The Kindt Family

Waltner Immediate Family Christmas 2010, and our final Christmas!

Our last celebration of Christmas was with my immediate family the day after Christmas. I worked Christmas night so we went to my mom and dad's farm after naps that day where we first exchanged gifts to make the kids happy and then had a wonderful supper. It was so nice to be together as a family as we don't get many opportunities of this since my sister and her husband and boys live out of town. The kids always have a blast to be together and its so nice to catch up and just be together.

Most of my pictures from our evening together are from the end of the evening. As you will see in the pictures these cousins definitely know how to have fun together!

Isn't my youngest nephew just adorable?!

Opening presents.

Kenna with her princess crown from the Kliewer's! She also has matching earrings and shoes to go with it, but I've been unable to capture her in all of it at once! She is definitely "Daddy's Little Princess" though...so fun to see!

I have a feeling its going to be Christmas' of chaos for the next several years til these 4 get a little older. I was starting to feel like I had a hard time keeping up with what the kids were getting, etc, even though we were trying to take turns. That's quite a concept for 3 year olds and younger!

Denver showing that he's a bit worn out from all of our gatherings.

Not sure how we're ever going to get rid of that thumb!

Snack time...frozen go-gurts.

Grama's not paying attention so Caleb thinks he'll go after Kenna's instead!

Denver feeding Caleb!

My sister, Kim with her oldest, Jacob!

Now it's Kenna's turn to try and feed Caleb.

This was adorable to watch.

And now time to be silly!

Playing in a box.

All 3 of them fit inside there!

Caleb getting some quality Papa time while the big kids played.

They had a blast if you can't tell! :)

Christmas with the Waltner's

On Christmas day we celebrated with my dad's side of the family. We decided to have brunch and had our gathering at the Arboretum Visitors Center as we have grown so much as a family its nice to have one big room for us to all be together. As always we had quite the spread of food to choose from for our brunch. It was all delicious and very hard to not over eat!

After every one was done eating we continued on with our tradition of the same gift exchange we do with my mom's side of the family. This family is a little better about stealing and it can get quite fun.

The little cousins had a blast running and chasing after each other.

The buffet line, with Uncle Loren deciding what he had room for yet! :)

Grama Verni and Baby Caleb

Jeff and Jacob

The desert and punch table!

Denver and Makenna seranading us, if you can call that seranading that is!

Denver and my cousin Ashley hit it off quite well this year!

My dad discussing, along with the other men what to pick or steal....I think there may be a discussion of a steal going on here with my dad and Evan if I remember correctly.

My dad finally choosing a gift....that ended up getting stolen from him!

Kenna and Caleb playing!

My mom has gifts for the little ones at each of our family Christmas' since they are too little to participate in our "game". At this Christmas she gave them scrapbooks of the sale and history leading up to the sale. These books will be coveted by them for life, I'm sure.

Denver opening his book under the table by Ashley. He hid under the table during the majority of our gift game exchange as he was afraid some one would throw him out in a snow bank (thanks Uncle Aaron who scared him of this a different day and got it stuck in his head!). Ashley was his guard! :)

The kids looking through their books that they absolutely loved and continue to today.

My Grandma with her 4 kids!

We were so blessed to be able to spend this Christmas together as a family with only my cousin Angie and her boyfriend missing.

Christmas with the Schmeichel Family

Christmas Eve we were able to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. Christmas Eve was always our traditional time to celebrate as a family and I think we've only been able to do this once since Evan and I got married so it was extra special this year. Like our tradition from the past we all attended the Church I grew up in for the children's Christmas program and then this year my Aunt Deb and Uncle Steve hosted Chistmas at their house. During the Christmas program Denver's age group sang "Away in the Manger", now we don't go to Church there anymore so Denver was not a part of this. I think that was a little disturbing to him as he sang along with them and said when they were done he could go up there and sing!

Due to the amount of Christmas parties we had already had I was ready to sit back and just enjoy Christmas instead of pulling my camera out and working around the kids in my dress to capture the pictures I would want, so I left it up to my sister and cousin Susan. They promised me pictures and now that I'm posting this maybe I'll get them to feel a little guilty to get me some, but for now I'll steal my cousin's pictures of her blog to post so I have some thing to show for our time together as a family celebrating this wonderful, most precious holiday!

We continued our tradition of $10-$15 gifts, drawing numbers, and stealing. It took a little while to get the "stealing" going if I remember right, but it did eventually happen.

My brother in-law Jeff and his son, Jacob opening what Jeff picked.

Susan's boyfriend Ben was the hit at Christmas this year. The kids loved him, especially Kenna...she wasn't too willing to share him!

Ben and Kenna as my cousin commented..."the freak out over what gift to pick!"

This family has never been much for chaos, always very quiet and easy going (well...maybe not when us cousins were little, but that was so long ago), but due to my sister's boys and my 2 kids it's become a little crazy!

My cousin Paula snuggling up my adorable little nephew Caleb before leaving to go to Grama and Papa's for bed.

Kenna and Ben getting some quality play time in.

Denver and Mommy playing his new "game boy"

Our Family of Four!

Christmas Eve morning we celebrated Christmas as a family of four. It was so nice for the four of us to be together to enjoy a morning as a family. There aren't many mornings that we get to spend together, especially relaxing, fun mornings! :) We started with opening presents. Then we made omelets in a bag for breakfast, and then it was outside to snow blow and shovel the driveway.

Daddy opening his present from Denver.

Denver was so excited, especially since it was a table to fillet fish on when we're camping!

Denver got some plastic scissors.

He had been begging for some so he was very excited to have some scissors of his own!

Makenna got some jammies!

A kitchen!

Neither of them got too excited until I got it put together.

(Yes, I put it together, Evan didn't want any part of the kitchen!)

Denver also got a "game boy".

Its actually a Leapster Explorer by Leap Frog. I debated about this for a long time as he always wanted it when he'd see it in the store, but it was for ages 4 to 9 so wasn't sure if he was ready for it. He definitely was and loves it! Not sure that a day goes by without him playing it and he's learning lots from it! :)