christmas morning stockings

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

being sunday, we let the kids have a sneak at their stockings

and find their santa gifts and nothing else!

it was kind of nice not opeing everything at once.

the traditional photo of oldest to youngest!

the kids had to find their present from santa.

they were looking everywhere!



i have a video, but of course it won't upload.

they finally found the presents and it was a train set and table for kale

and a HUGE barbie house for the girls!

later chrismas eve...

i took some pictures of our house after santa left.

he filled our stockings and hid one special gift for kale and one for

olivia and mallory to share.

santa left a note for the kids telling them about their gifts.

i took lots of pictures of our tree because i thought it was really pretty!

christmas eve 2011

happy christmas eve!

we had the traditional swedish rice dinner tonight.

we eat the rice, fruit and cookies.

our hometeachers wife made us some really cute rootbeer reindeer

and we had those with dinner too!

kale was in heaven, having a root beer all to himself.

then we had baths, read the christmas story and got to open ONE present.

the kids opened their presents from grandma jodeene.

to say the girls loved the dolls from jodeene would be an understatment.

they even had to sleep with them!

kale loved his train too.  he played with it forever.

then it was time for bed!

mallory's christmas program

mallory had her preschool program tonight. 

her class sang a couple of songs. 

greg came for dinner and the show.  he made mallory feel very important!

she sang her little heart out!

great job mal! 

tuff guy

kale fell down the other day and got a pretty good shiner!

he really looks like a fighter now! 

nana and papa visit

nana and papa surprised us and came for a visit!

we did lots of fun stuff. 

papa did some wood projects for me.

nana did ALOT of sewing! 

papa also did alot of homework with olivia. 

we got behind with all the poems livs is suppose to do and

papa picked up my slack!

we had an early christmas with nana and papa and the ehlerts.

everyone loved their presents

 and it was fun to have them there when we opened their presents!

can you find ben?

we also went to a car museum in rogers, MN.

it was seriously awesome.

we ended up staying for about 2 hours. 

they had all sorts of different cars from every time period.

there was video games, a player piano, lots of different memorablia to look at.

we had the best time.

of course i didn't take my camera!  boo.

we ended our time at the museum by dancing to some songs on the old juke box!

i think we may go back sometime with brett!!

decorating the tree

we decorated the tree today.

mallory got a turn to put the star on the tree.

we let the kids do most of the decorating, except the lights,

so most of the decorations are a little low!

we are so excited christmas is finally here!!

dan the elf

a small visitor arrived at our house today. 

OUR CHRISTMAS ELF.

we read the story and named him dan the elf.

the kids weren't too sure if he really had magic.

well, the next morning they came back to find him and he moved.

he flew into the card holder on the door!! 

dan wanted to see if the kids were eating their food!!

we our excited to see where dan will hide this christmas season.

THE TREE!!

tonight we went and got our christmas tree.

the kids were so excited! 

we went down the street to a little tree lot in coborns parking lot.

we looked at all the trees and the kids picked one. 

when we went to pay, they only took cash.

we had to walk over to coborn's and get some cash.

as we came out to go and get the tree it was snowing.

big, beautiful flakes. 

it was sort of magical!!

no, i didn't lose all my teeth.  just a not so great photo!