Hoekman Holidays

We celebrated Christmas with the Hoekmans! We had a great time with the cousins as always. 

These 2 are two peas in a pod.

They never get into any mischief together - Hah! 

The children presented us with a Christmas pageant - gotta love Leo's shepherd get up. ;)

Here are all of the grandkids with Grammy Sharon and Grandpa Glen - this is the one and only year that they are all school agers from Kinder to Senior in high school. Awwww! 

Here is everyone! :) Merry Christmas to all!

You better believe that we had cousin sleepovers - Leo and Elijah stayed at Grandma and Grandpas, along with the big girls.

Roman was ecstatic to go over to Austin and Mallory's because that meant Hot tub time! LOL

The next day we celebrated Leo's 6th birthday. He wanted everyone to go to Mufasa for his big day.

Every Hoekman cousin went to the theater with Leon. He was over the moon! Let's just say that those Mufasa songs were stuck in our head for weeks. ;)

After the movie we went to Culvers for lunch, presents, and treats. 

Best day ever! Aren't those Let's Party headbands cute?

Can't beat ice cream in December, right? 

The sugar rush continued because we decorated Xmas cookies at Grandpa and Grandma's house. 

Love these trees. Green frosting for days!

Roman gave the activity a thumbs up. 

After cookie decorating we pivoted to art work - here are Roman and Lucy's canvases. Roman did the Lion King painting for Leo's birthday. How thoughtful!

It was a special couple of days! 

December Days

We always have a fun and full calendar in December. :)

We helped Grandma Nola and Grandpa Ken decorate their Christmas tree up the hill. The Storm kiddos always love to fill a tree with ornaments. It is their jam! 

Lucy always has lots of swim meets this time of year. So fun to watch our mermaid in the pool. She really crushed her PRs this season - love it!

Speaking of Lucy, our girl is thriving in middle school - I am so grateful! She has a great group of friends. Here she is with her crew at their quarterly Polar Party in December. 

Leo started his wrestling season this winter - he really enjoys his practices and does a pretty good job listening to his coach. 

On Monday nights Leo has both wrestling and Scouts so his Dad has been taking him to Costco for a quick supper between events. Kiddo loves a Costco hotdog - I can't believe that he can eat this whole thing but he gobbles it down without an issue. 

Leo's Scout group had a holiday party full of Minute to Win It games. Here he is working to eat a cookie with no hands - just using his facial muscles to get that hot little Oreo in his mouth. 

Lucy and Leo are my magical little elves who work on holiday baking!

I had a work trip and you know that I must stop at Golden Harvest each time that I go up North! Love that their big Polar bear was decked out in Santa gear for the season. 

One of my co-workers is really into true crime and Dateline so I got her a Keith Morrison decal for her laptop or water bottle. Haha! You can't forget your true calling as a sleuth even if you are stuck in an IT job. ;)

The Storm kids had their first snow day of the season right before X-mas break. They had lots of fun in the snow. 

We also watched Home Alone 2; I always say that this cameo is the best thing that Trump has ever done for our country. ;)

Of course we had hot chocolate with these cute cocoa bombs.

We had some festive waffles - I know that Dan always groans about my season waffle makers but they bring so much joy! These gingerbread ones are so dang cute!

We went to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas performance at the Children's Theater. You know that my love of Laura Ingalls runs deep - it was such a sweet show. 

Before we knew it, it was time to head to SoDak to celebrate with the Hoekmans. 

Yep - this is how we roll - Haha! Van filled to the brim with all of our junk! These kids would not make it very far in a wagon train - LOL! 

We are always so happy to make it to Grandma Sharon and Grandpa Glen's house. 

We had dinner and made our way to the Sioux Falls for our second viewing of the holiday lights this season. 

Yay - love seeing these twinkle lights. 

It was a winter wonderland! 

We went to church on Sunday and ran into our dear friend Jen and her family! It is always a delight to see her; I remind my kiddos that they wouldn't exist without this lovely lady who introduced Dan and me years ago. :)

They had the cutest little photo backdrop in the fellowship hall. Of course Leo wanted to take a photo. 

They had the cutest hot chocolate bar and the opportunity to make Christmas ornaments. 

Guess what - they also busted out a bounce house!

Sunday of champions, for sure! 

Holiday Happenings

Here are some of our holiday happenings this season. 

We made some treats for the kiddos' bake sale at church - brownies with fun Christmas sprinkles for the win! Lucy and Roman were happy to package things up with their Youth Group. 

Here is Lucy with her friend Ella.

After services the parents managed the Bake Sale while the children had their dress rehearsal for their Christmas pageant. 

In other December updates, we nursed basketball injuries. 

We decorated Gingerbread cookies.

And worked on a Gingerbread house!

Look at this beauty! A few years ago I started buying the pre-constructed houses that are ready to be unboxed and decorated. Best.Decision.Ever!! 

Worth.EveryPenny! It turns out that the amount of tears and fighting is dramatically reduced when the structure is stable. Haha!

After I took pictures of our recent Gingerbread work, this little gem popped up in my photo memories. Some things never change - These Storm kids are GoOfBaLls!

We created wish lists for family. 

We worked on Taylor Swift inspired seasonal decor. ;)

We attended the 7th grade Winter Band concert. It is so hard to be a trombone mom - all of our kids are way in the back row and it is difficult to see their faces! Waaaahhh! Love our sweet musician! 

As part of our Advent activities we headed to Beaver Creek for a candlelight winter walk. Don't let this cute picture by the festive bear fool you ... these kids all had bad attitudes! You would have thought that I was taking them on a forced march. Ai yi yi,

It was so beautiful! It was a crisp evening and just magical with all of the lanterns + candlelight.

The candles around the loop were lovely and we had a big bonfire + hot chocolate waiting for us at the end. Spoiler alert - Everyone did end up having a pretty good time. 

You all know that I have a love/hate relationship with Perler beads. I found this big ol' canister and threw it in the thrift store pile. Some boys ended up finding it and rescuing their beloved crafts. I caved and let them do 'just one more' Perler project. This lil Santa was the result. ;)

We had a Chippewa Valley Symphony Orchestra Christmas concert on our December calendar. Before the show we grabbed a quick lunch at Social Reboot.

We had lots of fun playing games as we waited for our food.

These three love listening to Christmas music. 

Their mom loves it too - the Pablo Center is just so fun and festive during the holiday season. 

It was a wonderful show! Grandpa Ken and Grandma Nola came with us but sadly, Dan needed to work on this Saturday. Whomp whomp. Our December weekends are so limited and precious so it is such a bummer when one is taken over work meetings. 

Let's see ... we also enjoyed some Nachos Navidad - definitely a fan favorite.

We enjoyed hot chocolate as a family. :) 

And, happy to report, that the Storm kids did a great job at their pageant. Lucy was a Narrator this year, Roman and Leo were a Shepherd and sheep as usual. ;)

Lucas' mom sent this fun picture of two of the cutest sheep in all of the land. ;)

Happy Holidays!