Merry Christmas!

The afternoon before Christmas eve we took the kids to the mall to see Santa. We were lucky to get there soon before they cut off the line to get in. I felt like I was in line for a ride at Disneyworld! I think we waited for abou an hour and a half or so. Next year we're going right after Thanksgiving...no waiting! But the kids loved it! This is the first year that we didn't have a crying child for the picture. Yippee!

We stayed home this Christmas, as we alternate each year with each side of the family. I was grateful not to have to travel with the masses, although I greatly missed celebrating with my parents and siblings. I will be heading to Reno in 2 weeks or so, however for a visit! So I was not too sad knowing I had that to look forward to soon.

The kids tore open their gifts with ferver, and received a modest haul of new toys.

We have been very blessed this year and want to express our appreciation to our Father in Heaven for his loving kindness on all of us, His children.

Merry Christmas to all and a happy New Year!

Traditions and recipes

Last year I posted some of our Christmas Traditions, specifically celebrating Sinter Klaasje. Click here for a quick refresher. We celebrated again this year, of course! Here's what Sinter Klaas brought us-



Some Diego for Aaron, Hello Kitty for Elena, building blocks to share, a camera for mommy and a movie for daddy! (Sorry about the yucky-looking fireplace.)

If you are curious about how the children's song goes, watch the old school "Miracle on 34th Street" with Maureen O'Hara. There's a scene when a little dutch girl goes to see Santa and they sing the song. Very cute, although it's quite obvious the little actress is 100% American. Here are the lyrics they sing in the movie:

"Sinterklaas gepoentje
Gooi wat in mijn schoentje
Doet maar in het haastje
Dank U Sinterklaasje"


Also, last year I neglected to post some of the traditional recipes my grandparents passed down to us. These are primarily Norwegian favorites.


#1 Lefsa


Peel and boil 6 potatoes
1 cube of butter
2 cups of flour
Mix all together and roll the dough in flour. Cut in size of a plate, continue doing so until all the dough is used. Dry fry individually in a skillet on medium-high heat, until both sides are browned. Stack and serve with any topping desired. Even with beef stroganoff on top!


#2 Ollibollen

Take a box of any cake doughnut mix and mix in currants, raisins, or dried fruit mix. Roll in small (1-inch) balls and drop in a deep-fat fryer with hot oil until golden brown. Remove from oil and once cooled, drop in bag of powdered sugar and shake around. The ball only needs to be lightly coated with powdered sugar. Enjoy! (This seems similar to Russian Teacakes to me.)

Share some of your cool or unusual traditions please! And be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom for some holiday fun!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I was interested to learn that at the original Thanksgiving, they most likely ate venison and squirrel as opposed to wild turkey. Then it actually became a national holiday in the late 1800's, by decree of President Lincoln. At that time the more traditional feasting food was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and so on. So we are actually eating food normally consumed at that time, versus the assumed "traditional" fare of the 1600's. Fascinating, no?

That being said, we enjoyed our ca. 1800's holiday feast. We went over to Jim's parents, who only live approximately 20 minutes away in a neighboring town. Jim's brother and wife, Cacilda, were also there. They are leaving next week for China for a couple years for government work, so it's the last time we'll see them in a while- unless we decide to starve ourselves and live in a box for a year so we can visit the great wall. (Not against trying that!)

(Dinnertime + Feagin's= Discourses on Politics)

Karen (Jim's mom) made most of the feast. My contributions, although small, garner no small amount of pride on my part. (Sorry, too much Jane Austen lately.) I made 3 pumpkin pies from scratch- from our Halloween pumpkins, as well as a strawberry-rhubarb pie. The rhubarb was from our garden this summer, which I gradually harvested then put in the freezer. I also made some corn muffins, with some added flax-meal and honey. Delicious and nutritious!

Overall it was a great meal and even better was spending precious time with family! I hope everyone else had a Happy Thanksgiving!

All Hallow's Eve

I'm just a week or so late in posting. I hope people aren't tired of seeing the Halloween blogs, but I just wanted to share a few pics of the costumes. Most of this is actually from friday the 30th, at the ward "trunk-or-treat" get-together.

Aaron is on the left and Elena is on the right. They got to have TWO nights of candy-gathering! How lucky is that? Here's the group shot:

Peter Pan was dashing.

And this one sure had happy feet for many hours.

The weather was accomodating both nights, much to our glee. Jim is a HUGE Halloween fanatic. We have about 4 large plastic buckets we dig out every year. This, however was the extent of our pumpkin "decorating"-

Sunday after Halloween I was home with a quite gooey 2 year old, and a neighbor knocked on the door to tell us they loved our set-up on Halloween for the trick-or-treaters. But mostly she just wanted to give us all her decorations they didn't use. Of course we were happy to acoomodate! I have a short clip of our Halloween set-up the kids had to brave to get their candy.

A fog machine, strobe light, cemetary, and spooky music. Almost scared our kids too, but not quite! We rationed all the candy to 10 pieces each, and I took the rest to work. Phew! Looking forward to Thanksgiving now- to having more substantial nutritional intake. Hope everyone had a good Halloween!

Pumpkin Patchiness

Friday Jim had the day off, so we hied ourselves to Larriland Farm out in the country of Howard County to pick our own pumpkins. It was our first time doing this as a family and it was terribly fun!

Looking for the perfect pumkpin (and modeling)...

A handsome lad I must say, despite the runny nose.

Then we did the hay maze after we put our finds in the truck. The kids had fun hiding from us.


Can you find me? Where's Waldo...

And Daddy too...

They even had a cute little maze for the littlest of adventurers.

They had a little petting zoo and hayrides, and pick your own everything else too. Apparently this place has a lot of things going on during the weekends. Next year maybe we'll try a saturday and see what it's all about!

My lil' pumpkin!

In the Good Old Autumntime

Over the past week we have enjoyed what dry days we have been blessed with by spending them outside. We've filled dozens of lawn bags, with leaves, sticks and pine needles, and gone on some lovely walks around the neighborhood.
Elena and Aaron enjoy all things fall and festive. They helped me rake and bag the leaves. Well, kind of. A little bit. It was much more fun for them to run through the piles and jump in them, scattering the leaves.

I find it humorous that Aaron's expression turns to "codfish" whenever I snap a picture.

The colors are so beautiful, almost convincing me to change my favorite season. Here are just a few snapshots from our most recent walk around a lake in the area. I can't get some of them to upload without flipping for some reason...

There was a little playpark as well, which the kids naturally got to jump out and enjoy, even though the swings were a wee tad wet still.

I'll take many more days like this, please!

Autumn has fallen

Behind our house some major shroomage has sprung up. And Elena was the one who found them! She pulled them up out of the ground before I knew what was going on. Needless to say, some major hand washing was soon initiated.
I have always wanted to learn which mushrooms were poisonous and which are edible. It would be cool to make a salad from my backyard! In the meantime, I will continue to tell Elena we don't touch the fungi.



Also, the kids are getting VERY excited about Halloween. Mostly for dressing up in costumes. Elena's favorite pastime these days is to find random things and put them on her somehow and say she's wearing a constume. (Look at me!) Then Aaron brings me stuff to put on him so he can be like his big sister.



Never a dull day around here. If only they would stop fighting with each other!

(Un)happy Birthday!

Aaron turned a big two years old on thursday, so Friday we were off to the photographer! The second we went into the room he freaked. I have no clue why! Last time he was there he played happily while his sister was being captured on film. I just don't understand. It was like pulling teeth! We got less than ten frames by the end of it. And none of them smiling.

At least he looked cute in the little lederhosen oufit...

Once he got his bottle there was no way we were getting it back!

I hadn't planned on being photographed myself, but the lady thought he looked really cute. Jim said he'd be crying too if he had to wear Lederhosen. Aw, c'mon!

This one was probably our favorite!

He had a lot more fun at Grandma's house yesterday as we celebrated with cake and presents. I threw a cake together, nothing too fancy, which was actually pretty tasty!

Blowing out the candles. He loves his new book with wheels!

Even Elena got a cool present!

The victory laps! A common occurence with these two.

A very happy Birthday to you, Aaron. We're sure happy we have you!

New Addition to the family!

Yep, it's finally here! My days of jail and confinement are over! I am now FREE do go and do as I wish! Hahahahahaaaaaaaa. Well, within financial and ethical reason, of course. It's just so very nice to be able to get things done when needed. We are now the proud owners of a red Chevy Blazer, ca. 2000.

It just passed the state inspection (after over $600 in work). Next comes the registration and long lines and another multiple hundreds of dollars spent. Gotta love Maryland! They tax you on the sale price. The price we pay for Freedom...
We bought the car off Jim's brother who is moving to Beijing for 3 years. (Generously, only for $1) Unfortunately, they tax us on their minimum purchase price which is $640 give or take. Ouch! Needless to say, nothing in life is free. I am just grateful to have a vehicle and no car payment. We are working on eliminating all our debt. Which is not so easy to do when things keep coming up. And double diapers.
But the kids sure love the "truck"! It has much more foot space for them. And they love to play around in it and figure out all the new buttons. They are noticing new things as we drive around because they are up much higher.

Here they are, loving feeling so big and tall in the world.

My New Nephew

My sister Lauren gave birth to her second son, Adyn Jason Michael Hoover, on August 1st, 2009 at 1:01 am. That's the reason I went to Reno from the 22nd to the 31st of August! (I'll show more of that later.) He was a big 7 lbs. 12 oz. and 20 inches long.

I was so excited to meet him and hold him. He is such a sweet-natured boy who sleeps a lot. I forgot how tiny and fragile newborn babies are; so precious.

We wanted to make our own attempt at an Anne Geddes photo shoot. Here are just a few samples...

Then, on Sunday evening, August 30th, he was blessed by my Dad with the Bishop present in my parents' home.

I am a proud Auntie!