Best Christmas ever!

This holiday season was the best one ever! I was done with Christmas gifts pretty early and decided not to stress over anything, but just do whatever I have time for. That was a great plan cuz it actually worked. I didn't get as much baking done as I would've liked, and I didn't get to visit as many people during the holidays as I had hoped, but, it was the most relaxing Christmas I have ever experienced!

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house, along with my parents, Marianne and Anniken.

Walking into their house brings you complete Christmas spirit, including the dinner table that my mom had decorated and ready to go for us. Beautiful, as always!

My mom and dad made the dinner together. My mom is an amazing cook and my dad does an excellent job with grilling, so together, they're the perfect combination for holiday meals.

It was so nice to be together with my whole family again. Since Anniken has been spending the last semester studying in the States and Marianne is a busy-bee, we don't get the chance to get together as often as we used to. I miss it! It was so much fun sitting around the table chatting and laughing like the good ol' days.

Aiden got a fever on Christmas Eve and wasn't feeling that well, which means he takes advantage of having his aunties around and spends a lot of time in their arms. ;)

Elliot got a head start with gift-opening while we relaxed around the table a bit longer. He was SO appreciative of all of his gifts, especially the Legos!

More auntie-cuddle time for our little Aiden-bear. Poor guy, I felt so bad for him! Luckily, the medicine worked quickly so he was able to enjoy the evening with us before a good night of sleep.

You can't have Christmas with JULENISSEN! Aiden was a bit sceptical to this guy in red with a big white beard, but did laugh at him several times. Our julenisse was really silly and funny this year... it must have been THE REAL ONE, don't ya think? Elliot was super excited and had a lot of questions to ask. He did make sure to tell him which of his friends' houses he must remember to visit after he left ours. Always concerned about others - that's my boy!

We were missing Mike in our family picture and told him to jump in while Aiden was still letting us be that close to Julenissen, so Mike jumped in... onto Nissen's lap.

It was such a great Christmas. I hope everyone else had a good one as well!

MERRY CHRISTMAS FOLKS!

Pre-Christmas fun

Every year, Mike and I try to go as many Christmas event as possible. We LOVE Christmas and go anywhere we can soak up more Christmas spirit than we already have. This year was so crazy busy that we, unfortunately, didn't get to do as much as we had hoped. Last year we went to a farm where they had horses (wearing Santa hats, let me add) that were giving horse-back-rides to the kids, horse-and-sleigh rides, dog-sledding, and much more. It was a blast!

We weren't able to go to that farm this year, but we did make it to the downtown "julemarked" (Christmas market) at least :) My mom and dad were meeting us there, and Anniken and Marianne showed up as well, so my whole family got to spend the day together!

They had set up art and craft projects for the kids. Aiden made a little Christmas tree that he was SO extremely proud of. He walked around and showed it off to everyone. He even went up to a journalist and showed it to her, so she asked if she could take a picture for her article.
Too cute!

Elliot carved a little 'nisse' (Santa) out of wood and painted it. Mike sat with him incase he wanted help, but Elliot ended up doing most of it himself. I was so impressed! The little 'nisse' was REALLY cute!!!

Elliot loves theater so he was quite excited when my mom told him they were having an outdoor play there. They had blankets set out on the benches so Elliot got to cuddle in with my mom and dad to watch the play.

The first thing Aiden noticed when we got there was the horse, so Mike asked if he wanted to go on a horse-and-sleigh ride with him. Aiden was so excited! He waited patiently in line with Mike and had the biggest smile on his face when it was his turn! I tried to get a picture but people kept going in front of me, so I'll have to put in one of them feeding the horse afterwards instead. ;)

All in all, it was a really good day! It was cold but we managed to stay warm and had a ton of fun!

Aiden is now TWO years old!

My baby boy just turned 2 years old last week. I still can't believe that he was this little just 24 months ago... Aiden has brought so much happiness into our family. He's such a silly and active little guy, but he couldn't be any more loving.

From very early on, Aiden was extremely smiley. He loved attention, but was fine just playing on his own as well. Although his favorite has always been getting attention from his big brother. Elliot and Aiden get along so well; it's so cute to watch them together.

This little guy warms our hearts so incredibly much. We can get the worse news, but looking at Aiden's shiney smile always manages to get rid of our worries.

Elliot has always been the sweet and quiet kid, and although Aiden is sweet as well, he's definitely not quiet. He's a little dare-devil who we have to watch closely. Before he knew how to walk, he was climbing up stairs and on top of tables. He's a sneaky little guy and his adventures never make it boring around this household.

Our little 2-year-old is a big fan of the outdoors. It doesn't matter what the weather is, he wants to be outside at all times... especially if Elliot is out there.

Besides jumping on the trampoline with Elliot and his friends, Aiden's favorite thing to do is to help his Pappa work. Mike bought a little toolbelt for both of his boys so that they could be his helpers, and they're surprisingly really good too. Maybe it's a boy thing?!

Two years later and our boy is just as sweet and smiley. We're so lucky to have this little guy in our family! Elliot hugs him all the time, and we can't help but to squish him any time we get the chance to. So to our little bear, we love you so much and can't wait to see what you have in store for us in the years to come. Happy birthday, Aiden :)

Christmas cookies

The kids and I LOVE to bake, so this is something we ALL look forward to every year. Aiden and Elliot's favorite is always gingerbread cookies so that's where we started this year. We started in the morning so that's why our little Aiden-bear is still in his pj's ;)

Elliot is amazing when it comes to both cooking and baking. He rarely asks for help and always does a really good job. He knows how to make his mommy proud, that's for sure!


Aiden started out by eating the decorations, but once I showed him how to put frosting on the cookies, he actually got so into it that he forgot about eating the chocolate :-p

Elliot took this decorating this quite serious. It was super cute!

It's times like this that Mike and I just stand back and look at our boys, then look at each other with a big smile. We are so blessed to have such sweet kids!

I'm baaaaaack!

I'm not sure what the point of me starting this blog was when I barely ever write... BUT, I'm gonna try again.

Here's the deal:
I've been 'away' for a couple months cuz my life has been hectic and I've simply forgotten to blog. Aiden got sick this fall and has pretty much been sick ever since. He's had a few healthy days in between, but there sure haven't been many! :( He started out with a cold, then a fever, which we didn't think much of. Only, a week later, he still had the fever! We went to this stupid doctor who thought I was hysterical because it's common to have colds in the fall. A couple days went by and Aiden and I are back at the doctor's office. His cold had become an eye infection and the fever was still there. Again, I get told that it's common with the little ones since they catch it all from daycare. To make a loooong story short, I was at the doctor 4 or 5 times in 2 weeks. Aiden was getting worse and worse, and I was getting more and more frustrated. At this point, my little boy was sleeping way more than usual, his face was pretty pale, and he was incredibly week. Mike and I had to carry him everywhere because he could only walk for a few minutes before he'd wanna lay down on the floor.

One Wednesday morning, I brought Aiden to my mom's to ask her advice. She told me to go to the doctor and not leave until I get answers. So I did! It turns out he was really iron deficient, which makes me understand why he couldn't get rid of his poor cold and fever. His body was simply to weak. We started giving our little guy iron immediately, and it did wonders! Aiden was starting to become the active, daring kid he had always been. It was so nice to see. We were suppose to give him iron for a month and that's it. Well, a month went and our family was back to normal.

The first week without iron passed and you can probably guess what happened? Yup, Aiden got sick again! So now we've been back to the doctor with him for more tests and meanwhile, we're giving him iron to give him some energy while we wait for the test results. At this point, I don't care what the results are... just that we figure out what's wrong with my poor little guy. It hurts to see him like this! Believe it or not, we miss chasing him around while he does his crazy stunts and stopping him from jumping off all of our furniture. ;) Let's just hope the doctors have some answers for us next week.

In addition to that, my parents have both had a rough time. My dad's cancer has expanded in one of the three spots, so he's back to chemo again. My mom... well, she's kinda been through everything lately, poor lady. Without a full (loooong) explanation, she was suppose to get results yesterday. Instead she came back with, "we didn't find anything yet, but don't give up." Ya gotta love when that's the only result the dr. can give ya! So now we're waiting once again... now for the test results of her heart, which she should be getting in a couple of weeks.

SOOooooo, that's a little bit of what's been keeping me busy. Between home with sick kids, work, doctors, hospitals, home with sick kids, work, and more doctors... well, I pretty much forgot to blog :/