~Five Guys and Two Gals~
The boys woke up this morning to find that Elfie came back to visit us thank goodness. He usually does the morning after we have put up the tree, but you never know.
We headed to the championship game tonight and the Huskies defeated Brainerd 24-0. It was pretty awesome!!
Well, this year Christmas tree shopping was a little adventure. If we are in town, we have a tradition of going to get our tree either the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving. We decided to try out a new place in Northfield for the fun of it. Well, the place itself was really cute, but it didn’t have many trees to pick from. However, the boys had a fun time watching all the chickens and the rooster. We could have played it safe and went back to the place we normally do, but what fun is that? We checked out a place in Lakeville that was really nice and had a ton of trees to pick from. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere, but we were really happy with the selection.
It is decided….this is the one.
It takes major teamwork to cut it down and carry it back to the van.
We were a little nervous driving home because it is a pretty big tree and we drove on 35 and went faster than we have in the past. Thankfully we made it home with everything and everyone in one piece. It’s always a lot of prepping and work but we have so much fun with it. The boys have started to each gather quite the ornament collection and every year they have fun going through their bin and telling stories about them. It’s fun to hear the “Rememer whens…”. There is usually a football game on the TV in the background, but the guys generously let me mute it so we can play Christmas music!
Let the decorating begin.
Another tradition we have is that the boys get to open a present that consists of new pajamas. Sometimes they also get their new ornament for the year, but that depends on if we found them in time or not. If not they get the ornament for Christmas. They are always good sports about opening the exciting and surprising new pajamas.
The final product with the boys in their new PJs.
Then we usually camp out for the night in our sleeping bags with the glow of the Christmas tree.
I love this time of year and in less than a month we’ll get to have another little one to share this special time with.
We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family this year. The family sure is growing. It was definitely the year of babies. We are so blessed and have so much to be thankful for.
The boys of course took their turns holding the babes as usual.
All the grandkids. One more month and there will be one more little one to fit in here.
I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. It’s easy to get wrapped up in our chaos, stresses, don’t haves…..all of that doesn’t matter. I truly have so much to be thankful for.
In the evening Mom, Diane, Kristin, and myself met up and did our shopping. It’s always so much fun. I even made it to early Friday morning – pregnant and all.
Thursday night was the annual Light Parade. We did our traditional dinner at the Kitchen, decorating a cookie, and watching the light parade. It was chilly out again.
In the first picture Matt is pointing to his head telling us that they are the smart ones waiting inside the warm restaurant, while the boys and I were toughing it outside in the cold. In the second picture the boys are trying to stay warm.
Friday night was the ADD Festival of the Trees. I really love this event. It’s for such a great cause and seeing all the Christmas trees decorated gets me excited for Christmas. In the past it has been something mom and I go to together for her work, but this year Matt also got a couple of tickets from work. I realized that I haven’t taken too many pictures of myself being pregnant, so I’m glad we got this one. In the first one check out my mom’s photo bomb! Nice work mom- love it! Oofta, you feel big and all when you’re 35 weeks pregnant, but don’t actually realize how big you truly are until you see yourself in pictures.
Today we got together to celebrate Christmas on my mom’s side. This keeps getting harder and harder with everyone so busy, so they decided this year to try and do it in November and it was sort of a Thanksgiving/Christmas. A lot of people were able to make it so that was fun.
The siblings and the great grandkids (I think minus about 7-8).
We eat, play cards/games, play the dirty bingo dice game, and visit. We are so blessed to have such a big and loving family. I have some awesome memories of growing up with so many cousins!
