Merry Christmas Eve Morning!

Didn't Make It

Sleeping Under the Tree

Alstan and Elsie wanted to try to sleep under the tree tonight. I did say, "try", so we'll see how this goes.

Blogging

As some of you already know we now have a couple more bloggers in the family. Alstan and Elsie have started their own blogs. This has given Alstan a great opportunity to share his ideas while getting in a little spelling/writing practice. For some of the first post he made mom do the writing, and then he did a couple where he wrote and later had mom fix mistakes. Now he has taken over the writing and mom just interprets in parenthesis underneath.

alstansdinos.blogspot.com

And Elsie is enjoying having people view her post too.

princesselsiemarie.blogspot.com

Holiday Baking Challenge

Mom wanted dad to record the Holiday Baking Championship this year. The whole family has ended up watching the last three or four episodes. The result has been that Alstan and Elsie want to do their own baking challenges. We put out a variety of ingredients on the table and told them they had to make a holiday snack for children ages 4-6.

Here we go:

Check out their winning treats.

Alstan's Christmas Concert

Alstan is in the blue striped sweater three in from the end. In the videos there is another row of kids in front of him, so it is a little more difficult to see him.

Elsie's Christmas Concert

Here are some videos from Elsie's concert... Ok all of her concert. She was so excited about it, but it is kinda hard to tell from the videos. She said she saw where I was standing but as you can see she doesn't look in my direction. It was pretty crowded in there and I think she felt a bit overwhelmed.   

Cookie Making

This post is almost a week late now, but still in the correct season!  Last weekend was Christmas Cookie making at Aunt Nette's. We has such a good time and came home with way more cookies than a family of four can eat!

First Gifts Under the Tree!

There is lots of excitement in the house! Alstan and Elsie wrapped their gifts for each other tonight. Let's see if they can keep their secrets until Christmas.

Cutest Santa Helper!

Elsie just loves her Santa hat she won during the Aker's Thanksgiving Bingo game!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Prep

As part of our pie making experience this year we made our own crust.

The kids wanted to try apple pie this year. It ended up looking ok, so now it will just be up to the taste testers tomorrow.

First Snow of the Year!

We usually have to spend a fair amount of time prepping our children about how the first snow fall doesn't accumulate. This year that conversation did not happen. We had 11" of snow to play in this morning!

Big Day!

This post is a bit late, but here are a few photos from Carrie and Garret's wedding. To Elsie and Alstan this wedding was as much about them as it was the bride and groom. Elsie had spent the last months just looking forward to this day. She informed almost anyone she talked about how she was going to be a flower girl and was drawing pictures of herself and Alstan in their fancy clothes almost every day of that last week before the wedding.

Perfect Day for a Hike!

It is not very often that we get weather in the seventies in November. Alstan had an early release today and mom had to stay home to watch Elsie, so we thought we had better take advantage of the nice weather by getting out for a hike. We even had time for a picnic before the sun set.