Snowshoeing

We decided to brave the cold, cold temperatures - 0 degrees and windy, but sunny - to try out Anders' new snowshoes, which Will made him for Christmas.

I feel like Anders looks like the nerdy guy in Better off Dead in his winter clothes here.

He had some good moments.

And had to be picked up and set right a few times.

He needed some hand holding to get moving, our goal was a "tunnel" created by a tree - Anders is very, very fond of tunnels.

There was also some falling down. Actually in this case, he just decided to lay down.

I fell down too, but I didn't cry about it.

We finally made it to the tree tunnel.

Ok, so if you are like me, you've just spent 5 minutes laughing to the point of tears at this picture. Will and I have had a disagreement about who looks more hilarious - him or me? My vote is that he does, I feel like I look normal. Anders looks cute though.

This is how Anders got back to the car - he was DONE snowshoeing. Ironically, later in the day when my mom asked if he had fun snowshoeing, he said he did! Maybe that means he will go out again some day.

Lefse!

A few weekends ago I thought it was high time that Anders learn to carry on the family tradition of making lefse. This is a tradition passed down from my Norwegian grandma Lenore and from her mom, etc. Anders was very helpful.

First we worked on kneading the dough, which is made from potatoes and flour.

Then we had to sort it out into smaller balls.

Then Anders got bored while I rolled out the lefse. Oh, and please note it was a ponytail day.

Then he decided to help me a bit.

Playing with the sticks was fun.

He even helped me move the lefse from the pastry board to the grill.

Anders left to take a nap and I finished up, he did pretty well for his first time. Next year he is on his own.

Pictures from Christmas 2010

Ok, so I just cannot seem to keep up on things these days - is it me or life as a working mother of very busy 2-year-old? Anyway, here are some pictures from Christmas - actually a lot of pictures, but not as many as I could have posted.

We were home again this year for Christmas Day. Instead of buying tree, we dug out the old aluminum tree. If Anders told any of you that our tree was blue (I think maybe his Uncle Mike was a bit baffled by Anders telling him this) he wasn't confused - that light does have a blue panel, so at times it was blue.

Anders definitely didn't remember Christmas from the year before, but he quickly got the hang of things. Will made him some tiny snow shoes, which you can see in the back ground there.

His favorite present on Christmas day was the Lego construction set, but he was also very fond of these wonderful socks Aunt Joyce made for him - I think I need that yarn to make a pair for myself!

Ok and then we put the camera away for awhile! I'm not sure why and we didn't really take many pictures again until much later in the week.

On the 26th we headed to Des Moines to meet my new nephew Jake and see his family and my parents. Anders was very excited to hold Baby Jake, I was obviously a little hovery here.

Some hijinks were had while we tried to get a group shot of 4 of my parents' 6 grandsons. Sadly Cam and Myles were home in Colorado this year.

Ok fast forward another couple of days to celebrating Christmas with Will's family at Bill and Kathie's home. We remembered that we had a camera on this day.

We opened presents - lots of lots of them. Fun was had by all.

Anders and Grandpa Bill goofed around.

Eleanor's new dolls got all lined up for a nice nap by the window.

We got some wildlife watching in.

There was some napping.

Followed by some more hijinks.

Maybe this angle is better...steady now...

Rob thought he felt something tickle his head.

Clara and Anders had great fun on the chair lift thing. We had to unplug it eventually!

And then we put the camera away again despite having another Christmas celebration with Jean the next day! I don't know what our problem was.

Anyway, (oh blue font, but why?) fast forward to Jan 1 - Anders is modeling his new sweater from Uncle Rob and Aunt Carrie. As you can see, he is very, very excited about it, but alas he is going to have to hold off on wearing it until next year as it is kind of big - very, very cool though! I think I would do a happy dance if that was my sweater too.

Ok, this last picture is old, but I thought some of you may want to see it. This is the big snow that ruined the Metrodome and caused the poor Vikings to have to play two home games away from home. Will was just finishing up 3 hours of shoveling. This isn't the best picture, but it shows you how high it had to be piled up. This will be here until March at least. Need to get out on those new snow shoes that Anders got for Christmas. Happy New Year!