Steven's birthday weekend

Steven celebrated his 37th birthday yesterday. The whole weekend was planned out to the minute...not so much because of his birthday, but because his cousin was getting married and we were invited to the sealing, luncheon, reception etc. Friday afternoon as we were driving up to their wedding reception an hour away, Steen got sick and started throwing up and suddenly, the weekend plans quickly unraveled.

Congrats Greg and Mandi on their wedding!!! I took the girls to the reception Friday night. The kids had planned a slumber party at Grandma's after the reception. They were also going to spend the day with her Saturday while we were at wedding festivities. Luckily, the girls still spent the night with Grandma, but Steven spent Friday evening home with Steen throwing up. Saturday, Steven attended the wedding and luncheon by himself while I stayed with Steen, who luckily was starting to feel better. We had to cancel our babysitter for Saturday night and spent the evening home with the kids.

It did get better, but before it did...it got a little worse. I had made one of our family's favorite desserts for Steven called Aztec dessert. It is a yummy oreo cookie crust, mint chocolate chip ice cream and whip cream dessert. Steen was SOOOOO excited to sing Happy Birthday to daddy and have birthday cake, that he opened up the freezer to get it out himself and the glass 9 x 13 pan fell out and shattered into a million shards of glass! We did NOT get to eat any! ;-( I was VERY sad, but since little Steen was devastated, I had to put on a happy face that we could just make cupcakes instead and it would be O.K. Isn't that what life is about??? Roll with the punches, it will be OK!

Here is a pic of us singing Happy Birthday around the trash can with the aztec dessert inside.

But despite the turn of events, Michaela decided to turn it into a special night for Daddy. She made us a romantic dinner and then had the kids hurry and eat and go play downstairs while Steven and I got to eat mostly alone. ;-)

The sign reads..."Alison's and Steven's romantic dinner...by their kids."

Michaela made Beef Stroganoff, Rice, Asparagus and sliced strawberries and bananas. I had already browned beef so she just had to add stuff to it and follow a recipe to stir it while it cooked. She measured out and cooked the rice in the rice cooker and I showed her how to wash and cook the asparagus. She did an awesome job! And Steven got to enjoy as best as we could a quiet evening at home! ;-)

Later that night, Michaela dished up ice cream for all (she made me a strawberry milkshake...very heavy on the milk) and Steven an ice cream sundae. Then she and Andrea played their violins for daddy. Despite the crazy events...everything turned out pretty great!

Thanks Michaela and other helpers! Happy Birthday Steven!

Michaela was baptized!

Michaela was baptized by her dad yesterday! It was such an awesome day and she looked beautiful in her white dress.

Four other girls from our neighborhood/ward were baptized that day as well. Michaela and her friends all looked so beautiful in their white dresses.

The day was made extra special as we celebrated with family. Steven's parents flew in for the occassion and probably 25 of his aunts/uncles and cousins came. On my side, my mom and my brother and aunt and uncle were able to come. Thank you for those who came and showed support!

Christmas Eve

Our gingerbread house tradition... The kids love putting together the Costco kits each year. This year I was a little too skimpy on frosting so it didn't last very long before the roof fell off, but the kids had a blast anyway. Their 3 year old cousin Caden also helped and was quite good!


Steen lost interest in helping to build the house...but he was happy to help eat the candy.

We also have some traditions specifically for Christmas Eve Evening.

The first is the kids get to open one present on Christmas Eve which is pajamas.

The next tradition is that we go to my mom's house for Christmas Eve and have a big dinner and reinact the nativity. This year Tammy, Darwin, Caisa, Helen, Ruth and their families were all there as well as my aunt and uncle. We had a nice big clan and plenty of cousins for the nativity.

Michaela and her cousin Michael were Mary and Joseph.

Andrea was one of the wisemen or "wise women".

Steen and his 3 year old cousins were all shepherds.

Christmas

Christmas morning! Our kids slept in until around 8 or so. (We'd been up for awhile already and had breakfast already made.) The best Christmas present was they all slept in their own beds and not one of them crawled into our bed during the night.

My sister Ruth and her family came in from Texas and stayed with us for Christmas. We had to wake them up around 8:30am cause my kids were ready to open presents and they were still all sound asleep!

Christmas morning tradition: I make danish abelskievers and Steven makes cinnamon rolls. This is the Christmas cinnamon roll wreath he makes.

Steen LOVED his flying airplanes from Santa. Santa was smart enough to bring 2 planes so there wouldn't be fighting with little playmates. Unfortunately, Santa bought cheap batteries (the kind you might find at say the dollar store) and they didn't really last through Christmas morning. We went and bought some rechargeable. batteries the next day.

Andrea got a sleeping beauty vanity from Santa.
Steen was caught playing with it...should we be worried?

Michaela got a camera from Santa and some scrapbooking things from mom and dad. She has been taking pictures of everyone and having a blast.

Grandma and Grandpa West gave the kids a puppet show theater and Aunt Diane and Aunt Helen gave them a bunch of puppets. They had fun doing little shows.

Steen is has his dad's accounting genes and is well on his way to making millions. He immediately opened up shop and started selling his Christmas candy for $5 a pop!

We felt very blessed this Christmas to be with family and have too much yummy food (I think I gained 13 lbs. this month) as well as a warm home and great friends. We're still employed and we have 3 beautiful children with one on the way. Most importantly we have a Savior who loves each of us and we're grateful for his infinite gift that he gave us and we celebrate especially at Christmas!

Edible snowmen...

Playgroup was at my house today and the boys had a BLAST making edible snowmen. I highly recommend doing it with your kids...they'll love it!

We used a little oreo cookie on top of a big oreo cookie for hat. Marshmallow for the top third of the snowman, little powdered donut for the middle and big powdered donut for the bottom. Chocolate chips for eyes and buttons. Pretzels for arms and Dots candy for gloves. Licoriche for the scarf (but you could also use fruit by the foot.)

The snowman quickly melted into the boys mouths!

I'm a little behind on some posts so scroll down after this one to see two other new posts I put up today...hopefully it won't be blog post overload!

Happy 8th Birthday Michaela!

Michaela celebrated her 8th birthday last week. We are so excited that she has decided to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are excited for that to happen next month.

I found edible horse-themed cupcake toppers on-line which made cake decorating ez!
The girls got to color a personalized horse picture while we waited for all to arrive. Later they painted little ceramic horses.

We used sugar cubes to have an indoor relay race.

Later, we had a different relay race out in the garage. They had to put on a hat, cowboy boots and a bandana, ride a tricycle around a chair which proved to be very difficult so we let members of the team push them. Then they had to climb over a bale of hay and gallop on a toy horse. I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants...of course that's partly because I'm pregnant too. I don't know if they kids had fun...but the adults sure laughed hard.

We also took pics with all the guests dressed up to use on their thank you cards.
Sisters!

Cowboy Steen...so cute!

Michaela and her cousin Alanna.

Michaela and her grandma...we love having her live so close.

Michaela got an American girl doll for her birthday...she couldn't be happier!

The kids with Santa

The kids each got to sit on Santa's lap at our ward party! Yeah for not having to wait in line at the mall!

Notice Michaela's newer hair do!

And yeah...this isn't exactly Santa...but I forgot to post our Robin Hood themed Halloween costumes back at Halloween.