Biggest little Visit in the World!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the nickname for Reno, this is a little play on words. (The Biggest Little City in the World.) Elena and I flew out on the 6th and came back home on the 12th. Short stay, but had lots of fun!

We had planned to all go together (both Jim, I and the kids) but finances were such that...well, need I go on? The reason for our visit was mainly to be present as my brother's temple work was completed. Jason (3rd out of the 4 of us siblings) passed away last January at the age of 23 and had not as yet made temple covenants.

There was no way I was going to not be there, even though as a female I could not act as proxy for him. My father did his Initiatory work in preparation for him to receive his Endowments, which my brother Dan was able to do for him. I have never been in a more full session! It was literally bursting at the seams, with rows of chairs being added as more people came in to join us. It was a very exciting, deep and meaningful morning in the temple. I think he was there too, I felt it, and his acceptance. I think he was ready. It was a very special experience and I felt so blessed to be there.

The rest of the time of our visit we crammed full of as much as possible, although we lost a day or two by being sick. (Of all times and places to get sick- Vacation!) It seems whenever we travel a great distance somebody catches something. I went to the theater with family 4 different times- seeing Twilight: New Moon, Avatar, The Young Victoria, and Leap Year. Some were better than others, but it was being out with family that was the funnest part.

We got to see cousin Jackson...

And cousin Adyn too! My, has he gotten big!!

Elena and Jackson had fun rekindling their friendship, since a year previous. It would be fun in an ideal world to live closer to all our family. Just not probable right now...And cuddling with Grandma is neverending fun!

We rode the Ferris Wheel at Scheel's, which Elena still talks about. We also got to go to our cousins, the Worlton's, on the other side of town for a dinner get together and play on their Wii. Fun times, fun times.

The trip went way too fast and I am plotting when I can sneak away again.

Santa Came to Town!

But before he came, it snowed. And we tried to sled, in vain.

They truly look happy, no? The snow was way too wet. Not good snowman making, snowshoeing, or sledding weather. The sled, once full of kids, sank all the way down, filled up with snow, then soaked all the way through your clothes. But, hey- we had a white Christmas! (Just like the ones I used to know!)

Then it was time to get ready for Santa to come.

First, we have to get the tree up. Our handy-dandy fake one!

Spooky wanted to help...much to the amusement of the kids!

Finally we got the ornaments all in place!

But, as you can imagine they didn't stay on long. The cat kept climbing the tree, which caused ornaments to fall, and children to laugh...

Then we had to go through the festival of lights display, as is tradition. They do it every year by our house. Here's just a glimpse. I love that you can tune to their special holiday channel to get the full effect!

I guess my camera doesn't do so well at night, but you get the idea!

Next we had to make sure all was under the tree!

And that Santa had some goodies. (Sleepy Aaron did his best to resist.)

Here's what we found in the morning!

The kids were pros at unwrapping. Next year we'll try to slow them down a bit so it lasts a little longer.

We were blessed by all the love from others, symbolized in gifts!

Later that morning we went over to Grandma & Pop Feagin's for a little Christmas continuation. Woo Hoo!

Soon after Christmas it was time (according to Jim) to un-decorate. The tree was the last thing to go down, but it didn't stay empty long! Elena gathered anything that would stay on the tree.

Hilarious!

So, we celebrated the holidays at home this year. Part of me is grateful we didn't have to travel with the crowds, but I really missed my extended family. Here is a picture of all of us last year.

I will be seeing the family soon anyhow! I fly out this week to Reno for a 7 day stay. I am definitely looking forward to this get-away, despite the parallel weather. (It's just as cold there as it is here, I'm afraid.)

May 2010 bring everyone hope renewed- hope of a new start, hope in Christ who has made all things possible.

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!