Latest Sweet Treats

Even with the move and trying to get settled, I have still been finding time to stay busy in the kitchen baking up some sweet treats. While I've taken the time to make the yummy things, sometimes I have really slacked on documenting them. A week or so before the move I made a big Smurfs cupcake tower and forgot to take any pictures of it or the process, and then for Christmas (along with moving) I made over 6 dozen cookies to take to different family gatherings...and again, didn't take one picture of any of them! Here are a few (not so good) shots of the things I have made in the past month....

A wonderful woman at church always has a birthday celebration for Jesus with her family on Christmas, and this year she asked me to make a cake for her!

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My Grandpa collects Oliver tractors, so I decided to make him some cookies for Christmas. I asked around to try and find out his favorite, and I guess he has always wanted a Super 66...so I made him his very own Oliver Super 66!

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Keeping with the cookie gift theme, my Uncle Matt likes Harley Davidson's and I made him a collection for Christmas.

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We had a NYE party at our house this year, and at the last minute I decided to make some cookies for the event. Our niece and nephew were visiting and I have a hard time resisting their cuteness when they want to help Aunt Dana in the kitchen!!

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A boy from our church was turning 8 and his mom asked me to create an Alvin and the Chipmunks cupcake tower for him. This is what it looked like here, they arranged some of the Alvin figurines around it at the party and it turned out really cool!

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Last weekend Kim & Terry had a cabin warming party and asked me to create some cabin related cookies for them. Of course, I had to try to make one look like the cabin!

I ended up with about 90 cookies and arranged them on two platters, but I only took a picture of one platter. I think one of my NY resolutions should have been to be better at taking pictures....more pictures and better pictures!

Handy Men

I am so far behind in our posts, I'm not even sure where to begin! Hopefully this week I can do a HUGE random post and get us back on track. We have been so busy, I just haven't had much time to slow down and reflect on the cuteness of our boys! Not sure where to start, I thought these cute pictures made a good jumping off point...

We had decided once we got things somewhat organized and put away, that we were going to put our elliptical in our bedroom. Not the ideal location, but we would be able to workout and watch TV without waking up the boys. Our plan was that I was going to cancel our Y membership and just do our workouts at home. I was really dragging my feet on cancelling, because going to the Y everyday was such a big part of our daily routine I really hated to give that up. About a week into our new arrangement, I was using the elliptical during nap time and about 20 min in it started making a terrible clanking noise. I immediately stopped and hoped that Kristoffer could fix it when he got home.

With the help of his trusty sidekicks, we thought it was fixed!

It may have taken the sidekicks every tool in the box, but it was fixed!

Or so we thought! Kristoffer got on to test it out and the entire right wheel broke off! A very large bolt broke into two pieces. Spending a year in the garage of our MN home during the winter, probably wasn't the best thing for the elliptical!

I'm sure glad we didn't cancel our Y membership!!

Wordless Wednesday - Big Boy Potty!

Christmas at Home!

Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few weeks, but as most of our readers already know...we have spent these past few weeks MOVING!! "The Great Move of 2011" officially happened on December 17th. It has been kind of been a whirlwind since then between trying to make our "new" house our own and celebrating Christmas! We were all so thankful that the move happened before Christmas (even if just one week before!) and we were able to celebrate Christmas in our own home!! :)

We spent that whole week before cleaning and getting unpacked, and we got somewhat finished just in time for my mom to join us on Christmas Eve. She got here just before the boys woke up from their naps. When Karter woke up, we had received a special message from Santa. The boys were really excited to have Grandma Vicky here to help them decorate cookies for Santa...

...but of course, the best part was eating the icing and sprinkles!

Mmmm!!

Lucky Santa to get a plate full of these beauties!! All week when we would talk about making cookies, he would not let us forget the reindeer. So along with the cookies and milk for the big guy, we also left out a nice big carrot for the reindeer.

We woke up Christmas morning to Santa wishing us a Merry Christmas, and the boys were sleepy, but surprised to see all of the gifts that he left for them! Karter was SO excited to see that Santa and the reindeer had eaten the treats that he left out for them.

I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but before any gifts were opened, Kristoffer read us the story of our greatest gift from Luke 2.

After listening to the amazing story of Jesus' birth and prayer, the boys were ready to see what was in their stockings. Too bad we started with the stockings, because Kaden got stuck on his stocking and was very reluctant to move on to anything else. He got a 5 pack of Hot Wheel cars and was perfectly content to play with them! And of course his "two balls...I got two balls!".

What other day of the year can you eat candy at 5:30am!

This year was so fun and magical. Karter is at a fun age and really got into all things Christmas.

When all of Karter's presents had been unwrapped, Kaden's still sat in a pile unopened!

He would rather eat skittles off the floor! He was completely happy eating candy at 5:30 in the morning and playing with the cars that came in his stocking. When we would ask him to open anything else, he would say "no, I have cars".

After a lot of encouragement and Karter starting to open them for him, Kaden finally decided to get in on the action.

After all of the gifts from Santa were opened, Karter played elf and passed out all the gifts from under the tree.

Daddy had to help him pass out my pile (someone likes to use excessive packaging when they wrap!).

Kaden really got into open the packages from us.

What a precious morning with our cuties!

The boys were both excited to help Daddy open his gifts.

Santa brought Karter a shaving kit, and he was super excited to shave with Daddy before church.

Oh man, what cuties!

We quickly got cleaned up and headed to church to celebrate our Savior's birth, and then the rest of the day was spent with our extended family. We were extremely happy to have my mom visiting and celebrating Christmas morning with us!

Christmas at the Zoo 2011

This time of the year is filled with so many things that we are doing to continue the different traditions that we have started with the boys. We were both super excited to take the boys to the Indianapolis Zoo for Christmas at the Zoo for our 2nd annual trip. The first Saturday of this month we made plans with Zach & Emily to watch the boys so we could do some shopping and then we picked them up and unbeknownst to them headed to the zoo. We didn't mention anything about it to the boys until we were getting ready to turn into the parking lot and Karter asked what the lights said. When we had him spell out the last part (Z-O-O), he knew we were at the zoo and got super excited! He said, "I didn't know we were going to the zoo, I thought we were going home!" It was precious!

Fortunately and unfortunately, the weather was perfect and everyone in Indianapolis had the same idea.

We had to wait in line to get into the parking lot and then again to buy our tickets, but besides not being able to see the dolphin show, the crowds didn't bother us at all.

The boys loved looking at all of the lights. Kaden kept yelling saying "more Christmas lights".

Santa was there, but the line was too long for our busy crew. So we opted to writing Santa a letter.

Kaden asked for books, balls and cars.

Karter asked for cars, books and games.

I love this crazy babe!

Our last stop before heading out was the marine life exhibit. We definitely saved the best part for last, both boys (and both adults) really liked trying to touch the sharks.

This little guy was a little crazy and I didn't want to get too close!

It was a beautiful night to spend with our boys at the zoo!!

Jonah's 4th Birthday

This past Saturday our nephew, Jonah, turned four years old. We love that little guy so much and it is hard to believe he is four already!

While they were in Indiana for Thanksgiving, Jonah's mommy planned a party for him at Pizza King in Indianapolis. The located was picked, because Jonah has a slight obsession with trains and this particular Pizza King delivers your drinks by train (although, we were in the party room and this wasn't the case, the boys still liked watching the train).


A week before the party, Jonah informed his mommy that Aunt Dana was going to make him a blue train cake for his birthday. Not wanting to disappoint my train loving nephew, Aunt Dana got to work on a train cake!


I think he was pleased with the train cake...and the attention he got while we all sang "Happy Birthday" to him!

Cousin Karter was on hand to help blow out the candles!

Jonah really wanted to eat the train...and he did! He ate all of the green decorations off, and maybe one small bite of cake. The train was made of fondant, but wouldn't be all I would want to eat!

After cake it was time to open gifts. Karter was excited to help him open the gift he got for Jonah.

A PEZ dispenser!

(I love this picture!)

Who's more excited!?

Of course, our sweet niece Miss Olivia was on hand to celebrate big brother's birthday!

On Black Friday we got a new video camera and were eager to try it out. Check out our first video on the new camera...us singing to the birthday boy!

Happy Birthday, Jonah! We love you!!