All by myself

How precious is this? This is what I found playing diligently in the sandbox when I picked him up from school yesterday. You might not be able to tell, but the shoes are on the wrong feet, the hat and the pants are backwards and the jacket is upside down. 3 year old self-sufficiency. Love it.

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year, everyone! We are looking forward to a 2009 as full of laughter, joy, and good times with friends and family as our 2008. I'm not typically one for resolutions, but here are a few, just for fun:

Cora: I will learn to sleep through the night and put my pacifier back in all by myself. Oh! and get mobile so that I can get into my brother's toys as much as possible.

Larson: I will happily use the potty at every opportunity and I will learn to pedal my trike all by myself.

Brett: I will put in a stone patio for my wife in our front yard (wait...did I just say that out loud? ;) and pass my FAA ground school class (then commence persuading my wife to send me to pilot school -- a trade for the patio maybe???)...plus probably complete a few half-marathons and street scrambles here and there.

Susan: hmmm...I will become proficient at baking my own bread, learn how to sew something that can actually be worn in public by someone in my family (probably a someone under 4 feet tall) and enjoy all the precious time I have with our two little ones as I watch them grow up (sorry for that last sentimental one, but motherhood does tend to do that to a person). Which reminds me that I will also blog regularly with oodles of cute pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Christmas Festivities, Part 2

A visit from Nana & Bompa just after Christmas! Larson was very excited to unwrap a green tractor (which he has termed a "dumper" because the container part tips up like a dump truck) and everyone else's gifts as well. Remember when the act of tearing off the paper just to see what could be inside was the highlight? We were a little housebound for a few days, but still had fun and managed not to completely go crazy. My dad and Brett made the requisite trips to various home improvement stores and my mom and I actually purchased fabric and sewed curtains for the kid's room all in one day! They are pretty simple, but the only other sewing project I've successfully done is hem pants, so I was excited. I will post a photo when they have been hung (we didn't quite get that far...).

Here is Cora modeling a hat my sister knit for her. She says, "I love it! Thanks very much and now will you please take me outside?"

By the time the visit was over, the snow was all melted and already a memory. Thanks for making the long trip out!

Christmas Festivities, Part 1

For the first time in 4 years, I had the luxury of a real vacation at Christmas this year and it was so nice! After entertaining some thoughts of attempting to travel across the country for the holidays, we chose in favor of staying home and, after dealing with the weather we received as an early Christmas present and hearing about all the travel nightmares, are we sure glad we did! Things were relatively quiet around our house, and the table was only set for 3, but it was a peaceful and happy holiday.

Santa did arrive at our house, but all the other presents under the tree also made their appearance on Christmas Eve (definitely some good advice I received from my friend, Melissa!), so I think it was all a little overwhelming for Larson when he first came down the stairs in the morning. We had to put the Santa gifts practically in front of his nose before he realized there were more presents.

I had a lot of fun cooking for the holiday and managed, for Christmas dinner, to successfully bake, roll and frost (ganache, actually :) a yule log. It was made with a lot of chocolate and oh! so delicious...

Also on the menu was a ham with an orange/cinnamon/maple syrup glaze (never baked a ham before either...), mashed potatoes with some properly stored spuds from our CSA, and a salad just the way I like it: greens with plenty of cheese, fruit and nuts. Not too fancy, but with only two adults eating the food, I didn't want to be eating leftovers for a month.

Here is Larson showing off two of his favorite presents: a digger and Diesel 10 from Grandma and Grandpa. And a demonstration of how the turntable works. Check out all the snow outside!

We did actually make it to church on Christmas Eve for a very lovely service that was more crowded than I expected, given the weather. Larson was very impressed by the presence of a harp in the sanctuary and proudly named off all the instruments he could identify. Then he spent a good part of the hour happily stuffing Christmas greenery into the barrel of his cement mixer truck. I was happy that he at least chose a quiet activity.

Santa brought a Playmobil farm for Larson, who had fun watching me put it together and seeing how all the little parts worked. He got a tractor and extra farm "stuff" from Nana & Bompa and has declared that he now wants his own saw so the he can cut things. We'll see about that one...

Cora in her candy-cane stripes enjoying the day and having more stuff available for chewing and grabbing:

Making gingerbread cookies

I just had to post these two photos of our gingerbread cookie-making afternoon. Donned our aprons (Larson: "We're chefs!"), mixed large quantity of dough, then rolled and cut to our heart's content! Yum.

Family snow fun

Here is a lovely view of the fresh snow we were treated to last week. Just like a dusting of powdered sugar! Post-snow, we got a morning of cool, sunny weather, perfect for dusting off some very old equipment of mine:

Once a skier...always a skier. I don't know if it's part and parcel of my Norwegian background, but there are just certain people who are born to love the snow (and if you aren't one of them, you probably at least know one...), and I get all giddy and smiley when the white stuff comes falling down. Even now as an adult. I remember when I was working in Chicago, in an office on the 40th floor of a skyscraper in the loop: we got a big snow one afternoon and I was just gazing out the windows, happy as could be and admiring the view. My coworkers, however, had nothing at all good to say! Lots of grumbling and complaining...it was then that I knew there was just something different about my constitution where winter was concerned. :) My ski coach used to say that it didn't matter how hard he pushed people or how hard they trained, if you didn't have "the love", you'd always be missing the most important ingredient. I'm sure this could apply to lots of other sports/pursuits, as well, but I've definitely learned what he meant.
Cora got treated to a ski around the 'hood on fresh but not too powdery (ie, perfect!) snow last Sunday. I think she liked it! Larson felt left out, but I'm not talented enough to manage to hold him and ski...and he's just a little too big for the bjorn. :) I'm trying to get him all psyched up for some ski lessons next winter! For now, he had to content himself with playing musher to Brett's sled dog action :)
Happy, happy snow day to all the snow bunnies out there!

More cute baby...

"I'd like peace on earth and some teething toys, please"

"Hmmm...this is taking a little longer then I planned; I wonder when lunch is?"

"Oh! There you are, mom! Hey, how's it going?"

"Just...can't...get 'em...all...in, no matter which way I try!"