Friday, December 31, 2010

Blanchette Christmas

After an exciting Christmas Eve, we woke up the next morning to spend Christmas with the Blanchettes!

Clare fell asleep in Luella's arms. It was so cute, and Luella wasn't giving it up either!

Everyone is putting together Layettes for charity. It was a wonderful way to spend Christmas!
Luella with all six great grandchildren.

Ronan refused to be a part of the picture at first. He was so fantastic all week, and by the time Christmas came around, he was DONE!

Nora and Ronan are snuggled up in blankets that their cousin, Kelly, made for them!

Luella with the Olson children.

Christmas Eve

Once all the extended family left we had a nice quiet celebration with just Jeff's family.
We were so happy to spend Christmas Eve with Jeff's parents. It is Kathy's favorite holiday and we were so happy that everyone could be there with her.

Jeff's parents enjoying a snuggle with their youngest grandbaby after all the commotion from dinner.

Nora is trying to figure out how to use the Wii.

Nora and Ronan were obsessed with all the presents under the tree!

My little family!

Nora and Max. Grammy did a great job patching up a hole in Max and adding a few special touches too.

An Olson Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve all the Olson came to celebrate!

Jeff's aunt, Marla, and her girls: Leandra, Lindsey, and Lexi. Nora just adored the girls. We also were able to watch a video of Lexi's ice skating. Nora was mesmerized.


All of us gathered together!

Four generations of Olsons.

The kids with their great grandparents.

Ronan hanging out with Uncle Brian.

Grandpa and Clare. Clare was really calm when Grandpa held her.

I love this picture of Marla and Clare. Clare was pretty fussy on Christmas Eve so it was hard to share her with everyone because she would cry.

Lindsey and Ronan.

Grandpa and Ronan. Ronan was such a charming little guy the whole time. He was all smiles on Christmas Eve.

Desserts

I can't even describe to you the amount of sugar Nora and Ronan (and me too) consumed while we were in MN/WI.
Nora and Ronan are enjoying chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches.

Snow Fort

Leave it to Jeff to build the coolest snow fort ever!

Nora is sliding down the slide that is attached to the side of the snow fort.

Nora and Ronan are inside the snow fort.

Ronan is crawling through the tunnel to get to the snow fort. For the record, the tunnel has a turn in it!

Ice House

When in Wisconsin....ICE FISH!
I have to admit, I'm still wary of this concept: Sitting on a frozen lake, fishing.
Nora, on the other hand, well let's just say it's in her blood.

The girls, huddled in the ice house. You would think this shack would be freezing, but Don actually has a heater inside, so it's really warm.

We were checking on one of the "tip ups." The flag few up, and the fish actually was able to get the minnow, but no fish for us.

Nora holds the minnows for Grandpa while he prepares the line. This girl takes her fishing very seriously.

This is one of the fishing holes and tip up.

And this is the inside of the Ice House. In the corner is another fishing hole.

And here is the Ice House from the outside.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Nose Pickers

I turned around to check on the kids in the back seat and this is what I found.


One of the nice things about spending time at the cabin is that we all get a chance to relax and snuggle.

Clare hung out on the edge of the couch. She fit perfect in the crease between the cushion and back.


Um, yeah, one of my favorite pictures ever! I love that my kids love each other!

Snowmobiles

For the wild side of our trip to the Midwest, we went snowmobiling! This was how we made it out to the ice house. I'm not a huge fan of high speed activities like this, but the kids LOVED it! I picked up a bike helmet for them to wear and cautioned the drivers to be careful with my babies...

This was the sled being pulled by one of the snowmobiles. I think our average speed in this thing was about 10 mph.

Everyone was loaded up reading to fish!

Check out Jeff in his gear! And that adorable baby he's holding.

Taking off onto the frozen lake. Jeff took me for a little spin and we found some slush areas....just to make things a little more interesting....

Don't they look like bobble heads with those helmets on?

Maybe we have a dare devil in the making!

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

One of the first orders of business once we arrived to the cabin was to get a tree. The tree came from Don's woods and was perfect! The branches were a little weak and would bend from the weight of the ornaments, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Have you ever seen a better looking tree?

Jeff and his dad set up the tree. It was surprisingly tall for how scrawny it was.

Nora went with Jeff and his dad to the "woods" to cut down a Christmas tree. Nora is helping to haul it back to the car.


I'm sure that Nora had a lot of say in which tree was chosen. And I'm sure that she helped cut it down. In this picture she's holding the saw! Jeff said the snow was up to their knees!

A very happy little girl with her Grandpa.

SNOW!

There was a huge snow storm about two weeks before we arrived in MN and our first night there another 6 inches fell! We had a very white Christmas. We were able to play in the snow, ride snowmobiles, build forts, and go ice fishing!

This was the view from the cabin. The lake was frozen and covered in snow!

This is one of the roads we took to get to the cabin. It was snowing and the road was buried. I hope I never have to drive in the snow!