Christmas Recap

Wow, I can't believe it's all over - how is it that Christmas is always over WAY before I think it should be? Even as prepared as I felt after Thanksgiving, there were still so many Christmas things I wanted to do that didn't get done. I'm starting to wonder if I will always feel post-Christmas frustration, or if I will - some year - just be at peace with what we DID get done. Hmm, I smell a New Year's resolution in there somewhere . . .

That said, we did have a fantastic Christmas, and continue to do so as we have retreated to my mom and dad's house in the hills this weekend. I love coming here to hide from our responsibilities . . . . thinking I might stay 'till Valentine's Day.

Backing up a bit, our trip to Minneapolis was mostly successful, with the exception of a missed jaunt out to Mark's brother's house due to the storm that dumped on central Minnesota while we were there. Had a quick visit to Mark's parents, then headed to Minneapolis where we took the kids to the Guthrie Theater to see "A Christmas Carol" - something I used to do with my family when I was young. Then to the St. Paul Hotel for my cousin's wedding - beautiful, of course - a Christmas wedding in St. Paul - very cool experience! THEN we closed out the weekend with a Vikings game.

So.

Much.

Fun.

Even though they lost.

Amazing - the boys got into it WAY more than we thought they would. There aren't words to explain how excited these kids were - bouncing off walls, quite literally. I was prepared to be running to the concession stand and bathrooms with them the entire game, but those kids did not move. Other than to jump up and down. They were in a zone, focused, totally fixated on the game. And totally cute.

Here they are, getting their first glimpse at the field. They were awestruck.

See Mark in the background? He was talking to some guy he happened to see from Rapid City. Can you stand it? From Rapid City. Out of 60,000 people at this game, he finds someone he knows from home. Unreal. My husband knows someone EVERYWHERE we go. It's almost irritating.

And here is Mr. Moneybags himself. That would be the owner of the Vikings. Zygi Wilf. We had seats right in front of his box. Wasn't particularly a happy guy by the end of the game. But it was fun to see him stomp around.

Here's my handsome babies on Christmas Eve. Mark did NOT like the hats, so we only had them on for pictures - didn't wear them to church. Scrooge.

Christmas Day, we headed up to my mom and dad's - our family has now grown big enough to have the "kids table." Which the kids thought was pretty cool.

Here's what we woke up to this morning - it forced us to cancel a shopping trip, but it was still beautiful.

Jack and Noah are getting in some fun cousin time and we're loving RELAXING. Doing NOTHING. It's a great thing.

On Our Way!

Whew! The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped, the Christmas cards are mailed, the house is clean, even the hamster cage is clean, the laundry is done, the checking account is balanced, and we are all packed and ready to hit the road on our mini Christmas vacation. We head out for MN tomorrow - with a Friday night stop to have Christmas with Mark's family, then on to Minneapolis for a wedding, some fun Christmas-y stuff, and a Vikings game on Sunday. To make things more interesting, Minneapolis is expected to get a big snowstorm over the weekend. Hmmm - hopefully we make it home for Christmas! :)

We're all snuggled in right now, watching "A Christmas Carol" which has one of my most favorite quotes: "And God bless us every one." Love it!

Improving My Attitude (about the tree, anyway)

I finished the tree last weekend, and I'm happier with it now that it has all our STUFF on it. Still looks skinny to me, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Our tree doesn't carry a theme of any kind - it's just full of stuff that all four of us love. Each of us has our favorites - it's like saying hello to old friends after a year.I LOVE my fuzzy snowflakes:
I LOVE my fuzzy snowballs - both white . . .

AND red: (and my whoville tree too) (I guess fuzz would actually be a theme here.)

I love the ornaments that make me smile, thinking of the moments they symbolize:
and I love the ones that make me cry every year . . . like this one. My grandma had the tradition of giving each of her grandkids an ornament EVERY year. At the time, of course, I didn't get how important they would be someday. Now that she's gone, oh, how I treasure each of them. Especially this one - it still has a little label on it with her writing "Annie - Gram '89". Every year I run my fingers over her writing and my heart physically aches for just a few more minutes with her. So many years later, I'm so thankful for her Christmas tradition, and I hope somehow she knows that.

We are currently stuck in the total insanity of the month of December, and I'm already plotting on how to handle next year differently. Even with all my decorating done before Thanksgiving, I'm still running like a crazy person. I've had a headache since Tuesday. That can't be a good sign. Since Tuesday.

So here's my new theory. I think all non-Christmas activities should cease for the month of December so that families can really focus on each other and what this season is really all about. Just revel in some peace and meditate on Jesus. No cub scouts, no sports, no Awana, no small groups. Just family. Society doesn't have to go along with me, but that's how I plan to honor Christmas next December. A month-long Sabbath.

I just had to post these two pictures of my adorable babies. I was messing around one evening, and happened to get a few good pictures of them (and it's HARD to get a good one of Noah. No, not hard. Impossible.)

Noah's new favorite things: Bon Jovi, spelling everything, and using the word "apparently." This kid is full of one-liners lately.

Jack's new favorite things: Singing "Do They Know it's Christmas" at the top of his lungs most of the time, and humming it the rest of the time. Had to be told to knock it off at school. And laughing his head off at Noah. Seriously. No one can get Jack laughing like Noah. I LOVE that bond they have.

Lately I've had the most incredible urge to just go into hibernation with them - it's been hard, for some reason, for Mama Bear to ship them off to school each day. I want them home with me. Every day. Sigh.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree . . .

. . . . this year you have eluded me. I'm bummin'. I am very PARTICULAR about our Christmas trees - we always get a live one, it has to be a Fraiser, and it's always quite BIG. Last year's was massive - 10 feet tall and nice and fat. (See December 2007 posts). So Monday, as a family, we gleefully went to our trusty supplier that has provided us with the perfect tree every year for the past 5 years . . . . and get this. They didn't have any. Any. Meaning they decided not to carry Christmas trees this year. Excuse me?? No one consulted ME on this decision. They can't do that!! Nice. Once we processed this huge disappointment, we sulked out of there, chins dragging on the ground.

We did end up finding one elsewhere . . . . but not exactly what we'd hoped for. Shorter and MUCH skinnier. We keep staring at it, sort of willing it to grow fatter, which of course it won't. I've decided to look on the bright side - at least this one won't take me forever to decorate, and Christmas is only 3 weeks from today so we won't even have it that long. Ah well, in the grand scheme of things, this is definitely not a big issue!

Lefse!

Lefse: (sometimes spelled lefsa) is a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread made out of potato, milk or cream and flour, and cooked on a griddle. Special tools are available for lefse baking, including long wooden turning sticks and special rolling pins with deep grooves. There are significant regional variations in the way lefse is made and eaten, but it generally resembles a flatbread, although in many parts of Norway, especially Valdres, it is far thinner.

This Norwegian delicacy was a Christmas tradition in both mine and Mark's households when we were growing up, as we both come from strong Scandinavian backgrounds. Well, Mark has been in a near panic for the past several years, because he's afraid the tradition is going to pass away with our grandmothers. My 100% Norwegian grandma is already gone, so sadly I can no longer learn from her - but thankfully the Roisum lefse tradition has been passed to Mark's aunt and uncle, so after several years of discussing it, we finally had a lefse-making lesson from them early on Thanksgiving morning. It was so much fun!! We now feel prepared to take on this massive project ourselves in future years. Funny how when you get older, these little traditions you used to take for granted become really important.

Here's Mark, learning how to roll it out . . .

And Uncle Marty, flipping it on the iron . . . .
My extremely focused and driven husband even developed a rolling "stance" . . .
Mark with his aunt and uncle (the experts) -

Nancy, are you proud?? :)

We had a great time and a really nice Thanksgiving. Lots of time relaxing, reading and doing a little Christmas shopping. Tomorrow we head home. And get this - the boys start PIANO lessons on Monday! They are really excited. The ultimate goal is eventually guitar lessons, but we have to start with piano first. Should be interesting.

Here's a rare picture we got of Mark's family. I think we've all been in the same picture maybe once?

Woman on a Mission

That was me the past few days - a woman on a mission. I did something controversial. Hang on to your hats here, folks. I've always been the type of person who does NOT do ANYthing Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I always felt like it was a betrayal or something to Thanksgiving. That said, every December I find myself in the same struggle - running around like crazy the whole month of December trying to "get it all done," and seemingly always falling short of my expectations - ultimately disappointed by something that didn't get done. After a while, you gotta quit banging your head against the wall, you know? So -collective deep breath - I decided to get all my Christmas decorating done before leaving for MN for Thanksgiving. Except the tree. 'Cause we get a BIG live one, and need to be here continually to water it, so that's the one thing we'll do when we get home next week.

Determined to make my plan work, Thursday and Friday I holed up in the house and got it ALL done. And it looks awesome around here. It's the best feeling to know I can come home from MN to a fully decorated house, just enjoy doing our tree, and spending the rest of December actually relaxing and enjoying the Christmas season. And I've accepted it isn't a betrayal to Thanksgiving. We will still fully honor that holiday - and my thankfulness will continue all the way to the end of the year because I won't spend the next month scrambling. Who-hoo!!

Since most of you won't make it to our house during the Christmas season, I thought I would share some of my favorite Christmas things with you . . .

Starting out with our Dept. 56 Snow Village. I got many of these before the kids were even born and these pieces have been out of their boxes once in the past 7 years. I've always been too pressed for time to mess with these - and they just sit in the storage room every Christmas. Not this year!! I had the best time setting these up - and the kids totally love them (see Halloween post).

Most of them have special meanings - these I just love because I have the outdoorsy thing going on in our family room . . .

This one is in honor of our weekly Sunday morning tradition of breakfast at the bagel shop before church:The meaning behind this one should be obvious - it was a gift from Wells Fargo one year:

This one . . . well, Mark just likes soup.

Mark found this one and wanted it because his Dad used to work for Red Owl when Mark was little:

Okay, moving on . . . I LOVE this placemat - I've discovered there's all sorts of cute things you can do with placemats, not just eat on them - this one was like a buck at Target last year on clearance:

These are tin and covered in glitter - found them at the local museum store of all crazy places:

Some cute candlesticks from my mom:

A platter I found this year at my favorite local gift shop:

I call these my "Whoville" trees - they're all sparkly and glittery, hard to tell in the picture:

Here's my beaded penguin family - 4 of them, of course!

And yet another cute placemat that isn't being used as a placemat. Oh, and the trees are RED, not pink like the picture makes them look.

Now we have a really short 2-day week before heading to MN. I plan on spending a lot of time this trip relaxing and NOT dreading the rush of December. I love it when a plan comes together . . . .

Operation Christmas Child

If you haven't heard of this, Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse organization. A quick summary is that people around the U.S. pack shoe boxes with gifts for children of different age groups and then those shoe boxes are then shipped all over the world to kids (mainly in 3rd world countries) who wouldn't normally get any Christmas presents. The gospel is presented to these kids at the time they receive the boxes. It's a very cool service project.

We've enjoyed packing 2 or 3 boxes every year with the kids, but this year, my mom and dad REALLY got into the spirit of it and collected just a ton of stuff to fill boxes with (socks, underwear, toothbrushes, toothpaste, crayons, paper, stuffed animals, balls, jump ropes, cars, jewelry, etc.). So we all gathered at their house Sunday afternoon and filled boxes for a couple hours - we filled 52 boxes!!! It was so much fun, and felt so good. Here's our afternoon:








Now I only wish I could see where each and every box ends up - see each of the 52 kids that will get one of these boxes that we packed not only with fun stuff, but with love and prayer. How cool would that be?

The 2 a.m. Visitor

Okay - really funny story about the other night - but first I have to give some history. When we moved into our house (newly built) 3.5 years ago, a family of mice had already moved in. Builders aren't real big on closing doors, and our little friends had let themselves in. Long story short, we ended up catching 9 (yes NINE) mice in all, but not before one ran across our bed, while I was in it AND awake, reading a book. (We believe this particular mouse had gotten into some poison and was acting erratically). NOT a fun experience. My skin still crawls thinking about it.

So then the other night, at 2:00 a.m. I wake up to hear a distinct scratching sound just 3-4 feet from my head. In 1/2 a second I jumped onto Mark. My poor husband woke up to his wife sitting on him, face in his, whispering "There's something in here!!!" He flips on the light and we force ourselves to look over at the floor by my side of the bed. What I saw was just hilarious. On top of a pillow on the floor, there was Chewy, Noah's hamster, standing on his hind legs, ears perked up, looking at me with big bright eyes. It was so cute - and the fact that it wasn't a mouse again, made him even cuter. I scooped him up and took him back to his cage, from which he had escaped through a loose vent in the roof.

We thought the funniest part about this is that instead of anywhere else in the house he could have gone, he came into our bedroom, around to my side of the bed and climbed up on a pillow, seemingly in search of me. I imagine once he got out, he didn't know where to go or what to do, so searched out the person who takes care of him. Wish I could have gotten a picture . . . .

Oh yeah, by the way, this is my 100th post!!!!! Wow!

Where does a week go?

Well actually I do have the answer to that . . .for a week when a child gets struck down with the stomach flu, anyway. That chewed up my week almost completely, with the exception of today when I was going crazy trying to get caught up after being "nurse mom" for several days. Noah got sick Saturday night, and BOY DID HE GET SICK. Good grief, what a nightmare - mainly for him, obviously, but also for mom and dad, who didn't get more than 2 or 3 hours of sleep that night and I spent several hours that night CLEANING (many rooms, by the way) because he still hasn't figured out how to make it to the bathroom. I don't know if you recall, but I've asked this question in the past - why is it when kids get the stomach flu, it's always AT NIGHT?!?!? No one's given me an answer yet. Still waiting. Anyway, he was through the worst of it by Sunday morning, but the poor kid was just knocked FLAT until Wednesday. Just a sleepy blob on the couch Sun., Mon. and Tues. I think he'd decided he was never going to eat again, but I got stubborn on Tuesday and made him finally eat, at which point he returned to the land of the living pretty quickly. Like in minutes. Thank heavens. So, 4 days and a $90 carpet cleaning bill later, we're back to normal around here. For the time being, anyway . . . .

(By the way, can you BELIEVE Thanksgiving is two weeks from today?!? Whuh?)

Snow Days

I think by this point everyone in the country knows we had a major blizzard here in the Black Hills, starting on Wednesday and finally ending during the night Thursday night. Everyone from Minnesota has been calling saying "we saw the Black Hills on the news!" Thursday was so bad that Mark's bank even closed - which NEVER happens. So we all lounged around in our PJs all day, familiarizing ourselves with the new Wii - whew, is THAT addicting. It was a nice, relaxing day, but by this morning (Friday), we were ready to GET OUT. Here's a little tidbit about our lovely hometown, however: they don't use plows here. Or any other kind of snow removal device for that matter. The city evidently just expects us all to sit around in our houses until the snow MELTS. Cost-effective, don't you think? Luckily we have a very large vehicle with 4-wheel drive, so Mark was able to go to work today and we were able to get out and run some errands (school was cancelled both yesterday and today). I couldn't stay in the house another minute! However, our street was never plowed. In fact, some main thoroughfares in town were never even plowed. It's just a mess. I think I'm going to start withholding our property taxes until we get some service around here!!!! :)

Jack and Noah were WAY excited to get outside in the snow - it about drove them nuts that I made them wait until the 70-mph winds ceased (no joke).

Here's the massive snowman they built with Dad . . . .

While we were out for lunch today, Jack lost yet another tooth (the bottom left hole - he's now missing a total of five) . . . .

. . . . which reminded us of all the crazy times this child has lost his teeth! The first one he ever lost he swallowed while eating a pretzel at the pool; another he lost on the night before Easter, so the Tooth Fairy AND the Easter Bunny came that night; he lost another at the Grand Canyon; and another just minutes before my brother's wedding. Too funny. I don't know how the poor kid manages to eat. His top ones are finally coming through, thank heavens.

A nice side effect of this storm was that one of Mark's best buddies from CO was traveling through town on Wednesday night on his way to MN and ended up getting stuck at a local hotel on the interstate. He literally couldn't even make it through town to our house until today, and is now staying the night with us - his third night in town, which is 3 more than he planned on spending here! The interstate finally opened again a couple hours ago, so he'll be on his merry way in the a.m. We really enjoyed seeing him for a while -

Here they are this evening enjoying the balmy weather (ha) -