The Hannig Home

I've taken a Christmas blogging break.  This Christmas season was the busiest of my life, even without working full time.  I added a bunch of other activities to make the season crazy - like building a life-size stable and manger for our church, doing my first ever cookie exchange (needed to bake 8 dozen cookies), making our 2011 Christmas card (never again!), hosting 4 parties, being on our church's Christmas Eve service planning committee, being a wiseman in our church Christmas play (Paul was a wiseman too, and Benny was a camel and Luke a donkey), etc., etc., etc.  I loved every minute of it though, since Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  I will get back to steady blogging in January when life slows down.  I have a lot of catching up to do since Ben and Luke are growing and changing like crazy every day.   Here are some pictures to bridge the gap since my last blog post.  Our Christmas tree.  I've always wanted a really tall tree!   I love this tree!  Just w

We were asked at MOPS to share a Christmas tradition that we remember as a child.  I shared this favorite.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving us such awesome memories.  I hope to have special traditions for Luke and Ben that they will remember for years and years. “When my siblings and I were little we had this huge old-school record player.  At christmas time, my dad would hook the record player up to some big speakers that he hid behind a pine tree outside of our front door.  We had a ton of christmas records and we'd play the records and the music would project outside for all the town to hear!  On the weekends and evenings us kids would rotate being 'on duty' to keep watch over the records and ensure the music never stopped.  We'd play the records over and over again.  We had some great oldies like Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, etc.  It was so exciting to see people walk by our house and be suprised by the christmas music.  It always

Paul start ed telling Luke bedtime stories a few months ago....stories about people we know. Most of the time they are about a grandma or grandpa, but once in a while Luke reqests a story about Chris Ingle, the handy man who put in our doors and did some other work around the house.  So now most nights Luke will say something like this, "Tell story him, daddy" (i.e. tell me a story about him...).  Tell story Grandpa ernie, dad."  Paul always starts out his grandpa ernie stories the same way..."Grandpa ernie was born in Richmond, MN, on October 15, 1944..."  And from there the stories take all sorts of turns.  The other night the story went..."that day in 1944, the day grandpa ernie was born, was unusually cold for an October day.  It was so cold that people couldn't believe it.  And from that day on, anytime there was unusual weather, people would say, "We're having an Ernie."  Luke loved that one. A different story night I zoned

Ben got a spanking today.  From Luke.  Luke put his vikings helmet on Ben for a while this afternoon.  Paul took it off of Ben when he'd had enough.  Luke grabbed it and said, "I put it away, I put it away." And he proceeded to put it away.  Then he walked straight up to the kitchen and came back a second later with the wooden spoon.  I said "What's that for ? Ar e you going to give someone a spanking ?"  "Yes.  Benny.", Luke said.  "He no put the helmet away."  And he gave Ben a light tap with the spoon.  It was Ben's first spanking, and it was administered by his brother.