Christmas Favorites

This post, too, is a little past due. But...I still thought we'd include some of our Christmas highlights. Over Christmas weekend we left Duluth (at the onset of the bad weather) on Christmas Eve and traveled, though slowly, safely to Spicer, MN to my parents house. We were relieved to make it safely and be snowed in without a care for the next few days. Here are a few highlights from that weekend.

Isaac with his 3 Girl Cousins on the Thompson Side:

Isaac, Maddy and Olivia having fun with the bubble pops after the gift opening - they could care less about their new toys as long as they had the boxes and bubble popping to worry about!

The highlight of the weekend for the kids was Aspen's new Barbie Jeep (from dad/Mike - my brother). All of the kids piled into that Jeep and wouldn't think of anything else! It moved back and forth with an actual pedal and also had a working FM radio. Forget about being cooped up inside - we were all good (as long as the kids had their Barbie Jeep):And then there was "Christmas at the Farm" (my Grandma Rudy). Here is a family photo of us 3 and a picture of Grandma Rudy with all 5 of her great-grandkids:

The following weekend (New Year's), Joel's parents came up to Duluth for our Johnson Christmas. Here are a few highlights:

All in all, it was a wonderful Seasaon of celebrating for our family. The sweet memories will live on in our hearts and we anticipate next year's season already. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well. And now...Happy New Year!

December Fun

Although this posting is a little past-due, I thought it would still be fun to include. The weekend before Christmas (21st), we met up with our small group and had some Holiday fun together. We met up near Knife River (north of Duluth) for some ice skating/hockey...as you'll see, we decided to bring Isaac's sled and give him some fun on the ice, too:

After we all had enough of the cold, we took some group photos:

...and then all headed back to our group leader's parents' cabin on Knife River (it was beautiful!). The kids all enjoyed playing together, we enjoyed a large mexican feast, and the highlight of the evening - our cookie exchange! Here are all of the contributors for our big cookie exchange:

It was a very fun way to spend the Sunday before Christmas - fun, food, good fellowship, and several dozen variety of yummy Christmas cookies for all of our gatherings.