you're not the real santa... you're not tarnished with ashes and soot

christmas 2011 was great!  david and i landed around midnight on christmas eve eve, just in time to wish mom a happy birthday at her favorite place to be: LAX.  only her second airport trip of the day.

we chit chatted for a while and then it was off to bed.

christmas eve morning started early!  we had breakfast and then had tyler get dressed up in an early christmas present from santa (david 1 helped him pick out the right gear).

tyler keeps getting taller... but the shoulder pads really make him bigger than the christmas tree

nothing says christmas like a little bath-time fun with your puppy.

("i will literally kill you put this on facebook"-tyler)

he's not as naked as it looks.  lol.

then it was off to the nutcracker ballet for the girls minus kourty.  maybe the best part of the whole event was checking out what everyone else thought was ballet appropriate attire... sequin mini tube dress at 10am on christmas eve?  really?

addie had the most gorgeous princess braids

so excited to see the show

best nutcracker buddies... what's happening? where did the boys go? where's clara?

intermission... we really wanted to take a pic on the stage

sisters by chance, frenemies by choice?

we were so hungry and andie was hoarding the sour patch kidz.

amber and i had to share 1 kid!!

so, the show was a little longer than we had anticipated, but addie was a trooper. she loved the whole thing

scarfing down some random sees candy for lunch on the way home from the ballet.  we ran out of good ones in like 5 minutes.

then it was time for a quick walk to the sev with the pup before the christmas eve party.

this dog really hates walking... and that fake baby never stops crying.

then it was time for the 20something annual boberg christmas eve party.  after a delicious feast it was time for the kids to re-enact the nativity.

we had dueling marys...

and a korty sneaking in the play

everyone's favorite part of the party... singing carols

andie's face says it all.

larry gets out of all the pics because he's the resident photog... 

always ready for a pic

we're not sure why ambie dressed like taylor swift...

then santa's helpers had work to do so we took off and opened santa's workshop in my mom's living room.

sometime you wrap presents

and sometimes you have to try them out...

my mom is one grandbaby short of having to get a bigger mantle

the best christmas present of all (even if being a teen dad is harder than it looks)

with a christmas bow and everything

mom is about the same number of grandbaby or son-in-laws away from needed a longer staircase.

tyler and addie are so over it... bring on the gifties

kourty thought santa's left over cookies were the best present ever

addie's special disney princess day book

christmas cuties

andie really came through with the cinni bears this year

christmas hugs

one of the weirdest, yet probably most popular presents... tangled hair

love it

addie's nutcracker... only she would have picked out the most sparkly purple nutcracker out of the whole gift display

we had a few minutes before we had to be at church so david whipped up some fab stuffed french toast with bananas foster and caramelized pecan topping.  mom, working hard on not burning the bacon.

one of the only moments this dog was peeing on something the whole week.  he's like a ninja.

andie trying to finish a puzzle that was driving everyone crazy

the finished product

then we attempted to take a christmas picture with everyone, didn't really happen...

christmas outfits

who can photo-shop this for me??  like, it's probably a really good picture...

christmas reds

the sisters weren't having it.

after church we skyped with the bfields for a minute (hi conner!!), cleaned up a bit and headed over to grandma's for what we hoped would be a thanksgiving redemption...

appetizer table looking much fuller than last time.  1 point grandma.

kourty made a new bff: tara!

here is a quick pic of mae... we barely saw her, she had to leave to wash her car.  she had been planning it for weeks.

addie sitting with santa and mikey and fernando trying to convince her it was the real santa.  she knew better.  she knew it wasn't the real santa because he wasn't covered in ashes and soot.

kourty: not a santa baby

even if it wasn't the real santa, she'd still take the car.  the only thing left on her christmas list.

(big thanks to uncle mike for putting that one together!)

then came a new christmas tradition, one we hope doesn't make it to 2012.

my grandma coerced my mom and aunt carma to play a fun game with the gift card exchange this year by passing the cards around switching directions based on words from "twas the night before christmas."  who knew it had 300 verses??  addie did.  she knew all the words!  amazing.

also noted: the worst christmas present to give a grandma: kindle fire.  you're just asking for hours of tutorials.  glad it wasn't my idea!

carma trying to explain the internet for the 100th time.

barely listening at this point.

the end!  i hope everyone was happy with their gift card.

still munching.  all she wanted was "fluh" carma made a new peppermint fluff fan this year.

david trying to explain the internet to my grandma... not really successfully.

the rest of the week was filled with great food and fun times and lots of measuring and weighing.

we went to cafe rio and loved every second of it

we got manis and pedis after waiting like 4 hrs... not pictured: laura--she's way over ----> 

she was actually getting a mani and pedi, andie amber and i were just having our skin soaked off.

lots of snuggles with ambie... i found out how she gets them to love her-she has a secret stash of cookies in her bedside table. tricky.

princess cupcakes

claim jumper celebration dinner.  we were celebrating everyone going on a diet on monday and tyler not dying in the mud caves.

also, amber ran over tyler's leg... while he was in the car... i don't buy his story, but here he is trying to show us how bad it is.

got ranch?

cheers!

well, that was it.  christmas was the best!  happy new year everyone.

wisconsin is having a heat wave.  not a flake of snow on the ground, so you guys should all come visit!

this christmas

"This Christmas, mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend. Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust. Write a letter. Give a soft answer. Encourage youth. Manifest your loyalty in word and deed. Keep a promise. Forgo a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Apologize. Try to understand. Examine your demands on others. Think first of someone else. Be kind. Be gentle. Laugh a little more. Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger. Gladden the heart of a child. Take pleasure in the beauty and wonder of the earth. Speak your love and then speak it again."

Howard W. Hunter, "The Gifts of Christmas," Ensign, Dec 2002

i bet your dentist...

doesn't deck the halls of their office quite as much as dr. pham.  i am not kidding there were wreaths and trees everywhere i looked.

and i bet your dentist doesn't give you a christmas present for coming in for your semi-annual cleaning.

she may be totally crazy, but she's the nicest dentist i've ever met.

(also, the hygienists keep bringing up your referral Jenna!  when are you getting that free tooth whitening?)

what? we have doors?

after 1 1/2 years in our house we finally have cabinet doors in the dining room!  it was the first project i started and it was a disaster.  my brother re-made all of the doors and had them shipped to us a few months ago.  we finally had someone come in and do the hard work of hanging them and getting and putting in the hardware.  david installed the stained glass panels.  i couldn't be happier!  i love looking in the dining room and it not feel like a construction zone anymore.

cabinet on the left

cabinet on the right 

i'm still working on my christmas table-scape.   i really tried to downsize, last year was a little out of control!

also noteworthy:  we have real doors for all of the rooms and closets in our house!  come visit and check those out.  (i take back every comment i made about david and laura not having doors, seriously, why is it so hard to get doors hung up??!).   i'm not going to lie-- i don't miss the hippy lifestyle at all.

the christmas tree that almost wasn't

every year we go to the same christmas tree farm to chop down our own christmas tree (and by we i mean i pick it out and david chops it down).  of course the only saturday we had available to pick out our tree it was pouring rain! 

driving out to the noble fir section of the farm

after sloshing around the farm for a while getting soaked we decided that maybe something from their pre-cut selection would be easier.

it was and they had some great freshly cut trees to choose from.  the nice guys that worked there were kind enough to get it all tied to our car even though it was raining.  i think they were just having a slow morning because no one else was dumb enough to try to pick out their tree in the rain.

we got our tree home and now it is finally decorated.  i love christmas and having the tree lit up.

it didn't take quite as much time as i had allotted for decorating, so i finally made one of those ornament wreaths for my front door.  i figure this is a wreath i am not that attached to, so i don't care if it gets ruined in the snow.

kind of dr seuss-y, but hey, it's christmas.

Thanksgiving 2011... Raw Turkey and Turkey Tourneys

thanksgiving was as usual the most sleepless 4 days of the year.  we arrived at late thirty wednesday night at LAX (nightmare!) then stayed up for hours gabbing (waiting for amber to get home, turns out she was asleep already...) oops.

before we knew it it was time for thanksgiving breakfast.  we woke everyone up early to enjoy chocolate, pistachio and almond croissants from le rev... it was quite a task getting a dozen croissants from milwaukee to cypress, but it was a success!

yum-o

as soon as the last crumb was devoured it was time for christmas crafts!  typically that means that my mom and i direct david on our vision and get frustrated when it doesn't turn out exactly right.

this year was no different!

 david hard at work on shaping our wreath forms
                                                                     andie showing off what we were attempting to recreate

turns out you need about a billion ornaments to make one... so, it's 1/4 completed, maybe we'll finish it by christmas.

then david and i headed over to grandma mazie's for a little visit.  always great to see her!

next up thanksgiving at grandma mary's.  you know, we do this almost every year and i'm pretty sure this was the year she called it quits.

appetizer table, pretty sparse...

noticeably missing: chicken chili and dorritos... don't event get me started.

also missing: weird flavored flat sodas.  something is up!

also, this one was kind of a surprise... dinner was no where close to ready when we showed up.  so time for portraits to kill time.

my favorite part of this picture?  that pomeranians and jesus have the same level of prominence at grandma's house.

pyramid of hungry guests.

 david2 and mae conversandan en espanol.  grandma scootin' around getting in someone's way and tara trying to keep that broccoli casserole warm.

my favorite matching newlyweds + mikey

 finally after hours of waiting grandma's turkey looked done enough for her to believe we could start eating (surprise surprise, you have to turn your oven on for it to get hot?!)  luckily my mom prepped an 18lb turkey breast so we at least had some turkey to eat.

i'm pretty sure the girls are trying to figure out which gravy was safe to eat... you never know when there are two different dishes of gravy...

carma went all out and out did herself this year with 2 different cranberry offerings to choose from.  we're all just glad she's off her crazy diet from last year.  that pumpkin weight watchers 0 points trifle was a disaster!  way to go for full sugared jello and marshmallows!  these were keepers..

and mom's fruit salad was a masterpiece as usual.  she really fancied it up with some pomegranate seeds.  the seeds also were the reason for tyler's 4 outfit changes before we even left the house.

grazin'

of course we had our regular hilarious dinner conversations.  nothing quite like thanksgiving at grandma's.

i can barely remember friday!  all i know is we ate a lot and we did 0 damage to our credit cards.

first stop was an 8am soccer game for tyler, i was the only one awake, so i went with my mom while david was visiting with our nielsen grandparents.

then when everyone woke up it was time for lunch at lucielle's (david2's fav).

group shot!

tyler looks pretty stoked for some pre-game tri-tip

andie and brent... maybe he'll order better next time?  who gets the hot link platter?!  srsly.

birthday buddies!

tyler lovin' on some ribs, andie is still looking homeless and brent is really hating trying to choke down his nasty order.

sisterz.

couples!

it must be a hansen thing.

then we walked around to all the best shops lbtc has to offer.  not shockingly, we came home empty handed.  but i applaud anyone who found something worth waiting in the hour line to save $4 on. 

ambie and i did find some shorts that were definitely worth trying on.

just some sisters sharing shorts

we even got them buttoned and zipped.  i hope whoever fits in these shorts never buys shorts.

of course it was time to get in the christmas spirit with thanksgiving over, so we headed to not one, but two christmas tree lots to pick out the tree of mom's dreams.

i'm not even sure if this is the tree we bought.

the whole gang headed to tyler's next turkey tourney game.  it was a nail biter and brent was doing his best coach taylor impersonation while we were all screaming and jumping up and down.  so fun!

 of course our fun was put on hold when grandma called us and let us know she had fallen down.  bummer, wish i had some pics of this though... but that just seems disrespectful.  we left my mom to handle that one and headed to the airport to pic up dave and made a b-line for cafe rio!

andie kind of looking like a character from oliver twist...

these guys love their queso

cafe rio cuties

david still hates pics.

the next morning it was time for another early soccer game.  andie, brent and i went to this one with my mom.  this one was rough... pretty sure we lost it, but it didn't matter because blue crush was already on their way to the finals.

soccer mom, ghost of christmas future.

we swung by chik-fil-a on the way home from the game so tyler could re-fuel.  dropped him off, picked up and amber and david and headed to irving spectrum for a little birthday shopping and fun for amber. it was definitely speed shopping because we had a few other places to get to.

namely, lawry's carvery for birthday lunch!  so delicious.

nothing like begging for pickles.  what?

then we headed over to godiva for some birthday decadences and pictures by south coast plaza's poinsettia christmas tree.

best chocolate shake ever.

just the girls.

pics by another christmas tree.

smiling with no teeth.

hating every second of the picture taking.

then it was off to airport to head back to milwaukee.  when we arrived we slept for like 15hrs straight to try to make up some of the sleepless nights.