast.

This snow was a little extra special for us as it was the "first" for many for Drew and Claire.  We would travel to other places in Europe during the winter months, however it would NEVER snow in accumulation!!!!! 

Some of our firsts were:

Building a snowman

Claire sledding for the first time

Teaching Drew and Claire what snow was safe and not safe to eat

Claire first snow angel

 

Living on the ocean and in tropical conditions most of our career, it's nice to be back with ALL of the seasons.

 

 

Eating snow

Drew was like Buddy off of the Elf and was a machine with making snow balls!!

Mean while Claire took the power wheel for a spin in the snow and LOVED it!

Snow angel...check...

FIRST snowman the kiddos have EVER built!

Claire's FIRST time going sledding!!!!  Drew was so good with her and helper talk her through going down the hill.  Once she did it once, she was hooked!!

 

We tried making a train!!

Bubblicious!!

Claire has been working on learning to blow a bubble ever since Drew learned about a year ago and the other day the BIG day arrived and now all we hear is the snapping of bubbles!!!

(sugar free gum...!!)

 

 

Chewing... chewing... getting ready for the bubble..

I'll give the little gal credit for the age of three to chew a piece of gum forever without swallowing it and knows how to blow a bubble.   I think I was ten before I figured this out!

Christmas Cheer

Our little El on the Shelf arrived here the first of December and the kiddos named him Jo-Jo.  Jo-Jo arrives here early in the morning for the North Pol and is ALWAYS into something!!  When the kiddos wake up they love to run out and see what he got into while they were sleeping!  He then sits on the shelf and watched them and reports back to Santa.

Above Joe-Joe got into our juice container, is holding a cup, and smashed pretzel's all over the floor!

Claire wasn't to sure about this guy at first and now LOVES it!!

 

There are many night when I run out into the living room at 11:30pm and have to put him in a new spot as I've forgotten before I wen to bed!  Only nineteen more days... I can do this!

Putting up Christmas decorations!  This year was a little extra fun as we only took one box of decorations to Spain with us, so it was fun to see everything we had in storage for the past three year for decorations!

Such big helpers

We will be in MN for Christmas, however still put up just a little tree for the kids to enjoy

Sporting matching Christmas pajamas that they've wanted to wear since Sept from my friend Maureen.

Christmas at Mimi and Papa's

This past weekend we went to Iowa to celebrate Christmas a little early at my parents house.  For Christmas we will be in Minnesota at Andy's family as all of his brothers will be home with their families for the first time in years.

 

This Christmas we were missing my dad as he was at my brothers house helping him after he had surgery this past week.  My sister was there with her two cute kiddos who are the same are just a year older than Drew and Claire and it's a BLAST!

 

The weather for December is crazy unseasonably WARM!!!  We were outside as much as we could and loved it!

 

Claire just loves her cousin Lucy!!!  They loved playing dress up together!

My sister Allison is back living in Iowa for this school year before they move.  It's so nice to have her just hours away, she's SO much fun!

Drew opened from his cousins a really fun fishing game.  I'm not sure who was more excited him or Andy..

Claire and Lucy helping each other out

The girls just love their MiMi

My sister needs to open a business as she's an amazing cook and baker!  I have no idea how she does it as everything tastes like it came from a bakery or restaurant!

Claire and Lucy enjoying one of the many treats!

Sat morning we went to the Bass Pro Shop and went bowling.  The kiddos loved it as the lanes looked like ocean water and there were fish hanging everywhere!

More dress up!

Waiting for someone to push them..

Busy breakfast conversations!

We had a wonderful Christmas full of laughter