The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This really is the most wonderful time of the year. Although at times this week I've felt a little crazy getting everything done, (we're going out of town, so I've had one week less to do all of my "usual" things), it's been more wonderful than anything else. My highlights:

Last Saturday was our ward Christmas pancake breakfast party. Of course, one of Santa's helper Santas made an appearance (you know Santa can't be everywhere at once!) and I acted as Santa's helper telling him the names of all the children.

Lisi asked for a snowboard for Christmas, makes sense with all of our Kansas mountains and snow, haha!

Kierst wants a professional cake decorating set (and a DSi, but she already knows that's not happening!). I love that she helped Santa wrap gifts for her little sisters yesterday:) Abs figured out who's really Santa (see last year's post about her finding my stash of Easter chocolate), but she knows that once she stops believing the presents stop coming! We always got Santa presents growing up, even in high school, I still wrap presents to Chris and me from Santa!)

Anyway, she had absolutely no desire to sit on Santa's lap and ask for anything because she "knows" but all of her friends lined up and she gave into peer pressure to do the same!!

Saturday night I got together with a few friends to sew blankets for the NICU at KU Med (where Chris did his residency, it services a large underpriveleged population). This is a yearly tradition that started with Chris' Mom about 7? years ago (miss you Julie!). I love it, we had such fun! And completed 22 blankets which we'll drop off in time for Christmas!

This week was also the Christmas program at Lisi's preschool.

She played the shepherd. I asked her to smile for a picture and here's what I got:



Being "sore afraid" of the angel

At the manger

After the nativity, the children sang Christmas songs. She really loves to sing!

Every year we make Christmas goodies to take to friends and neighbors. Lisi and I spent one afternoon cutting out sugar cookies and when Kierst and Abs got home from school we spent the rest of the afternoon frosting them. By the time we finished our table was covered with dozens of Christmas cookies and about an inch of frosting and sprinkles!

Lisi was all about getting the job done, she had 10 cookies frosted before I could even check on her!

Abs added red hots to all of her cookies. Ever the artistically and creatively minded one, Kierst spent about 15 minutes on each cookie, making sure they looked like a real tree or stocking or snowman (she definately gets that from Chris!)

With Lisi's help I also made:

Russian Butterballs. I think these are sometimes called Mexican Wedding Cookies, but that's the name my Mom called them, so that's what they are at our house. They are simply made of butter, sugar, walnuts and flour. Yum. The warm, buttery smell of these cookies combined with the fragrance of powdered sugar melting over their tops really reminds me of Christmas.

Then we made: Peanut Butter Blossoms....

Almond Roca (toffee, for those of you not from the Northwest)...

and Peppermint Bark dipped in chocolate.

Saturday morning, Kierst had a basketball game, Chris has been taking her, but I got to go this time! They won 14-8. More on b-ball in another post.

After that it was off to a Christmas piano recital for Kierst-delightful! Except that we argued over what she should wear-she wanted more casual, I wanted her to wear a Christmas dress, aahhh, we both have strong opinions! She finally won out when I realized this wasn't worth fighting over, I have a feeling we're going to have many more of these in the future!

The best part of this week is that today is Chris' birthday!! Chris surprised me with 38 cupcakes from my favorite bakery for my b-day in November, it's hard to top that one. But I do have a few surprises up my sleeve...Happy Birthday to my sweetie of 15 years!!

Clara's Dream

Kiersten wanted to perform again in Clara's Dream this year, and since last year we had such a good time together, how could I say no? Of course, I love performing anyway, and it doesn't hurt to get dressed up in a beautiful costume that's been fitted to you!

By way of explanation, Clara's Dream is a version of the Nutcracker done by Kiersten's dance studio, it only lasts about an hour, and children not in the ballet company can perform in the party scene or as a Mother Ginger child. Parents, of course, are always needed to fill the party scene.

Anyway, our Monday nights throughout October and pretty much all of our Mon-Thurs. nights in November were filled with rehersals. I was glad to get those out of the way and finally perform the 1st weekend in December.

A professional hairdresser did our hair and was it ever beautiful! She spent close to an hour on mine and I had to take a picture, it was amazing. And yes, I have about 50 bobby pins in my hair and about half a can of hairspray (and I'm not exaggerating).
Here are Kiersten and I together. Last year Kierst played a boy and wore a wig, this year she was a girl and she couldn't have been happier, until....

she had to sit for an hour while I curled her hair into ringlets. She's got the thickest hair you've ever seen! But doesn't she look lovely?

Here's the "German Family" at the second night of performance.
The party scene on stage. Chris managed to take a few pictures while juggling a tired Lisi at the same time-what a great hubby!
Kierst did a great job!After the party scene we had to wait an hour for the curtain call. What did we do to keep ourselves busy? Sat in our Victorian dresses and read gossip magazines. Haha! I loved getting to know the other moms, we certainly had fun! Some of them are in my ballet class at the same studio, but that's another post for another time...

Thanksgiving

I am a traditionalist when it comes to holidays. I love holidays and I surely love traditions that surround those holidays.

My remembrances of Thanksgiving growing up of course center around food. I remember waking to the sound of my Daddy putting the gazillion-pound turkey into the oven at 4 in the morning. I'm not sure why it took so long to cook, but it did and it was always done around 2 p.m.

My family loved stuffing and so my Daddy made a HUGE batch of stuffing. Part of it made it into the bird (yes, this grosses out microbiologist Chris which means we don't do this in our own house, sniff, sniff-that's me crying) and part of it was left out for us to eat for breakfast.

You may think that's disgusting, but let me tell you that stuffing for breakfast is quite delicious...maybe it's just a Nielson thing, my sisters will definately agree with me!

When I woke up this Thanksgiving morning, my good husband had something waiting for me...

A big bowl of stuffing!!

O.K., that's not what it looked like in the morning, but there it is on our Thanksgiving table in the bowl that growing up we dubbed the stuffing bowl--I can't think of any other time that bowl was used,only for stuffing at Thanksgiving and Christmas!! I was lucky enough to inherit it! (Maybe not luck, I had to barter to get that bowl from my sisters:)

I love setting a formal table at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Out comes the china, and the silver I inherited from my parents and grandparents, the crystal Chris brought from his mission in the Czech Republic and I reminice about all the holidays past. Chris reminded me that he got in "trouble" at the Nielson household when he tried wearing a hat to dinner the first time we joined my family for Thanksgiving. Haha! That tells you something about Chris' dislike for formality and maybe something about me, too, perhaps it's my liking for things done a certain way, at least it tells you you'd better not wear a hat to a Nielson dinner!

Kierst made napkin ring holders to add a festive touch:


Here's the crew around the table: (yes, that's jellied cranberry sauce out of the can behind Kierst, another Nielson tradition--and perhaps to those with a less refined palate another acquired taste)

Can't take pics without Abs and Lisi being silly for the camera:

Lisi looks so much like my Daddy in this picture it's scary.

Lovin' that gigantic turkey leg!

Chris had to work on Thanksgiving, but was home early enough to put together a marvelous feast!

In the evening we had a few friends over for pie. Kierst made pilgrim hats for the kids who didn't want pie.

With what everyone brought we ended up with the traditional pumpkin (my favorite!), along with Stapley traditional pie like blueberry cream cheese and pumpkin chiffon, and a couple of apple, and a candy pie, and a couple of chocolate silk pies. Delicious! Not to mention a great time with friends. This may have to become a tradition at our house.

Friday I was up at 3 a.m. ready to hit Target. I am one of those weird ones who actually enjoys Black Friday, but you won't find me at ToysRUs or Best Buy! Why in the world is it always freezing cold?? Standing outside my teeth couldn't stop chattering! Is it worth it? I don't know, sometimes?, but it's become a tradition for me, it's always fun standing in line commiserating with all the other crazies!

The rest of the weekend for us is decorating for Christmas (yes, I love to go all out, if only I could convince Chris to risk life and limb in order to string lights on the second story of our house, haha!), interspersed with a few other activities like a trip this afternoon to see Megamind.

Now on to Christmas!

Czech Republic Revisited

The past couple of weeks I've been putting together photo books from our spring trip to the Czech Republic. These pics were taken with my point and shoot camera, oh, if I'd only had my good Nikon! I guess that means we have to go back haha! Most of these were edited in Lightroom-love that program. It was so much fun to look back on our trip that I had to share some of my favorites-some of these are new, others I've posted before.

My absolute two favorite pictures from the gardens at Buclovice chateau:

This one I barely touched up, it was cold and rainy and so the water shone perfectly off of the leaves

Prague, Stare Maesto, I love architecture so I have lots and lots of views of buildings!

Looking into Hraceny in Prague

Prague castle from the Charles Bridge

Gardens at Buclovice.

Prague, of course!This was taken out the window of our car driving in the countryside. It's such a typical view of the little Czech villages and I just loved it.

Tower in Stare Maesto
I think this is in Hraceny in Prague, I really can't remember.

One of the statues lining the Charles Bridge

Right by our hotel in Prague

At Karlstejn Castle

St. Vitus at Prague Castle

Prague

Ribbed vaulting at Prague Castle, like I said I'm an architecture junky.

Prague

Looking under the art noveau overhang of the municipal hall in Prague

Prague castle

Wall around Vysehrad

Archway under the buildings in Telc Castle ruins at Strakonice