what have we been up to since it"s to cold to play outside?

some of this weeks high lights are- our yoga class
pledge+wood floor sock skating

and last night we went to build-a-bear. our cousin gave them a gift card for Christmas we had a really fun time! in order from L to R are mei mei-(girl)- her favorite friends name in China, Penner(boy) and monkey (boy)- gray always has such creative names. they all went at church this morning too, what a good start for them! thanks guys for the gift cards they loved it, only could have been better if you were there with us. love you.

they are all smiling but inside we are sad...

our family gets split by distance again but we don't say goodbye it's always, see you later (alligator)
g made a cake to bring over it was yummy

I think this pictures shows just how much we love little A and Es.

"this is the best surprise ever" liv

so thanks to finals and Martin L K jr.Fenwick had a long weekend so we surprised the kids and went up north to one of our favorite spots in the US.

As you can see we got to spend time with one of our favorite babies too and it's never to early to start her on running or sporting the shield! she looks happy with the idea right.
wonderful friends of ours let us use their cabin, we have never been her in the snow so the kids, who are quite inventive, made a sledding hill down the front of the house

as you can see it is not you average sledding run. In fact they warned me "mom you may not want to come see this one" so I mean with a warning like that I had to go down right?

no worries only minor injuries.

we were totally lucky since camp had a huge retreat we got to babysit baby Char two whole days, the kids were all so happy to take care of her I hardly needed to do anything for her. in this picture K&J got an afternoon break from camp and came over for a visit.

one of the reasons I love it up here is because things move at my pace. we just hang out, play games- a lot of games, play around the house and just be together. Char was an easy addition as you can see she was sky's lucky charm in Disney apples to apples (which I highly recommend as a kids &adult game)

aunt lynn called one day and said "there is a 25 ft ice castle in Eagle river, so we dressed warm and headed over. It was really cool, and extremely cold!

my favorite part was the trees frozen in to the ice as decoration and that some of the ice had sea weed frozen in to it.

as you will see, no baby spends much time not being held in this family

at our candy store stop G picked out matter teeth- sucker.

so everyone who knows us knows it is easy to list the things that we love and I was so proud of Char when I laid 4 toys in front of her and she choose Mickey mouse, ugh what a smart girl!

this boy has dedication, burrrr! awesome picture though

one day I set up a scavenger hunt outside

sky and Gray won the game but it was huge hit. in fact several of the kids mentioned it at our ," what was your best thing", ritual. Good old fashioned fun that's what makes this place so great. As liv said " this was the best surprise ever"!

living by Ohare certainly has it's perks

Our boy Chris, as we call him, was in on a 9 hour lay over-awesome! they day began as it should, with sticky buns
we are always happy when we get to see Chris. It is so cute the kids literally run up and hug him. Just like in the movies.

it was great to play at home but I was really happy that Sky and Chris got to have a mini jam. I walked up the stairs to hear the 3 of them singing worship songs.

sadly David was on shift so we headed out to the fire house for a visit.

as we always do we got a new family picture

and the must have Chicago pizza for dinner before heading back to Ohare to fly across the pond. 9 hours-we'll take every minute we can, love you Chris next time lets do 9 hours on the beach okay?

We are so blessed!

I am at home and what just happened fills my heart with blessing. One of our friend just picked up my 2 older boys to take them out for pizza, the awesome part/ this friend is also our pastor. also joining them is another Friend and pastoral intern/ youth leader. Imagine my teenage boys totally excited to go out to eat with 2 upright Godly men, what mom could ask for more? you all know who read my blog, I adore the body of Christ and if you are not in a church that your pastors are totally available to any age, I would tell you that you are really missing out! My heart is so blessed right now that these words don't even do it justice. I pray my boys will continue growing to become men of God and today is a great and fun way to witness what a one looks like. Praise God for my blessing of the day.

who can believe my daughter did this?

we are always telling our kids, including Mei, what side of the family they got things from. for example, you play the guitar great-must be dads side of the family or your so creative -must be the Christiansen side or the famous- you're having such a bad temper, well that's both our German sides, sorry. but Mei showed up with this today and I was like WOW honey no one in our family has ever done this before, so we all know which side the etch a sketch skill comes from- the Chinese side. Oh by the way this is a travel size etch a sketch about 3" tall, boy how kids amaze you hua?

pitiful I say

so this year we got our tree at home depot as we always do for their great price but this year , although she had character, which I loved, she sure ended up very bear. Just plain pitiful
note the pile of needles under the tree. Thank goodness we have wood floors for easy clean up.

There is an old grandpa Meister story that involves my grandpa and granny keeping their Christmas tree up for valentines day. I guess I do have Meister blood in my veins but there is no way this ugly thing was lasting to see cupid!

the grand opening of the RILL ARENA 2011

you have probably noticed that since we can't get out much we bring our sports here. for example- mt. melrose or rill stair luge/toboggan runs- pillow high jumps- blow guns/archery to name a few. Well we have expanded ...
broom ball and ice skating/ hockey have arrived at 5125

"this is the funnest thing EVER" sky told me today. yep we do make our own fun here, grandma gets the cushy box seats , wouldn't grandpa had gotten a kick out of this one?