Better Later Than Never--CHRISTMAS WEEK!

Treats to deliver on 12.17
Niles is indeed a gift ;) 12.19

On 12.20, Heidi played Baba in her class productions of the Ukranian folktale, "The Mitten."

Is she not the most adorable little Baba (grandmother) ever?

After the play, Mrs. Meador's second graders sang us some really enthusiastic carols.

Cutie Heidi

Niles snuck a sugar cookie and it was yummy!

12.21 was the last day of school before Christmas Break, so we went to Addie's school for a carol sing along with the 4th grade then a cookie party afterward in her classroom.

There she is in the middle of the crowd

Daddy, Grandma, and Niles in the audience

(with Izzi's parents, our friends Vicki & Mike behind us)

Addie and her reindeer

Later Wednesday night, Addie met with her friends and Aunt Jenn for an Activity Days party at the church. The older kids went caroling in the cold.

***
On Thursday, 12.22, we finally got to hang out with the Roberts family who moved into the ward from St. George, Utah this summer. Just before tehy came, I found out my mama was in ICU with pneumonia and sepsis--total bummer! We had a great time with our friends and kept prayers inour hearts for Nana.

First we made candy trains.

(Addie, Zach, Jessie, Gavin, James, Carter, and Heidi)

Carter making his coal car.

Heidi & Addie making trains and snacking on pigs-in-a-blanket

Jessie helping Gavin & James

Heidi showing off her "Princess Leia Buns" for Aunt Debbie
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I regret that we didn't take more pictures at dinner time, when the Dads joined the fun, Rich made delicious hand-tossed pizza, Jessie brought a yummy salad, and the kids had a blast.

Our family room ready for Christmas.
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So Christmas Eve came. We made a Swedish Dinner for Rich's whole family, including authentic Christmas Cabbage ("brown cabbage"-Mark Drews, you would have loved it!), Janssen's Temptation potato casserole, plus dill and parsley red potatoes, Graadas & kotbullar-gravy and meatballs, just like they serve at Ikea, only better ;). The Elf brought pajamas and we read a story with Aunt Angie (her kids were with their dad & we missed them), then we made a big family bed in the basement and watched "A Christmas Story" [fa-ra-ra-ra-ra, ra-ra-ra-ra!] unitl 10pm when the kids went to sleep and Santa came.

Our kids at 6:30 am, ready to see what Santa brought upstairs...

and then we didn't take many pictures, dang it!

Uncle Mike came over to open his gifts with us, and we got him his very own telescope!

Niles loved his mini-raceway...and look! He learned to sit up just in time to play with it!

Addie watching James open his gifts. Daddy gave him a huge box of Legos!

*

It was a good year to have church after gift-opening because we didn't have much to open--quality, not quantity this year ;) I got a new phone (welcome to the milennium, Jamie!) and Rich won an ipad for me--it's so much fun! We had a lovely service at church with our ward family. I was glad we sang "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" in church--it's such a beautiful song, and I just loved meeting together to celebrate such a Holy Day. We had a nice ham dinner at Grandma Melin's house and a restful day delivering last-minute gifts and playing with our new toys. Mellow and succeessful-- I think I love not traveling on Christmas (although we miss our loved ones so much). The day after Christmas we took the kids to Bozeman for lunch, to Museum of the Rockies, and to Target to spend their gift certificates from Aunt Lisa. The girls got warm, pretty new hats, and James got a much-needed lego case/lapdesk thing. SO FUN. On Tuesday 12.27, our California Melin cousins arrived for 2 weeks at the ranch house. We have had a great week with them, and we'll post those pictures soon. Happy New Year to all y'all! I'd love to see links or comments about what y'all did.

All About Niles (at 7.5 months)

I know I have tons of Christmas and New Years to share here, but for today, I am sharing about Niles. He got his first haircut last night so we took lot so of pictures. But in all the Christmas Hullaballoo, he also had his first ear infection & a round of antibiotics, learned to sit up, crawl, and (FINALLY) cut his first two teeth (so that explains 8 totally sleepless nights in a row, right?). I just wanted Nana Lyn to see how big her little buddy is getting. Niles on his first Christmas morning playing with his little race track.
Niles with Dady on New Years Day

His crazy little whisps of newborn hair were getting out of hand, so we buzzed all 3 boys in our family to celebrate the new year...

TA-DAAAAAH! Big Boy Haircut!

so sweet I could just eat him up!

doesn't he look like a brawny little man in this picture?

Looks like he's flying, but he's really just getting ready to crawl

Up on all fours, but not quite moving yet

(but army crawl? we've got that down!)

laughing at his sisters

Daddy's mini me

already workin' the remote

His regular happy face

Determined to crawl!
***

Gotta go celebrate the last day of Christmas Vacation with an impulsive, fun day trip with the kids. YEE HAAAW! I'll be back with all the details when they're back in school.

Holiday Hurricane

The PAST NINE DAYS, in which we celebrate Christmas everyday in every way...

Last Friday, Rich and I had Thai food for lunch at a new-ish restaurant right near his office. It was delicious. See? It was really good and really generous--it made 2 meals.
Niles came, too, and nibbled on tofu. This is also the last time I remember having my beautiful wedding ring on my finger. It has been lost ever since, and yes, we are a little sick about that but fairly sure it's somewhere in our house. *sigh*

Later that night, we went out to the ranch and had Addie's belated birthday party.

There was some break dancing to Beastie Boys

There was some Christmas-crafting--making ornaments and snowglobes--in our jammies, of course.

Busy little bees!

Addie, Dakota, Azalea, Izzi, and Hailey

Izzi with her snowglobe

Later there were gifties

And silliness

And snuggling watching The Christmas Story (dubbed from Norwegian)

Hailey, Sarah, & Izzi

Addie, Dakota, Azalea

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The next morning was our church Christmas Breakfast

Sister McCalla read the kids a story after breakfast

James & Heidi in the crowd-o-kids

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After the breakfast, we went to Bozeman to shop and play

Heidi & Addie were silly a lunch at Taco Bell

Niles & James

Addie bought this cute hello kitty wallet with her birthday bucks.

We saw alpacas at the mall.

There wer beautiful things made from the alpaca wool, but even the littlest brown wool baby hat I wanted for Niles was $53! Sorry, we'll have to stick with our cheap synthetics for now.
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On Monday night, Daddy came home from work with a fun new toy from Germany. It's a little smoker. It resembles a nutcracker, but it burns incense inside and the smoke comes out its mouth.

It smells pretty good and the kids love it.

Here's Niles watching the excitement making a silly face.

I took requests for this week's dinners, so we had french dip sandwiches with veggies for dinner on Monday night.

Addie made these turtles for our treat packages.

For family night we made Christmas s'more kits.

mini-chocolate bar, snowman peep, 2 graham crackers.

(I can email the pdf for the labels if you want to make some)

***

Tuesday the 13th was St. Lucia Day, so we had Uncle Mike over for dinner and ate Lucy buns. That's also the day the dryer died. That's also the day I saw the orthopedic doc and she diagnosed my tendonitis and ulnar neuropathy in my right arm. You know, the one I DO EVERYTHING WITH!? *sigh*

This is how Addie looked the next morning.

On the 14th we went to the library for the Polar Express party in our jammies, but I forgot my camera.

It was fun, and while we were gone, Rich replaced my dryer for me. Merry Christmas to me. *sigh*

***

On Thursday I went to help with the kindergarten craft fair.

My boy James was so cute with all his friends.

My friend Kim was so cute with all the kids' gift bags and cards

There are about 100 kindergarteners in 5 classes now at the primary school, so it was quite the extravaganza.

That night, we went out to fast food dinner and came home to watch the original "Miracle On 34th Street" on Netflix. During the movie, Santa Claus came to our neighborhood on a fire engine and gave the kids presents. So they all finished the movie snuggling with new stuffed animals.
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On Friday we had our Primary Christmas Party, "Jesus is the Light of the World." The kids visited several different country booths and learned how Christmas is celebrated all over the world.

Sister Weisgerber read them a story then talked about our traditions in the USA. Then the Primary teachers hosted booths from the countries where they served their misisons (or in our case, from whence our ancestors came).

Puerto Rico

Germany

Niles with Aunt Jenn Claar

Finland

Nativity

That's me in SWEDEN, telling kids about geography and St. Lucy.

Brother Petry served his mission in Puerto Rico and St. Martin

Brother Roberts taught the kids about Native American culture and how Christianity has impacted their culture.

Brother Jeffrey talked about Christmas in Bavaria, Germany

Brother Westenskow talked about Christmas in France where he served with Elder Neil L Anderson.
(Addie was dressed as St. Lucy).

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See? Told ya it was like a hurricane of holiday activity this week.