Four Christmases

I still have yet to watch "Four Christmases" the movie that we have here from Netflix, but did experience our own four Christmases recently.

1. & 2. Jeskes and Middendorfs both celebrate on Christmas Eve. Making for a day where our family just bops between houses to catch as many presents and as much food as we can.

We start at the Jeske house for brunch and stocking presents. The adults do an exchange of names for stocking presents and our challenge is to spend the $30 mom gives us on 15 presents. Grandma gets to buy all the stocking presents for the grandkids. Here Gavin is waiting his turn to open presents by enjoying his last present, fruit snacks. Gavin did want to open and play with (or eat) every present he got that day.

Then we are off to the Middendorfs for a meal of Chicken Kiev and wild rice. Followed by a "Dice Game" exchange for those 10 and over and the littlest kids exchange names for presents. Here are Gene and Mary Ann with all their grandkids (16 of them!).

Gavin with his recently opened Mack and "Speed" from his God Father Corey, with his two boys Riley and Logan.

Then its back to the Jeskes for church and more presents. We did miss the meal of oyster stew and sandwiches here, though we weren't very sad about that. Here is Auntie Drea with her niece and nephews.

We conclude the evening back at Middendorfs for the rest of the present opening. This year Gavin was done after Jeskes and needed to go to bed. He missed the opening at Middendorfs, but got to open his on Christmas Day instead.

3. On Sunday after Christmas we headed back to Chaska (and over a foot of snow waiting in the driveway) for our family Christmas. All our presents were waiting for us and Santa had left one for each of the boys too. Here is Jacob with the "Claw Drop" he asked Santa for. As I predicted it did not get played with very long and hasn't since. Arg.

Here the boys are waiting for Fred to finish blowing out the driveway to open their presents.

While Fred was at Home Depot buying his snow blower and then blow driving the driveway, the boys "helped" me bake Jesus' birthday cake. After opening presents we decorated it and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus before the boys blew out the candles.

4. Our final Christmas celebration was at my Grandma's on New Year's Day. My uncle and two Jeske counsins and their families gather together to eat and open a few presents. This year we also got to meet Toby, my cousins new son. Jacob loves to hold babies.

Here is Grandma Jeske with her offspring and their offspring and their offspring too.

Non-Christmas Updates:

Before Christmas my mom, myself and the boys spent a morning at the Minnesota Zoo. I scored the free pass from the library, so we only had to pay for Jacob and parking. We enjoyed the Tropics Trail and the Dolphin area, all indoors on a very cold day. Here are the boys by a turtle statue on the Tropics Trail.

The boys didn't let the cold weather deter them from sharing some ice-cream.

While in Melrose and while Fred and I were recovering from a stomach bug that was shared with us at the Middendorfs, my mom and my sister took the boys out to play in all the new snow we had. Gavin got to try out his new sled with Grandma.

Jacob got to play around with Auntie Drea in the snow.

I got Wii Fit for Christmas from Fred's parents and we have all been having fun with that. The boys got their own littler version, Smart Fit Park, and they have fun on that too.

They boys got twin baby boys from the Rosenbergers and they both love them. They each sleep with them at night.