Christmas

Our family Christmas this year was on Christmas eve.  The kiddos woke to raspberry coffee cake and bacon--a two year tradition.  Then after breakfast Kyle read the Christmas story and sang some Christmas songs in between, which is something his Grandpa always did when he was a kid.

After that we let the kids open up their only presents by way of a treasure hunt starting in their stockings.  Now that Isaiah can read more and Livia can even read some simple words, it was fun to see them all reading the clues.  They each got some candy and a book for the drive to Minnesota we'd be making the rest of the day--and the family got a card game called Set that we played until it was time to start packing.

Packing ended up being a bit horrible.  Isaiah had a meltdown and we completely forgot Lincoln's suitcase.  I forgot the camera and ended up taking approximately zero pictures of our Minnesota Christmas.  Thankfully, I borrowed some pictures taken by my in-laws.


Carmen, the soon-to-be newest family member in the clan, was a great help with the kids.  Livia adores her and she found out she'll get to be the flower girl in the wedding.  Livia stuck to Carmen's side most of the time and Carmen was sweet to let her.  I have no idea what's happening in this picture but it would be a halfway normal scene in our days there.

 

The DeKam Christmas...

 

Remember when I mentioned Kyle's Grandpa always read the Christmas story and we sang songs in between?  Here he is and guess what we're doing? 

The rest of these pictures might be a bit out of order but they tell the story of our Christmas...

 

(Grandma and Carmen took care of all 5 kids while the rest of us went to Star Wars!)

 

Back at home we took pictures of most of the presents we each got...

 

Legos were a definite favorite this year.

After a surprise visit from Grandpa and Grandma N on their way home from Minneapolis, we went to our friends for New Year's Eve and had our traditional (3 years running) family sleepover.  I can't tell you how fun it is.  We played games, chatted, laughed and listened to *gulp* oldies.  Okay it was 90's music.  But gosh, it made my night.

The next few days was full of tearing down the Christmas decor and sledding.

We went sledding a few places and this was a fun one.  I didn't realize how crazy close to the cemetery we were until I looked at these pictures, but I'm guessing those people didn't care. 

Lincoln was very mellow the whole time.  I'm pretty sure he was still really tired from all our vacationing and lack of normal-ness.

Caleb rocked the sled.  He caught some air quite a few times!

Waiting for the good sled...

I took Lincoln down on a sled quite of few times, running with him as I went so he didn't get a face full of snow.  Finally, when we were ready to go I decided to let him try by himself.  

(By the way, I'm not frantic in this video.  Just out of breath and giggling at the same time.  And you don't see it, but just after I cut the video, Lincoln gives us a really big smile.)