Home for the Holidays

Happy new year, dear readers!

It's hard to believe that it's been over six months since I last posted. It was a busy summer and fall, but now that Christmas has passed and the new year has begun, things have started to slow down. Although I like to complain about winter in Minnesota, it allows me to work on many indoor projects, including updating this blog with my Christmas photos.

I spent a week at home in Pennsylvania for Christmas. This tends to be a hectic but enjoyable time of year, filled with cookie baking, present wrapping, and running crazy errands with my mother.

The above picture is actually from Thanksgiving, but we look Christmasy. I insisted that my mom and I wear these matching Norwegian sweaters for Black Friday shopping.

My mother's side of the family actually has Swedish heritage, and as a pre-Christmas surprise, I gave my mother a kit for making Swedish rosettes. They are basically fried dough in the shape of flowers or stars. Very tasty.

                          Rosette success! I didn't even burn myself on the hot oil.


No one else in my family seems to enjoy wrapping presents as much as I do. I go to great lengths to create the most extravagant bows as I possibly can, which sometimes involves using artificial plants and other things I find around the house. Oddly enough, the recipients of my gifts never seem to think the bows are as pretty as I do.

This year was the first Christmas that all of my siblings and I were home with our spouses. This called for much celebrating - and snapping lots of photos on Christmas Eve.

                                 My younger brother Toby and his wife Rochelle

                                      My older brother Tye and his wife Meghan

                                My mom in her mink coat and sneakers at church

                                   David and I after the Christmas Eve service

                                                  David and I at my parents'

                                                 Louie the Christmas puppy

             
                Christmas day brought much more excitement and lots of new toys!

                                      Tye still hasn't figured out how to hold dogs.

                                            Louie hates his Christmas outfit.

                                            Bruiser loves opening presents.

                                       David was thrilled with his Star Trek PJs.

                                                          I got a ukulele!