very merry chunglund christmas

We have officially exorcised Christmas from the Chunglund household. Just need to get rid of the wreath on the door, but that will be easy enough. So to officially purge Christmas from our systems, I thought it would be good to do a Christmas recap blog post. 

 

This year in particular, I have been bumming about not being close to family. It's not like I really want to be freezing my butt off in Minnesota, but sometimes Christmas just isn't Christmas unless you go to Auntie Lori's house and talk about how disgusting the souffle salad looks and probably tastes. Nevertheless, we managed to make it a very merry Christmas in spite of missing friends, family, and souffle salad.

 

Christmas Eve we opened up family presents before heading out for dinner.

 

"this is ... um ... interesting."
that's a direct quote.

 

"it's about time you bought me a damn bed."
that is what his face is saying.

I have two children under the age of 5 so I'm not entirely sure why I thought I would try to "class it up" this Christmas, but for some reason I had visions of prime rib at a nice restaurant in my head for Christmas Eve. While I was hoping for something a little less "Love Shack," we ended up at Joe's Crab Shack where Little Miss J again ate her weight in crab. After three years running, I guess this is really the Chunglund family tradition and I best get on board with the tie dye and the dancing. After dinner we saw the light show in Old Sacramento before heading home to nestle all snug in our beds.

 

intensely focused on the word search

this was the best we could do.
damn J2 and his eye rubbing.

Christmas morning I made Little Miss J wait until J2 woke up, before heading into the living room to see if Santa had come. I turned on the television for her, and when J2 woke up shortly thereafter, she told me that she wanted to wait to see her stocking until her program was over. Clearly, Santa is not a big deal at our house.

After presents at home, we headed over to the in-laws for lunch, more presents and some playtime at the park.

 

 

After a nap for J2, we finished out Christmas Day with a family walk (Carl Rove too) through the Fab 40s to look at lights - complete with hot cocoa (with a little Bailey's for the mama).

A pretty good Christmas, in spite of the lack of souffle salad.

lucky number 7

Chung & Berglund, a family association celebrated its 7th anniversary yesterday, and I feel pretty lucky. Probably luckier now than I did when we tied the knot simply because after seven years, a puppy and two kids, the rubber has met the road. We have been weighed, we have been measured, and we have most definitely NOT been found wanting. While we tend to lean toward the practical rather than romantic, I think that is part of our charm. It has definitely kept us headed in the right direction - parenting, finances, family, career, etc. It is what has helped us build the life that I love so much.

 

It is the everyday stuff that means so much more than a grand gesture on a particular day. Knowing that we can figure pretty much anything out together to the mutual acceptability of all parties and that we have similar priorities when it comes to our family and our life are what makes me feel like celebrating our marriage. Of course the diamond earrings certainly didn't hurt anything. Good job, Gus.

 

Here's to 7 years of Chunglunds and many more to come!

 

2007 - Vegas Baby!

 

2008 - Honeymoon in St. Lucia

 

2009 - Stillwater, MN

 

2010 - Duluth, MN

2011 - Tempe, AZ

2012 - Palm Beach, FL

2013 - Sacramento, CA

2014 - Sacramento, CA

santa claus is coming

And J2 couldn't be more upset ...

B.C. before Claus

A.C. after Claus

I have been not so secretly sort of hoping that I could get at least one crying Santa picture, and J2 comes through with flying colors. This kid really doesn't ever disappoint. I wasn't completely sure how J2 was going to react. At church, the play area at the mall, etc., he's always approaching strangers, arms outstretched just asking to be picked up. But the combination of waiting in line for 45 minutes because we didn't get a fast pass because who the hell knew that you needed fast pass for Santa - this isn't Disneyworld people - and being up past bedtime resulted in what you see above.

wordless wednesday

the most wonderful time of the year!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. I love the holidays. As my neighbor can attest, since he called me out on Facebook, last year I even had my tree up before Thanksgiving. Since my kids don't really need more "stuff," I'd like to start a tradition of giving them an "experience" each Christmas rather than go overboard on toys and other gifts. This year, I took Little Miss J and my mother-in-law to see the Nutcracker. After freaking out about losing the tickets that had been sitting in our mail holder since October, I was able to get the box office to reprint them - thank goodness.

It was definitely a fun girls day. I'm glad I got to do something nice for my mother-in-law, who does so much for us, and I loved seeing how excited my little girl was to see all the ballet dancers.



We got there early and there was a lot of waiting around for a four year old, but Little Miss J hung in there and was only a little whiny by the end of the show.

waiting for the show

autograph and photo op with Clara

headed home and still having fun.

She was so tired that she fell asleep in the car before we got home.

jam packed holiday weekend

Could we have fit ANY more things into one four day weekend? Unlikely.

 

Thanksgiving morning was our 3rd annual Run to Feed the Hungry. J2 missed out because he fell asleep at got left at my in-laws. Little Miss J insisted she was big girl and strollers were for BABIES, but only walked about a mile or so before Gus had to carry her. Since Gus is all into working on his fitness, it was a good workout for him anyhow.

these two rode in the stroller for the last stretch

 

We went low stress this Thanksgiving and opted to buy the "Holiday Turkey Dinner" from Savemart. I made sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce, but everything else came premade. Gus's parents came over and we had a pretty low key day.

 

Friday, Gus and I did some shopping while his parents watched the kids. By "shopping," I mean we played musical cell phones and spent most of the day either at Costco or the AT&T store dealing with cell phones, cell phone plans, covers for new cell phones, etc. All necessary evils, but not that much fun to deal with.

 

Thankfully, we got an impromptu invite to go to the Global Wonderland with some friends. The lights were pretty cool, the weather was great, and Little Miss J had a blast with all her friends. She rode the kiddie coaster no less than 5 times in a row with her friend Beckett - arms up and screaming the entire time.

 

 

 Little Miss J said she could ride the big slide by herself, but froze at the top. Gus and I provided unintentional entertainment to a bench of spectators as we stood at the bottom alternating between coaxing Little Miss J to just come down and yelling at the slide attendant to "just push her!" She finally came down covering her eyes for part of the way and the crowd erupted into cheers. She was pretty proud of herself for doing it, but when asked if she wanted to go again, she was quick to say, "NO!" 

 

On Saturday, the Chunglund halls were decked. This was an all day affair. Gus and Little Miss J went to buy some outdoor decorations. After three hours, I texted to see whether they had gone all the way to the North Pole for said decorations, but I guess they got stuck doing a kids project at Home Depot. It involved hammers. Gus says that Little Miss J only hit his finger with the hammer once. In spite of that detour, our house is decorated inside and out. Little Miss J picked out the outside decor so yeah, we're the family with an inflatable snowman in our yard.

 

I spy Carl in the window!

On Sunday, I finally got a nap. Then Little Miss J and I made the "garlic" (aka as garland) that I had been meaning to make with leftover ornaments. And finally to close out the weekend, we took J2 to Build a Bear to make his Christmas present. This kid LOOOVES stuffed animals. When you hand him one, he immediately hugs it with a huge grin on his face. We tried to let him pick his own, but he kept picking the giant reindeer, so he ended up with just the basic bear.

 

Oh, and both kids got a carousel ride out of the trip to the mall.

 

 

 

And that's a holiday weekend wrap, folks.