Highlights of the Holidays

Thanks to Nicole, I realized I haven't shared too many Holiday photos this year. So here we go - the highlights of our Holiday celebrations!


What is Christmas Night at Joe Blacks (my step-dad's bar) without the Man-in-Red?


He came in . . . .

Ella was terrified,

but Grandma Barb was there to protect her!



But she came around :)

Bapa introduces Myles to Santa


Claire loved the pool table . . .

Ringing in my Mom's 60th year with fun, food, friends, and family!

The photo board my sisters and I put together

The set-up.






The Surprise!





A toast to the Birthday Girl









My mom and Denny




My mom and her sisters yucking it up!
(left to right) Jan, Terri and mom

We were so happy that some sisters could be there to celebrate! :)





We line up to take a girl-only family photo
(left to right) my sister Ali, my sister Jess, Cousin Lauren, mom, Aunt Terri, and me)



. . . then we get heckeled from some bar-people . . .


so they get a little talking to from the Birthday Girl

and a gesture or two . . .



Cheers to you, Mom!





On the morning of the 27th, we headed even further north to Argyle to celebrate Christmas with the Adolphsons! This is what we were traveling in . . . looks more like Antarctica!













We took our annual two-horse-open-sleigh-ride with Grandpa Adolphson. What can I say, this is an awesome tradition that our girls will be telling their grand kids about.











it was freakin-freezing, so Darin (Carl's brother) put on everything he could find!



Cutie-Cousin Annika

Even with a trip-ending storm, we had a fantastic Christmas this year! We wish you and yours a joyous 2011!


Happy New Year!

mother - - - - - -

Well, Mother Nature has spoiled our plans yet again! We are supposed to be enjoying time in East Grand Forks right now. I would have used our vacation time having long coffee hours with my family, spending time with my grandparents, lunching with friends, spending my Christmas cash at the good 'ol Columbia Mall, figuring out my wardrobe options for our New Years Eve bash . . . but NO! A big storm had to start brewing - one with lots of snow, freezing rain, high winds and frigid temps. This storm started last night and is supposed to go through Friday. But with all that freezing rain and high winds that are supposed to follow on Saturday, our trip back would be torturous and unsafe. So, we decided to pack up the van in a hurry yesterday and head back ( . . . being responsible sucks). Maybe living in Minnesota isn't all it's cracked up to be after all!

If anyone wants to spend New Years Eve with the entire Adolphson Crew (we would also host), please let us know! Our calender is wide open :)

The "C's" of Christmas Eve

So much could be said about tonight. But it's late, and Santa is in route, so I am going to shorten it to describing our night through one letter - - the letter C.

Cookies
Cute Christmas dresses
Camera snapping
Chaos (the beautiful kind)
Church
Crayola
Chewing and Chomping
Candy
Candle lit dinner
Cherished moments
Cheering
Chardonnay
Creating memories
Chris-Cringle-is-coming!
but above all . . .
CHRIST - for He is the most precious gift of all.

Merry Christmas! . . . here are just a few snap shots of the night-of-nights:

Carl's gift is a inside joke . . .

the progession of the best suprise gift ever! she had NO idea!

Dear Santa - Could you please put John and Beth Lundby in your sleigh tonight and deliver them to Joe Black's on Christmas night - - pretty please! We miss them so much!

Even Steven

Okay . . . I may have been a little unfair in a recent post. Apparently, guys don't like it when you post pictures of them figure skating. I have no idea why this would be. Especially when this person looked so graceful.

But, I want to set things right.

Being a former figure skater myself, I understand what it feels like to have an embarrassing photo taken from time to time (right, Nicole?) How could you not? The cheesy costumes. Bad choreography. Ice Show with themes such as "The Sound of Music" and "Rocking to the 80's". I have lived it.

So in order to even the playing field . . . here are just couple pictures of my figure skating pictures:

*warning - these images you are about to witness are disturbing, and should not be shown to young children.

** these photos may not be reproduced . . . if they are, I will find some horrible pictures of you and post them to this blog AND my facebook page.



My very first skating show - age 5 -

mom - - - what's with my hair cut!! Did you hate me?

OK, the last one maybe wasn't too bad . . . but nothing is uglier than this . . .

So many things could be said, but right now, I got nothin'.

We're even.

She said Yes!

Dana (Carl's sister) and Ryan are engaged!!! We are so very excited for both of them and wish them nothing but wedded bliss! And . . . I can't wait for the wedding. I am a sucker for cute wedding details, and can't wait to hear what Dana has in mind for the big day! Whatever the date or theme, I know she will be a beautiful bride who has a gorgeous ceremony followed by a killer party.

Congrats to the Bride and Groom-to-be!!

Cooking with Claire

Over the past few months, Claire has really started to take an interest in cooking. This new hobby came about because she is attached to my hip after school ( . . . or maybe it that I am attached to hers..?) which is usually when I start to make dinner. Even though it usually ends up being a huge mess, her favorite job is stirring. After much coaching, she has started to keep the spoon in the bowl as she stirs, which has cut down on post-cooking-clean-up :)

I caught her in action just the other night when she was helping me place the tots in our Tator Tot Hotdish (or Casserole for all you non-Minnesotans).

all good chefs have to sample their dishes

love her Michael-Jordan-Tongue

(Which side did Claire do?)

She did an awesome job! Who knows, maybe she'll be the next Martha Stewart . . . only cuter and less lame :)

Memories . . . of the way we were

One of my favorite memories as a kid was ice skating in the winter. Where I come from, you can't go three blocks without seeing an outdoor rink. Figure Skating and Hockey are just a part of life. My family was no different. My dad grew up near an outdoor rink, and my Grandmother used to tell me stories of how my dad was hardly ever home during the winter season because when he came home from school, he would immediately go over to the rink and be there until night fall. All that time out on the ice paid off when he eventually played hockey for The University of North Dakota (Go Sioux!). When he finished college, he made hockey his career and coached for over 30 years. He taught all of us kids how to skate at a young age and we all continued to skate recreationally and competitively for many years to come.

Carl, on the other hand, comes from a basketball community. Argyle has an outdoor rink, but they do not have a High School Hockey team. However, when Carl was young, he adored hockey! He loved skating and followed Sioux Hockey pretty closely. He often tells me that if he would have had an opportunity to play hockey, he would have loved to.

Let's rewind the clocks back about 10 years. Carl and I were dating, and were visiting Carl's parents in Argyle. It was a cold Spring, and the community had a late freeze. While visiting out at the farm, we decided to take advantage of the frozen coolie, and showed off some of our mad skating skills.

As you can see, Carl is quite graceful out on the ice. I don't know about his hockey skills, but he's got the Figure Skating thing down pat!

Tis the season

. . . for Holiday photos! You gotta love what happens when little girls get dressed up for the cold weather . . . especially if they are wearing pea coats!! Even though it is very busy (and can be somewhat stressful) time of year, I think it is totally worth it!

pass the positivitiy, please

As you are all aware, I was a tad upset on Saturday morning. Which is out of character, because like any true Minnesota girl, I love a good storm (just as long as I am not driving in it). But not only was it ANOTHER weekend storm, but it ruined my Christmas shopping plans. At the time, I had not purchased a single present, and my Christmas list was growing by the second. Our lives have been so busy lately with basketball practices, league games and tournaments thrown in with our usual schedule of Driver's Training and Religion classes, that I hadn't had any opportunities to go shopping without all three girls at my side. Saturday was supposed to be the day. The day I was going to drive down to Mall of America with a few girlfriends and shop like I had never shopped before. Well, we all know it didn't happen.

Instead of being a crab all day, I decided to change my attitude and fix the problem to the best of my abilities. Sunday was going to be the Annual Adolphson Girls Christmas Cookie Baking Day . . . so I simply flipped the two days and figured I could bake cookies a day earlier and go shopping a day later. Seems easy enough, right?

Well, quite honestly, it didn't start out like the aren't-I-the-best-mom-in-the-world-for-baking-with-my-girls kind of morning. It went a little something like this:

Ella - "Mom, can we make the cookies now"
Me - "Soon Ella, we have to wait until Claire takes a nap"
two minutes later
Ella - "Mom, can we make the cookies now"
Me - "Not quite time yet, you have to be patient"
repeat this conversation at least 50 times.
Me - "Okay, fine. Let's just get things rolling so when Claire wakes up we will be all ready to go"
Ella - "YAY!!" (she totally beat me)

I had Ella start crushing the Oreos for the Oreo Balls (Yum)
Ella - "This is too hard and takes too long"
Enter Jocie
Jocie - "Mom! You started without me?!"
Me - "No. We haven't really started yet. I am just having Ella start crushing the cookies. Maybe you should help her."
Jocie takes over the crushing job . . . then Ella starts whining that Jocie is doing her job and Jocie starts yelling at Ella to stop whining . . . Ella ends up storming off.
Then, when Jocie starts up the (very old and cheap) hand-held mixer, it can't handle mixing crushed cookies in with whipped cream cheese and starts to smoke . . .

In between all this, I try to start taking pictures of the merry event, and my camera will NOT focus and will not allow me to take many pictures. I continue to try and get more and more upset by the minute!

One mommy moment alone and one phone call to National Camera Exchange later, and things started to go much better around the house. I surrendered to the fact that my camera wasn't going to work well today, but I was going to bring it in the next day, and I felt much better. The older girls and I started on the sugar cookie cut outs and all was right with the world again. Here are the photos I did manage to get:

All-in-all, it was a really fun afternoon . . . we just had to work through a few wrinkles first. I wish I had a photo of our finished work, but I assure you they looked as good as they taste!