who could resist?

miles and his blankie

turning on frosty (see below)
these are a bunch of auntie nykki''s crazy singing christmas toys. miles likes to line them all up on the floor...
...and start each one over and over again. it is a symphony.

dude, what is on your head?

you wouldn't guess how terrified he is of santa

josiah's first christmas

a kroening family christmas

after we cleaned up our christmas morning celebration, we headed out to the farm to celebrate with kyle's family. miles continued to get s-p-o-i-l-e-d. everyone is so generous...and it's clear that he is well-loved. we ate a big lunch (ham, cheese potatoes, pie, etc) and sat around chatting while miles snoozed. in keeping up with tradition, we all brought along board games...but we never played anything. perhaps next year will be the year we actually bust them out!

who's hungry?

helping grandpa open his presents

uncle clayt & uncle conrad built this for miles
[note the use of the appetizers for the face (those would be olives)]

I thought it was a daddy duty to wrangle the toys out of the box. somehow uncle clayt ended up with the dreaded job this year

snuggling with his new pillow pal from auntie jess
fancy tractor from grandpa...it even makes noise!who needs toys?

new family traditions

this year we wanted to start some new family traditions for christmas morning. here goes: santa gifts - lifesaver book? check. pjs? check. toy? check. caramel rolls for breakfast? check. christmas music in the background? (this one kills kyle) check. I'm sure our traditions will build each year as our family grows, but we are having fun mixing in some of our childhood traditions and adding some of our own. miles sort of understands the concept of santa. he gets that he puts presents in your stocking. so when I got him up in the morning I said, "who do you think came last night?" he said, "santa!" I asked, "what do you think he brought?" and miles said, "presents!!" smarty pants. so here are some pictures from our morning at home.

the stockings barely made it out this yearsanta even remembers tinker & tessie
miles with some of his loot from santa
santa brought me this...SO EXCITED!!
miles thought it was funny to put my lip gloss on his headone of many for the little monkey
I will post a video of him doing this later...he LOVES it!
breakfast in the living room...we are brave!
new PBK backpack - I'm not sure if I should love this picture or be terrified that he looks so old in it!
a good day to be miles!

the night before christmas

as always, we gathered together with my mom's side of the family on christmas eve. as we have gotten older, the gift giving has gotten less and less. we seem to have discovered that the real reason for the season and the greatest gift of all is to be able to spend time together with such an amazing family. in past years, we have adopted families in need and all bought gifts for them. this year we donated money to caring partners - the program that my grandpa goes to three days a week. they are hoping to get enough to purchase a projector and screen. grandpa has enjoyed his time at this program and we are all grateful for the much needed break it gives my grandma. the littlest members of the family - the great-grandkids - opened presents:

we had to pry miles away from the karaoke machine to open his present!

a new puzzle!
nykkole & cambelle
trying on sara's uggs

and we also celebrated olivia's 13th birthday! she was born on christmas day :)

if you've ever met the greseth family, you will not be surprised to see what game commenced after we had opened gifts and eaten a delicious meal complete with meatballs, polsa, cherry coke jello salad, and lefse. behold: the paper bag game.

rules: you must lean over and grab the edge of the paper bag with your teeth while balancing only on ONE foot. you must be able to stand back up with the bag in your mouth. after each round, approximately one inch of the bag will be trimmed off. good luck.

check out the techniques!

grandpa and grandma were thoroughly entertainedmiles was taking notes from daddy...

...and thought he would give it a try!

note - this pregnant lady decided NOT to take a go at it. I can hardly balance on two feet!

miles finished off the night with an episode of signing time...he realized at 10pm that he had not yet watched it. I guess time flies when you're having fun!

christmas eve 2009

as our family grows, we have been faced with the fortunate "problem" of having too many places to go on christmas day. this is just the sort of problem I wish for everyone to have:) we are so blessed. this year we decided to spend christmas eve with my parents, have our own little christmas at home on christmas morning, and head out to kyle's dad's house christmas afternoon. what a relaxing way to do things. here is the first of our celebrations with my family!

miles spent the night at nana and papa's house on the 23rd. we arrived at 9:45am on christmas eve to find that miles had JUST woken up! check out the hair...
we ate a big brunch - french toast bake, sausage, bacon, egg bake, cinnamon rolls, need I go on? we were lucky to have just about everyone here this year - brian and blair were in south dakota. next year marc & jen and brian & blair will all be gone. looks like 2011 will be the next christmas when everyone is together! josiah handled his first christmas like every six month old..."give me the paper!" miles was overwhelmed by the opening of gifts and didn't understand that you have to keep opening one after the other. I'm sure he'll have that mastered by his 2nd birthday...right?

angel!

playing santa and carrying in the gifts from the christmas treenykki, papa, nana, and beamer
josiah got a new carseat...just like miles did last year!
check it out
miles gave josiah one of his favorites - the fridge phonics toy
marc & jen bought the boys matching pjs...this picture was taken right after miles opened it up and said "CUTE!"
miles got a new kitchen from nana and papa!
papa and the boys in miles' new tent...thanks seth & beth!

gingerbread house

in an attempt to keep miles busy during the blustery cold weather, we assembled our first gingerbread house. now, if you are a baker-extraordinaire, I suggest you scroll on past this one. there was to be no baking and cutting out of real gingerbread in this house. oh no no. my cousin, olivia, bought this kit for miles and it made the whole process easy-peasy. more importantly, it put it well within the short attention span of a 19 month old. miles quickly discovered that the decorations were candy and the "glue" was icing. hence the need for a bath at the end of the decorating!

"hey mom, I thought this was for me?"
"YIKES! uncle marc is scary!!"
"ok - you do the icing and I'll organize the candy"
"hmmm...this looks like a good one"
"icing on the nose...no problem...I'll eat that for you!"
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