Christmas 2008 - - A time for Celebration!

We hope everyone had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS this year... we sure did! :)

We went to our church Tuesday night... it was a beautiful service... and the FIRST Christmas service we have ever got to attend at our church! It was so nice! :)

This year we traveled back to I.G. on Christmas Eve to make it to the Hamann's (extended) Family Christmas at the community building in B.C. for dinner! All of the Hamann's attend, so we get a chance to catch up with everyone! We had a great dinner (as usual), the kids opened gifts and played, and then we played our annual game of bingo where we have a gift exchange that we can steal presents away from each other - - which is always lots of fun! :) Here are a couple of pictures from Christmas Eve...

All of Grandma Hamann's Great-Grandchildren

Then on Christmas Day we headed over to Nina and Papa Hamann's in the morning for breakfast, stockings, gifts and lunch with the Hamann family (Dan & Kim and the girls and Don and Jane). Jane made her traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then we headed to the family room for our gift opening! They boys were so excited to get to open presents!!! :) Parker told Nina Wilson that he didn't need to bring his toys with him to Nina and Papa's because they always give "BIG" presents!!! hehehe! All of our presents were GREAT... THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of the gifts!!! We had such a good time getting to spend time with everyone, hopefully next year we can figure out a way to make it last longer and not have to rush home to see what Santa brought! :) - - - Also, Kim we will be in touch about when we plan to go to the IMAX!! :) THANK YOU!

If you look close you can see Grace, Caroline, Parker and Owen and Ralph too! :)

After gifts we had a yummy lunch with turkey, ham, potatoes, veggies, and so on!! It was all so good! :) We were too full for desert this time... but the pie looked GREAT!! :)

Then we headed to my Mom's to get her and head back to Waukee for "our family" and "the Wilson" celebration. We had a scary ride home... Mom hit ice after Carroll and we were all over the highway! THANKFULLY we were able to get out of it and return safely to our side of the road, but not without a rapid heartbeat, several prayers, and a pit stop to re-group!

Once we got home we RAN in the house to see what Santa had brought... Owen didn't even get his coat off!! :) He was so anxious to see if Santa had brought him the piano he had asked him for! It was pretty sweet! :) Parker too was excited, but much more laid back! THANK YOU Nina Wilson for all of the gifts and for spending time with us back in Waukee... it was good to have you here! THANK YOU also for cooking so many meals and giving me a nice break! :) We love you!

Here are a couple of pics from our Christmas at home.

Our favorite gifts of the year...
Nick - the Dyson hand-held (from Nina & Papa Hamann)
Lori - my shelf!!! :) THANK YOU PAPA!!! and my Scrapbook cart (from Nick)
Parker - Batman Lego (from Nina & Papa Hamann)
Owen - Piano (from Santa!) #1/garbage truck (from Nina & Papa Hamann) #2

THANK YOU everyone... we enjoyed our time together and appreciate all of the presents!

Christmas Card 2008

The LITTLE joys of Christmas!

What a week!!! We have had a BUSY weekend/week at the Hamann house! We spent all week/weekend finishing up Christmas shopping, wrapping gifts, baking treats, watching Christmas movies, doing Christmas crafts and so on! - - - oh the joys of Christmas!! hehe!

Here is a little recap of our Christmas preparation!

The SICKIES...

Thursday night Nick started not feeling well. He went up to bed and ended up spending the next hour or so vomiting. Poor thing! He even called in sick for work on Friday - which NEVER happens!!! Friday after some Christmas shopping I headed over to Nicole's to help get some cookies frosted for their Christmas party Saturday night. I had fun decorating and had good conversation... but poor Nicole wasn't feeling well! Then Friday night Parker vomited... and although he didn't feel well, I was sooooo proud that he made it to the toilet to get it out!!! - - way to go Parker! Needless to say, Parker and Daddy took our bed and Owen and I slept together in his bed... trying to reduce the spreading of those yucky germs! By Saturday morning both of my boys were feeling better... and Owen and I stayed healthy!!!

The PARTY...

Saturday we spent some time shopping again and then helped get set up for the Christmas Party. Nick took the boys out to shop for a gift for Toys for Tots and I help Olivia, Nicole and Brad get everything set up! The party was so much fun!!! Nicole & Brad and Olivia & Mike were the hosts and they did such a great job!!! They held the party at the Bucs Arena (lounge and on the ice)! We had pizza, salad and garlic bread for dinner and tons of treats to snack on!!! There was a table for cookie decorating for the kids and Santa stopped by for a visit!!! (Did you know Santa is quite the ice skater???) The kids got to ice skate too... it was so fun watching everyone. I didn't get out there... I have never tried it, but I will someday - - it looked fun!!! Nick took the boys out... and I got some pictures but they didn't turn out well... I will upload more when I sort through all of the ones Candi downloaded for me!! :) Enjoy!

Ruth and Josh... and RUTH!! :)

SANTA was there... and he skates!! Go Santa! :)

Ruth and Parker... and Brad and Cooper below!

Lily and Cooper holding on for dear life!! hehe... too cute!

Our daycare week...
We have been busy at daycare enjoying the season!! :) We LOVE making crafts and preparing for the holidays.. and this year was no different! We started out our celebration with many color pages of Santa, frosty, and so on! Then we moved on to watching some Christmas movies/shows (Shrek the Halls, Chipmunk Christmas, Elmo's Christmas Countdown, etc.), then we read many Christmas books (Thanks to Nina and Papa Hamann who are our suppliers!) and then on to the extra fun stuff... arts-n-crafts! Here is a look at our Christmas ornaments we made! (I got the recipe from my daycare friends!)

Recipe:
Cinnamon Christmas Ornaments
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup cinnamon
1 T glue

Mix together, roll out and cut out with cookie cutters. Let air dry for 24-48 hours and then decorate! (They smell YUMMY too!!!) - - yields about 10 small ornaments.

Then we had LOTS of baking!! The kids favorite job is cracking eggs of course! :) We made sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies with a hersheys kiss, Christmas pretzels with m&m's, pretzel sticks with almond bark, Honey Bunches of Oats "snowballs" (thanks "Cole" I love these!), puppy chow, a carmel chex mix, rice crispy bars and I am sure I am forgetting some!!! WOW... we were busy!!! Take a look...

After our baking craze, we went back to craft-making!!! We decided to decorate some cute little bags for Christmas. Here is a peek at those...










And finally... we made it to our daycare Christmas Party!!! I got each of the kids a package of Color Wonder markers with a book, a coloring book, and a SANTA Mr. Potato Head! They loved it and were excited to color!!! :)

Tomorrow after Nick is off work we plan to head back to I.G. for a family Christmas with Nick's extended family on Christmas Eve, Nick's immediate family on Christmas morning and noon and then on to my Mom's for Christmas afternoon/evening. Then back home on Friday to see what Santa left us here at home! :) We are excited to celebrate with everyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :)

Christmas Cakes...

Had to share my cakes... I just LOVE my new cake pans!! :) We made these for fun this week at daycare and we ate them after Parker's preschool program. Kim borrowed them for Christmas goodies too!! :) Hope you like them, Kim!!

Parker's Christmas Program

Today was Parker's Christmas Program at school! He was a little upset this week when he told me his part in the program... he was a sheep (along with Cooper - who Parker said was also upset) but he wanted to be a Shepard (like Corbin - who was excited about being a Shepard). hehehe! Poor little thing... but he made such a cute sheep (as did Cooper)! :)

Parker was so lucky... Nina and Papa Hamann and Nina Wilson all came down to go to the program (even though the weather was going to turn bad)!! Aunt Kim and the girls all came too and Uncle Matt!! He might have had the biggest fan base there! :) hehe! It was so nice that everyone could come and see him "perform"! heheh! He was pretty shy as usual (why doesn't he ever act like that at home???) and only sang about 2 of the 4-5 songs but he did do all of the actions to the songs which was pretty cute! Afterwards we got to visit and have cookies and juice! Afterwards we had a tough time getting Owen to come home with us... he was ready to stay and start school today!!! I warned the teachers about him for next year!! Hopefully they will all be prepared! :)

Then we all went to lunch at Jason's Deli (thanks, Matt for the suggestion) which was really yummy!! Then came home to have cake and ice cream!! :) - - had to eat those little cakes we made!!

THANK YOU again everyone for being here for Parker's special day! - -We love you!!

Here are some pictures... sorry some are blurry!!

the animals...























After the program...

Frosty the Snowman...

Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul, with a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal.

Ok... so it's not quite "Frosty" but this friendly snowman is sure adorable!!! :) The boys, Nick and Papa Hamann spent last Saturday sledding and building snowmen - - yes snowmen, two of them!! One at the middle school in Battle Creek and the other in the front yard at Nina and Papa's house!!! They had so much fun... or so I heard!! I spent the day at a craft show in I.G. which wasn't all that great unfortunately, but I still had fun! :)

Frosty...

Sledding...

After a full day, we spent the evening with family and turned in early as I wasn't feeling the best. It was so nice going to bed at 9ish!! :) I can't remember the last time I have done that! :) We ended up coming back early on Sunday since I still didn't feel well and I spent all day sleeping as well! By Sunday night I was all better. Just over-exhausted I think?!?! The sleep was much needed and I think that boosted my immune system too! :)

Friday night was Nick's annual Christmas party for work! It was a lot of fun this year!! We had dinner at Prairie Meadows and then went out with some co-workers for some karoake!!! Nick's boss, John and I got up and sang "Jackson" by June Carter and Johnny Cash (the man in black according to Nick)! It was fun... and who knew that John was such a Johnny Cash fan... and a great singer!!! :) I will need to practice up for next year!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! :)

A Farewell SLEEPOVER

This week we had lots of visits from Christi and the kids and even Ross one time! :) They had a busy week getting things ready for their BIG move, so we were excited to get to spend a little time with them here and there. Christi ran an errand and so kindly got me a 'DIET COKE' on Wednesday afternoon and I kept Kya and Kelton for a bit so the kids could all play together... here are a few pictures...

After some playtime the kids all wanted to help with lunch! We were having french toast, sausage and fruit... so I thought they would like helping with the french toast!!! :) Eggs??? Yeah, definitely a crowd pleaser!! :) Each kid wanted to crack an egg, so instead of having 2-3 eggs like I normally use we had 6.... Parker, Kya, Corbin, Kelton, Owen and Braxton all got to crack an egg and the winner for least messy and best form..................... KYA!!!! She is quite the little egg-cracker! Since she did the best, she got to add the milk and then they all took turns stirring! It was hilarious... and everyone was so attentive and such good listeners!!

After that... Christi came to get the kids and Kya and Kelton each took a sausage with them since they didn't stay for lunch! - - that was another funny story... when I was getting the sausage out of the package (it was frozen), Kya tells me "Yuck, I don't like that!" I said, "you don't like sausage?" and she said "NO!" So I proceeded to put it in the pan... and after a bit she comes over to take a look at our progress and sees that the sausage is browning... and says, "Oh, I like that... it's like hotdogs!" I thought it was pretty funny!!! :) Kya is so cute!

Then, since Wednesday was supposed to be the last night in town for them, but they ran into some problems with the moving company - - long story short they didn't leave when they planned so we decided to go out to dinner at "On the Border" (Kaden's pick)! It was a good meal... a little HOT in the restaurant, but good food! :) During the meal we decided it would be fun for the kids to have a sleepover since they planned to leave on Thursday now. So Kaden, Kiera and Kya all slept over at our house! The kids were all good and had a great time together. Kiera wanted her own room, so she slept in the (daycare room/Owen's old room)!! She picked out 3 books before bedtime to read and Nick and I were all smiles... she was such a little sweetie! :) Then at 10:30 I could hear someone talking on the monitor still, so I went up to Parker's room... and sure enough Kaden and Parker were laying together in Owen's bed playing Nintendo DS!! I had to laugh... it was so precious! So then Parker went back up to his bed (top bunk), Kaden slept in Owen's bed and I made up a bed for Kya on the floor with the boys. 5:45 came early... those Ladwig kiddos get up EARLY!!!!!!!!!!! :) We had so much fun... thanks for letting them stay!! Here are a few pictures of the night...

We will miss you all... glad we got to spend some more time together before we parted ways... we hope you have a safe drive in the morning and that all works out well in AZ for your family!