Our fake snow

So, this may seem a bit silly to those friends and family members that have "real" winter. But we enjoyed some sledding this winter too! At the Wild Animal Park. On a very small hill. After waiting in line. And I couldn't find the gloves, so the boys had socks on their hands. Pretty pathetic, I know.

But they loved it!


Here they are in action:

Family

Christmas goodies

This year we made a gingerbread train together. Nana has a cake mold for the engine and cars, so she made it ahead of time and brought lots of sugary decorations. Aunt Jeannette led the train team - it was lots of fun!

My big food project was making a Swedish Tea Ring at Doug's request. Doug remembers his mom making one almost every Christmas. Not at all sure that I can live up to that memory, I decided to try it anyway. Here is the uncooked version: looks like a ring, right?


Well, I call the finished version a Swedish Tea Pillow....

Doug said that it tasted the same, but looked really different. I don't have a lot of experience with real breads (you know, kneading and yeast and all that), and I don't have a pizza pan to help keep the shape. And the frosting was really runny. But at least it tasted good! We'll see if I practice the Tea Pillow again next year....

Andrew turns 3 x 3

Andrew turned 9 on Christmas Eve. We had the rock climbing party at 8.5, so this was a small family celebration.

One thing he really liked was the Cubs gear from Renee! (goes with the Bears jersey)

Happy Birthday Andrew!