Holiday Lights Show

There are plenty of things that we have had to cancel this year, so the idea of driving to the Madison Fantasy in Lights show seemed like a good way to get out of the house. We also stopped by Aunt Nette’s house for a walk too! We have done more winter walks this year than all our other years put together.

Gingerbread AT-AT Walker

Well, we finally have two AT-ATs ready for decorating. We have had some trouble keeping the heads attached, so we braced them while decorating. We thought we had them secure a couple of times, and then would randomly hear a crash sound come from the kitchen and find an AT-AT head on the table. We’re crossing our fingers that we don’t hear a loud thump in the kitchen again.

Birthday Cake

We celebrated mom’s birthday on Saturday with dad. Here is the Nutcracker cake Elsie made for her.

Mom’s Birthday Dinner

Dad had a basketball game tonight, so he told the kids to make sure to have mom go out to get dinner. We decided on Chinese. Luckily the place in Dodgeville offered curbside pick up. The kids weren’t so sure about it until they smelt in the car.

Starting Work on Our Gingerbread Display

Happy Thanksgiving!

Although Thanksgiving looked different this year, it was nice to spend time with family. Grandma & Grandpa Zielicke and Aunt Nette joined us in a zoom lunch. Later the kids and Aunt Nette enjoyed playing battleship and watching a Hallmark movie together over zoom.

Thanksgiving Pie

Alstan and Elsie made a rhubarb strawberry pie this year. Elsie made sure she froze some of the rhubarb from grandma and grandpa Zielicke’s this summer so she could use it now. They both worked together to make the pie crust and filling from scratch.

First Snowfall

The kids were so excited about the first snowfall that they got out early enough to make this huge snowball before Elsie’s first zoom meeting for school. Alstan had to finish off the snowman by himself before his 8:30 zoom meeting.

Tree Decorating!

In the year twenty-twenty, when you don’t have room for your star, you just tie it on.

Picking out the Tree

We had planned to get our tree yesterday, but our Flex had different ideas. It decided it was done driving for a while: leaving Dad stranded in the grocery store parking lot. 

Now, what tree to get?

Hmmm... nope

Umm....nope

I guess it is a precut tree for us.

Thanks Aunt Nette for helping us out with your car.

Putting up the Lights

Peppermint Pancakes

Elsie has been getting creative with her cooking lately. Today she made peppermint pancakes in the spirit of starting the holidays early.

Starting the Holidays Early

With everything as crazy as it has been this year, we decided that maybe it would be ok to start our holiday decorating early. It took Alstan a little bit to come around to the idea, but Elsie was on board right away. The nutcrackers are always our first set of decorations put out each year, so we decided to start with them today.

Happy Halloween!

We were pleasantly surprised at how creative people were with giving out candy to make it safe for everyone. It was nice that the kids were able to have a pretty close to normal Halloween. Alstan was a Star Wars rebel riding a Tauntaun and Elsie was Mia from Princes Diaries.

Caramel Apples

We thought we would try making Caramel Apples this year. Our caramel was a bit runny by the next day, but they still tasted good.