Christmas Break

We had a marvelous 2.5 weeks off of school for Christmas Break.  It was also a time when both Josh and I had little work to do, so we got to spend some extra special time together as a family. My favorite thing to do!

WE played many games, like spot-it, clue, scooby-doo game, buzzword etc. We went to the playpark to meet with some visiting teachers and simply for fun outdoors, we went to jump-2-it, we went to the zoo for almost 4 hours (we love the zoo membership, have had it probably for 5 years, yeah!). We made some really fun crafts: we made snowglobes from jam jars and small toy animals, fuzzballs and pipecleaners. We also made the cutest napkin rings for Christmas dinner with some family and friends, using cut-off toilet-roll covered in aluminum foil or other pretty paper,then using pipecleaners, cotton-balls, glitter, other paper to cover the pretty napkin rings with a Christmas tree (Sofia), Santa-face (Lilian), snowflakes (Boefje and mini-boefje), and gingerbread-men (mama). I love making crafts with them, and they really enjoyed these ones. Making crafts always gives me a aspecial sense of being close to my kids, doing something fun, creative, and feeling that we accomplish something. I love to stare at their faces when they are concentrated on making these things. I love it!

We started running with the girls, just to our playpark and back, which is just over a mile total. We take a break at the playpark to play, and then run back. Mini-boefje comes along in the stroller ofcourse, and Boefje's first tiem went on his 'motor-cycle' (a balancing bike), later on his little bike with training wheels. Lilian looks like an antilope whne she runs and ran all the way without stopping without even being tired. Sofia can run very fast with her strong legs, just wants to learn to 'build up her race'. They both love running and now want to join Cross Country running!

We also had a lot of relaxing time, where we left the kids to play by themselves, which is a little different for me. I always felt like the one thing that made me a 'good' mom was the (extreme) amount of time I spent with them, playing/teaching/laughing/building special bonds of love. I realize now though that continuing that amount of time with them and not letting them do their own thing may in fact turn me into a 'bad' mom. I find it a little hard to let go, and let them be responsible, independent and creative in that way.

We had a special time watching Christmas movies togetehr, listening to Christmas music, and the girls playing a LOT of Christmas songs on the piano (they still do, and I love it). We enjoed the tree with the lights, Josh had made it look so beautiful again, the scented candles, all reminders of the special feeling for this special season. We loved reading stories of Jesus, every day of December, as instigated by the Primary Presidency, and on Christmas Eve , reading the fukll Christmas story together. We also read from a cute children's book that explains 'the real reason for Christmas joy', lots of special fun, with the special Christmas Spirit in our hearst.

Christmas day was extra special this year, as it was ona  SUnday. We went to church, only for the one Sacrament hour, then went home to unwrap our presents. We were sure spoiled with many clothes, shoes and race-cars, and especially with a beautiful digital piano, we LOVE it! Josh' parents gave us some precious photobooks of the cousins camp and family reunion this year, made by Emily, they are wonderful and we look at them very often!!! Jasper and Espen got the most beautiful LDS quiet book I have ever seen, with which both of them play every week, they love it, thank you oma BEcky!!!

We had fun preparing a special Christmas dinner that we were having with Jana and Wayne, and with the Mahes. The kids all played very well together, not even sure if they even ate anything.! They did love the cake-pops we made as well as the ham. Apetizer not so much (made with cooked shrimp, I think I ate about 90% of it! yum!). Anyway, the napkin rings we made were a success, yeah! The recipes were all nice and simple, thanks to Kraft recipes.

And then Christmas was over :( That didn't keep us from watching Christmas shows and from Christmas music, we like to stretch this out as long as we can! Unfortunately, we ended up taking down the tree after the New Year, which definitely makes me feel like Connie in 'The Forgotten Carols' when she sings 'I cry the day that I take the tree down, I want the season to last all year round'.

After all this fun, relaxed, special time with the family, it was time to return to reality, including school, work, and crazy busy schedules. I must admit I was sobbing when it was that time. I always miss the kids when they are in school, but after these 2 marvelous weeks, I did not want to let them go! Of course they were smewhat sad, but also so excited to see some of their friends again, the way it should be!

During the first week of Christmas break, we also started 'renovating' our house. We really only painted, but the result is in my mind so amazing that it seems like a full renovation! Josh and I painted our kitchen cabinets: top ones white, bottom ones black, while we replaced the range hood from the dark wooded box (beast, looking more like a semi tractor trailer) to a smaller stainless steel one. Wow, that sure changed the look of our kitchen LOOOOOOOOVE it!. We painted the walls in the kitchen and tv-room a very very pale lightbluish-grayish color, and put a humongous picture of our family on the fire-place mantle (thanks to Wayne, picture is included below and also currently my facebook profile-picture). LOOOOOOOVE it. We then asked some painters to do the rest of our home, as the living room has very high ceilings, and because it is quite challenging to paint when you have 4 little children running and crawling around! The rest of the main floor ended up a very very pale yellow, with a little darker version in the dining room and powder room. With the black dining table set, coffee-table it looks super duper awesome, especially after Josh (with a little help from me) painted the teal cabinets (which I did NOT like at all) black also! I love it all so much, and am so grateful Josh was open for this change. Yeeehaaaw! :)

Anyway, we are still listening to Christmas music, the girls are still playing 'the first noel', 'what child is this', 'we wish you a merry christmas', ... etc, and I love it!

PICTURES TO COME LATER

Espen's FIRST Birthday!!!

My sweet little Espen turned 1, can you believe it? Time flies faster and faster. What a special year with a special boy. He is so calm and so sweet, smiles about 99% of the day, is serious the other 1%, until he sees you smiling at him, then his face turns into a warm, smiling fukll with dimples round face that lights up adn melts your heart. He loves kissing me, or really grabbing my face, pullng my face to him by my ears, cheeks or hair adn then sucking on my upper lip. I love it, so sweet, and I feel loved. :)

His first birthday ofcourse came with a nice dark chocolate cake taht he was allowed to bask. Well, he didn't bash it at all, in fact he didn't even touchnit with his hands. He just let his face fall in it, take a bite, come back up and literally dive in again, no hands needed! It was hilarious, and he looked so funny with cake in his eyes, wondering why every one was laughing so hard. What a special boy!

Ginger Bread Train

Our Christmas time tradition is making a ginger bread house with the kids. This year we are still going to do that, but on a trip I found a ginger bread train that was too cute to leave in the store (and made a great little gift for all kids at once). The day after Thanksgiving we started setting up the tree adn create the train. It is so fun to have the kids work together to make it look pretty, to see their fun, smudgy, sticky faces and to see only half the candy on the train (the rest in their very sticky teeth, yuck :) ).

Here are our pictures!Chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo!

Jasper Turned 3!

Another year has flown by for Jasper, I can't believe this special fireball monkey is already 3. On the other hand, he is awfully smart, handy, coordinated etc. that is easy to imagine him being at least 3.
He LOVES cars, especially from the Cars movie. Lightning McQueen and Mader are his best friends. He doesn't mind race cars in general either, or trains, airplanes or helicopters. Drags them in any kind of bag, pocket, hand, sock, ...anywhere (and then unfortunately leaves them tehre somethimes). So our theme was: cars of course. We kept it simple with Jonah (his favorite cousin) and some of my friends' kids. We made box-cars (literally) out of shoeboxes, raced the racecars down the slide, pin-the-wheel on the race-car, and of course play doh. Lots of fruit, chips and cake later adn everyone went home happy. I personally wasn't as happy about the party set-up, maybe a little too simple and the shoeboxes didn't really make nice 'box-cars'. However, Jasper looked very happy and excited, and what more does he or we need?

My happy little sunshine is 3.

Halloween!

Halloween, what more can I say. I never really liked dressing up, even when I was little. This year though, the kids were all so excited, it totally rubbed off on me. We decorated a little, we had a neighborhood party, and I even dressed up (as a skier, very convenient, as I was freezing). The kids were just so fun, excited, running with jasper in tow from house to house, mostly forgetting that we brought the golfcart to move around. Jasper was dressed up the same as last year, as a monkey. He really didn't need the clothes, as he IS a monkey, but he sure looked cute. he was very polite, taking one candy, waiting his turn and saying trick or treat, tahnk you and happy halloween. of course this came straight from his very polite sisters, whom I was very proud of. There were some kids that  would barely leave 1 piece of candy in the bowl when they were told they could take more than one! :)

Sofia was the most beautiful snow queen ever, man has she turned beautiful, with the softest of skins, very special blue eyesd, her hair getting wavy, thick with a split right in the middle opening up her face. She brouhgt her pretty parasol that she had bought in China (Epcott) too, as did Lilian. Lilian was a Southern Belle, and belle she was. She loves dressing up, less thna before but still. And she loves to be beautiful, which she was, with her large brown eyes, sweet smile, and blonde hair. We are so lucky to have those twin beauties, polite, and all!

Last but not least, Mini-Boefje was a kip or duck, who knows, I thought he was a kuikentje. He fell asleep during most of it, in the baby bjorn on Josh, so sweet.

Disney World

Isn't it true that as marriage progresses you start to look more like your spouse and think/dream more alike too? Well in our case certainly. We have taken the girls to Disney World a few times, once with Boefje too. Although we love it, we swore the last time that would be the last time. Well, I suddenly realized we should take the kids one more time before Jasper turned 3, as he would still be free (yes, I have a great Dutch heritage, where free is very important!). Well sure enough, I had barely thought that when Josh called with a Hilton grand vacations offer that was irresistable- "would I want to take the kids to Disney again?" Well, that was an easy one. We ended up going the weekend before Halloween, which meant that we could go to the park until midnight, but only after paying another $70 pp for the time past 7 pm, ...... let me think-no thank you. I mean they really are trying to find out how much money people are willing to spend to see Mickey.

Anyway, we had a really fun time, with Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Animal Kingdom all a lot of fun. We spent some more time in visiting the countries of Epcott this time around, which was really enjoyable, though the kids really love the science parts. I got my Michael Jackson fix w. Captain EO, and the girls got to ride the faster rides with Josh, while Jasper and I learned about all the changes in the 20th century and beyond, and how it changed people's lives and focuses in life.

Magic Kingdom was very special, although I really missed the beautiful parade they have at the end of the evening, and we could have seen for that $70 pp. (grrrr :) ). It was fortunately not busy at all, in contrast to a few years ago when we didn't even go as the park closed at 8:30 am due to being overcrowded! We got to ride all the rides we could think of, with as a highlight 'It's a small world after all'. So cute.

Animal kingdom was  amazing with so many animals to see and hear. Jasper was in awe. The girls' favorite of all was the Yeti they got to see on the rollercoaster ride tehre. It was really fun, my first time this time around: you even get to ride it partly backwards.

Unfortunately, we also ended up with some sadness and scary experience for my sweet Boefje. We decided not to go to the parks, as it was the Sabbath day, so I called everyone outside to go for a walk around the resort. We had been packing, so I had put the deadbolt insode of the door.... that turned out to be a great blessing. The girls went outside, then Jasper followed a little later. He started screaming, so I thought, finger under cold water, he had his finger in the door. Then I looked at it... the top of his middle finger including nail was ahnging completely to the side, with his top of the bone sticking out, it was heartbreaking, scary, sad, and my sweet boy was screaming w. pain but so brave. "Everyone in the car immediately, we have to go to the ER!!!' Wrapped up his finger in the cleanest thing I could find (paper towel), calm Josh started running, insurance card in hand, we sped down the road (only 2 miles). We started singing to him, primary songs have always dramatically calmed down my kids, so with tears streaming down my face, we all sang 'The wise man built his house upon a rock..' and 'I love to see the temple' (really loud so he could hear it). His favorite songs (what a blessing). We all did calm down. Jasper and I got in quickly, and the sweet doctor was kind and caml, and excited to get to fix his finger. It was, thank heaven, not broken (thank deadbolt!). The doctor gave him a little shot in the middle of his hand to numb the finger (this is when we sang 'I love to see the temple a little louder, 97th time or so :) ) Then my little brave Jasper watched every little stitch she did to put it back on, he was so interested and not scared at all. The doctor did  a perfect job, the nail is already coming back in. Lilian was crying for Jasper because she is my sensitive sweet girl, and Sofia knew exactly how to make him feel better (besides singning): she bought him some swedish fish with her own money, how special is that. They sure worked for him!
When we came out and told Josh and the kids that we were so blessed to not have  Jaspers finger broken, the girls told me they already knew: they had prayed for him that it would not be broken, thye had no doubt! What great faith, adn what good examples those monkeys are to me!

Despite the trauma, we had 3 marvelous days, with lots of spoiling going around for all of us. The Hilton resort was amazing. So fun. We ended up buying a Marriott timeshare instead from Josh' uncle Jim. :)

What a wonderful idea jongetje, love you for being willing to go to Disney again! The kids sure have a sweet dad to take them there and everywhere not particularly favorite to most dads. I am so proud and happy that Josh puts spending time with our children first. There is no better feeling when I am overcome with love for these little ones, look over at Josh and see him returning the same look to me. Overly satisfying and true joy.