Merry Christmas

Santa found our house!

God Jul

God Jul! We had a yummy Swedish Christmas Eve dinner. It was yummy and fun, but we sure miss spending the evening with family & friends! Colby reading the story of the birth of Christ from the scriptures before heading to bed to wait for Santa to arrive. Hanna Jammies from Mormor & Morfar!

Sledding

We have a family tradition of going sledding during the Christmas holiday. When we lived in Utah, we usually just had to head down to the park or just up American Fork Canyon. Since moving to Oregon, we have to plan just a little better. Last year, during the snow and ice storm, the sledding just down the street was amazing. This year we headed to Mt. Hood for our sledding fun. We could not have chosen a better day. This fall has been absolutely beautiful - there has been less rain and more blue skies - a wonderful combination in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I took this first picture of Mt. Hood out the front window of our car as we headed up to the mountain. Amazing.

Timberline Lodge

Polar Express

Our friends from Australia organized a fun night out on the Polar Express. We rode the train from Mt. Hood to the North Pole and had a great time with friends. Santa even found us and took time to say Hello!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

A beautiful day to get a Christmas tree (look at that blue sky, very unusual for Oregon in December) it is also Tanner birthday. I think the beautiful day was a gift for him :)

Happy Birthday Tanner

Double digits for my baby... where does the time go?? Happy Birthday Tanner, we love you!

Piano recital

November was piano recital time and the kids did such a great job!

Thanksgiving

We were able to go to Kimberly to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. We had a great trip.... the kids got to see & play with cousins and the adults stayed up late each night playing Canasta.... Fun!!

Here is a picture of the pie Tanner baked with Mormor. Quite creative! Manwaring cousins

Stark Cousins!

Halloween!

Ok, so I just realized that I haven't posted anything since the end of August. It has been a crazy couple of months. Soccer started, school started, and life got busy. I always dread and love the beginning of school. I am definitely ready for a few hours a day to have that are all mine, but I also really miss the kids. They are so happy when they are home (except when they are fighting)! School starts and so does the chaos that goes along with all the activities.

Monday night we carved pumpkins. For years before moving to Oregon we always carved pumpkins with our good friends Thayne & Lanae, even before any of us had any little munchkins running around. We still have a great time, but not nearly as much fun as with good friends.

Then it was Halloween. Thanks Grandma for making the cute cowboy outfits for Annika & Arik. They turned out so great. For Halloween, Tanner was obsessed with being a banana. Then, his Uncle Derrik shows up for trick-or-treating in the same outfit - Hilarious!! Two peas in a pod, or should I say bananas!

Our little Chef

Tanner is hilarious! He has decided that he wants to bake all the time and start cooking dinner a couple of nights a week for me. Now I know I should be so excited for the help, but for some reason I feel like it is multiplying my work. Then I feel guilty..... by the time I was his age I already knew how to sew, clean and had a job baking bread - BRAVO Mom!

Thursday we went grocery shopping for the items on his list and Friday the cooking/baking began . Luckily Grandma had given the kids a great cookbook and he chose items from that:

1. Milkshakes

2. Chocolate & peanut covered frozen bananas

3. Donuts

YUM!

Now Annika & Arik are jealous, especially Arik since he loves to cook and has since he was little. I think we are going to have to put into place a cooking day for each with a good plan of execution. Wish me luck!

I can see!

I remember Mr. Eagler calling my mom at the end of class. It was either 7th or 8th grade, not sure. He told her that I couldn't see the Periodic Table in science class and that I needed glasses. I knew the boys needed glasses a year ago, but we were waiting as long as possible to get them, they were both so young. Yesterday we picked up the frames they had chosen (Colby insisted they get whatever frames they wanted so they would be happy wearing them).

Here are the results:

Could these boys be any cuter at all! I just love how the frames match their personalities perfectly.