Christmas Eve

One Christmas tradition we have at the Strei house is that on Christmas Eve we make a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. The kids get to frost it however they like. Then we have cake for breakfast on Christmas morning after we open presents. On Christmas Eve the kids also get to open 1 present before bed (which is always new PJ's & slippers). Then the rest of them are opened Christmas morning.

Lauren

Benjamin

Noah

Gingerbread Houses

Noah and Benjamin's class each constructed and decorated gingerbread houses. Basically they took graham crackers and glued the pieces to an empty milk carton with frosting. Then they used candy, etc to decorate their creations. I'm pretty sure Noah ate more candy than he put on his house. Benjamin took Grandma Petersen with him to school to help. They created an amazing house together.

Noah "building" his house.

Making sure the frosting was good enough to use ;)

Benjamin's house

Grandma & Benjamin

Decorating Gingerbread Men

Dave went out to Ortonville to hunt pheasants this past weekend. With nothing else to do, the kids and I decided to decorate gingerbread men. We invited our friends the Meier's over to help. When we were done there was lots of frosting and sprinkles all over and some very "interesting" gingerbread men.

Lauren

Benjamin

Noah - with LOTS of sprinkles

The finished products

From our Family to Yours....

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

Love,

The Strei's

Kelly, Dave, Lauren, Benjamin & Noah

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A Visit with Santa

Santa made a quick stop at the Fire Station today to hear the requests of all the boys and girls in Waconia. Lauren, Benjamin & Noah got to sit on a restored fire truck with him for a quick photo and tell him what they hoped to find under the tree on Christmas morning. Benjamin asked for a remote control race car and Noah asked for an airplane for his train tracks. Lauren surprised us the most. I had asked her before we went what she was going to ask for. She said "I don't know!" Really??? I figured she would have a list a mile long. She decided she would just tell Santa that she would be happy with whatever he put under the tree for her. What a sweet girl.

Decorating the Tree

Tonight we brought in the Christmas tree and decorated it. I always enjoy this part of Christmas because all the ornaments we put on the tree have significance to us whether they are from trips we have taken, ornaments from grandparents to our kids, ornaments to Kelly from her G.G., handmade ones or other memories. The kids were so excited to help this year as well. The job went very quickly and there were no tears when it was revealed that it was Noah's turn to put the angel on the top. Here are a few photos from our evening.

Noah and Dad

Noah putting the angel on top (how ironic huh...lol)

Lauren, Noah & Benjamin

A Hunt for the Perfect Tree

One of the most memorable parts about Christmas growing up was the tradition of going and picking out the Christmas tree. Now most people would say that it involved a fun-filled day of walking through a field filled with trees to find the perfect one to cut down and bring home. I wish I could say the same. My memories involve spending what seemed like hours in the freezing cold at the local garden store literally looking at every single tree with my parents. My dad did the old "hold the tree up and bounce the trunk on the ground" to see if it was good enough to meet up to my mom's standards. My mom had very high standards for the Christmas tree so that's why we were there for hours.

Dave and I have never been one to spend more than about 15 minutes at the tree lot picking out a tree. (My mom is cringing about this while reading this story on my blog. Love you mom!) In fact we usually pick somewhere between the 1st and 5th tree we look at. The same was true this year. We loaded up the kids and headed to the local Home Depot to look at trees. We looked at 2 and picked out the 2nd one. Good enough for us. Then off to Caribou for hot chocolate to warm up.

Lauren

(look how old she looks in this picture)

Benjamin

(speaking of kids who look old)

Noah - mmmmm, I love hot chocolate!

Dad and his "helpers"