Merry Christmas From Our Family To Yours!

Merry Christmas! What a wonderful week it has been filled with family, fun, presents, and food galore!! We had such a whirlwind of a holiday. It all started on Christmas Eve.


Christmas Eve-
We went to Lino Lakes to spend time with my dad's side of the family. Sophia had a wonderful time playing with the kids and we all enjoyed several rounds of bingo. I actually won one game. It was so fun to have the family all together. I really enjoy this tradition and can't remember the last time we didn't spend Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family.


Christmas Day-
We got up early and opened presents. Then we had my grandma, aunt, uncle, cousin, and parents over for a wonderful time of appetizers, presents, and ended with a fantastic dinner. I made chicken lasagna, homemade crescents, and veggies. They stayed for most of the day and then we played games and watched a movie just the three of us.


Day After Christmas-
Yet another celebration with the Wickmans. We had them over for appetizers and then made homemade pizzas. It was delicious! They stayed to open presents and then headed home.


That brings us to yesterday (Tuesday)-
My brother is finally home from Tucson. We celebrated with the Juhl family Christmas. We did our usual appetizer dinner and presents. It was an amazing evening.

With all of the celebrating you would think that we would be tired, but we aren't! Tomorrow evening we are having yet another small Christmas with my brother's girlfriend. Then I think I can officially say we are done celebrating.

Cookies Galore

Two weekends ago my mom, Sophia, and I had a cookie baking day. It was so much fun and the work completely paid off. By the time we were done, our entire kitchen table and most of the counters were covered with cookies.

Sophia was a great helper, although her interest didn't last long. When she went for a nap, we got quite a bit more done.

The results....tons of cookies. I have been giving them as presents and put them out at one of our parties. I just adore the holidays.

Oh Santa how I love you!

Last weekend we made a trip to see Santa. I'm sure this will be the first of many. Sophia just adored him! She worked quite hard on her list and was thrilled when she heard that she could put it in his mailbox. He gave her a candy cane too, which she recently discovered she liked.

Last month completely flew by. With being in school, Sophia at gymnastics, and many events going on including a couple of weddings....we have been busy!

Here are a couple of pictures from Santa:

Halloween Recap

Halloween flew by quicker than I imagined. It started off with our annual trip out to the pumpkin patch to get our pumpkins. It was still warm enough to be in shorts and t-shirts at this point.

After it cooled down, we carved our pumpkins and got ready for the big day. Sophia really enjoyed carving the pumpkins this year. She really wanted to hold the knife. We quickly diverted her attention to coming up with a design instead.


We did a couple of different things this year we don't normally do. We went to a pumpkin carving event at our community center (that was our third carved pumpkin), attended a Halloween celebration at Lifetime Fitness, and Sophia had her first ever party!

The girls came over for snacks, games, and crafts in their costumes. It was pretty cute!


On the actual day, we quickly trick-or-treated over by my parents house. We went to a couple of the neighbors that we know and Sophia also went to her papa and nanas.

Then we went over and had our annual pizza dinner before trick-or-treating with our neighbors the Matzas.

Then we were off! This year I stayed in and passed out candy and Hal went with Sophia. They had a fantastic time and she came back with tons of candy!!

Another wonderful Halloween! Good thing that it wasn't snowing.....
I know that November is already off to a quick start. I can hardly believe that it less than two weeks we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Time flies!

It's Pumpkin Time!

Last weekend we took advantage of the crisp fall air and went to pick out our pumpkins. We were going to head to the Stillwater Pumpkin Festival, but upon our arrival to downtown Stillwater the line was so long of cars we promptly turned around and made different plans.

Deciding that it was pretty late for us to go to the Pumpkinmania held in Mahtomedi, we opted to head to Axdahl's Farm off of Manning. This was a great choice for us. It had a little bit of everything we were looking for. We got to get out of the car and walk around a bit in both the pumpkin patch and the corn maze. The weather was so warm it was hard to believe that it was October.

After our brief walk, we headed back toward the barn to pick out pumpkins. Of course Sophia went right for the mini ones. She found one that was just her size, but after we saw the price we decided to head elsewhere to actually purchase our pumpkins.

So it was back in the car and we went to our good old pumpkin spot....this person's yard/driveway off of Jamaca in Mahtomedi. The pumpkins were perfect and we found two great ones for carving. We also saw some unusual ones too.

I am excited to get the rest of the fall things out like sweaters and comfy pajamas. Blogger isn't working right so I can't share my pictures with you right now. Hopefully soon. Until then, happy pumpkins!

It's Fall

This weekend we went to one of our traditional fall family places, Pine Tree Apple Orchard. The weather couldn't have been better. It was right around lunch time and the sun was shining brightly. It was cool enough to be wearing a sweatshirt, but not cold or windy at all.

We went all the way up to the pumpkin patch first. As we walked through the orchard, Sophia wanted to examine the trees and the apples. Once we got up to the patch, we walked through looking at all of the different pumpkins. We found greenie or the one green pumpkin we always seem to seek out.

Here's the greenie we found this year!

After walking through the pumpkin patch looking for the perfect one, Sophia got bored and we decided it was time to go back. Here she is with her perfect pumpkin.


Once we made our way back through the orchard, we went inside to check out all of the apples and find the treats. This year we got Apple Delight. It almost seems like a cross between a coffee cake and an apple muffin. We also got two bags of apples and then caramel apples for lunch. This was Sophia's first caramel apple. She really enjoyed it!


Tired and worn out, we headed home for a relaxing evening of pizza and a movie. The weather this week is supposed to be out of the ordinary for fall. 80s!! I think that fall can wait.

First Day of School

Today was Sophia's first day of school. She is enrolled for the school year in a Kindergarten Readiness class. This class follows basically a kindergarten schedule in order to prepare the kids for next year. She has been very excited and couldn't wait for school.

We read books yesterday that talked about the first day of school in preparation for her big day, but today she proved to me that was not necessary at all. She got up at 6:30 and came running into our bathroom asking if it was time for her to get ready for school. I told her yes and she was so excited cheering and jumping up and down.

She brushed her teeth, got dressed, and put on her new shoes. Then we went outside and took a couple of pictures to commemorate the big day. She looked so grown up with her Barbie backpack and all.




When we got to school she jumped right in and sure enough just hugged us off to work. I thought that I would for sure cry, but with all of her excitement it didn't seem possible. I walked away and got in the car with the biggest smile on my face. To see my little girl that excited for school made me happy from the inside out.

Tonight when I picked her up she had nothing but good things to say about her day. She told me they did math, made a chart about breakfast, played outside for recess, used the scissors and markers to make pictures, and even played parachute in Phy Ed. She also informed me that she didn't have sauce on her spaghetti, that the noodles were just plain. Her favorite part of the day was when her teacher Ms. Sarah read a book about a bear on his first day of school.

I can hardly believe that my little girl is growing up so quick. Moms and dads hug your kids tonight as they will be grown before we know it!