Bishop Family Christmas 2013

On Saturday we hosted the Bishop Family Christmas! This is always a very fun get together!! We had a great time and missed those who weren't able to join us this year.  The kids (mainly my kids) could not WAIT to open the presents and they were spoiled by Great Grandpa and Great Grandma!! There was so much good food that everyone brought and we finished the day with the annual gift exchange....everyone brings a gift (white elephant or new $10 or so) and we draw numbers and you can pick a new gift or steal--there are always good memories....including Tim's gifts--I can't even remember what he brought--but one was a blow up unicorn horn for cats to play with!?!?! Where does he get this stuff?!?! The other memory from this year was LeeAnn and Patrick stealing back the gifts they brought! Ha! 

LeeAnn and Patrick--no photoshopping needed, LeeAnn! :)

Bishop and Nora with Great Grandpa Ray!

Poor Madelyn!

Nora's excited face!

SPIDER MAN!!! Perfect!

Shelly, Jack and Great Grandpa Ray!

A wonderful man!

Twins! Papa and Papa!

Grandpa Ray and Jeff

Ray with 2 of his 3 sons!

Nora and Madelyn feeding their babies!

LeeAnn took my camera for awhile and I'm so glad she got this picture of our tree. I didn't take any pictures of our tree and have VERY little in front of the tree. This was one of the more difficult trees we've ever had. While we were putting it up we had a hard time getting it to balance. I think more of the problem was in the stand, so maybe I shouldn't blame the tree. Regardless, on the night of the 23rd at 4:40am we heard this loud CRASH!!!! Bishop was sleeping in our bed (he had strep) and Nora had just woken up, but Luke got her back to sleep.....Luke came in and asked if I heard the noise-I wasn't sure if it was the Christmas tree--the new drapes we just hung or if someone was in our house--or both! Luke went to check it out only to find out the tree had fallen over. We lost some ornaments (one being Nora's gift to us this year, which was her handprint)--and it was a mess. Water had gotten on presents under the tree, but overall, it could have been a lot worse and I was very thankful that it didn't fall ON anyone. Luke came back up and said "I'm going to need your help"! So we went down and got everything cleaned up, got the tree back up and Luke shimmy'ed the stand so it would stand and not fall again. Whew! So...here it is!

 Nora got ANOTHER baby!! That makes 4 for this Christmas! They are all different and she got more and more excited with each new one she got! These babies sure keep her busy!

Fun times, great family, lots of sugar and most importantly....lots of love!!

Thursday and Friday

Luke went back to work on Thursday, so the kids and I ran some errands in the morning--they were such troopers! They did awesome! Thursday night we went to Edinborough park and played inside.....and had an absolute blast!! Nora was a little fearful of the heights and crossing the bridges way up high in the play area, but she was fine when daddy came to help her out! I got to run around with Bishop and go down some really fun and fast slides!  We also played in the gym--Bishop shot baskets and Nora rode around on a scooter!

Playing ON the table with the magnatiles

Shooting hoops in the gym

Riding a scooter

Sitting in her baby's pack and play! :)

Hanging out with Elmo and Grover!

On Friday I brought the kids down to Owatonna so they could spend the night at my parents and I could get ready for the Bishop Family Christmas on Saturday. Cleaning the house with 2 young kids is worthless, so it worked out well to be able to get things ready. While we were there we visited my grandma and grandpa. My grandma recently moved to a new nursing home/memory care home. It is much nicer than the nursing home she was at and the people were very friendly. She seemed happy and in good spirits, so that was good to see! 

The kids enjoyed jumping on her bed and there was a woman who came and played Christmas music on her accordion, so we all enjoyed listening to that together.  When we left we all gave Grandma hugs (Nora especially) and my grandma kept saying...."I love you.....always have and always will!" She is such a sweet, loving woman and it brought tears to my eyes. She has always been the most loving and supportive grandma a girl could ever ask for! Family truly meant EVERYTHING to her!

Great Grandma and Nora

After visiting my grandma we went out to Koda, a rehab facility in Owatonna to visit my Grandpa. He was discharged from the hospital on Thursday, the 26th and was resting in his new room. Koda is such a nice place!! It's like a hotel! He wasn't feeling so well when we visited him, so he stayed in bed and we chatted and gave him his Christmas present. His Christmas present was the Weather Calendar and Bishop loved looking at all the pictures and kept claiming he was going to take it home with him to keep it because he liked it so much! He seems to be doing a little better now, so hopefully he is able to go back to Countryside soon.

Christmas Day 2013

The kids slept til 7am on Christmas Day and were excited to go down to see what Santa had brought them! Santa brought Nora, a hugging Elmo, grover a book and some candy! Bishop got a spaceship, transformer rocket and a bat (but not exactly the bat he had in mind, but he was happy with it)! :)

We were able to enjoy our time together at home most of the day and we even got out to cross country ski! Bishop did really well, especially considering his right ski kept coming off. We skiied down to the bandshell and then back across the lake. Luke got such a good workout in he ended up in just a t-shirt on our way back (Bishop was in the Chariot by this time)!

Skiing on Lake Harriet on Christmas Day

All worn out!

 We headed over to the Danielson's to celebrate Christmas Day around 5! Emily made it home to join us, which was a lot of fun!

On the drive over the kids held hands in the backseat and sang songs!! They have really enjoyed being together this week and it's been so fun to watch them play together!

Bishop helping Diana cut the Chocolate, Peppermint, Ice cream cake!

 Diana made us another Norwegian  cake like the one she made for our wedding! It is such a special cake and it tastes so good!

Add caption

Merry Christmas from the Froehles!

It was the perfect Christmas Day! We are so blessed and thankful for all we have in our lives!

Christmas Eve 2013

We hosted Christmas Eve this year and went to our church (Mount Olivet) for the 3pm service. There were services on the hour every hour from 2pm-10pm so we didn't know what to expect in terms of getting there early, getting a pew, etc. My dad and I went to stand in line for the 3pm service. I believe we got to the church a little after 2pm and we were probably 5th in line....we had our pick of pews, but decided to head towards the back of the church with 4 kids 3 and under we didn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves! ;) I loved the time talking with my dad. It was one of the best conversations we've ever had and I am so thankful for him! He is an amazing man!! Thanks for joining me, dad and for being there to listen and offer advice for anything! I appreciate and love you so much!

Before church we took some pictures.............

All dressed up in their Christmas Eve outfits!

Nana and Papa and their grandkids!!

My beautiful niece in church! LOVE her SOOOO much!

Happy Jack and his mama....and Nora photobombing the picture while she sits with Uncle Ryan!

It was a beautiful service with wonderful songs and music! I had to take Nora out when Madelyn went to the bathroom as Nora continued to yell "I GO POTTY"!! She's not potty trained yet, but since Madelyn got to go potty, Nora didn't want to miss out. We came back and then Nora wanted "OUT" so I took her out so she wouldn't be too disturbing. The service only lasted 30 minutes and that seemed like a perfect amount of time considering Nora was about done after 20! :)

The timing worked out great with the service, it left plenty of time to go back to our house, relax and not feel rushed to make dinner and get on with our night.  Luke and I tackled a new menu for the night which turned out pretty good!! We made flank steak, shrimp, potatoes, bread and we had some leftover mushroom soup courtesy of Raul, so we all enjoyed a little of that as well!!! After dinner it was on to opening presents!! 

Bishop was especially excited!! I think the biggest excitement for him was actually opening the presents! Don't get me wrong-he loved what was in them....but it was more exciting to open gifts (even if they weren't for him)! The hit of the night was the mangatiles Luke and I got him. He screamed...."I WAS WISHING FOR THESE!!!" He tore open the box, took them to his table and started playing with them immediately! They are awesome! 

Nora got another doll and a rocker, stroller, and pack and play for her baby. :) She got a Dr's bag, which is perfect for her along with many other wonderful gifts! Her expressions are priceless! She would get all excited just opening the presents! 

All smiles for his new tent from the Bormann's!!

Playing with his magnatiles

Santa Jack made an appearance for opening presents! He is such a honey!

Sweet Santa Jack flipping through a book!

Happy Jack!! He is always smiling!

Santa Jack rocking with Papa--Christmas Eve was so fun!

Wow! It was another incredible Christmas Eve filled with so many great memories! The kids are at such fun ages--it is so fun to see their excitement and JOY!! Thank you Nana, Papa and the Bormann's for spoiling all of us and for all the wonderful memories!! We are so blessed!

Macy's Santaland and Strep Throat

Bishop had another rough night of sleep on Sunday night and he woke up Monday morning complaining that it hurt the back of his neck when he swallowed his spit. When I put him to bed on Sunday night he kept complaining that his tummy hurt, but I was suspicious of strep throat. When he complained on Monday morning I called his clinic right away to try to get him in to see the Dr.  The first appointment I could get at his clinic was at 4:30pm and since I still wasn't sure of our plans to see my Grandpa I decided to cancel that appointment. We went to Santaland as Bishop insisted we go--but he did keep asking to go to the Dr. We waited in line FOREVER, but it seemed to go pretty fast and the kids did great! I bet we waited in line for close to an hour!

We finally made it to the entrance!

We walked through the display and then waited in line to see Santa. I bought the kids cookies to pass the time while waiting for Santa and I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I bought Nora a tree with green frosting that got on EVERYTHING!!! It was a mess and I was so sad because it got on her sweater before we saw Santa. Turns out you couldn't even see it in the picture, but lesson learned, she'll be getting a gingerbread man like Bishop next year! It was a fun morning and the kids did awesome considering how long it took--they did better than mom, I think!

After Santaland we went to Target to the minute clinic to have Bishop's throat checked out. I figured I wanted to get his throat checked out before seeing Great Grandpa Arnie incase he was contagious. My mom had also called to say he was doing better and we could wait until later in the week to visit, if that worked out better.

The wait at the minute clinic at Target was 1 hour and 15 minutes!! We ate lunch there and started shopping. As soon as we were called I took Bishop to the clinic and Nora and daddy kept shopping. It was a very unorthodox day for us, but it was nice to all be together and the kids did awesome considering!  Turns out.....Bishop has strep throat! I felt so bad I didn't take him in earlier, but the PA said if I would have taken him in too early it wouldn't have shown up on a rapid test, so it was good I waited. We started antibiotics RIGHT AWAY so he wouldn't be contagious for Christmas Eve. It was 3pm--and we were planning to go to church at 3pm on Christmas Eve with my family.

Bishop was a real trooper-I could tell he was tired, but he'd perk up for fun things and then relax and rest when he was feeling down.  I know kids are much more resilient than adults, but strep throat is NOT fun and I felt so bad he got it right before Christmas!!

After finding out Bishop had strep we decided to go home and relax for the rest of the day (besides, it was after 3pm, so it was getting late in the day to visit my Grandpa). That night Luke and I tackled putting up blinds/shades that I was so excited for. Well, Luke did the work and I just "helped"! I love the drapes and am happy for a little privacy in our family room now! We're all ready for Christmas now!!