Santa's not the only one in the sky.....

Early Christmas morning we boarded a plane and flew down to see Bamagramps, Bamagramma, Uncle Dan, Aunt Maureen & Cousin Evelyn! Much to the Preacher & the PW's delight, the final leg of the trip ended up being a private flight for the Christiansens! This was a very fortuitous thing since G-boo promptly stunk up the plane after take off....

We arrived at lunch time and the Haggstrom cousin & family wandered in later that afternoon. We had a great time reintroducing Evelyn & Greta and watching them open their mounds of gifts. The babes were a bit tired from their travels to Flo-town, but it was a very happy reunion on a very happy day.

PS. The Christiansens were SO glad to shed their coats....ahhh 40 degrees never felt so good.

PSS Greta was identifying reindeer as doggies too. Looks like mom & dad have some work to do with their chatty peanut!

Christmas Eve Day

We enjoyed relaxing together as a threesome (ok, foursome if you count Jersey man) during the day. Greta opened her present from the Preacher & the PW (preacher's wife) and she seemed to really like her animal train! We put together some of her toys from the previous days' gifts and Greta had a heyday until we had to get ready to attend the Christmas Eve service at 4:30.

A funny story from the service.... The Preacher, the PW and G-boo were ALL in the Christmas pageant at Lake Harriet UMC. Greta's part: the Innkeeper's baby. She had no lines. Her only job was to sit and be cute with her mommy. Well...... Greta is beginning to talk now and her first word is doggie. And, while she does identify most doggies correctly, she also lumps much of the mammalian world in with our canine friends. So, 2 youth from church dressed in a donkey costume and accompanied Mary & Joseph to the Inn. Enter the Innkeeper, the Innkeeper's wife, and the Innkeeper's baby.....as soon as we got center stage Greta started pointing to the donkey and yelling "DOGGIE! DOGGIE!" To add to the hilarity, when we escorted Mary, Joseph & the donkey to the stable...Greta got on the floor beside the reclining donkey and proceeded to give the "doggie" lovies (hugs and snuggles). The 2 youth were really good sports about it but they did seem quite surprised when a little somebody began crawling all over them!

We hope this new year brings an unexpected gift of love to you and your family. Merry Christmas!

A White Christmas (celebration #2)

On Sunday before Christmas, we joined Grandma Marmo & Papa Bruce for our 2nd Christmas extravaganza. Is Greta a lucky baby or what??? We had a lovely dinner together and enjoyed opening gifts. Greta, once again, won the award for the most gift-ed person of the day (are you sensing a trend?) and she had a ball. Check out the pictures which tell the story of how much fun we had together!

A Christiansen Christmas

What an action-packed celebration!

While Greta & her mom took a pre-celebration nap, the Preacher hit the lanes with his dad's side of the family for a long-standing Christmas tradition. Unfortunately for the preacher, his youngest sister Jayne rocked the bowling alley with 7 straight strikes to win the tourney, but fun was had by all.

We joined up with the crew at Grandpa Jay & Kelly's house for dinner and opening presents. Greta took in quite the payload of fun stuff....from books to clothes to things that beep & blink. As you can see it was a happy day together. The highlight of Greta's day: grandpa's stairs! The highlight of her mom's day: seeing her in her santa suit (complete with ruffle britches of course!).

Countdown until Christmas OR my daddy says I have a Mullet

Hello faithful blog readers. We hope you are enjoying the season and staying warm. We've been having some fun up here in the tundra. Here's a quick rundown:

Greta's mom & dad snuck away for a weekend "up north" on the shore of Lake Superior....don't we look happy and refreshed? We have officially decided that a night or two away should become an annual tradition :). Grandma Marmo took great care of G-boo while her parents enjoyed some time together.

We put up all the Christmas goodies...So far our tree is still standing, as is Greta's special 1st Christmas tree (the brainchild of Bamagramma) which is full of PINK ornaments (duh...). Greta digs the ornaments and has been giving her mom a workout keeping her from sneaking over to the tree. The upside....we've had plenty of opportunities to practice learning "NO."





Other big news...Greta has found her bellybutton. Usually distracted by her ducks in the bath, Gboo looked down and discovered the strange cavern in her tummy and just couldn't get enough. It was hysterical. She has a book where you have to find the baby's bellybutton and we wonder if that wasn't part of the discovery.


We are getting ready for our marathon of Christmas celebrations. We are really looking forward to all the family time coming up this week and next....so stay tuned for some cute Christmas photos in a couple of weeks.

Until then, we'll leave you with the preacher's observation of late. He thinks Greta's hairstyle (style might be overstating things a bit) can be classified as a mullet. It seems the universe is punishing us for being avid mullet watchers during our courtship (Greta's parents that is) and is paying us back for all the fun we made of those that sport "hockey hair" or "business in the front-party in the back" hair. For those that need a quick refresher on mullets, check out these sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullet_(haircut) or http://www.mulletsgalore.com/ Yes it seems that our darling does in fact have a baby mullet. In fact, her daddy thinks she bears a striking resemblance to a well known sports caster....what do you think??












We hope your Christmas celebrations are filled with happiness and a chance to catch your breath. Merry Christmas!

Snow Angel

Well, its here. That day I've been dreading since we moved to MN in June: our first real snowfall. We're amidst the first blizzard of the season....so we decided to take Greta out in it and get a little chilly footage (note to all the Jersey lovers: he too was scheduled to go with, but a last minute peeing-on-mom-incident kept him at home to think about whether or not it is proper to pee on mom's lap). Greta was not real keen on having snow blowing in her face...but her Jersey Girl hat kept her head warm enough for us to spend a few minutes in the snow. Enjoy our pics of our little pink marshmellow and the video of the big event (click on link below)!

PS if you are part of our southern viewership...keep your "its 65 degrees here" comments to yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-VFLB3TScA

The turkey was not the only thing that was stuffed...

Here's a quick addition to the earlier post: a few pictures from Thanksgiving. Hopefully we'll have some more shots to post from Turkey Day soon....most of the thanksgiving moments were captured by Grandma Marmo's camera! Yes, it is snowing in the Tgiving pictures. Yes, we put up our tree on Tgiving too. No, Greta has not attempted to pull it down.....we're still puzzled by this. We hope y'all had happy days with your friends & families!

PS Greta got her first pair of big girl walking shoes today!

We are hoping these new shoes will be the final push she needs to "officially" be a walking peanut!