MY TWO FAVORITE TIMES OF DAY

I love the time of day when sun is just coming up.  The light is still gentle.  Its like the sun is starting to fill the canvas with brighter colors.

 

 

My other favorite time of the day is evening, right after the sun goes down. 

The light becomes softer, sot so bright and washed out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAI

Oh, how the time flies.  Kai just turned 15!

It seemed like just yesterday we celebrated his 1st birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

He still has the same smile, and a twinkle in his eye.

 

He is smart, fun, friendly and makes everyday exciting.

He runs xcountry and plays basketball.

He is in the band and plays trombone.

He even managed to squeeze straight As from his first quarter in High School. Not an easy task with his busy schedule.

 

We love Kai, and are so happy he is part of our family!

Happy 15th!!!

 

 

 

WHO'S THE BIG TURKEY?

We had a mother-daughter Activity Day Girls dinner at the church on Tuesday might. During the dinner we were all playing a game. 

We each got two feathers pinned on ourselves.  The goal of the game was to get rid of the feathers.  The loser was the person with most feathers, the Big Turkey.

To get rid of the feathers you had to tell somebody what you were thankful for.

 

Maija ended up being the Big Turkey. 

Not because she was not thankful, but because she wanted all of the feathers.

 

 

MORNING GLORY

Once again I could not help myself but run outside to take photos of a beautiful sunrise.  This was on November 12th, just around 6 am.

Truly makes one appreciate God's creation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I found a perfect pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It is from here:

 

http://outofourmindstoyours.wordpress.com/the-wonderfully-versatile-pumpkin/

 

They may not look like the prettiest cookies, but they are SOOO GOOD!

 

 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 C Pumpkin Puree

1/2 C shortening

1/2 C sugar

1/2 C brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp pumpkin spice

2 C flour

1 egg

1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Cream shortening, pumpkin, sugars, and pumpkin spice together.

2.  Sift flour, salt, and baking soda into a bowl.  Pour flour mixture into creamed mixture and mix together.

3.  Beat in egg.  Add chocolate chips and stir.

4.  Drop dough onto cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 12 to 15 minutes.

 

Enjoy!

HARVEST FESTIVAL

Every year our local elementary school organizes a Harvest Festival. 

It is an evening filled with games, dancing, cake walking, haunted house, ect...

Each class creates a themed basket, which will be raffled out during the Harvest Festival. 

The money earned from the raffle tickets goes back to school.

 

Each year I buy some raffle tickets and put them into various baskets. 

 

This year we got lucky and won the wrapping paper basket. 

Maybe not the most exciting basket to win, but definitely useful and practical. 

 

And of course it is always fun to be a winner!

 

 

 

 

HALLOWEEN...WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY???

This Halloween the kids appeared as animals:)
I found this great book from Amazon, which had all kinds of animal hat knitting patternes.

Markus wanted to be a FOX. 

Which is now seriously popular because of the music video,

WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?

Kai chose to be a chicken



Niko wanted to be a Pikachu from Pokémon (I used a rabbit pattern for his hat).

And Maija wanted to be a Panda Bear.

Here we are at Grandma Paula's Halloween party.

On an actual Halloween night Maija decided to dress up as an princess

Niko...with his extreme dislike of being photographed

This is one of the most popular homes when it comes to trick or treating.  You get to choose your candy from a menu, and you also get a dinosaur stuffed animal.  Their front yard displays dinosaurs year round, so we call the house affectionately the Dinosaur house.