Maniak Madness » Christmas

Are you ready?

Amy — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:33:57 +0000

I *think* we're ready. At least I hope we are! All that's left for me to do is order the groceries (I'm doing this online and then going to pick them up on Wednesday I think). All of the presents have been purchased and wrapped and I cannot wait to GIVE all of our gifts this year. It's definitely more fun than receiving!

Last Friday Tyson had his little Christmas program at preschool. While the program consisted mostly of a local choir singing some songs, at the end, the kids got to join them and sing a few songs. they were SO cute! And Tyson did great and knew most all of the words to the songs (and I could even hear his cute little voice singing).

Here's a little snippet of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. He get's VERY into it about 1/3 of the way in.

Last night I was playing with a fun little technique on how to get "shaped" bokeh. This was a good learning experience for me because for the first time ever, I had to manually focus. But it was SO cool! I'm trying to figure out what other shapes I could do...

This was just a starburst sort of shape

This was my attempt at a snowflake shape, but clearly, I need to work on my snowflake cutting skills...maybe Tyson can help me!

And last, but not least, Christmas tree bokeh!

So, what do you think?

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A few more from our Santa visit

Amy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:58:29 +0000

Sorry, I know you're probably sick of seeing them with Santa! But here are just a couple of more from our visit on Monday night. Including a baby freak out one! LOL

I love how he just let Ty have some time with him before sticking Bailey in there. We're pretty sure he asked for a Hockey net with a Scoreboard and the Wii.

High five!

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Just for old time’s sake…

Amy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:55:55 +0000

Every year at this time I have to go back and reminisce about this photo. Priceless!

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Meeting Santa 2009 edition

Amy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:35:31 +0000

This guys is THE real Santa if there ever was one, I swear. He brings tears to my eyes every year with how sweet and kind he is. He’s the one at the Mall of America and I guess he’s won a lot of awards in years past (who knew that there were Santa awards?!). But he totally deserves every one of them. He takes his time with each of the kids. He let Ty come sit by him first, while Tony held Bailey (I was acting as paparazzi of course!) Then, after B got to watch him with Ty for a little while, Ty hopped up on his lap and we stuck B up there too. She did great for about the first 2 minutes, but then she saw me and realized that Tony was no longer holding her and all hell broke loose. But she was so cute in her little 1st Christmas outfit And don’t worry, we had nice toasty pants on her until it was our turn and then I did a quick swap with the tutu

So, here is our photo from 2009! Sorry it looks a bit crappy, it is scanned after all (they don’t offer them digitally) and I haven’t had time yet to download them off of my camera yet and I need to go to bed!

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Oh Christmas Tree!

Amy — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:59:23 +0000

Check out the awesome starbursts from the lights in this shot! I'm SO stoked about it!

For my fellow photo gurus out there, here were my settings
f/22, SS 30", ISO 100 - Definitely have to use the tripod. Give it a shot, I'd love to see your tree like this! Having the super long shutter speed and high f-stop is what gives it the starbursts.

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Decking Our Halls…

Amy — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:00:49 +0000

This will probably be the last year that we'll be in our little house for the Holidays (more to come on that soon I'm hoping!) So, it was very bittersweet digging out all of our Christmas stuff. We are taking it easy this year and I'm not putting up my Christmas in the City village, but it will definitely be up in our new house next year. Tony was VERY happy to be digging everything out of the crawl space for the LAST time. He only said maybe 15 curse words this year instead of the usual 50 or so

Tyson was AWESOME at decorating the tree this year. As you may recall last year, he concentrated the majority of the bulbs in ONE spot on the tree. But this year, he was a decorating rock star and even wanted to put the star on the top on (which I tried to let him help with, but it's Swarovski, man!)

Here's Tyson hard at work and VERy focused

And since his Daddy was making weird faces and poses for the camera, guess who else had to do it??!

And I'm SO proud of myself for taking all of these without any flash (yay, me!)

More focus and concentration...

That smile...and my attempt at getting some Xmas tree bokeh!

What the Princess thinks of our Xmas tree...let's pray she doesn't start crawling until after it's all down because then I think she'll LOVE it!

And I'm in LOVE with our new stockings that I splurged on this year. And it was awesome to finally be able to use the 5th stocking holder that I've had for the last 5 years

Had SO much fun taking this pic, I've always wanted to get one with the "glow" of the Christmas Tree. It took my tripod and lots of test shots, but I LOVE it!

It's been so awesome getting these annual ornaments, someday I'll have a whole tree full I hope!

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Opening Santa’s Present!

Amy — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:51:00 +0000

Here’s a video of Ty opening his big Santa gift on Christmas morning!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPq9kUBdEl4&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]

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Christmas Day 2008

Amy — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:02:00 +0000

After we finished up our breakfast and I got our ham in the oven, our family began to arrive. We have all of my side over on Christmas day and this year even my step-brother and step-sister were in town from Canada with their significant others, so we had some additional guests!

We had some Ham with this great glaze, my mom made Giada's mashed potatoes and had green bean casserole and lots of other things to go with it. It all actually turned out pretty good too! Usually I screw something up, but this year I managed not to somehow!

We had a really fun day, Carissa brought over her Wii which provided hours of endless entertainment of course and everyone ended up staying much later than we all ever thought, it was SO much fun!!

Of course, here are some photos.

One of the best parts of Christmas, cookies!

I LOVE my dinnerware that I got a few years ago for Christmas. It's the only time of year that it gets used, but I just love it and it's from TARGET of all places! Ha!

Got this fabulous appetizer thing on Xmas eve, worked great for our apps!

Everyone enjoying some snacks

My step-mom and step-sister

The Garbage Man still going around collecting his garbage! Hey, wait a second, why is the DRIVER guy from his Transport truck in there??

Opening presents!

Cool new GeoTrax airplane

Bow issues...

More legos for Mommy to assemble!

My sister got all sorts of new excercise equipment, here she is testing out one of them (I know she'll be mad that I posted this, but that's the beauty of it being MY blog! LOL)

After all of the presents were opened, I realized I hadn't gotten the Sing Stand that I REALLY wanted super badly. I was SURE that SOMEONE had to have gotten it for me, but it was ok. Then, my mom and step-dad surprised me with one more box that was in their trunk. Guess what is was?!

And guess who loves it even more than I do?! We are in SO much trouble now!

He was singing to the Go Fish Guys Snazzy song here and waving his hands over his head just like they do when they perform.

Here is a video of him singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider by the Go Fish Guys. Yeah, I think he's got that performance gene in him from me...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNnj0IsTLR0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6]
Time for a little guitar hero!

Arlene & Cory boxing on the Wii

More singing, apparently when he's on the couch, it's his "stage"...

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas 2008. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. I hope that your new year brings you joy and happiness. For us, 2009 will be a year of change, but hopefully it will all be good!

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Christmas Morning 2008

Amy — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:33:00 +0000

Chrstimas morning was always one of my fondest memories as a kid. But I have to say it's even more fun when you have children of your own to anticipate their excitement and joy and see their eyes light up when they see that Santa has arrived! Ty was sure when he woke up that Santa had not come to our house because he hadn't heard him say "Ho, Ho, Ho", so after convincing him that Santa quietly came and went, he headed downstairs to see for himself.

Spotted the big present!

Tearing into it

SO happy that he finally got his transport truck!

Onto the stocking!

Lego diggers!

MN Gopher Zambone

Onto the last little bag that Santa brought

Some new underwear since Santa is SO happy that he's a big boy now and is finally potty trained (our greatest Christmas gift of all!)

His transport truck that he wanted to desperately

More stocking fun

The aftermath...I shudder to think what it will be like next year with 2 kids!

A VERY happy boy

Time for some breakfast! My mom always made this awesome Ham & Egg Brunch Bake every year. But since Tony doesn't like eggs and Ty probably wouldn't eat it, I've given up hope of continuing the tradition. So, this year, we tried something new. Pillsbury refrigerated Cinnamon Rolls, they were REALLY good and everyone liked them.

Being a very silly boy

Mmmmmmmm....

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Christmas Eve 2008

Amy — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 02:12:00 +0000

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone. All of the time, preparation and stress is now behind us and we can revel in the memories that were made this year. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. Over the next few days, I'll post our photos from our Christmas this year. There are a LOT, so I apologize in advance for the excess of them!

Every Christmas Eve we go over to Tony's Mom & Dad's house. It's always a great time and this year was even more special since Amy's fiance, Scott, was with us for the first time. It's crazy to think that next year we will have a 9 month old with us as well (and maybe Amy & Scott will have one on the way?!).

My poor Mother in Law had her oven give out halfway through cooking our delicious annual prime rib. It definitely provided a good story to reflect on over the years ahead. They tried to take it over to Bev's mom's house, but couldn't get into the house. Then, we thought we'd just cook it on the grill. The guys dusted the snow off of it, fired it up and the roast caught on fire, not more than 30 seconds later, it died since it ran out of propane! So, off to the neighbors we went in our last attempt to cook the darn thing. Thankfully, their oven was free and we had a delicious dinner after all of that.

Anyways, now onto the photos!

The Lemaniak Family annual Christmas photo

Ty really loved Grandma Bev's Santa that reads these little books this year. Here they are enjoying it together.

Being silly while we tracked Santa on the computer

Tony and Ty have been reciting parts of Charlie Brown Christmas, here they are doing the part where they are trying to get Schroeder to play Jingle Bells.

Ty and Scott watching the Grinch

My cute hubby

Grandpa Wayne & Grandma Bev

A rare picture of just the two of us!

Brother & Sister

Bride & Groom to be!

The Amy's

Attempt at getting a decent shot of me and my boy, but this is what he's like, so might as well capture it in the photo!

Ty and Auntie Amy

The silly boys

Proud grandparents

Pretty Christmas table

Grandpa Wayne got out the Night Before Christmas to read to us all.

Tony's cousin Josh played Santa for the 2nd year. He did a great job.
Here Ty could just hear Santa's bells outside the front door.

Santa!

Pure excitement and joy

Telling Santa that he's been a good boy this year

Santa brought these red noses for everyone and we all sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Tony even wore one
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Opening the present that Santa brought

Hugs from Santa

I love this photo of him, it looks almost magical

Time to open the rest of our gifts!

Every time he would open a gift, he would say "Ohhhhh, geez!!" and get super excited

He got so many great games that he already loves playing

Giving Faith a hug

Annual Christmas Even Jammies

Playing with his new garbage truck, he LOVES it!

Some cookies and milk for Santa back at home

Santa was here

That's all from Christmas Eve! More to come from Christmas Day

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