Our Christmas 2012

As always, we had a wonderful Christmas here at Casa Tuescher. We always do Xmas eve at Kurt's parents and have yummy appetizers and open gifts. I think we managed to surprise Grandma and Grandpa with Nooks =) Kurt and I both worked on Xmas eve, but he got home before me, pulled everything out and sorted so it was not much work for me when I got home. The little boys got Kindles and lots of legos, Parker got lots of golf items and Arielle was happy with Uggs, a Coach purse and her Pandora bracelet. Then its off to my parents for more food and gifts!! Santa did not forget Kurt and I, he got many things off of his wish list and I added 4 charms to my Pandora bracelet and got a piece of luggage that I wanted----which really will benefit Kurt, its smaller so he won't hurt himself lifting it when I go on girl's weekends, LOL

Annual Christmas Card Ordeal

They weren't all keepers. My apolgies if you're on our list...

Flashback Friday!

I mentioned to Arielle just this week how it's time to get Xmas card pictures done. Already! Man this year has whizzed by. In honor of that conversation, this weeks FF are some shots from our Xmas card taken 3 years ago. Look at how small the little boys look. You may also notice it is from this grouping that the photo for my blog heading came from--HA! That is on my to-do list, a blog makeover, to keep it fresh for my tens of readers =)

Buffalo Phils

So, turns out, these kids still want to eat even though we're not at home!!! I always pack a cooler and a big canvas bag of munchies and sammie fixings, but we usually do venture out of the hotel for one meal a day, last night it was supper.
My sister and her family live very close to the Dells, and USUALLY one of my nephews come up to spend some time at the water park so Parker gets to do some rides without a squealing girl sitting across from him, HA! Turns out, he's grown accustomed to eating as well. Kurt had a dinner meeting so it was up to me to take 5 of them out--we chose Buffalo Phil's (not to be confused with Buffalo BILLS, which may cause some sore of copyright infringement issues). They have a room where a model train will "deliver" your meal, but wait-time was over an hour and seeing as we couldn't get good WIFI connections, keeping the boys entertained on iTouches was not going to happen, hence "regular" seating for us =)
Regardless, kids meals come with "buffalo horns" and the 4 boys at the table happily wore them, even is posing for a pic was NOT done happily...

Great Wolf Lodge

Kurt has his semi-annual union (for all that means in WI anymore) meeting here in the Dells, so we are taking advantage of some family time at the Great Wolf Lodge! Who doesn't love a little time at a water park? We certainly do =)

Some that didn't make the cut....

As you saw a couple of weeks ago, it was Christmas card photo time. And while some of my favorites make the cut because they are acceptable to be sent through the USPS and possibly hang on a fridge or two across the nation for 11 months, some of my favorites DON'T make the annual card, for various reasons. And some don't make the card for OBVIOUS reasons. These are some of each.... (please to note the one with Beckett spitting chewed up leaves out on Arielle's head. She's smiling SO sweetly while her brothers have an eye on Beckett and what he's up to.)

Shooting the annual Xmas card

Yep, it's that time of year again. The joyous event of getting photos for the annual holiday card that I send (I've missed one year since Arielle was born). This year we went back to the walking trail on campus since we were on a time limit and who knows if we'd get another nice day outdoors?
Our theme this year was Brewer's attire, and we got lucky enough to find everybody something in a different hue. Today I'm sharing "nice" ones, but later this week I'll do an outakes/bloopers post with a bunch too.
Afterwards, Arielle and I ran out to Walmart, got the card designed on a kiosk, hit "complete" and picked up 80 Holiday cards one hour later! Oh when I think of how my Mom had to do it years ago.....

Flashback Friday

Just a few of the kids from the Xmas card shoot from 2009.....

Christmas Card 2010

Kurt got me a scanner/copier/printer for my B-day, I need to download the disc to my laptop so I can show you better pictures of pictures!!
Until then, this is the card we sent out of the kids for Christmas (because who wants to look at us?!)

C is for cookie....

and/or candy--which is what was happening around here this afternoon!! We made "heat and eat" cookies from Pillsbury, cut-outs, spritz, peanut clusters, fudge and pretzels coated with almond bark!! The big kids were a huge help, the little boys--not so much! Well, scratch that--they did play elsewhere for most of the time, so I guess that WAS helpful, HA!!
Santa will have something to nosh on in LESS THAN A WEEK!!!