New Year's Eve!

We have never done a whole lot on New Year's Eve.  The day was pretty much a regular day.  We had munchies and hung with our friends.  Downtown State College has their version of first night.  We went down there to see the ice sculptures, at first we weren't impressed, though we did stand in line so Lucas and Craig could go down the Russian slide that was made out of ice!  Lucas thought this was fun.  I thought it would scare him, because it seemed to go pretty fast, but he loved it!  We headed down a main street in State College and were able to find the more impressive ice sculptures, these were pretty neat, and huge!  Headed to our church building where a youth activity we being held, because Craig is a youth leader.  It was fun, Lucas loved running around!  We arrived home way too late and put Lucas to bed and brought in the New Year with our good friends!  We look forward to what this year has to bring!  Hope we can do better and be better than we were last year!

Christmas!

Lucas slept in, yeah!  First we needed to explain to him what was going to happen and then Craig went ahead to take pictures and turn the lights on the tree.  Lucas was really excited, we showed him the empty plate and note left by Santa.  Lucas did such a good job at taking turns unwrapping the presents!  It was a very, very pleasant and wonderful morning!  I do have to mention that Grandma Nean and Grandpa Boyd....you rock!  You are forever in my circle!  We have been wanting to get Lucas a Geo-Track train and while he was unwrapping his presents I was regretting not getting him one!  (I am beginning to think you might have secret spy cameras in our home.)  Ironically enough he was playing with those bouncing ball things the night before, (so seriously, where did you hide the cameras!).  I am also going to mention how wonderful my husband is, I love you hubby!  I have been wanting a food processor this past year.  I have a tiny one that I am constantly using, though it is falling apart.  We decided that it just wouldn't be possible to get a food processor this year, we don't usually buy presents for each other anyway, but decided to stuff each others stockings.  After the presents were opened and I was finishing up breakfast I noticed a present on the table and I thought Lucas had forgotten to open one, but Craig informed me that is was in fact for me.  I opened it and quickly figured out that it was my food processor!  All this time that Craig was telling me it wasn't possible to get one, it was sitting under his desk at work.  Best present ever!  Thanks honey!  Church was very pleasant full of music, Craig sang in the choir and even had a duet that he sang in German, it was beautiful!  Finished the day off with our close friends (they are practically family).  All in all is was a wonderful Christmas!  This was our first Christmas away from home and family and I have to admit it was a success!  Though we missed our family and friends, it was nice to be at home as a family.

Christmas Eve!

Reindeer pancakes for breakfast to get us in the mood!  Had a low-key afternoon, took a nap!  That night we headed over to a family's home that goes to our church and acted out the Nativity.  It was fun!  I am so glad we went.  Because there is only three in our family we don't have enough to really act out the Nativity, so it was fun to be included.  Lucas was not interested in dressing up and being a shepherd, though.  Craig makes a great shepherd (though I'm not sure whether he looked more like a shepherd, a hobbit, or Rambo), Lucas not so much, he was obviously more interested in playing!  Later that evening we caught up with Santa riding a fire truck in a nearby neighborhood, Lucas thought this was pretty neat!  Then we went home and set out a plate of cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer!

Christmas Popcorn/Muppet Christmas Carol

The Swenson clan usually watches Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve.  Due to plans on Christmas Eve, we decided to watch a Christmas Carol on Friday night (also known as "Christmas Adam" in the Swenson home, because Adam came before Eve.  Get it?  Wink.  Wink.).  Because we have Lucas (and also because I prefer it) we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol.  I cooked Christmas popcorn, which is basically lime jello popcorn and raspberry jello popcorn, which turned out really well!  Lucas seemed to enjoy the movie and of course the popcorn!  I think we are watching too many movies, however, as recently we have been letting Lucas watch the good old Christmas Classics, but now that is all Lucas wants to do is watch a movie and have popcorn and M&Ms.

Food for the birds!

Yesterday, Lucas and I went to a friends house and strung cranberries and popcorn together and rolled a toliet roll in bird seed to put on a tree for the birds.  So, Merry Christmas birds!  Lucas liked doing this, though he liked eating everything better, including the bird seed!

Holiday Sweets Making

I realized that since we were not going home for Christmas that if we wanted the traditional treats that our families make during this time of year, I was going to have to do it.  This turned out to be a two day process.  The start was kind of rockie, I screwed up the easiest recipe, and that is when I decided that there was no way I was attempting to make divinity, thus the two day process. When I finally did get around to making it though, it worked!  My divinity rocks!  Thanks to my little candy thermometer and the kitchen aid (oh, how I love you!) everything tastes great and now we're in the process of giving it all away, because let me tell you after two days of baking sweets I am all sweeted out.  I went to bed the last two nights on a sugar high!

Gingerbread Houses

Annual decorating of gingerbread houses, this year we did graham crackers, we decided this was easier and worked just as well, so for now on it will be graham crackers!  Craig built the house (it's his favorite job *sarcasm*)  and I assisted with the frosting while Lucas decorated!  We did get distracted when Santa showed up on the front of a fire truck, handing out popcorn and candy canes!