a new years christmas day

this year, we celebrated christmas with my siblings on new years day. marc & jen were in springfield to spend the holidays with her family and so we moved our gift exchange to new years day. it was really fun to see everyone and spread the celebration out a little longer than usual! we used elfster to randomly draw names. check it out here! instead of just putting the standard "to/from" on each gift, we decided to simply type out 3 things you like about that person on a piece of paper and tape it to the gift. that way we all had to decide who the gift was for before opening them up. we went through all of the gifts, then each person said "yes or no" to verify if the gift they had brought was in the hands of the right person. it took a while to decide what gift went with who, but it was really fun! then each person guessed who their gift was from. if you guessed right, you could open it, otherwise you had to wait until it came back around to you again. all in all is was a really unique way of exchanging gifts and definitely got us all thinking about what we loved about the people in our family.

happy new year 2009

this year we had a low-key celebration. we went out to dinner with brian & blair, beth & seth, and seth's parents, cindy & gary, to timberlodge steakhouse. miles was a good boy, but wanted nothing to do with his green beans & cereal. I'm sure he was offended that he wasn't offered some yummy steak like the rest of us...maybe next year! after dinner we headed over to cindy & gary's where we played social security (SUPER fun game that has absolutely nothing to do with social security!). kyle indulged on MANY a sugar cookie and we toasted in the new year with champagne. as we watched the ball drop and rang in 2009, I thought of everything we were blessed with in 2008 and can only hope that 2009 is as wonderful.

christmas day

we had a wonderful christmas day with miles. we started out celebrating as a family here at home. miles was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves, so we kept his presents to a minimum. we figured this is the last year for that! we headed out to kyle's dad's house around 10am to celebrate and eat a delicious ham dinner. yum! miles was spoiled with many fun gifts and he quickly determined that they all passed the "taste test". around 2pm we packed ourselves back into the car and ventured over to my parent's house to celebrate with my grandma becker and cousin jerry and surprise, surprise - miles was spoiled AGAIN! for a baby who is clueless to gifts, he sure raked it in! papa and grandma becker gave him a beautiful new "big boy" car seat. he is riding in style and seems to be more comfy (mom and dad are more comfy without having to lug that other seat around too!). tinker & tessie were glad to partake in all of the festivities and even managed to get a few table scraps from each location. for some reason, we did not bust out the regular camera at grandpa randy's - so you'll have to check back for the updated video because I know we used the camcorder.

I have not had a chance to upload the movies from the video camera - so here's a quick slide show. I'll get the video edited SOON!

a greseth christmas eve

I edited the video...added a few more pics. I'm working on christmas day!

we spent christmas eve with my mom's family, the greseths. this year we did an "adopt-a-family" and all bought gifts for a family with eight children (the dad recently lost his job). it was so rewarding to know that we were able to share the christmas spirit with people who could really use it. it's something we did last year and definitely one of my new favorite traditions.

it was fun to get together with everyone, watch miles open presents, and (my favorite) EAT!! we always have some traditional norweigan foods - lefse, pulsa (a type of sausage), and meatballs - as well as some good ol' fashioned favorites - escalloped corn, cherry coke jello salad, green bean casserole, green jello salad, and mashed potatoes - my mouth is watering just thinking about it! everyone went to church first and then over to my aunt and uncle's house. miles made his acting debut when the little kids performed the christmas story and he starred as the baby Jesus. after lots of begging from nick and ellie (oh how I remember doing that too!), the kiddos exchanged gifts. miles loved every minute of it. then again, he's never one to complain about excessive attention :)

due to the sheer number of photos and videos we took that night...I thought I'd put together a little movie for you to enjoy!