Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve the way we always do, going to the Children's Service at Church in the early afternoon and then going to Grandma Yvonne's afterward for dinner and of course presents!  It was a night full of laughs, good times, good food and lots of delicious Christmas Cookies/Candies, cousins running and playing (and fighting, cause that is what happens with 5 boys in one house) and presents.  The boys got exactly what they wanted, Lego's for Colton and the Paw Patrol Lookout for Mason.  They went home very happy (and exhausted after hours of playing)!

Annual Cookie Baking Day

Sunday afternoon we got to together with Grandma Yvonne for our annual cookie baking day!  The boys always get excited cause they get an entire day with their cousins (5 boys ages 2-8, craziness) and they get to taste test plenty of cookies!  The boys did awesome helping with the Sugar cookies but then they were off to play and we were left to make the Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies and Chocolate Covered Pretzel rods!  It was another successful cookie baking day and we are set with Christmas Goodies for a while!

My Little Performer

Mason performed in his first Christmas Concert during church on Sunday.  The concert was performed by the 3 and 4 year Sunday School Classes. They were so adorable and did a great job.  They performed 3 songs and it took Mason a while to warm up to the idea of singing in front of such a big group but once he got going he did great!  I still can't believe my baby is old enough to performing concerts, how did he grow up so fast?

Sand Christmas

This past Sunday we celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family!  I love getting together with the Sand Family, we are a very large family and it is so much fun to get everyone together in one place.  I have so many cousins that I am quite close with but don't get to see in person that often so I really look forward to these events.  And every year we seem to add a few more Great Grandkids to the group which means lots of baby snuggles and it means we keep looking for new places to hold our Family Christmas - this year it was in the church basement!  Also as we are big German Family we couldn't have a Christmas celebration without St Nick visiting, so to keep the tradition going St Nick showed up at our Christmas to sing songs with us and hand out presents to the kids! It was another great family Christmas, can't believe one Christmas celebration is already done this year. 

My cousins and I who are the same age (we were born within 6 weeks of each other) and our 8 boys!  That's right, we only seem to have boys for some reason!  Look at that good looking group of boys though, can't beat this.

Holiday Train

The boys decided to brave the winter temps (ha, it was a beautiful 29 degrees tonight) to see the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train!  The boys were so excited and we got there early so we could get a front row view of the train.  The Anticipation was building and then we heard it coming down the tracks.  Mason was so excited to see the train and he hasn't stopped talking about it all night.  Such a fun tradition (this was our third trip) and the fact that this stop is only about a mile from our house makes it even better!  There was no charge to see the train however they did ask for donations for the local food shelf.  After the mini concert (band was held in one of the train cars) they announced that this stop had raised over $105,000 for our local food shelf.  I was shocked by the amount, of course most of that came from local businesses and Canadian Pacific donated $20,000!  So awesome to see the generosity this time of year.  

O Christmas Tree!

Mason has been asking to put up our tree since the day after Halloween!  I explained to him that we couldn't put up the tree until after Thanksgiving which oddly enough meant nothing to a three year old.  So I added that we had to eat turkey first and then we could put up the tree.  Well almost daily for a week or two he would ask if we had chicken that day (poor kid, I said Turkey).  I would always say No and he would look all disappointed.  Well once that turkey was carved on Thanksgiving there was no more putting it off, the kid was ready to put our tree!  Saturday night we dug it out and let the fun begin.  Frankie and I set up the tree and strung the lights and the boys did the rest!  They hung almost every ornament on their own.  And then it was time for the train, I think this was the main reason he wanted the tree up anyways.  It officially feels like Christmas in our home, bring on the holiday season! 

Mason loves to just lay and watch his train go around and around.  Him and Daddy laid on the floor so long that Daddy actually fell asleep, too cute!

Snowballs, Slipping and Sliding!

Last weekend the weather was way too nice to stay locked up indoors so the boys and I decided to get outside and enjoy some of this Minnesota Winter.  We started with just playing in the yard, building snow blocks for our snow fort and clearing the driveway (I tried to clear it while Mason emptied his dump truck full of snow back onto the driveway - he sure is helpful).  Before long the neighbor kids had joined us and our fun had turned into a full force snowball fight... the four them against ME!  I did not win.  After our Epic (Colton's new favorite word) Snowball Fight we decided to grab the sleds and head over the fire hall to enjoy some slipping and sliding on their nice big hill!  The kids had a blast. This was Mason's first time going sledding and he did it all on his own... jumped in the sled and flew down the hill like a pro!  Sure no big deal, my baby doens't need his mama. I will just sit back here and cry for a while!!  Colton and his friends raced down the hill over and over again and from time to time he even stopped to take enjoy a ride with his little brother.  We spent about an hour sledding and let me tell you, the fresh air wore us out!  All three of us slept great that night!  I always say I hate winter and for the most part I do (bundling up takes forever, boots and snow gear all over the entry way at all times, wasting gas letting the car run 15 minutes before going anywhere - what's not to love) but days like this make me realize why we have not moved out of this stupid state.