Nolan Family

Since Christmas Eve and Christmas fell on a weekend this year, we turned the whole weekend into a special celebration.   On Saturday, my Parents and John came up from Appleton after lunch.   My mom and I prepared the Christmas Eve food and then we watched White Christmas.   At 5pm we headed to church for a nice Candlelight Christmas Eve Service that helped us to remember what Christmas was about.   Ryan was happy that he was old enough to hold a candle this year.   My favorite part is the very end when the instruments stop on the last verse of Silent Night and the congregation continues to sing.   The lights are low and the candles burn throughout the sanctuary as the white lights of the Christmas Trees sparkle.   In that very moment, I can feel the love of a Father who would send His only Son to die for me. The service ends and the boys were beside themselves and begged to skip dinner and open presents, but that is not what tradition is.   We all sat at the table and enjoyed an endles

Last year we started our Lego Christmas Village.  We started it but did not finish it.  So this year we decided to finish the village.  Together as a family we worked on it. 

In October we decorated our pumpkins and had lots of fun as a family.  Rosi, Anita and I went to craft camp at Lake Lungren.  We had lots of fun.  My mom learned how to stamp and I made the two quilts for Christmas gifts. Dave wanted to hit 100 Geocaching mark, so we did it together as a family. The boys may have played more than helped!  But it was fun! Then we carved our Pumpkins. Jean Luc tried on his costume! We ended the month with Halloween.  The boys ended up with lots of candy! 

Our Trip to Minneapolis! On Monday, November 21 st , I drove to Appleton to pick-up my parents.   We had dinner together and which we turned into a little Birthday Party for my mom.   I made a white cake with chocolate frosting which is one of her favorite desserts.   My parents spent the night as we were all leaving in the morning to head to Minneapolis for 5 days.   It was fun to have extra guests in the house overnight.   Morning arrived and we headed off to Minneapolis.   We had 7 people in the van since my parents and Dave’s mom were along.   The trip went smoothly, but I believe that Dave was very happy when we arrived at our destination and he could escape from the backseat he had shared with the boys.   Having been trapped in the van for five hours, our first order of business was to take the boys swimming to get their energy out.   We had fun in the hotel pool.   Since it was my mother’s birthday we let her pick were we went for dinner.   She loves the salad bar at Ruby Tuesda