A Wild Christmas!

We were lucky to have so many of the Wilds in town for Christmas last year (What? It's June you say? Right....about that... Well, I figure that now we've started our summer adventures I'd better get caught up and the last I had posted was Thanksgiving. Oops!)

So, anyway, we had loads of fun with everyone. We had a German Christmas dinner to celebrate our German heritage. We tried lots of German food and even liked some of it.  We made a list of the ancestry we have to celebrate and we'll rotate and try new fun foods again in two years.

I made several kinds of cookies (mostly German) and Mia helped me finish off the Hausfreunde. Yum!

Cora was a big fan of the cookies! 

It was so nice to have so many of us together!

We had our Raclette dinner which is always fun. But not as fun as fondue. Per the boys. 

But still fun and delicious.

And we sneakily got a picture of Tyler.

And had a lovely Nativity pageant.

Even Bosky came to Christmas!

And then we made Ninjabread men. Some of them even included hairy armpits. 

And we'll just leave that right there. 

I'm not sure what's happening here but it looks a little fiendish... 

I think perhaps the kids thought this was Halloween instead of Christmas...  ;) 

If there's leftover frosting there's only one thing to do!

And then there was the epic Nerf gun war! Just in case you're wondering those little darts hurt! And boys who are under the age of 20 had way bigger and badder guns than the rest of us. I think we better start saving now for a Nerf bazookas for the next war. That way I'll have a fighting chance.

The girls had a fun sock exchange - the challenge was to find fun socks that aren't goofy, just enjoyable. I think we did pretty good:

The boys made a fort.

And we played games and laughed and had a great time wrapping up 2016!

We wrote down a few notes about 2016 and ideas for 2017. 

Can't wait to have a big ol' Wild party again! It's always so much fun!!

Christmas Shopping

I was at Barnes & Noble this week and there were about 4 people in front of me. To one side they have a table for free gift wrapping done by various organizations that are hoping that you'll donate generously to their cause. (There isn't room for this table at the end of the line after you've paid so there it sits at the beginning of the line...) The guy immediately in front of me began talking to the lady at this table. Great, no problem. Accept that he totally forgot to monitor the line and before you know it it was his turn. There were two cashiers ready so I walked quickly past him to one of the cashiers and he stopped mid-sentence and said "Was I holding you up?" His face said so much more. It was more like "you dumb broad! What's your problem?" I smiled and said, "We're both up!" and pointed to the cashier who was waiting for him. Her face said, "Hey bozo, there are 20 people behind you who are ready to check out if you're not." (Never underestimate what a face can say. They say so much, you just have to pay attention.) Even my cashier was looking at him rolling her eyes because she had been waiting for him too.  

Now, what I really wanted to say to him was that I think it's wonderful that he's interested in the I'll-Wrap-Your-Gift-For-Free-If-You'll-Donate-To-My-Charity lady but if you're not going to pay attention and step lively when it's your turn, then don't be offended when I go in front of you. Step out of line until you're ready to be part of the line. 

That same day I was in line at Walmart and had a huge cart load (HUGE). The lady behind me started rolling her eyes and sighing. I was thinking she could have used those very eyes to look before she got in line and if she doesn't want to be behind my big cart, choose another line. And I have to mention that my order went very smoothly. It's not like I was that annoying customer that had 12 price checks and an open package that needed to be replaced, and, well you know what I mean. I just had a big order. 

So, today I'm heading out for more shopping. I hope I have nothing to report when I return.

Tree Trimming

One of the things I love about Christmas is seeing the wonder and excitement in little kids. Last Friday, after our mad morning of shopping, I set out to put up the Christmas decor. My 5 year old nephew was all too happy to help so we started with the trees. First, he helped me check lights and we discussed ways to make the tree even "wonderfuler" and "beautifuler" and we talked about why they don't make brown Christmas lights (Joshie's favorite color!). He's glad they at least make orange (his other favorite color) and maybe he'll put a string of all orange lights in his room. (His mom doesn't think they own a string of all orange lights...)

Let's start with the tree on the patio. This is our "Scandinavian Tree" and it has several matching ornaments (thus the theme). Joshie was happy about that and as he started hanging them up he said "OH! Another snowflake. I'll put that right by this one."  I should mention here that Joshie has been a liner-upper his whole life. He puts everything into nice, neat little lines - M&Ms, cars, pumpkins, anything. So pretty soon I looked over at the tree and realized there was a line forming:

Next we went to the living room and did the silver tree. Another theme tree which means more matching of like-ornaments:

Last we started on the family tree. (Yes, we do have 3 trees. Yes, I'm a little crazy. No, I won't come decorate your house. No, mom likely won't put up even 2 of them after I leave.) As we were decorating this tree Joshie shared some of his logic with me. I told him to be very careful with the glass ornaments because they can break easily. He said, "Yeah, so we have to put them down low [this is where I paused and listened closer] so they won't break if they fall." Oh! Ok, really, not bad logic. Not quite the way I think of it but I can see where he's coming from. 

Then Tiernan, who's 3, woke up from his nap and needed to help too. Both of the boys were oooing- and aahing at all the ornaments they unwrapped, it was great. Tiernan replaces many letters with "w" and he was just cracking me up. "Dis one is not wastic [plastic]. Dis one is wass [glass], I will hang it on the wanch [branch]." But, the show stopper was when someone handed him a nutcracker to hang up. "Oh, dis nutwhacker is not wass!" Oh my. That was a good laugh. I've never met a kid who has such a knack for saying things the most inappropriate of ways so innocently! 

My two little decorating buddies:

It was also so funny to look at the tree when they were done because they both chose a spot and stuck to it, putting pretty much all their ornaments on just a couple branches.  This is Joshie's branch - it was so loaded down that it was touching the floor. We did move some of the ornaments after boys left so that we wouldn't step on them...