Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wow.  What a fun and busy time of the year...hence the lack of posts since Thanksgiving!

Right after Thanksgiving Corvallis has it's annual Christmas Parade.  Here we are getting ready for the cold, but not rainy (!), parade.

The finale of the parade was santa riding in the bucket of the town's ladder fire truck!

We had friends over for some cookie decorating celebrations...

...so they went a little sprinkle crazy.  I think they used about 2 1/2 bottles of sprinkles for these three trays of cookies!

We went to cut down our Christmas tree at the farm we go to every year (eco-friendly christmas trees!)...Sunrise Farm.  It was cold, but again not rainy!  We had fun riding on the wagon ride to get to the trees, picking out a tree, cutting it down ourselves (the boys of course), and sitting around a big bonfire drinking hot chocolate.  It wasn't quite the same since our dear friends Nicole, Matthew and Jonah were not with us this year (sniff, sniff).  But we toasted our hot chocolates to you guys and gave the goats an extra scratch from you.

The Tree!!  And its protectors.

Decorating.

We even pulled out the fragile ornaments this year with the boys being 5 years old and all!  And only had to remind them about 7 times to not wrestle, throw balls, or crawl too near the tree.

When Dylan pulled out this glass red phone ornament he thought it was a clock!  I guess he would have no idea what it was since we use all cell phones these days!  This ornament is to commemorate Mom's first phone she got from Nana especially for mom's room...I think it was around 1987!

Some serious log cabins being built after the decorating festivities.  I didn't get a picture but Dylan built a flour mill that had a wheel that turned and everything!

A little tidying up before Santa arrives.  Cole's job was to vacuum the rug...but he decided to take it upon himself to also vacuum out all our shoes too!

Grandpa and the boys.  Cole picked out his outfit all by himself!!

The Fiegener clan all converged at Grandma and Grandpa's house this year...we were lucky to be able to stay home and participate in all the festivities!  Since Aunt Pernille is from Denmark we always celebrate the Danish Christmas traditions.  They celebrate on Christmas Eve with a delicious dinner and rice pudding and glogg.  Then they hold hands and sing and dance around the Christmas tree and then the leader of the line takes everyone to each room in the house while still singing to welcome Christmas to the home.

Click on this picture to see a video of the action!

Then Christmas Eve night as we were putting the boys down to bed we realized Cole had a fever.  Oh joy!  Christmas morning both boys slept in (yeah!) and Mom had to carry Cole out to the living room wrapped in his comforter.  He perked up a bit when he got to open his presents!

Stockings and groovy hair.

The boys in their holiday PJ's that Mom made and new slippers from Grandpa Phil.

Then we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's to celebrate again!

It's fun opening presents with cousins around!

 

Grandma was the last to open her stocking so everyone crowded around to watch...and help if needed!

Cole ended up having a fever for about 2-3 days...but he is a trooper and hardly complained.  Here Cole is chilling with the grownups after all the kids were done with dinner.

Every time the cousins get together we try to get them all to sit in this stairwell, ascending youngest to oldest.

Before everyone had to leave to return home we helped Grandma and Grandpa celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary...Cole helped Aunt Pernille make pumpkin and pecan pies for the festivities.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and may this new year bring you much love, joy and prosperity.

...and yes Dylan got sick about 3 days after Christmas!  Double joy!