Some of our December...

We had a great December this year so here are a few pics to show you what we were up to...

This was taken by one of the kids I work with at World Relief by the lovely Christmas decorations in the youth room there.


Christmas
I never take many pictures on Christmas...I guess I'm just too busy soaking it all in. I love the feeling on Christmas! And it's been rejuvenated now with the little ones in our family and seeing how excited they get to celebrate. We celebrate the same way we have since I was little with dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Wallgren's then a big ole sleepover and swedish pancake brunch on Christmas morning. The difference is now that there are lots more people a part of it with all the husbands and babies added to the family over the years. Then we went to my aunt's house on the Erickson side for Christmas dinnner and we look forward to celebrating with the Johnson's in WA in January.

I did manage to get a few pictures of our nieces...

Caroline and Addison in the dresses Greta made.

The Wallgren bros with their grandkids...my dad wearing his classic Christmas teal sweater/red t-shirt combo

Sonja and Nolan

Opening presents Christmas morning

As if we didn't have enough traditions, this one is a (relatively) newer one of going to tea at the Drake the day after Christmas with the Wallgren side women. But this is followed by the even newer tradition of day after Christmas brunch at my aunt's house with the Erickson side.

Grandma Wallgren with all the Wallgren girl cousins minus Linnea who was in Minnesota.

Me with Gwen and Sonja at some point in December.

Hanging out with Luke, Jaime and Ryan when Luke was in town. Missed you, Molly!

I think in this picture Luke is explaining to us how people in California "get" hooded sweatshirts and we don't.

This one's for you, Luke...

COFFEE TABLE


We both had the whole week off of work and wanted to go somewhere random so we went to to St. Louis for a few days just to explore and do something different.

The Arch

We went to the museum and stuff below the arch but didn't go up to the top cause we're cheap.

It was fun to explore the neighborhoods and see a different city. And it was during that freakishly warm weather so it wasn't bad walking around. Oh yeah, and the Panera's there are still called 'St. Louis Bread Co.' which is pretty awesome.

A pretty fancy sign for a store that's 'gone'.

The vast Illinois farmland on the way home.

It's not exactly the best thing in the world to be driving through vast farmland when there are tons of tornado warnings and few tornadoes spotted in the places we were driving...so here I am looking for funnel clouds. Spoiler alert: we made it home safe.

And we made it home for the Wilson wine/New Year's Eve party. This is the first picture of us in 2011 and it happens to be an awesome one!

Happy New Year!