Merry Christmas...

Christmas is over (for this year), but the blog is not!



We started the season by decorating our Christmas "tree." This poor thing has been around the block a bit, but the kids loved helping to put the ornaments on.

Action shot!

One of the funniest things about the kids decorating the tree?

Where the ornaments (all) end up.

 They loved it, and loved to play with the ornaments and the tree afterwards, too...

...maybe a little too much, but oh well. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house!

Which means we have to have it taste like Christmas, too, obviously!

 Calista and Craig were excellent helpers.

I think they were looking forward to their reward at the end.


Calista had a Christmas concert at preschool this year.

The couple of short videos I took sound kind of atrocious, so I'm not posting them, but the concert was (mostly) a lot of fun.

 Craig loved it, and so did we.

I didn't take too many pictures, mostly because other parents are annoying and I decided to stop worrying and just enjoy the moment. I'm glad I did. Trust me, the concert was cute.

 It ended with a visit from Santa and some yummy treats, which we all enjoyed.

Calista insisted she wear her Christmas dress to the concert, and I obliged. Isn't she adorable?

And of course, if we're talking about Christmas outfits, let's do one of the two kiddos together!

Or two pictures.

Silly children!

The last four years we've lived in Calgary, we've been told about a Nativity put on by the church here, but we've always left town too early to see it. This year, Calista saw the handout and begged to go. And since we weren't leaving until after the first day, we went that opening night.

Calista and Craig were so good (and bundled up). I think Calista's favorite part was the alpacas (or were they llamas?) the Wise Man came on. It's much too cold for camels, people! It was a very nice, simple telling of the nativity story, and we enjoyed the tone it set for our holidays.


We went down to Raymond to be with Kyler's family this year, and I had two goals for our trip: first, that Calista and Craig would get to spend time with their cousins; second, that Kyler and I would go on a date celebrating 100 months (hee!) of marriage. I am happy to say we accomplished both of those goals, even at the same time!
Kyler's sister, Kristina, graciously watched Calista and Craig while Kyler and I went on a mini shopping spree for him (he tried on 9 articles of clothing and bought 8 of them - and they look good! Who does that?) and also to go see Star Wars. Fun times were had by all, kiddos included. When we go back from our outing, Calista was actually a little disappointed to see us. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave her cousins... but she got to see them several more times that trip, so we didn't feel too bad for taking her back with us.


One of the times we got to see family was Christmas Eve, obviously. In Kyler's family, that is the big get-together. We had a program with many of the kiddos singing or playing piano and they all did a fantastic job.

The drumset was not part of the program... or on at all.

Calista agreed to sing with Kyler and I, which took a lot of courage for her and I was very proud. We sang Angels We Have Heard On High, with Calista helping with the chorus. She loved singing the "Gloria....."
And, of course, there was also a lot of food and presents (from Grandma Maria and Grandpa Ken, for the grandkids).

The elusive Grandma Maria Squid Sea Captain

I was thrilled that I'm starting to feel better so I got to enjoy almost any of the food I wanted (yay for no more morning sickness!). Calista was thrilled to get an art set with crayons, colored pencils, markers, watercolors, paper... all in a little carrying case.

And Craig loved both his present of a fun car track and also playing with Brock's present of a dinosaur thing, though sometimes Brock was not so certain of the sharing/stealing...


Since the big family get-together was the night before, Christmas itself was pretty chill. We had yummy breakfast, opened lots of presents,

(no really, lots of presents)

and put together the "some assembly required" present.

Or 45 minutes of assembly (with help from the 4 and 2-year-olds) required.

Apparently it was worth it, though.
Still, it was a fun day in pajamas,

playing with presents

(and Grandma's nativity) and culminated with chicken parmesan for dinner. Yum.


Finally, instead of exchanging gifts on the Rasmussen side, we put the money we would have spent towards a big family outing: this year, we went (five pin) bowling.

Craig absolutely loved that he could pick up the ball, and put it on the bowling helper and everything all by himself.

He didn't much care about what happened after that, but he was thrilled with the process. Though, he did end up scoring 103 and 108 on his two games. He beat me (though he DID have bumpers).

Calista wanted to do everything on her own, which we definitely let her... but it meant her ball went down the lane rather slowly.

Okay, incredibly slowly. And one time, not pictured, her ball went down, hit a pin (which fell over), and then the ball lost all momentum and just sat there, while the lane reset the pins. Her ball was just chilling right in front of the pins, not moving. It was hilarious.


All in all, it was a pretty good Christmas season. Hopefully everyone else's was just as good!