2010 It's a Wrap

As we close out 2010 here are some of our December odds and ends.

The lunar eclipse in December.  I was up with Andelyne at 2am so I was able to see the eclipse and get a picture.

 Cute little Andelyne had just started sitting on her own just before Christmas.  It was good timing for getting pictures in front of the tree.

My 2nd cousin, Katy, and I made Christmas cakepops to munch on.  She was very excited to try making more when she got home. 

 Grandma Paul gave Seth a toddler trampoline.  He has lots of energy and bounces on everything.  We hoped this would save the couches some wear and tear.  It's kind of working.

 This year our Christmas outfit pictures weren't the best, but with three kids my expectations for everyone looking at the camera and smiling are going down.  Christmas Sunday was the Sunday before Christmas, but the Sunday closest to Christmas was the 26th.  So we got two Sundays to show off Christmas outfits.  Andelyne had two different dresses that matched the boys.

This is the second dress.  I only got pictures of Andelyne and Seth before church because Tade went early with Jake.  By the time we got home from church Andelyne was asleep so we never got pictures of all three together.

That pretty much wraps up 2010 with the Wangberg Family.  We look forward to what 2011 will bring into our lives.  I don't know what is going to top last year with Andelyne joining our family.  Maybe a trip to Albania to visit Sean, Shauna, and Asher who head over seas in March on their first non stateside assignment with the State Department.  Did you know Albania is REALLY close to Greece and Italy?!

Christmas

Christmas morning Tade got up at 7:00am.  I had left a note on his door saying don't go downstairs and don't wake us up until 7:45am.  My kids usually don't get up until at least 8:00am.  Well Tade didn't see the note so at 7am he woke us up.  I wanted Seth and Andelyne to get more sleep so Jake took Tade into the basement to watch TV for a while.  Then I got up and started making breakfast.  A full yummy breakfast is one of our Christmas morning traditions.  Seth woke up while I was making breakfast so I sent him downstairs with the boys.  Then Andelyne was up and the boys were getting anxious.  I went up to try to hurry Grandma and Grandpa up.  They took forever.  It was hard to contain the kids.  Finally they came down and we let the boys go.

Our massive Christmas tree on Christmas morning.

Anxiously waiting for the Grandparents and the release to Christmas morning. 

Tade had just peeked around the corner and caught a glimpse of a pillow pet under the tree.

And they're off

I put this together with pictures from Jake's mom.  It's a Wangberg family picture, a five generation picture on Jake's side from Tade to Great Great Grandpa Wangberg, and our family picture.

My wonderful kids on Christmas morning.  They loved the day.

Sean, Shauna, and Asher were not here for Christmas so the Tuesday after Christmas we had a second Christmas with them, my aunt and uncle, cousins and their kids.

Asher getting in on the present action.

 Seth spent half the evening in the wagon reading.

Tade got a ton of Beyblade (a fancy top) things.  The cousins had fun having Beyblade battles.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at our house usually consists of getting ready for Christmas.  We still have presents to wrap and the house to get all clean so it looks special the following morning.  One tradition we have had since I was a little girl was eating out on Christmas Eve.  Growing up we always went to Roy Rogers.  When we were little it was special to get fast food.  Plus fast food were the only places open past 5pm on Christmas Eve.  Now that we are older fast food isn't as appealing.  We started to go out to places earlier than 5pm or go out for Chinese.  All the Chinese food places are opened normal hours.  The past several years it has been Chinese food that we've gone for.  This year was no different.  I think this might actually be our last year with the grown up food.  My kids are getting older and going to want to request fast food like I did when I was little.

A newer tradition that has been created is giving the kids jammies to open and wear on Christmas Eve.  Usually they are Christmas related jammies.  This year we also added each of them receiving a special Christmas ornament of something related to the year they just had.  We will do this each year so that when they grow up and move out they can take their ornaments with them.  This year Andelyne got her "my first Christmas 2010" ornament, Seth got a John Deere tractor,  and Tade got Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.  Tade remembered getting jammies in previous years so he was very excited to see what they would be like this year.  It was also fun to see his new excitement when he opened an ornament as well as jammies.

  

This year I wanted BYU jammies.  Unfortunately there aren't many available and the few that are available are very expensive.  So I decided to create my own, well partially.  I made the boys shirts and matching shirts for their cousins.  The pants and sleepers for Andelyne and Asher were from the store.  Thankfully Walmart and Target in Utah sell some BYU things and I have wonderful sisters-in-law who picked things up for me.  The kids LOVED their BYU jammies and so did the parents.  Christmas Eve in Maryland, Utah, and New York all sported blue and white.

What It's All About

For family home evening the week before Christmas it was easy to choose a theme for the night.  We did the Nativity.  Tade and Seth were both old enough that acting out the Nativity would be fun.  Plus we has a baby to use.  Tade was so excited for his little sister to play the baby Jesus.  Yeah she's a girl, but Tade didn't care.  We had a baby, a real live baby.  He wouldn't settle for using a baby doll.  So with help from Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie and Gunnar we had a family nativity.  I know it should have been a more reverent FHE, but man that didn't happen.  I've never had to try so hard to refrain from laughing.  We had a very unhappy baby Jesus, a biker for a shepherd, an angel with a crazy star, Rambo Grandma as a wise man, and frilly headed Grandpa.  It was highly entertaining, but the boys got what they needed out of the evening and loved every moment of it.

Tade, the Wise man

Auntie, a Harley riding Shepherd

The Wise man and Joseph (aka Dad) 

Seth, our adorable Angel/Star

Me as Mary and Andelyne our not so happy Baby Jesus 

Baby Jesus calmed down, but the coolest thing about the night was the "star" in the background.  Quite appropriate I think for our story.

Our Wise man and Angel were big fans of Baby Jesus

The whole crew including Grandma the Rambo looking Wise man and Grandpa with the frilly head piece.

It was a wonderful family home evening which will be repeated annually now.  Can't wait to see how next year goes.