Vrana Christmas

 Last but not least we celebrated with Jeremy's family!

Grandma and Grandpa with all the grandkids (except Spicka's new puppy Teddy!).

Looks like I did all the present piles in one picture this time!

It was fun to be with everyone!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lincoln Christmas

We had a fun afternoon in Lincoln with my family.  Apparently I didn't keep track of my photos well though. Somehow I missed Thomas's present pile but got this amazing had picture.

I missed getting one of Sam opening something although he's in back of Philip's.

Did we do a grandkids only and that was it?  It seems unlikely but this is all I've got.

We had a nice dinner together too.  We tried potato sausage from the Wahoo Locker and it was pretty good!  We spent the night for another day of fun too.

Sometimes you just have to go with your crazy mom/aunt's idea of fun!

We had the traditional cookie decorating contest.  They had to be 3D this year.  I'm not really sure whose is whose but there's only 6 so I missed someone here too.

 And then we brought back the tradition of an ER trip on holidays.  It'd been a pretty good while since we did this one.  Probably Nick's Thanksgiving chin split a few years ago.  Philip was playing a maze that Levi got and missed the very last step.  He was squatted down but up on his toes.  He threw his hands up in defeat and Beth gave him a little push...and he fell over backward and hit his ear on a chair.  It split his ear and not even the ear that was already lumpy from cauliflower ear.  The ER was an amazingly short trip though.  And per the tradition from when he was four his "adventure" included hot chocolate but the picture isn't a jpeg so I can't put it in here. I think we can retire this tradition now.

Other than the minor injury we had a great time in Lincoln!

Christmas Morning

Since we'd been to Mass the night before we had a nice slow Christmas morning.

Santa was good to everyone.  Although some all of us are a little old for Santa he doesn't wrap his gifts so he's still coming through for everyone!

The family gifts didn't disappoint either.  The kids still seem to enjoy finding a gift for everyone.

Please note my amazing morning hair in the collage below!

The hair is not so amazing in this close up but Jeremy is cute.

Ready to go!

We had a great time together!

 That afternoon we headed to Lincoln to see my family.

Christmas Eve

We went to Mass Christmas Eve.  Sam was home by then too.

Although we put the tree up pretty early we hadn't gotten to decorating it.  But since we waited so long everyone was home to participate.

His 21st Christmas ornament.  After that no more till they have a significant life event.

We enjoyed our traditional appetizer dinner as well.  And I think we watched a movie.  Maybe Elf?
 

Christmas Preparations

Philip made these tasty, chewy gingerbread cookies with cream cheese frosting.  I really liked them!

Julia had a long list as usual.  She made like 7 kids of cookies and them made boxes for friends.  She made one kind a day.  The first day I came home to a kitchen in full swing...but I'd planned on making pizza for dinner and needed the oven.  After that she made the dough right after school and then put it in the fridge and baked them after dinner.  That worked better for the hungry brothers.

I just like this picture.  Homemade Dots are always a hit.

Nicholas dipped various things.  I think these are pretzel circles with the middle filled with peanut butter.  Yum!

These are brie cranberry bites with almonds on top. It's a keeper recipe.

A lot of the things ended up on our Christmas Eve appetizer buffet.  Along with some smoked cheeses.  Jeremy has been smoking lots of cheese and it's so good.

Ballapalooza

We scaled back Ballpalooza a little this year.  Still super fun and the ball jokes aren't old yet!

Somehow none of the other pictures involve people but Beth was here too!

Delicious! 

Band Concert

The concert started off with a large ensemble but I don't remember what they played and it's not in the program either.

The junior high band is a little small but it's good!

Seriously, how do we not have a Santa hat at our house?!  Every year someone gets to wear one for one band song.  What did all the other kids do?  Nobody went without.  We found an elf hat but then someone had an extra Santa one that Nick borrowed.  Is that what the other kids did too?  I suppose.

There's a million trumpets this year so they got an ensemble piece too.  All the trumpets 5-12 played...except now that I think about it I don't think there's a senior trumpet!  Mr. Kellett hasn't done a group like that before. They played Angels We have Heard on High and it was fun.

Senior high band sounded great too.  You can see that this year's O word was Holy.  I looked back, 2019 might have been the 1st year with Joy but oddly, I didn't do a  2018 Christmas band concert post so it could have been then.  2017 doesn't have the O wreath yet.

And here's the siblings.  There's not even a wrestling around picture before the nice one this time!

It was an enjoyable night as always.
 

Choir Concer

Julia sang in the Choral choir...is that what it's called?  Julia's not sure either.  We're going with that.

They sounded great as always.

The show choir performed a couple of their songs too but I guess I didn't take a picture of that.  Oops.

NHS

Julia was inducted into National Honor Society.

She read petitions.

Jeremy was out of town so it was just Julia and I.  There was lunch after the Mass and we debated who to sit with because it was set up for families but the Darts came over so we didn't end up alone.  It was just school lunch...but it was tator tot bake, my favorite!  I got to school after having the morning off, and my whole class, the lunch lady and our secretary were rather concerned I had missed tator tot bake until I assured them that's what was served for NHS!  But lucky me, they saved me some so I got to eat it for lunch the next day too.  Apparently I have made my love of that particular lunch very clear.  🤣

Here's all the inductees.

Great work Julia, we're proud of you!