our christmas tree.

Our 2013 tree was so pretty.  :)




























This tree was much more interesting than trees in the past.  This year our gifts were able to stay under the tree until it was time to open them, rather than driving them a couple of states away.
We were in this trees presence on Christmas morning - our first tree that we were able to share Christmas with.
The first year we had white lights on our tree, which looks really nice.



I noticed that on Black Friday Whole Foods was advertising $20 off of Fraser Firs.  I knew that was a nice type of tree and in the past we always went the super cheap route and often ended up with a dyed tree.  Ew.  Tyler's family was in town for part of Black Friday and I thought having some help with loading up the tree sounded wonderful.. since we had new June with us.

They barely made it to Whole Foods before the sale was over and there were hardly any trees left.  They were all wrapped up so you couldn't quite see what you were getting.  But they got one, tied it to the roof, and Tyler headed home.

I helped him unload it, get it ready, and set it up.  We gave it some time for the branches to settle and ya know what... it was a perfect tree!  The perfect shape and the perfect height and so beautiful.  :)

But now it's a crispy mess and I'm afraid of what's going to happen when we attempt to take it outside.  Yikes.

santa grandpa.

Our December was quite different this year.  We typically travel home to Illinois and then to Iowa making a giant triangle shaped trip and have something in the realm of 5 Christmas celebrations not including our own when we finally get back to Minnesota.  

But this year we didn't travel.  We didn't travel mostly because Tyler was unable to take the time off of work that he normally does and also because of having a relatively new June.

Luckily we had some visitors so we could still celebrate and get a chance to see family and family could have a chance to meet June.

My dad was planning to come up whenever the weather was conducive to the drive.  He ended up driving up a few days after Tyler's family left (I'll blog about that another day).  I had joked with him that he should dress up as Santa as he was bringing with him Christmas gifts for all of us from him and from others.  Kind of like Santa?

And guess what?  He did dress up like Santa!

Olive was excited and waited by the window.

And then we saw him...



Olive had told me that she wanted to hide when he came but I told her it would be much more fun to actually watch him come and maybe even open the door.  She really likes to hide when people come over.. she thinks it's funny.



I thought Santa's choice of footwear was funny.







Apparently she wasn't confident that he was feeling well so she quickly grabbed her doctor box and checked him out.











She often referred to him as Santa Grandpa while he was visiting.  She thought the whole thing was pretty funny.  But if I call him Santa Grandpa now she says that's not his name anymore.  Whoops - I addressed his thank you card to "Santa Grandpa Ken".

He stayed for a few days and we took June out to a couple of malls.  Tyler worked late Thursday so we ate dinner at the mall in Roseville.  On Friday we went to the Mall of American (the Friday before Christmas - aaah!).  Olive was able to ride a few rides and I found some pants I could fit into more comfortably.  Trying on clothes while wearing a baby who is nursing at the time.. is not easy.  But I got new pants, so yay.

After we got home I had to cook our "Christmas" dinner as my dad was leaving early the next morning.  We had a mini Christmas-like dinner with a roast chicken, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

After dinner it was time to open Olive's gifts before she headed up to bed.

My dad paid for her swimming lessons which are starting mid-January.  Since she can't really open swimming lessons he also brought her this giant box.

















She was really excited to find this very large "zebra" inside.  It isn't a zebra.  But it is white and black.. so I guess that's okay.  I thought she had named it Purple Polkadot, but now she says that his name is just Zebra.









And then they moved into their house.







Olive gave my dad one of his gifts before it was time for bed.









mmmmm....

And then we opened a bunch of other gifts.  :)

advent 2013 in photos.

Last year Olive and I did something new. We did a fun activity for each day of the advent. When she checked her advent calendar each morning she also found a little piece of paper with an activity written on it. And I photographed every activity and blogged about them as well. 

Things didn't go quite as smoothly this year. Tyler's work schedule was such that he worked quite a few evenings which threw off some of my plans. A few things were too difficult to do with June being so new. And lastly, almost every outdoor or traveling activity was nearly impossible because this past December was so stinking cold. Sledding, snowman building, the parade, etc., were all impossible. 

So I wasn't as on top of photographing everything as I was last year. Some of our activities ended up being quickly thought up - like get a hot cocoa when we go to the store! 

So here are just a few of the activities that we did in December:

We built graham cracker houses. :) We almost went to a park district finger bread house making activity but the only one that would work for us was too close to my mini sessions at the start of the month - I didn't think we would have made it in time. Sometimes it seems like having two cars would be useful. But think of the complicated car seat logistics involved.. 

So.... Houses. 

We were all supposed to make our own houses but Tyler soon started helping Olive because he seemed to think she should have an actual house rather than a pile of stuff.





My house was too big for the plate. I should have used larger plates.



Olive kept sneaking bites of the graham crackers.



My house. The roof kept collapsing.





Olive worked really hard at decorating hers. It looked great. And she didn't eat any candy. I accidentally ate a lot of frosting. Oops.



Each year we make ornaments for ourselves, my parents, and Tyler's parents. This year we made snowflakes. I like to buy craft materials and make things ourselves rather than using little pre-made kits.





Olive painted the wooden snowflakes with glue.





And then shook them in a bag full of glitter.



After they dried I sprayed them with a clear coat and Olive glued little silver and gold bells on them.



One of our more fun activities was a little friend party. Olive was really excited for this one.



Olive, Ethan, and Diego spent some time playing and then got to play with fun fake snow and make a huge mess before opening gifts.

And that's it. A whooping three days worth of advent photos! Hope you enjoyed them. :)