New Years Eve with the Family (2016)

Happy New Years from our family to yours!

Another year has come to an end, I can't believe how fast it has gone by, we have made alot of memories this year. Just two days ago I spent some time looking through our family album from this year. We have filled up the entire thing with photos from our family vacations, local trips, birthdays, weddings, parties and just everyday life! It feels great to welcome another year with a brand new album to fill up with new memories. 

I made a yummy dinner for our family, a cake for hubby and and cake pops for the kidos.
We set the table with all the candle sticks we had for a beautiful candle lit dinner.

The kidos didn't actually make it till midnight, but we celebrated all evening long.
By 8, the kids had their baths and were in their pjs. We cuddled on the couch and watched 2 movies and then it was bed time. Hubby and I stayed up till midnight, popped the champagne open and watched FRIENDS until midnight :) sounds like a perfect evening to me.

We had a great time, and I am glad I made an effort this year. I am usually so tired after the kid's birthday party and the holidays to do anything for new years, but now that the kids are actually understanding the whole point of New Years Eve, I thought it would be fun to dress up and celebrate. 

Here's a peek into our evening-

Celebrating Hanukkah 2015

During the few short daylight hours we have,  it is dark, gray and wet outside. People cope with our NW weather differently. Some of our favorite things to do during such days, is cuddle up on the couch with the family and watch holiday movies while eating unlimited bowls of popcorn, oh and don't forget about baking cookies together, and playing board games- we truly make a lot of our memories this time of the year, which is why I love this time so much. The cold, dark rainy days can't ruin that warm and fuzzy feeling we get during the holidays. 

This is our 4th year celebrating Hanukkah, and the kids always look forward to it. 

Unlike Christmas, when the kids open all their presents at once, with hanukkah, they open one each night (there are 8 nights of hanukkah) then they actually have a whole day to play and discover their presents until they open another. 

Which is nice for the kids, however it is a lot of pressure for the parents to have 8 gifts ready for each child, and making sure we light the menorah every night. A lot of times my husband works late and we end up excluding him from our festivities, which I don't like :(

  I don't think we will be doing Hanukkah gifts next year, we will probably only do three Christmas gifts for each child. We will however,  will continue to light the menorah, because by celebrating Hanukkah we are not only are we remembering how God helped the Maccabees defeat the great Greek army, but also the miracle of the oil.  (When the Jews got their temple back, they could see that it was defiled. The Greeks worshiped their god Zeus and sacrificed swine on the alter. Which are both a big NO for our God. In order to  purify the temple, they had to burn oil in the menorah for 8 days, but they only had enough oil for 1 day -it took 8 days to make more oil. That little bit of oil they had burned for 8 days!) 

God was with his people and helped them purify the temple. This is a great reminder of the great miracles the Lord has done, so when the children ask why we celebrate Hanukkah, I can tell them the wonderful story. 

 I had 3 kids sick with the stomach flu this week :( They felt pretty crummy all week, so the thought of opening a gift that night after dinner, helped them get through their days. 

We lit our menorahs, opened presents, played games. In other words, we tried enjoy our time together even though we were sick. 

On the 6th night of Hanukkah which fell on Friday this year (sabbath) evening, I hosted a Hanukkah dinner for the family. We get together for dinner, read the Hanukkah story, sang songs, played games and exchanged gifts. 

Here are a few pictures I took during our week:

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!

Birthday Pow Wow 2015!

I can't believe that it is that time of year again. My two older kids turned another year older! I still find it hard to accept that I have a 8 year old. Time sure flies, I don't want to stop it, I just want it to slow down. 

My kids birthdays are 3 days apart, so we throw them one party since they share the same cousins/friends. It is getting harder to come up with  theme that both of them agree on. Nico wanted a train party and Emily wanted a frozen party. I told them to keep thinking until they agreed on something. They decided that they wanted to use their tee-pee in the party. We chose to do sort of a pow wow party. 

We invited 11 friends! It was a full house and we had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures that we took during the big day. 

 

Thanksgiving 2015

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the people you love.

 Ours was lovely. We made a big meal and spent the day with family
. 
My sister's family came in the morning, and we got the turkey in the oven. 
The kids had an awesome time playing together all day long, while my sister and I  worked on the big thanksgiving meal.

We had an amazing day and I am so thankful for everything the Lord has blessed up with. 

Thanks for visiting,

Valentines Day 2015

I hope you all had a great Valentines day! We loved celebrating our love to one another this Valentines Day. Off course we don't need a special day to tell each other we love them, but it is a nice little reminder that we should take the time to do something special for one another.

Valentines day was my favorite holiday back when I was in elementary school. I loved how in each grade, we got to make our personal mailboxes for valentines, I remember picking out my valentines at the drugstore and handing them out in class. I loved the parties our classes had, I remember coming home with our little goody bags and looking through everything over and over, I remember trading candy and gifts with my sister. Simple things like that make wonderful memories. 

Even though my kids are homeschooled, I do not want them to miss out on the fun and still want them to make lots of memories. We made little goody bags for each of us and worked on some cards for each other.

I love how the kids made little cards for each other and how they picked out some small gifts for each other. Off course, we can't have a party without making our iced sugar cookies. (I used my recipe here.)  Emily helped me roll and cut the cookies and I iced them. They are not perfect, the icing was a little runny, but the kidos don't care, They just love eating them with a tall glass of milk. 

Take a peek into our day:

William's 1st Birthday Party

We celebrated William's first birthday this weekend. I still find it hard to believe that he is one
already. I think it's really fun to throw parties for our babies, I know they won't remember it, but its more about celebrating the fact that we have all survived this first year.

We chose an airplane theme and the colors red and blue. After that, things just kind of came together. We all had a great time, and I want to thank our family and friends for coming and joining us on this celebration. 

Hanukkah 2014

We lit the first candle of hanukkah during our winter getaway, and now that we are home,  the celebration continues. 

I always have so much fun decorating and wrapping gifts for the holiday.

I thought I would share some pictures, in case anyone is in need of some Hanukkah inspiration.

Hanukkah decor is actually really hard to find, and if it is available, a lot of times it is ugly and tacky. I have been collecting and making our Hanukkah decorations for the past 3 years, and still do not have more then one bin full.  

I keep all of my decorating really simple. I also put out a few winter decorations here and there, which will stay out until Feb-March, or until I start getting the itch to decorate for Spring. 

Traditionally the Hanukkah menorah is set in front of the window (which is not possible in our house with a curious little 11 month old)

So I set up the menorah in the living room on my refinished record player.