Madeline's Baptism

The Sunday after Christmas our niece and goddaughter, Madeline Elizabeth Rowles was baptized. Madeline wore the baptism gown that Kelly's mom had made for our kids. Uncle Russ had brought back water from the Jordan River from his recent trip to Egypt for the ceremony. Congratulations Madeline.

Clint, Molly & Madeline


Clint, Molly, Kelly, Dave & Madeline

Molly, Clint, Madeline, Kelly, Dave & kids

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning Lauren & Benjamin managed to stay in bed until 7am. We thought for sure they would be up much earlier. The hardest part of the morning was waiting for Noah to wake up at 7:45. He finally did....whew. Here are some shots of the kids opening their presents.

Benjamin opening his Legos

Dad & Noah

Lauren got piano lessons! (her favorite present she said)

Noah as a Race Car Driver

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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Welcome to all of our friends and families who have discovered our blog through the link on our Christmas cards. Have fun browsing past posts of our adventures since this blog began. Blogging is a learning process for me and I do my best to keep it updated. Please add our blog to your "favorites" and come back and visit us often. We would love to hear from you.

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.