Christmas 2010

~Merry Christmas from our family to yours~
This year Christmas fell on a weekend which made for a few changes in our usual plans. Our family of five celebrated here on the 23 exchanging gifts and having our traditional Christmas brunch (s'mores pancakes) and Christmas dinner(surf n' turf). Since there aren't Christmas church services on the 23rd we didn't get a family picture taken where we're all prettied up in front of the tree. I figured we'd take one over the weekend at my parents or over New Year's weekend at Nate's parents but that didn't happen either. So, here is our official Christmas 2010 picture. (I know I'm not in it but the four people I love most are and they're all pretty happy. Note: Nathan got a kayak for Christmas which made them all very happy.)

Singing

December brought the opportunity for lots of singing. Evan went caroling with a small group of Sunday school students to the homes of elderly members. Both Evan and Hans caroled at nursing homes with their school classes.  Lydia along with the PreK, K, and 7&8th graders caroled at retirement apartments. Lydia participated in the PreK&K Christmas service. The boys were both part of the 1st-8th grade Christmas service.  We also got to hear some beautiful singing as we attend the WLA (Winnebago Lutheran Academy) Christmas Concert with friends. There's just something about Christmas that puts a song in our hearts.


As much as we did I only have pictures and video from Lydia's caroling and the WLA concert. Enjoy.

JOY: An Early Christmas Gift

Merry Christmas!

Close up after our 12 inches of snow

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I went out to dinner with friends on Saturday evening and came home to find this in the front yard. Nathan had made my Christmas gift and set it up early to surprise me. When we lived in Rapid, a house in our neighborhood had this yard decoration that I really thought was beautiful. I told Nathan that someday I'd like to have one similar for our yard. He decided that this year was someday. He'd tracked down plans and started putting it together at work back in October. The evening I left offered the perfect opportunity for him to pop it up in our yard and surprise me. Needless to say, I am thrilled!