Christmas Break - Part 4

A couple of days before New Years, Kate, John and their girls, along with Grandma Marilyn came to our house for a visit.  We often get together over the holidays, or at least by MLK Jr. Day.  This year we were able to coordinate the visit with lots of kid activities, Grandma's birthday, and the Polar Dash 10K.

Kate and I took all the kids (minus Luke) snow tubing at a nearby park.  There is nothing fancy about this place, but we all had a good time, and at times we were even a little nervous as we picked up speed!

Ben organizing the masses to ride down in one big clump.

 Off they go!

I love this picture of Kate!  It looks like she's just taking it easy and relaxing with her feet up.

 Kate and her girls

Me and my boys

Playing Giant Spoons with cousins

Looking at old blog pictures when the kids were oh so little!

Science Museum

Luke made himself at home in many of the exhibits.

Here we are driving a virtual tugboat.  John is a sailor at heart, and I love how attentively he is watching.

Funny story:  The first Vikings vs. Packers game was on and my brother in CO asked if we would put the Ipad on FaceTime so he could watch it while he was on duty at his fire station in CO.  You can see the Ipad sitting on the kitchen chair.

Our view of Luke watching the game in CO.

Kate and I decided sometime in November that we would run the New Year's Day Polar Dash for the 2nd time.  However, this time, we opted for the 10k, rather than the 5k.  It was a COLD start (-2 I think?), but as we got moving and warmed up, we had a great run.  We've never regretted going for a run or signing up for a race together.

Christmas Break - Part 3

One of the gifts we gave the boys was an overnight visit to The Metropolis in Eau Claire, WI.  We often have family in town over Christmas, but since we didn't this year, we thought it would be fun to have a little family get-away.  The drive was just right.  2 hours.  It was long enough to feel like we were getting away, but not so long that we were wiped from a long day of driving.

The day after Christmas we loaded up and arrived around noon and quickly got settled into our room.  The boys certainly didn't care about the queen sized bed, but it was the two sets of bunk-beds that made for all the fun!  We headed to the water park and were pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't busy at all and the water was warm.  We had fun on water slides, the lazy river, a toddler area, a rope swing, and playing water basketball.

My little ninjas

After a good night's sleep and a continental breakfast, we headed to the other side of the hotel to Action Ctiy.  A boys' paradise.  This place had indoor go-karts and bumper cars, laser tag, a climbing wall, a mini-bowling alley, and unlimited arcade games.  There really was something for everyone to do, and Luke was happy watching and pretending to be playing the games.  We spent a good 7 hours here before heading back to the pool for one last hour of swimming, and finally heading for home at about 9:00 that night.

No pictures of Action City, but trust me, we had a very nice time as a family!

Christmas Break - Part 2

My parents were in CO for Christmas, so Holly and I planned a low-key, laid back Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for our families.

Christmas Eve included our traditional service at church, then to Holly's for Wild Rice Soup and stocking opening.  Of course, I didn't take any pictures.

Christmas morning the boys slept in until about 8:30 and we opened another round of stockings.  The boys really weren't in too big of a hurry to open and we took it slow with lots of breaks in between to put things together and play.  I love this picture of the four boys simply rolling a new soccer ball around some new cones.

Ever since I was little my mom has made a Christmas Slushie that I just love.  Since she was going to be gone on Christmas Day, she offered to make some ahead of time for our family to enjoy Christmas morning.  It wouldn't be Christmas without the slushie in the fancy glasses.

We finished opening our family gifts mid-morning, and then Holly and her family came over for the afternoon and evening.  We had some extended family gifts to open, some good appetizers and treats to eat, and we enjoyed just hanging out and playing with the kids.  Again...no pictures.

Christmas Break - Part 1

Big shocker, but I'm running behind in blog posts.  We had a very nice, relatively quiet 1 1/2 weeks off for Christmas and New Years.  We started off with some perfect sledding weather.  Fresh snow, bright sunshine and not too busy sledding hills made for a perfect way to kick off our break!

Adam

Matt heading back up

Ben and  his buddy getting some air!

 Ouch!  The landing hurt.

Luke preferred playing at the park to sledding.

He was very happy!

Brian ordering our pizza lunch while doing his version of sledding!

I hosted a neighborhood cookie exchange (year 5 or 6) for 17 neighbors.  There were plenty of treats for our Christmas break.

Matt brought this book home as a gift from his teacher.  I have fond memories of reading this book as a kid.  I read it aloud to all of the boys in just a couple of days.  They kept asking for more.

When we finished the book we found the movie version on You Tube.  Even Luke had fun watching around the computer.

December Programs

As we all know, December is full of school and church programs.  Matt's 4th grade had a great winter concert which included singing, dancing, recorders and handmade dulcimers.  The program and PACKED full of parents, siblings and grandparents.  We were lucky to get seats, but unfortunately, Matt was standing directly in front of the music teacher, so our view of him was blocked much of the time.

Matt looking handsome in his shirt and tie, which he chose to wear.

One of our CO nephews sent a "Flat Zach" to Nana, so she brought him to Matt's concert and "Flat Zach" posed for some pictures.

What's one more boy added to my crazy mix?!

The 3 older boys also participated in the annual church Sunday School program.  I win the "Mom of the Year" award by forgetting to bring the camera.  Ben was the narrator, Matt was a wiseman and Adam sang with the kindergarten choir.


Fotunately, Grandma was in town and had her camera and was able to snap a few pictures.

This picture makes us look like a really big family with a whole lotta boys!

Baking With Grandma

Adam has been loving to check out cookbooks from his school library.  When Grandma was here over Ben's birthday, he had his heart set on making homemade pretzels, and Grandma happily obliged.

Speaking of Grandma, she got in on a several-years old Smith practical joke.  A wool sweater-vest has been passed back and forth for years at Christmas.  Since we were celebrating Grandma's December birthday along with Ben's, we wrapped up the vest and gave it to her.  She was a good sport about it and we all had a good laugh!  After the birthday celebration, we took the vest back and promptly wrapped it up and mailed it to our 13 year-old nephew in CO.