December Recap

In a Nutshell...

December was a glorious month for us! We usually feel like we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but this year was different. We cut back on a tremendous amount of the crazy and vowed to just relax with our little family.

We enjoyed a few date nights (one in Sioux Falls, even!), had fun at the Toro Christmas Open House with the boys, enjoyed our work Christmas party, celebrated Christmas with our local immediate families, made our annual trip down to the Ropte farm for a crazy family Christmas. The month ended, unfortunately, with Amy coming down with an awful cold that lasted a couple weeks (and left the rest of the family with it the first half of January - boo!).

Date Night in Sioux Falls (December 7)

Mark and I enjoyed a nice evening out by ourselves in Sioux Falls. We went to Buffalo Wild Wings for supper (where we stumbled across our friends, the Studes, from Worthington!), then did a little Christmas Shopping at Scheels and TJ Maxx, and splurged on some Coldstone before heading home. FUN evening :)

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Toro Christmas Open House (December 14)

We took the boys to see Santa at the Toro Christmas Open House again this year. Cashel wasn't too pleased, but Kendrick did just fine :)

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Christmas with Dad (December 21)

We had a small little Christmas gathering with Mark's Dad and family at our home in Windom. We had homemade Chinese food and enjoyed visiting and opening gifts.

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Christmas Eve with Mark's Mom (December 24)

We attended the candlelight service at First Baptist in Worthington, then celebrated back at our home with Mark's Mom over a yummy ham dinner and gifts.

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Christmas at Home (December 25)

We enjoyed a low-key Christmas together at home with the boys, complete with yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast, opening gifts, resting, and watching Christmas movies together.

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Christmas in Iowa (December 27-30)

We joined the Ropte clan for a fun Christmas at the farm again. We managed to fit all 26 of us in the farm house for 2 days without all getting ill or going crazy again! It's going to start getting crowded once these little ones grow older and bigger!

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Looking Ahead...

January is usually the month where we start re-connecting with our friends a little more, with the busy holidays behind us. We're hoping this trend continues!

We're also looking forward to celebrating Cashel's birthday (how is it possible the kid is TWO already?) at the end of the month with a fun family weekend trip to Minneapolis. We decided to forego a big party this year and just have some fun as a family together instead. We're excited to check out the Como Zoo, spend lots of time at the hotel pool, and have a fun dinner at Rainforest Cafe to celebrate!

We're looking forward to the first 3 months of 2014, we're anticipating THREE new babies for our friends (one in February, and two in March!) and our first Johnson nephew in March!!

This is a year with a clean slate and nothing big planned, so we're excited to have some fun together and will see what happens along the way :)

A Very Ropte Christmas (December 27-30)

We had another fun-filled family Christmas at the farm in Humboldt. Since I'm actually mostly caught up on scrapbooking, I'm going to let the scrapbook pages do the talking for me :) ENJOY!

A Christmas Peek

It may be a while before I actually get a chance to go through the myriad pictures taken over the past few days - especially with Ropte Christmas coming up this weekend. I thought I'd share a few of my very favorites thus far, though :) So enjoy!

Christmas at Home (December 25)

We opened gifts right away in the morning, and Cashel was mesmerized by both his new train table and Kendrick's new play center! He also had to read all the books right away!

Remember those awesome cinnamon rolls I made back when I was 9 months pregnant? They were perfect for Christmas morning with a yummy cup of coffee :) We had just received a new pure blanket of snow that evening, and Kendrick was ALL smiles :)

It was a new experience for us, this purposely staying home for Christmas, but we had a wonderful day together as a family :) We watched the Polar Express, played together, read lots of books, and just enjoyed each others' company.

Christmas Eve with Mark's Mom (December 24)

On Christmas Eve, we were a bunch of bums :) We stayed home, stayed cozy inside, and enjoyed some time off work to relax with our family. We made our way down to Worthington (on questionable roads, no doubt) for the beautiful candlelight Christmas Eve service there, and after a white-knuckle drive home, had Mark's Mom over for the evening for a nice ham dinner.

It was a little harried to begin, as I had for some reason completely forgotten to make the ham sauce AND potatoes AND had a hungry little Kendrick right away, but we still enjoyed a delicious dinner (if you haven't tried crockpot ham before, you need to. Now. it's so easy and delicious!) Of course, I didn't get a chance to actually take any pictures of the food (oh the horrors!) because I was so busy, but rest assured, it was yummy!

After eating, Cashel was antsy to open some presents, so we let him dig in! He opened his presents from Uncle Daniel, Aunt Iryna and cousin Sofie as well as some from Grandma and had a ball! He had to read his new book with Grandma right away!

It was nice to have time together to celebrate Christmas, even if the house was a mess and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off for most of it!

Christmas with Dad and Pam (December 21)

We invited Mark's Dad, Pam, Jess, Tyler and Grandma Vi up to our home for a pre-Christmas dinner and gifts at our home the Saturday before Christmas this year. We decided that instead of the traditional fancy schmancy dinner, we were going to do Chinese food this year. I have my favorite go-to (and MUCH healthier than take-out) recipes for sweet & sour chicken and beef & broccoli, so I whipped them up, got some crab rangoons from the China Restaurant in town, and we all enjoyed each others' company for the evening.

We enjoyed opening gifts after dinner (Cashel was SUPER excited about that part!) and had fun together seeing the joy the gifts brought to everyone :)

After opening gifts, we sat down again to enjoy dessert! Dad and Pam had been in charge of dessert, and they brought some yummy Special K bars (which taste just like what my sister makes that we call scotcheroos...and are incredibly dangerous to have around!) They were SO delicious!!

After eating our dessert, we were all amused by Cashel playing peek a boo under the table cloth :)

We had a great time celebrating together, and are glad we were able to celebrate early this year, as opposed to last year, when we celebrated in March!