A New Camera Christmas

 If you know me, you know I take a million pictures all the time...it's amazing that my tiny little camera has actually survived as long as it has.  Well, I'm excited to say that my hubby bought me a brand new camera for Christmas, YEA!  I'm in heaven!  Well once he read all the instructions on how to use it and then taught me how to use, then I was in Heaven.  It's amazing what a difference it makes.  Here are some random pics from our Christmas season we took with our brand new camera.  Can I say YEA! again!!!

Justin reading to Ethan from the Temple book we got for Claire and Ethan for Christmas

        

in the midst of her zombie walk

Playing with cousin Gavin

Baking from my new cake mix recipes book

Justin trying out his new pineapple corer

Bathtime fun with Claire's new letters and numbers from Santa

Reading with Daddy

Merry Christmas to me!

Justin playing from the piano book Sarissa gave him in the sibling gift exchange.  I know it's supposed to be for Justin but I think its more a gift to me :)  Thanks Rissa!

Conversations with a Toddler

Cut Ethan's sandwich with our new dinosaur sandwich cutter.  He looks at his dinosaur sandwich and says, growling, "I'm a Pirate Dinosaur....Arrrrrrr!"

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Me leaving for church early, "Bye Ethan. See you at church"
Ethan, "wait mommy wait. I wanna talk to you"
Me, returning to the table where he was sitting, "oh, okay, want do you want to talk about?"
Ethan, "Mom"
Me, "yeah",
Ethan, "Merry Christmas".  :) ah thanks Ethan, even though its still november :)

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Ethan, "Mom, Come here! I need to tell you a secret"
Whispering in my ear, "I love you.  You da best"
He really his the best! Melt my heart!

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

So it's been awhile since I've been able to post anything on here.  For weeks it kept telling me I needed to pay monthly to upload photos to my blog, which I refuse to do.  I randomly got on today, just to see what happened, and it's now back to normal. YEA!  Anyway, we've had a wonderful Christmas season that we kicked off with our annual day after Thanksgiving trip to Dull's Tree Farm.  This year Justin's Parents and his sister Becca joined us for a freezing cold day picking out our tree.   We then had Christmas with my dad and Kathy at our house, followed a few days later by Christmas with my mom at our house, then off we went to Wisconsin for some Peterson family fun.  

playing in the hay loft

First snow, out we go to attempt a snowman and make some snow angels

Playing trains with Daddy after Pappy and Gma Kathy brought up the Sodor Washdown and Salty's Drawbridge.  Mimi came up a few days later and brought Ethan Toby's windmill and Toby.  Ethan LOVES his trains and now makes some pretty AMAZING tracks!  He's a pretty lucky boy :)

Playing with the tea set from Mimi

Loving her new tea cart and tea set

 Cousin Exchange

Claire in her new bath towel from Gavin, that Gavin's mommy, Aunt Rissa actually made!

 Sibling Exchange

Family photo from Aunt Carene and Uncle Alan

Piano Book from Rissa to Justin

Tyson with his Ornament and Minnesota Parks pass from Brittney

"World's most fabulous Aunt" Shirt from Justin to Becca

Amazing advent calendar Kalie handmade for Carene

 Christmas Eve

Ready to go Christmas Caroling

Ready to go Christmas Caroling

Making our traditional caramel sticky buns for our Christmas Breakfast

Making our traditional caramel sticky buns for our Christmas Breakfast

Claire and Cousin Keaton in their Christmas jammies waiting on their traditional Shepherd's supper

 Christmas Day

In her "My First Christmas Hat" going through everyone's stocking gifts

Putting together legos with daddy that Santa brought him in his stocking

Finished lego plane

Santa Brought all the Ladies Christmas socks in their stockings! So fun!

A gift from Santa

"Wrestling is in my blood" shirt from Santa

Playing with his Tidmouth Sheds and Diesel 10 train that Santa brought

Old Spice from the wifey...those commercials are hilarious to us, so thought it'd be funny.  helps that it smells good too :)

Gma Hansen sporting her new Red Hat Society items from us that my mom made.

Mr Clean Mr Clean

A friend posted this on her facebook page, and since i'm a weirdo about chemicals (which drives my hubby bonkers), I was excited and thought I'd pass it along.


"Ok. For all the wives and mommies, here is the only cleaner you will ever use again. Equal parts white vinegar "(microwaved for about 30 seconds) and BLUE dawn. Put it in a spray bottle, and use it to clean your whole house. Doesn't leave streaks, takes off soap scum and water stains, evvverything. You'll never buy cleaner again. Costs way less than than a dollar each time, and you only make as much as you need at one time, which is about 1-2 cups, depending. 2-2 1/2 cups can clean my whole bathroom, vanity, and kitchen, plus the floors." ~EW

Weekend Getaway...Wisconsin

For Justin's birthday weekend, we headed up to Wisonsin to see his old high school perform "West Side Story".  Justin was actually Riff in this same musical when he was in highschool.  It was a wonderful trip that included a stop at the local Christmas Parade.  It was so nice to actually go to a parade where the participants make floats!  That's how the parades were in my home town and they seem to not do that in the town we live in now.  Sorry, it's just not a parade without floats.  It was perfect weather and we even got to see Santa and Mrs Claus on their float.  Ethan had a blast with cousins Ki and Chase and managed to snag a bag full of candy that we conveniently left at Grandma and Grandpa P's house.  The weekend also included some fierce games of family Clue, cheesecakes, and potato pizza...as requested by Justin for his birthday.  What a wonderful, and much needed, relaxing time away.

Ki, Chase, and Ethan waiting at the parade

Grandma and Claire

Ethan enjoying a sucker he managed to snag and open immediately

hooray for parade floats!

after Justin got sprinkled with fake snow from the parade

SANTA!!!