Advent Calendar 2013

Movie-a-day Advent Calendar!

Remember our advent calendar from last year?
To remind you, here is the link again - Advent Calendar 2012 

This year, we've used those same boxes and filled them with titles of Christmas movies (with the exception of a few titles).  We don't know which movie we get to watch until we open the box.   For the ones we don't own, we get help from our friends, Netflix or our local library and borrow them.  We have enjoyed doing this very much!

Here is the list of movies (in no particular order):

Reisen til Julestjernen
The Santa Clause
The Sound of Music
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Christmas Devotional
The Polar Express
Home Alone
Julenatt i Blåfjell
Merry Christmas Mr. Bean
Mr. Krueger's Christmas
A Christmas Story
Annie
Santa Buddies
Bestevenner
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Tre nøtter til Askepott
Scrooge
Jack Frost
The Year Without Santa Claus
Mickey's Christmas Carol
One Magic Christmas
Small One
Gift of the Magi
Nora's Christmas Gift

Thanksgiving Feast 2013

Today is the actual Thanksgiving Day but we celebrated last Saturday, the 23rd of November.  We have had this tradition since we moved here in 2001.  We had a good turn out with 17 guests. We had our usual dinner and entertainment afterwards.  Everyone seemed pleased.  :-)

Here is Ole Robert and Camilla peeling 10 pounds of potatoes! 
Okay... I ended up peeling the second half because they didn't think it was so much fun after a few pounds. haha  

Children printed off coloring pages to color and hung them around the house and used it as part of our decorations.

Here are the usual fixings that we serve in our Thanksgiving dinner:

Strawberry Jello Fruit Salad, Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Clover Leaf dinner rolls, Corn Bread Muffins, mixed vegetables, Deviled Eggs, black olives and green olives.  
Hope I didn't miss anything.  ;-)

Hard to take a picture of so many people at once! 
(You can click the picture to enlarge.)

The Charades-Telephone game we play every year because it is entertaining.  There is never a dull moment.  

For dessert I made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake roll and banana bread. mMMmm... 

Our awesome missionaries, Elder Hall and Elder Hill... (or vice versa...) 

Bestefar/Grandpa and Camilla. 
♥

And last but not least... 
THANK YOU FOR THESE FLOWER GIFTS!  
♥
Thank you to everyone who came and made this year's Thanksgiving celebration a success. 
♥
HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!
May we take the time to give thanks for the things we have today for tomorrow they might be gone.

Meet Mr. Dem Bones!

I'm at it again with yet another door decoration.  Some people had been asking me if I was going to decorate our door for Halloween as I have done in the past with Mister Snowman and Little Bunny Foo Foo.   So, in honor of all of your suggestions, I decided to put Mr. Dem Bones on our door.  He is named after the song "Dem Bones".   

 If you aren't familiar with the song, you can listen to this classic version here: Dem Bones song

And here he is...
...meet Mr. Dem Bones, in the non-flesh!  
Made from a white vinyl table cloth and a black permanent marker.

A FEW HOURS LATER...
Camilla and I made these Jack-O-Lanterns out of paper. We'll have to see how long they last in this rainy weather!

Thank you everyone for your suggestions!  ♥

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Natursti birthday party

Ole Robert had his birthday party with his friends today.  And can you guess what they did when they first arrived?  They logged onto our WiFi and all sat around doing whatever they were doing on their phones!  haha  But, that didn't last for very long.  We planned for the boys to do a scavenger hunt (natursti) using a camera.  They needed to go around our neighborhood and take pictures of the items on the list.  The team with the most points wins.  They only had 1 1/2 hours to do it.  The more the points the harder the item. One of the items was to take a picture of the local church, which was worth 250 points.  The church is around 2-3 miles away from where we live so, I didn't think they would actually go there.  One team decided to ride their bikes there and another took a picture of a picture of the church that was on their computer.   They were to also take videos of themselves doing odd things, like dancing the Gangnam Style or sing The Fox.  They even sang Baa Baa Lille Lam (Ba Ba Black Sheep).  Was so glad they had good sportsmanship.  

This is the list (in Norwegian) they got to work with.

(Click to enlarge)

Some of the pictures they took. 

This is what I was working on while they were out...

...these "hamburger" cupcakes and "french fry" sugar cookie cutouts.  

Almost looks like the real thing!  ;-)

They had pizza and pop for the food.  Afterwards, they got to eat these while we looked at their pictures in a slideshow.  Three hours was not enough time and we didn't get through all the teams' pictures.  We almost need to plan a part two so we can finish.... 

Then there is the clean up time... HOORAY!    ;-)

Happy 11th Birthday to 
my handsome young man! ♥

His birth announcement. 

Cakes/Birthday cakes and cookies!

Only an amateur...

I enjoy decorating cakes and finding things to make, especially children's birthday cakes and cookies.  It brings me great JOY to know that some of my cakes/cookies can lighten the lives of children. ☺ 

Here are just a few of them.  Most of these cakes have marshmallow fondant decorations.

Sleepover birthday party.

LDS Baptism cake #1

Batman birthday party

Hanbok 한복 
(Korean Native national dress)



Spongebob Squarepants
(Backwards theme)
I didn't have enough red food coloring. (Boo!)

Hello Kitty birthday party

Butterfly

Present

Lego birthday party
(Yes, he is a little out of proportion and over weight. But, no bullying allowed!)

LDS Baptism cake #2
CTR = VDR
(Choose The Right = Velg Det Rett)

Frog birthday party

Dog birthday PAWty

Minute to Win It birthday party

Minecraft birthday cake
Made with three layers of "cookie" 
1, brownie, 2, chocolate chip 3, no bake

LDS Baptism cake #3

Butterfly Rainbow cake

Hula girl



Rainbow cake 



Emoji birthday party.  
Each girl made their own emoji.


 
Monster cookies with homemade eyes made of Royal icing. 
I am not responsible for children who might have nightmares because of these cookies,  ;-)



I entered a local gingerbread house contest.
These were my creations.
100% edible.



Cream fruit cake.



Malasadas. 
A donut orginally from Portugal that is popular in Hawaii.



Snowball cookies.



More birthday cakes!



Pumpkin roll cake.
This just proves that nobody is perfect. ;-) 
Tasted good!



Songpyeon/송편
A Korean rice cake.  
Usually eaten at Chuseok/추석, Korean Thanksgiving.
This was our first time making them. 

Food, Glorious Food!

Just some of the foods we enjoy in our home. Don't let the pictures make you hungry!  ;-)

Shish kabobs, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, Norwegian way of eating hot dogs (pølse and lompe), open faced sandwiches, apple cake, Korean-Kimbap 김밥, fruit kabobs, Sand cakes, cookie cutter pizza, wild berries, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas tree shaped pizza, Korean stuffed pancakes called Hoddeok 호떡, Korean staple food-kimchi and last but not least, crossants stuffed with a chicken mixture. 

Stained glass Christmas sugar cookies made from crushed hard candy.

Homemade chicken nuggets using bread crumbs and cookie cutter shapes.

Mini sized chicken pot pies.  Made in cupcake tins.

We froze heart shaped creamers to use in our hot chocolate.  ♥

School lunch! 

A fun way to make deviled eggs!

Fun with pizza!

Braided garlic bread.

A traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. 

Another Pinterest idea complete!

Only 974+ more to go! ;-)

Playing with food is okay to do in our home.  ;-)
By the way, this is Korean-Kimbap 김밥. Similar to sushi.  
Only difference is kimbap is made with smoked fish and regular rice
and sushi is made with raw fish and sushi rice.