A Minnesota Christmas Part 2

Santa's been here!



Aw, Santa knows Stian pretty well! He brought him a new cat! He's named her Claire (most of his stuffed animals are girls, for some reason). As I said before, Stian loves his stuffed animals. He also for some reason has decided he really loves cats. I'm not sure why. In fact when I was putting him to bed tonight he was asking me for a real cat. I told him maybe when he was older. That could get interesting though as neither Kris nor I have ever had a cat and really knows what to do with a cat. I'm not going to worry about it too much just yet though. In all likelihood he'll want a pony by the time he's 6.





And Santa brought him a whole bunch of cars. That was the one thing he asked for for Christmas was more little cars.



And then he had a little bit of a meltdown when we told him he had to wait to open any more presents until Karin, Brad, Klebo and Brent got there. He was very unhappy about that. I did discover pulling out the camera and taking pictures of a fit is a good way to get it to disolve however. I ended up using that trick a couple more times that morning!



Yay! They FINALLY got there! At like 9:00 am, it's not like he had to wait until noon or anything!



Stian got lots of fun gifts and had fun opening presents - his own and helping other people with theirs.













Enlarge this one to see his tongue. Why do kids always stick out their tongue when they are concentrating on something? Is this universal? Does it help them think?

A Minnesota Christmas Part 1

We spent five days in Minnesota with Kris's family for Christmas this year.

A couple of days before Christmas Auntie Karin let Stian open one of his gifts - a teddy bear! Stian loves her. He named her Huggy Bear after one of Grandma's teddy bears that he likes to borrow when we are visiting. Stian loves stuffed animals. He has a million of them, and sleeps with about 15 in his bed every night. I'm not sure how he fits. So he was thrilled with Huggy Bear.



The amount of snow in Minnesota was amazing. They have had a record snowfall so far this year. I wish we had gotten a picture of it. Here Stian and Klebo get ready to go play out in the snow. Obviously as a Minnesota kid, Klebo is very well prepared!



We spent Christmas Eve at Karin, Brad and Klebo's house. The little girl in the pictures is J.J., she is Brad's graddaughter from his first marriage. It's a bit complicated but J.J. comes to stay with them pretty much every other weekend because her Daddy (Brad's daughter's ex-boyfriend) is currently living with Karin and Brad. See, I told you it's complicated. She's a very sweet little girl, shes's about 9 months younger than Stian. They had fun playing together.











They got to open a couple of presents on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Cookies

We made Farm Grandma's sugar cookies this morning (Farm Grandma is Kris's dad's mom). I will remember to appreciate this more in the future when Kris's mother makes them, as they were a heck of a lot of work! We had all 3 of us working on them, and it still took a long time!

Stian had fun decorating them though. Stian was in charge of the colored sugar sprinles.



You can tell by the way Stian is holding the sugar sprinkles in this picture that this project produced quite a mess. Fortunately when Stian was done he decided he wanted to wash the floor. So he spent the next 15 minutes or so down on his hands and knees washing the floor. It was perhaps not the best floor washing ever, but awfully nice that he did it!

Wisconsin Birthday and Thanksgiving Part 1

And then we were off to Wisconsin for more Thanksgiving and birthday fun.

And of course toy catalogs to look through. Grandma at the lake gets the best toy catalogs.

Wisconsin Birthday and Thanksgiving Part 2

Check out this amazing birthday cake my mom made. Isn't it adorable? And it features a Dodge Ram - Stian's favorite vehicle.