Skylar's first sleepover!

Skylar had her first sleepover tonight! She invited her friend Jessica and there was a lot of screaming in the house all night. I didn't know that girls could make so much noise. They are supposed to be sleeping right now, but I hear a lot of giggling coming from the bedroom!

We got our Christmas package from Sweden today! Thank you so much for the gifts. Skylar a Kellen immediately put on their new clothes. Poor James wanted to play his new battleship game, but he just wasn't up to playing. And Brennen loved his little stuffed animal!

James gets his tonsils out!

The doctor thinks that the reason James is always sick and has large lymph nodes is because of his tonsils. So out they came today. He is doing a lot better than when Skylar got hers out, but I can tell that he is suffering a bit. My heart feels so heavy for him, but I know this was the right thing to do. Hopefully, he will no longer be sick all of the time!

Christmas is HERE!!!

Yeah, Santa came!!! The stockings are full and there are presents under the tree! First we cut down the stockings, then we tear into the presents!





All Brennen cared about was his suckers that were in his stocking. He could of cared less about opening presents!

The kids got bikes from Mormor for the lake house.


Skylar got her DS! She has been begging for one since James got his in August.

Kellen's happy dance!

Then we ran over to grandma's house for some more presents.






It was a really wonderful day!

Duncan gets a little extra Christmas love from his papa!

Christmas Eve!

On Christmas Eve, Santa always comes a little early to deliver PJ's to the kids so that they can look nice on Christmas morning when opening presents. The kids love this tradition and here they are with their new jams on!

It was cooking all day for JT as he prepared the food for the Swedish smorgasbord. We tried to make it as close as we could to the one the we have every year down in Nashville. As far as I could tell, we had everything, even the head cheese (mom drove an extra 20 miles on her way up to pick it up for us)! We might just leave off the head cheese next year as well as a few other things. It might be time to change it up a bit. The red cabbage and head cheese are on the chopping block. JT made really great meatballs (mom even said they were awesome and JT gets to be an honorary Swedish chef)! We combined Christmas Eve with the Dean's, so they got their first taste of the Swedish smorgasbord. I am not 100% sure of there reaction! Oh well, they will just have to get use to it, since it is a yearly thing!

Just waiting for the hot stuff!

Then JT read The Night Before Christmas and the kids were off to bed to eagerly await Santa's arrival. Skylar really could not sleep because she was so excited! It was so cute and really reminded me of being a kid!

Oh joy!!

So, here I was singing Joy to the World, on my way to do my last minute Christmas shopping and Boom, my back window explodes! I thought that I was being shot at. I really have no idea what hit me, but this is the end result. All I could think of was how am I going to lock my packages in the car with a big gaping hole in the back! So I made all my shopping quick and hurried home and called the shop. There are times when I really love being in a small town. The people at the body shop were so nice. They ordered me a new window which will be in tomorrow and they picked up the car from my house, vacuumed out all of the glass, taped it up so that I could use it until the window arrived.

Kellen's Christmas Program and Swedish Gingerbread

OK, so today was Kellen's Christmas program at preschool and it was a bit of a disaster. When I got there all of the kids were up front and had just started singing Jingle Bells...

but Kellen was no where to be seen. Finally, I found him. Between the two teachers.

Was he being bad AGAIN(Kellen has been pretty naughty this past week. I have been trying to tell him that Santa is watching, but he doesn't quite understand)? I think that he just did not want to be up front with all the people watching, but I am not really sure. He finally decided to join the class when it was time for opening presents.

For the last song, Kellen decided to be up front with the class. Why he can't face us, I am not sure. Kellen is definitely one of a kind!

We finished up our gingerbread after school today. I think the kids ate more dough than they made cookies, but oh well. I remember doing the same thing when I was a kid.

I did have an epiphany while I was making the gingerbread. Only those who have ever made the Swedish gingerbread can truly appreciate this. I thought, why not use a silpat? So I tried it and it saved me hours. I just roll out the dough on the mat, cut the cookies out on the mat, and cook them on the mat, then they pop right off. No more rolling out the dough and having it rip right when you got it the right thickness. No more ruined cookies that you already cut out because you couldn't get them off the counter. No more totally deformed cookies because they didn't make the transfer from counter to the tray! It was totally awesome! I have never been in such a good mood when I have finished making the Swedish gingerbread!

The Christmas cookies are made...almost!!

While Skylar and James were at school, Kellen and I baked cookies all day (I literally mean all day long!).

We made chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies and buckeyes (a new addition this year thanks to Jen!). Don't worry, we saved some cookies for Skylar and James to decorate!

We also made the dough for the Swedish gingerbread, but that has to be refrigerated overnight and then rolled out, so that is the project for tomorrow. The finished products!

Our first weekend at the lake house (Valhalla)!

People voted and decided that Valhalla is the name we should go with. Anyway, we had a great time getting to know our house a little.

Our first dinner!

Enjoying our new couch!

Playing outside on the frozen lake. We love it (even though mom forgot our ice skates!)




Burrrr...it's cold!

Playing in the snow!

We got home today from school and went right to the snow pile to build a snowman!

Winter Hits!

Well, we are now paying for the wonderful weather we had in November. It was still 50 degrees here last week. Overnight it dropped 40 degrees and has stayed that way. Today we are getting slammed with a blizzard! This is just the beginning!

Nothing helps to make it through a cold winter day like a cup of hot cocoa! I actually made the real deal this time (instead of hot milk with Hershey's syrup in it) and the kids just loved it. I guess there is no going back to the "yucky hot chocolate!"

Brennen's walking! Finally!

He is finally walking everywhere! A little wobbly, but I love it!

The tree gets decorated!

As soon as the kids got home from school, they were yelling to get the tree decorated. So, we put on our Christmas music and the kids went to work. They really loved it and did a pretty good job. There is a large concentration of ornaments in the front of the tree, but I'll spread those out later:)

The lights checker! Kellen is just in love with the lights of Christmas!

The decorators!


The destroyer! Brennen was pulling off the ornaments faster than the kids could get them up.

The finished product!