Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts

Our Christmas

Christmas was two weeks ago, so it seems almost silly to bring it up now. But I thought I should post about our holiday. Last year, we split the day between our two families - Springville in the morning and Roy in the evening. And it made for a lot of driving and it felt like we were in the car for a good chunk of the day. So this year, we tried a different tactic. We went to Erik's parents' house on Christmas Eve for their annual bash and then headed home to get everyone tucked into bed for Santa. Since the kids fell asleep on the way home, it was a good thing we put the cookies out before we left.


Although, I wonder how Santa felt about milk that had been sitting out for 12 hours. Yummm!!

Christmas day was nice and relaxed. Lily actually managed to stay in bed after 7:30, so we got to sleep in just a little. The anticipated bike was there and made her day. Timothy is teething and continued his cranky mood, but we did manage to make him happy with some candy, and he finally consented to open one present. The rest of the day was spent lounging with absolutely no where to go. It was fabulous. This kids stayed occupied playing with their new toys and each other. (Actually, Lily was more interested in Timothy's toys than hers. Next year, I'm just going to decide what I'm getting Timothy and then get two.)


We headed to Springville the week after Christmas. We had a nice lunch with Nana and Grandpa Len and Uncle Garrik and Sariah. More presents of course and just hanging out without worrying about having to be somewhere else. I think we've figured out how to do the whole holiday thing....finally.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and started out the New Year doing something fun!

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Merry Christmas

 
Wishing you a joyous Christmas and a wonderful new year from the Schaellings.

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Christmas Lights

On Monday, we made our annual trek to Salt Lake to see the lights. (And can I just say again how much I love Frontrunner. Taking the train downtown is so much easier than dealing with traffic and parking.) It was my mom's birthday, so we met up Nana and Grandpa Len for the adventure.

It actually wasn't too crowded, so I wasn't overly concerned about Lily getting lost. Last year, she refused to hold a hand and was constantly running away. Luckily, she adores Grandpa Len, so she stuck pretty close to his side all night. Timothy was pretty content in the backpack, even with all the bundling. I was so afraid he would freeze (and it was super cold), so he was dressed to the nines. When we piled everything on just before getting off the train, he wasn't too thrilled. He didn't fuss about all the layers, though. It was more of a silent protest with frequent escapes to his happy place. (That's what we call it when he closes his eyes to avoid us.)


But once we got going, he had a pretty good time and probably had a pretty good view of it all. After seeing all there was to see, we stopped for some (very) hot chocolate and headed home. Since Erik misread his watch, we actually left about an hour later than we planned. It made for a late night, but it was worth it. Lily had a great time, and since she's really starting to remember what we do for the holidays, I wouldn't miss this tradition for the world.

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Cookie Time

While I was making what seemed like a million cookies to give to coworkers and friends, Lily did some baking of her own. I gave her some dough and she went to town rolling, flouring, cutting, scraping, rerolling, flouring again, and finally putting them on the pan for baking. You've never seen a kid have so much fun. A couple days later, she frosted them in total Lily fashion. And now they're just waiting for their official moment in the spot light when Santa arrives.


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Gingerbread

It's become a tradition in our house to build a Christmas gingerbread house. This year, I went for a whole miniature village. And it really was miniature. Don't ask me what I thought was in the box that cost the same a one normal-sized gingerbread kit. But for some reason, it wasn't the tiny houses I ended up putting together. But they served their purpose, and Lily had a great time. This year, she realized the frosting was pretty tasty, so the whole project pretty much went like this: Some frosting on the house. Some frosting in my mouth. Some frosting on the house. More frosting in my mouth. (Not that I blame her. It was a Wilton kit, and their premade frosting is pretty tasty.) The candy itself was pretty terrible, so most of it actually ended up on the houses. Last year, my job was to put the frosting where Lily pointed, and then she would add the candy. This year, she did the whole process on her own and even helped with some of my houses.


This has become something I look forward to every year, and I hope she does, too. Next year, though, she can make a house. I'm making this:


(Instructions/template here.)

And I'm hoping that next year, Timothy can help. Instead of just eating gumdrops off rooftops like he did this year. (Sorry...it's kind of dark at the start. I guess I could have turned on a light. :-D)


 

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SANTA! I know him!

Last year, Lily finally got the whole Santa thing about the end of the season. I think it really clicked when she woke up Christmas morning and her mermaid had arrived, along with several other fun things. This year, she needed no reminding, and when Old St. Nick made his stop at Wal-Mart this weekend, I took the chance to take the kids to tell Santa all their hopes for Christmas.(Plus, having some connections, I wouldn't have to deal with ridiculous mall picture prices and less-than-ideal scanned pictures. YAY!!!)

As soon as Lily saw him, she ran right up to him, jumped in his lap, and gave this complete stranger the biggest hug EVER! (Stranger danger? What's that?) Luckily there wasn't a line because I can almost guarantee that would have happened even if there had been 10 kids in front of her. Ok...maybe not. But the girl was thrilled to be there.They chatted for a few minutes and I heard "bike" in there somewhere. So I think we're still ok on that front. Unlike last year when we had no idea she wanted a mermaid until we hit up Santa closer to Christmas. After all our shopping was done, of course. And with few mermaids to be found. But Santa managed to pull that out of his bag of tricks some how.

Once she was done, I went to hand Timothy to Santa. And I hadn't even held him out yet. For all he knew, I was changing hips. But he did know and started crying and promptly hid his head in my shoulder. A little disappointed, I figured we'd forgo his Santa picture this year rather than torture the poor kid. If anything, we would have a story about why there's no picture of Timothy with Santa in 2011. But when Erik could break away from actual work, he decided every kid should have at least one sad Santa picture and this was Timothy's year.

So here they are...both ends of the Santa-loving spectrum...

And yes...even with the sad face, I love this picture. It will be a good reminder of the year Lily really latched onto the magic of Santa. It will also be a reminder of the evil eye Timothy gave Erik when he got back safely to me... :-P

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Halloween

Halloween was pretty fun this year...as always, really. Since last Halloween, Lily has wanted to be a mermaid, so that's what she was. While crawling the web for the perfect mermaid costume, I also came across an adorable golfer costume for Timothy. I decided on a flapper. And Erik...well...Erik was a pink unicorn. Which I didn't actually get any good pictures of, but there's one later in this post that will at least give the general idea.

As soon as the pumpkins hit the stores, Lily was begging to paint one, which is what we did last year. No knives to worry about. Minimal mess. She loves to paint. It's win-win. But this year, she wanted to carve her pumpkin, too. I think it was mainly to take out the seeds. I actually ended up carving it. With very specific direction, mind you.


Our church had a trunk or treat the Friday before the big day, so we got to make Halloween stretch out a few days. It also meant the kids got to wear their costumes more than once. I'm pretty sure Timothy didn't care a snit about putting on those golfer tights again, but Lily was thrilled to don the tail a few times.

On Halloween proper, Erik brought the kids into my office for some yummy treats and then took them into Walmart. It helps to be a kid of the boss since all the associates handing out candy were sure to load a couple handfuls into Lily's bucket. That night, we headed over to the annual Mullahkhel party where Lily got to do some honest-to-goodness real trick-or-treating. Until now, we've let Walmart suffice. There will be no going back I'm sure.

Between all the candy-begging events, Lily ended up with a huge bowl full of candy. 24 cups worth to be exact. And we've barely made a dent in it. I'm thinking it will slowing start heading into the trash, soon. Unless anyone's interested. You know where you can reach me...

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Busy July, part 3 (the end)

And now...for the conclusion of our July festivities. I know what you're thinking: Finally!!! Can we move on already? Almost...this won't be long. :)

This year, Walmart made the mistake of putting Erik in charge of the associate summer party. He decided they needed a bounce house. He ordered the bounce castle for the kids and then went ahead and ordered two more. The blow-up jousting/boxing ring and the huge slide. Because the adults would want to participate in the fun, too. Lily thought the castle was great and spent a little time there. And then she spent most of the night at the playground on the swings and monkey bars. Go figure. She did give the slide a try, and looked terrified on the way down the first time. I could just see her little mind thinking, Was that fun? Or just crazy? She must have thought it was ok because she spent probably the last hour of the night going up and down. Erik took a few runs, too, including this one, which resulted in a nice vinyl burn on his elbow.

Lily must have enjoyed the bouncing in general because she was very dramatic when they started deflating. I wish I would have filmed that. The castle was last, and the moan when the turrets fell was fantastic.


A few days later, we hit the Mendon Pioneer Day fireworks and then did some driveway fireworks with the Mullahkhels and their cul-de-sac. Timothy, I think, is rather indifferent to fireworks of any sort. Even in Mendon when you're close enough for fall out, he just sort of glanced to see where the noise came from and then went on with his business. Lily thought the sparklers were pretty fantastic, but her favorite thing of the day was probably the pop-its. She would have been happy as a clam if we'd just given her an entire case of those and let her go to town.


So that wraps up our July. It was super fun, but I'm sort of relieved we're heading into a more low-key August. This summer has definitely flown by, but I think I'm ready for fall...

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Busy July, part 1

The problem with working retail is you usually end up working on holidays and weekends. With Erik's schedule, we end up with three weekends free and then three weekends when he's working. We lucked out that July happened to be a (mostly) weekend-free month. This means we've packed a ton of activities into those weekends. That also means my blogging of those activities has been very sub-par since activities I usually save for the weekend have been smooshed into the rest of the week and blogging is low on the list. In an effort to document our summer fun, I'm finally starting the blogging...

Our 4th of July weekend was jammed packed and super fun. On the 1st, we hit up the Cache Valley Cruise In. I'll be honest: it's gotten to the point we're reluctant to take Lily anywhere in public, especially where there will be lots of people and lots of new things to see. She gets distracted easily and won't listen to us, and it's almost always a fight to get her out of there. But she was soooooo amazingly good that I'm almost starting to believe she might turn out a productive member of society after all. Before we left the house, we told Lily she couldn't touch any of the cars at the car show because they were very expensive. When we met up with Derek and Daxton, she was sure to remind them, too. Several times. But it worked. She was very good about not touching the cars, which was a good thing since several of them had very threatening signs about fingerprints. They had an area with kid games, and she patiently waited her turn (mostly) and left when we said it was time. I almost didn't know how to leave an activity without carrying a flailing toddler. It was very nice!

That night, we grabbed some KFC and headed to our reserved spot for the Cruise In parade. Erik had worked until midnight the night before, so he dropped a blanket off in front of the tabernacle on his way home. He snagged a spot in front of a tall building thinking we would be the first to get shade. Unfortunately, he didn't take into account the angle of the shade...and as the sun was setting, we sadly watched our shade cover the people to the left of us, leaving us squinting and sweltering. He'll know better next year. :) It was still fun and continued our tradition...so that's what matters.

 On the 4th, we woke up to ominous rain clouds, and since our plans included a trip to the aquatic center, we were a little bummed. Lily especially since we'd already told her our plans. But we did a little errand running to keep her distracted and grabbed some do-it-yourself fireworks. We finally decided a few gray clouds weren't going to keep us from going swimming, so we decided to risk it. Good thing we did because apparently everyone else was just as leery of potential rain. The pool wasn't nearly as crowded as we expected and the clouds made it a little cooler. Timothy enjoyed just sitting in the water but held on for dear life most of the time. He decided he'd had enough after one too many splashes. But Lily's our little fish and had a great time showing off the skills she learned from her swimming lessons this year and even went down the slide a couple times. We wrapped up swimming with some ice cream and went home to get ready for fireworks.
We usually head to the Hyrum soccer field for the festivities, but the traffic afterwards is always so bad that we decided to try a different approach this year. Instead, we parked at the high school and just hung out in the bed of the truck with our pizza. We ended up with a great view, and the truck bed kept the kids contained. And we were on the road in no time. It may become our new viewing spot.

Definitely a busy weekend, but so much fun.


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December Fun

Gingerbread House Kit: $9.00

Making snowflakes: A million sheets of paper and a bit of a mess

Popping bubble wrap from out-of-town presents: Free


Spending Christmas with my family: Priceless

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From us to you...



To see our annual Elfing, click here.

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Temple Square

In true Christmas tradition, we headed down to Salt Lake on Tuesday to see the lights at Temple Square. And this year, we picked a day other than the annual MoTab Christmas concert. Although there were still a ton of people, of course.

Despite the huge storm we had a couple weeks ago, most of it was gone. Normally, I would say that's a good thing, but when it comes to Temple Square, I actually prefer it with snow. It makes the lights that much more...magical, I guess. But it was still gorgeous as always. Like anything she does, Lily had a ton of fun running around and causing us much anxiety because she refused to walk close by, but for the most part, she was good and enjoyed seeing the lights and nativity scenes. Hopefully next year, Timothy will actually see some of the lights. I was so worried that he'd get cold, so we bundled him up so well that he thought a nap was more important this year.

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All I want for Christmas...

Yesterday, we took this kids to sit on Santa's lap. Which means I now feel like a good parent again since we completely forgot to take Lily last year. I think it was a combination of being busy coupled with the fact that I was about two and half months pregnant and sick as a dog most of the time.

When I first mentioned going to see Santa, Lily wasn't so sure about sitting on his lap. "I'll just stand next to him and tell him what I want." But by the time we got there, she was ready to do about anything the complete stranger in the red suit told her to do.

And what does she want Santa to bring her? A mermaid. Which is total news to us. A few months ago when I asked what she wanted from Santa, all I got was an, "I don't know." So I went with what I wanted Santa to bring her. But in the last month, anytime someone asks what Santa is bringing her, she says a mermaid. If she'd come up with the answer just once, I wouldn't have thought anything of it. But she says it EVERY TIME. Which means Santa now has to do some more shopping because there is no way I'm destroying the illusion of Santa the first year she's actually interested in it. And she knows Santa won't let her down. If we ask what Santa is bringing her now, we get the answer in a very exasperated tone, because come on...she's already told us...it's a mermaid already. Can't you remember? Jeese!


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Halloween

Ok...so Halloween was over two weeks ago. But I wanted to get at least a couple pictures up of our costumes this year for those who didn't get to see them. Once again, we attended the Mullahkhel Halloween festivities. This year, Erik was actually able to go, so for once I got to be the second half of a couple's costume. Unfortunately, I didn't have much say in it if I wanted to follow through on the whole "couple" idea since Erik was pretty set on his costume once I made the mistake of mentioning it. As a result, Erik and I were Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone of Anchorman fame. After several final decisions, Lillian settled on a Lady Bug. And Timothy, not having much choice in the matter, was a Harley Baby.

Lily had a great time trick-or-treating around Wal-mart again this year, and while I'm sure her stash won't satisfy her in the next few years, it was enough to make the kid as happy as anything. Now that she's actually remembering holidays from year to year, it's so fun to see her excitement and anticipation. And to be honest, I'm looking forward for next Halloween because I have an awesome costume in mind that includes Timothy. I have to use him to my advantage while I can. Pretty soon he'll have a mind of his own, too.

And then I'm doomed... :)

And remember, stay classy, San Diego.

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Fast Fall

It's hard to believe that October is on its way out the door. We've been on the move quite a bit this month, especially in the last couple weeks, and sitting down to blog about it all just never happened. But we've done some fun activities, so here's the update.

We've managed two trips to the zoo, both the Logan and Hogle Zoos. The Logan Zoo had their annual Boo at the Zoo, so we hooked up with Derek and Daxton for this year's visit. Lily had a lot of fun running around with Daxton, as always, and managed to slow down just long enough to briefly hit some of the activities, including getting her fortune told. We weren't privy to the result, but she got to try on a GORGEOUS ring from the fortune teller, so she left the tent perfectly happy.


We decided to make one last run down to Hogle Zoo before the the weather turned. And we lucked out. I think we managed to go on the last nice weekend. Somehow I didn't manage to snag many pictures, but here's one of Timothy when we arrived. Isn't that outfit adorable????


We met up with Derek and Daxton again as we let Lily and Daxton lead the way through the American West Heritage Center's Corn Maze. Even with the map, we managed to get hopelessly lost (what good is map that doesn't tell you where you entered or which way is north???). While I admit that's usually the goal with a corn maze, walking around in circles forever with a tired three-year-old isn't always that much fun. In the end, we may have found a tiny shortcut. But Lily had a great time, and Timothy slept through the entire thing in the stroller (bumps and all) so everything worked out.

And of course, what October isn't complete without some sort of pumpkin activity? Since Lillian's first Halloween, I've planned on taking her to the Pumpkin Walk. For whatever reason, it's never happened. But this year, we finally made it - although I think the highlight of the adventure for Lily was the bus ride from the car to the park. But I'm creating memories, dang it, whether she likes it or not! :) Erik and I, at least, enjoyed looking at the pumpkins. I'm always amazed at the talent some people have. The Polar Express display was amazing!! Timothy seemed to enjoy it too, even if the only thing he really noticed was the lights.

Going to the Pumpkin Walk reminded me that we still hadn't purchased pumpkins. In addition to my Pumpkin Walk dreams, I've always had this vision of getting Lily's picture in a HUGE pumpkin patch with great big orange pumpkins all around. So picturesque, right? This dream, unlike the Pumpkin Walk, will have to be postponed yet again. Last year we did manage to make it to an honest to goodness pumpkin patch, but most of the pumpkins had already been harvested and piled at the front for purchase (seriously...why would you do that?). On Saturday, I realized that we had a week until Halloween, so we settled for the good ol' pumpkin pallet at Wal*Mart. Lily fell in love with the pie pumpkins because they were just her size (a very desired quality in everything from cups to toilets to pumpkins apparently), but I knew carving it would be a joke. So at the same time, I picked up some poster paint and let the girl go to town.

I attempted a little more traditional display.


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Christmas

I realize this post is a month late, but please don't judge. :)

Christmas this year suddenly seemed to make sense to Lillian. She was constantly noticing the sparkly lights and pretty trees. She was actually WAY too excited about snow for her own good. And most importantly, she understood that Santa was coming. Somehow, though, we managed to completely miss (or forgot - one of the two) taking her to sit on the fat man's lap. Horrible parents, I know, but I swear: we will remember next year.

Since she was so enthralled with all the lights on the houses, we decided to take her down to Temple Square to see some proper lights. Rather than drive, we hooked up with Erik's parents in Roy and rode the Front Runner train. I think, in the end, she was more excited about riding the train than anything else, but as long as she had fun, I guess it doesn't matter. And I have to say, riding the train was the best decision we EVER MADE!!! No parking hassles. No traffic. No worrying about the weather. The worst part was not timing our departure so that we didn't have to wait half an hour on the train before it headed back to Ogden.


Once we got to Salt Lake, we met up with my parents at the Gateway and had dinner before we all headed to Temple Square. Of course we chose the night of the MoTab Christmas concert at the Conference Center as well as a Jazz game, so Salt Lake was swarming with people. Being Utah, everyone was naturally on Mormon Standard Time, so our 7:00 arrival nicely coincided with half the attendees of the concert rushing across the Plaza causin
g complete chaos and a huge crowd. When you have a toddler with you who is VERY reluctant to hold a hand, this can cause great stress for the parents, but miraculously, she didn't get lost and we were able to see all the lights and have a great time. Whenever we pass the temple in Logan, she still talks about how Grandmas and Grandpas and Addison all went to the temple with her.


On Christmas Eve, Lily helped me make some cookies for Santa. She had blast rolling and cutting them out and (of course) eating the dough. She helped me stir and we had to roll out and cut a shape from every last scrap. We decorated them later that night before bed.



On Christmas morning, we opened presents and had some breakfast. Lily had to examine every present thoroughly before moving on to the next one, which made for a long process, but it was fun to see her get so excited over every item. After breakfast, we headed down to Ogden to make the rounds with the other side of the family and had a great time seeing people we only see a couple times a year.

It was definitely a great Christmas. It's hard to believe that next Christmas, we'll have two munchkins to celebrate with, but I'm looking forward to it!

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It's not Christmas without...

This Christmas (more than others for some reason), I thought about my Christmases as a kid, and I've come to realize that many of the little things I remember most came from my Grandmother Tanner. So I hope you'll bear with me in reminiscing a little.

When my mom moved to Arizona, I went without those little things even though I was perfectly capable of recreating those memories on my own since, for the most part, they revolve around food. (What good holiday memory doesn't, right??)


The one treat I never did pass up, however, was the Danish Butter Cookies. Grandmother always had a HUGE tin of them sitting on her table during the Christmas season. I thought they were such a wonderful extravagance for some reason. Maybe it was the fancy looking tin or the fact that they were packed stacked in those papers. Maybe it was just the fact that Christmas was the only time of year we had them. But once they hit the table, I knew Christmas was coming. They've always been a must for me, and I still enjoy them as much as ever.

This year, Christmas Eve was held at our house with Nana, Grandpa Len, and Uncle Garrik. At Thanksgiving, my mom provided Wassail, and I decided it was high time I made it myself. And it was just right. I filled my crockpot with it that morning and we enjoyed it all day. It wasn't quite the same without the glass globe mugs, but it certainly hit the spot. Why I'd never asked for the recipe before is beyond me, but now I will be making it yearly.

The thing that really made an impact this year, though, was the Applekeg (which I've discovered is actually spelled Aeblekage, but would you have any idea what I had just said if that's all I left you with???). When my mom told me she'd made it, I actually started crying. I had no idea a simple bowl of applesauce, raspberry jam, and graham crackers could cause such an emotional reaction. But if you think that's silly, you should have seen the break down I had when I realized I actually had the Asian Bowls in my possession! (Stupid hormones!!!! ;D) We had applekeg every Christmas without fail. It would "cure" on the windowsill of her bedroom before Christmas and was always topped with just-barely whipped cream. And that's how I have to eat it to this day: no peaks, please.

There was a slight mishap on the way to Logan with a broken trifle bowl and a nice mess in my Mom's car, but she made another one. Unfortunately, we didn't actually eat it while they were here, but I enjoyed some the next day, Asian bowl and all. It was awesome and totally made my Christmas.



I hope that someday Lillian can appreciate the woman she was named after and how much she meant and still means to me. I guess a good start is continuing the traditions that remind me so much of her and make sure Lily knows where they came from.

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