Roman @ 16 months

Over Christmas week our little man turned 16 months old. Roman is such a happy guy!

He is always eager to go outside. He knows the word 'snow!' and he shouts it each time he looks out the window these days. Just like his dad, he can spot deer! :) He often sees deer in the yard and exclaims, 'deer!' 

I had to share one of Roman's December slips from school on the blog - on it the teacher comments 

"Roman watched a little vole eating seeds outside." Hahaha! How many day cares send home notes about the kids watching little animals outside! Love it! 

Roman also enjoys playing with his big sister, eating fruit, and reading books. We love him so much! 

Christmas 2014

Christmas Day 2014! We had a big celebration with the Hoekman and Storm families! There are now 7 grandchildren (6 of them are 4 and under!) so you can imagine the excitement and craziness of Christmas. It is the best! We started the day by waking up early and checking out our stockings! Santa visited in the night so Lucy and Roman were eager to find their presents. Lucy found a Santa hat at grandma and grandpa's house so she looked extra festive. :) 

Here I am getting Christmas hugs from my babies! So blessed!

Mid-morning Austin, Mallory, Kevin, Katie and the cousins arrived! Then things got crazy!  Haha! Lots of playing ensued. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, we have a sweet new baby niece Julianna who is in the process of being adopted by Austin and Mallory's family. Her adoption is not final so we are not posting any pictures of her on social media. So - I don't have any big family pictures that I am able to share right now because the baby is part of all of them! She is such a sweetheart! We can't wait for the adoption to become official! He are a few other pics from the day though -

Grandpa Glen serving as a jungle gym

Kevin, Katie, Anna, and Peter!

Each year we take a picture of all of the grandchildren with mom and dad. Each year we have one kid who is a hot mess! Lucy's year was 2013. Haha! This year was Peter's turn. :)

As always - we had delicious food and drink! Daniel is carving a ham that we brought all the way from Wisconsin - some friends of ours raised some free range / CSA-scrap fed pigs near Madison last year. So we bought one and the local butcher did some awesome work - we have been feasting on some seriously good pork this year!

Paul and Lucy eating some crudités for appetizers.

We all received some wonderful gifts! Waders! Pillows! Thanks to everyone for the presents. :)

What a happy Christmas! It is so much fun to watch all of the cousins play and to pass on holiday traditions.to the little ones.

Christmas Eve!

We celebrated Christmas Eve 2014 at Grandpa Glen and Grandma Sharon's house. We drove down from Fargo and arrived in South Dakota early that afternoon. We napped and played and prepared a delicious dinner. We attended Christmas Eve services and saw lots of friends and some family members at church. Lucy was so excited to spot cousin Anna in the pews. Here are our sweet Christmas kiddos - Lucy, Peter, Anna, and Roman.  

We took some family pictures in front of the Christmas tree at church. 

Of course, we had to drive through Crooks to check out the Christmas lights before heading home. :) We arrived back at the ranch to enjoy some lasagna! It has become our Christmas Eve tradition to enjoy  this dish. Good stuff!

Nothing better than a holiday meal with family! Side note about that star balloon - Lucy found some straggler balloons from Paul and Abigail's birthday celebrations. They were slightly deflated but still in pretty good shape considering that they were over a month old. She was obsessed with these balloons! 

Our sweet little guy did not eat any lasagna but he did enjoy his Christmas meal! Bananas and yogurt!

Roman was falling asleep in his highchair so we had to open a few gifts quickly before he passed out for the evening.

The children were allowed to open a couple of gifts from mama and daddy that evening. We had our big celebration with the entire Hoekman crew on Christmas Day. 

Lucy was beyond excited to receive an Anna dress - she loves all things Frozen and is a huge fan of dress up clothes so this gift was a hit! She also got a little pair of Minnetonka Moccasins. Roman received an awesome toy train. He enjoyed playing with his ChooChoo on Grandma and Grandpa's new hardwood floors!

Our sweet Christmas doggy - Scout. I think that she was the only one who missed the carpet at mom and dad's house! Haha! It was a lovely evening and wonderful Christmas Eve celebration. 

Christmas in Fargo!

After our wonderful weekend celebrating with the Storms, we headed up to Fargo to spend some more time with Grandpa Ken, Grandma Nola, and Uncle Brad. We had to make our annual trip to Santa Village. :) Lucy loves the Christmas train.  

 Don't let this unimpressed face food you - this guy loves trains! 

Our sweet little elf Lucy!

 Lucy was pretty excited to see this stuffed Rudolph inside Santa and Mrs. Claus' house. Big hugs for the reindeer!

 This is our second successful time on Santa's lap this season! No tears! :) Lucy and Roman did a great job.

 We decorated cookies with Mrs. Claus. The Mrs. Claus at Santa Village is quite the character. :) She has a super raspy voice and sounds like she smokes at least 2 packs a day. Here is Roman enjoying the cookie that he helped decorate.

After Santa's Village, we headed out for Daniel's birthday dinner. Lucy and I snuggled in the backseat of the truck and took some selfies.  

Here we are giving a frowny face for the condition of my skin!! As previously mentioned in my blog - I had a nasty case of bronchitis the drug on for ~5/6 weeks this winter. Part of my sickness included a bizarre face/neck rash. Awesome. Just what I needed to sport for the holidays! ugh. 

Pizza time! Here we are ordering some pizza in honor of Daniel's 35th birthday celebration!

The kids always enjoy their time at Grandma and Grandpa's house. :) Here are some pictures of their play - including a Jenga fence created to contain Grandma's decorative reindeer...

… and playing dress up!

We opened our stockings from Santa! Santa knew that we were visiting Fargo and stopped by before we woke up on Christmas Eve. 

Roman showed Uncle Brad his new ball from Santa.

He also got a snack holder and some goldfish.

 This lucky girl received a hot pink headband from Santa. She was very excited! Thank you for the great visit everyone!

Storm Christmas at Brian and Amelia's House

We celebrated our Storm family Christmas at Brian and Amelia's house. What a fun weekend! Lucy and Roman just love spending time with their grandparents, auntie, uncles, and the pups. As always, we ate really well - here is the table and the kids sitting down for dinner. 

Check out this delicious spread!

On Saturday night we headed to downtown Minneapolis to check out the holiday market. We saw more reindeer.. 

And checked out some dancing Christmas lights. :)

Lucy enjoyed the city lights of downtown Minneapolis from her Daddy's shoulders.

Roman hung out with his Uncle Brad.

Highlight of the evening - Carousel rides for the kids (including Mama and Grandpa Ken!)

We exchanged presents! Roman was so excited to rip all of the bows off the packages and hand them out.

Here is Lucy decked out in a holiday sweater and ready to open gifts!

Dan was happy to tear open presents as well. :)

Thank you for the great gifts everyone!!

Oh yes - I had to include these pictures of Lucy decorating cookies with her Auntie Amelia. Check out her little tongue sticking out in the photos! :) Such concentration!

What a wonderful little decorator! Here is the final product. :)

All in all, it was a great weekend of family time and wonderful food. Lot of good memories were made! :)