Thanksgiving in MN (Second Part)

Cuddling with Grandma Margaret and Uncle Mat.

Proud Daddies and their babies.

Grandpa's train! (Becca and Grandma have much better photos of the cousins).
But I love this one of Penny and Sonna. They had so much fun together!

7 under age 7! Made for a lively Thanksgiving!

Playing at church before the baptisms with Penny and Aasta.

Loving this day!

Dear friend Andrea and baby Trygve. He's just 5 days younger!

Sister Sara and Brother Jedd. Sara loaned us this wonderful Moby wrap for carrying Svea.

This was a beautiful Thanksgiving with our families!

Rewind Back to Thanksgiving (First Part)

Jedd drove to Hendricks with Mara and Sonna. I had flown into Minneapolis earlier that week for Svea's tests at Children's Hospital. We had a lovely early Thanksgiving celebration at the farm!

Svea met her Great Aunt Pat.

Mara and Sonna LOVED playing with cousin Aasta. Thankfully, she didn't seem to mind them either! Svea enjoyed her cuddle time with Grandma Joan.

Sonna likes to play Grandma's piano and make up her own words to songs.

The granddaughters with Grandpa Lanny and Grandma Joan at the nursing home in Minneota.

Christmas Day Lefse Making & Stockings

Mara learned how to flip lefse from her Grandma Joan last year. Now she's a pro!

Opening stockings Christmas morning - Princess Bandaids, Hello Kitty Toothbrushes, lunch box, grapefruit, and sleds!

Jedd took the girls sledding the next day on a HUGE hill. They had such a good time and came home with rosy cheeks and even a few scrapes on their chins from some wipe outs!

Christmas Eve 2010

Merry Christmas! When I got out of bed this morning the girls had already sorted, piled, and counted their presents under the tree. (: Here's Sonna's stack.

We let them open one present this morning and by chance they each opened up a puzzle from Grandma Joan and Grandpa Lanny. It was a fabulous gift! Mara's 200 piece puzzle was just right for this puzzle girl and Sonna enjoyed the satisfaction of doing her Curious George puzzle a few times. Mara's finished product.

The UPS truck came to our house and delivered a package for the girls from Uncle Mike and Auntie Sara. It was an amazing package - the girls are now outfitted as Captain Doodle and Super Toots! They had so much fun jumping off the couches pretending to fly.

Not to leave out the little sister.

The girls also received gifts from great Aunt Pat. She sent these hilarious braided headbands with attached hair that were seriously a near perfect match to the girls' hair color. They loved it!

Some cuddle time with Daddy.

Jedd made us a wonderful Christmas dinner. He grilled steaks, made baked potatoes and broccoli. Then we went to church at 5pm, came home and opened the rest of the presents, had some playtime, read some Christmas stories, and tucked the girls into bed with their new reading lights. Thanks to cousins Simon and Claire, the girls are very excited to read (Sonna makes up her own stories based on the pictures) at bedtime.

This morning I told the girls that we would be celebrating Jesus' birth today and that there would be a special service at church tonight. Sonna asked, "Are we really gonna see Baby Jesus at church?" Oh, that's a tough one!

When I told the girls that their cousin Ivar was going to be baby Jesus at his church, Sonna asked, "Are they gonna travel to Bethlehem? Bethlehem's a long ways away!"

Svea is 3 Months Old

Sweet Sisters

This is my champion sleeper Svea. She can sleep through anything and typically sleeps in 8-10 hour stretches at night. I know, I know - it's dreamy! (And it could change . . . )

I put Svea down to sleep on our bed while I made an attempt to clean our bedroom. I left the room for a minute and when I came back the girls had crawled into bed with their baby sister.

This morning I took my first shower while leaving Svea with the girls. (Jedd was already at work). I know it was risky but lately Mara has done a really nice job with Svea, plus I was a little desperate for a shower. The girls were eating cereal and Svea was in her bouncy seat on the floor next to them. I took a quick shower and was on 'high alert' but still fairly confident that all would be well. When I came down the hall to check on Svea all I could see was a huge nighttime pull-ups box from Costco that the girls were taping shut. ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I'M THINKING? I rounded the corner and Svea was safe in her bouncy seat.

Decorating Christmas Cookies

Check out our Christmas tree. The ornaments were not where I thought they'd be and I have yet to go back down in the crawl space to find them. I actually enjoy the simplicity of the beautiful white lights, but after a few days the girls took matters into their own hands and decorated it with purple and pink crepe paper. Jedd calls it our Lenten Christmas tree.

Svea joined the decorating scene too.

It's the first day of Christmas break and the girls stayed in their pj's until 1:30 this afternoon. The day started with Mara wanting to clean their room but Sonna wasn't so interested so there was a fair amount of yelling. So we transitioned into a Curious George episode, a trip to the grocery store in their pj's (the powdered sugar expired in 2007!), and then frosted some cookies. Sonna literally could not help putting her fingers in her mouth so I gave up on reminding her not to. :) The girls added several drops of food coloring so we had some rather bright pinks, greens, and blues! Mara wanted to mix pink and yellow so we had a pretty orange color too.

They each did 10 cookies and then Mara suggested they get dressed and go outside to play. Great idea!

Christmas Cookies

Sonna is always on the move. She skips or hops or runs, rather than walks. And here she's multi-tasking. She's a phone talking, cookie baking, lip gloss wearing, Ballerina.

Mara, Sonna and I rolled out Grandma Anderson's sugar cookie recipe. It was a lot of fun once the girls stopped arguing over who's turn it was to do what. They used sprinkles (colored sugar) to decorate the first batch and the rest we left to frost tomorrow. I think spreading it out over two days works best with little ones, especially since it requires a fair amount of patience. We did bells, Christmas trees, stars, hearts, circles/Christmas balls, candles, and teddy bears.

I love this little outfit because it represents Svea's drawer of clothes. The leggings and leather booties are hand-me-downs from Mat and Stephanie's kids, the shirt is one of Aasta's, and the sweater dress is from Grandma Margaret. It has been so fun to have some different clothes for Svea. Mara and Sonna had so much pastel pink, light weight 0-3 and 3-6 month clothes because they were early May babies. I'm enjoying the non-pastel wintery clothes for Svea!

Christmas Carmel Making

Aunt Louie's carmels are a favorite treat! Mara cut the florist paper to wrap the carmels in, Sonna used her nifty new tape dispenser from Grandma Margaret to tape the ends, and Jedd had patience. :)

Delicious!

Svea chillin' in a sweater vest being entertained by sister Mara.

Svea's Smiles

Svea is one week shy of her 3 month birthday! Such a happy baby.