Dorian

So, it's been a while since we last blogged. Things have been pretty crazy. But I'm sure you all know by now that we had our beautiful baby boy earlier this month! Dorian Gabriel Swift was born on March 1st at 12:46 am. Yup, he missed being a leap day baby by just 46 minutes! He was 8 lbs 6 oz, and 21.3 inches.

Coming home from the hospital

Everything went well, and Dorian and Kim are both doing great. It is a lot of fun to see Joslyn with Dorian. She really likes him! At first she was a little scared of him, and wouldn't get too close to him, but now she asks to hold him all the time, and she loves to show us where is hair, nose, eyes, and other body parts are.

Our first day home from the hospital

Such a proud big sister!

Sleepy smiles

Also, Joslyn recently learned to count!

She counts to 10 everytime! Now we just need to teach her that there is not 10 of everything haha. 

There is this cool little park in the middle of the cities called Swede Hallow. It's the craziest thing, but even though it's right in the middle of the city, with huge busy roads all around, it's actually really quiet and serene.

We had a great time walking around. Because it was all snowy and cold, we were the only ones there. But Joslyn loved that she could run down the path that seemed to go on forever in front of her.

This week, Joslyn and I got to play twister. Well, you can see, my effort level was pretty low, and Joslyn didn't really get it, but she had a lot of fun playing on the mat.

Hawkeye Point

A while back, we decided we wanted to start high pointing. High pointing is when you go to the high point in every state. Some are really difficult, like Alaska and Washington, but some of them are super easy! We wanted to start while we were in Utah. The highest point is King's Peak. But the trail is really long, so you have to camp a few nights on it, and with Joslyn still so young, it just wasn't really feasible for us to even try. We looked up the highest point in Minnesota, and it's a seven hour drive from us, it's almost in Canada. So we haven't done that one yet either. But even closer than the Minnesota high point is the Iowa high point. It's right on the boarder of the two states, and only 3 hours from us. So over Isaac's long break from school we decided we would drive out there and get our first high point. Hawkeye point is one of the one that is super easy. You can drive right up to it.

This is Hawkeye Point, the highest point in Iowa

When we pulled off the side of the road to get out, our car got stuck in the snow. We were stuck there for about 30 minutes, trying to get a tow truck to come help us, but then some nice guys who lived across the highway saw us, and came and pulled us out.

Us at the summit

Here are some cute pictures of Joslyn eating cereal all by herself.  

Winter Wonderland

It is soooo cold!!!  As I am writing this blog, weather.com tells me it is -10 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  With the wind chill it says it feels like -25.  It's so cold that the windowsill is covered with frost, on the inside.  It's even right by the heater.  It makes it difficult to go out and do things, but we've found some fun things we can still do in the cold.

Yesterday, when it was about ten degrees warmer, we decided to go shopping.  It took forever to heat up the car and get all the ice off it.  Then, when we come out of Walmart after shopping for about half an hour, we find that the windows are already starting to frost over again.

Kim and Joslyn sledding with neighbor Jase watching

I got to go outside this morning and try something I've been wanting to do.  I'd heard rumors that if it's cold enough, you can blow a bubble and it will freeze in the air.  We had to go test it out.  It actually worked!  The bubbles that fell to the ground right away still just popped like normal, but the ones that floated for a little while would totally freeze.  The frozen bubbles were rolling on the ground while the wind blew them around.  Then, when they popped, there were flakes of frozen bubble pieces being blown around in the wind.  It was something I would have never imagined if someone hadn't told me it could happen.

Earlier this week it was quite a bit warmer so we were able to go out and play a little bit (about 30 degrees).  We took Joslyn sledding with some friends that live near by.  She liked going down the hill a couple of times, but after that she wouldn't get on the sled anymore.  She didn't like playing in the snow either.  When we held her she'd want to get down and play like always, but when we put her down in the snow she'd get upset and ask to be picked back up.  It's hard for her to walk in it.  It's also hard for her to stand up because she's bundled up in so much clothing.  When she falls down in the snow, she just lays there until we come pick her up.

Practicing in the soccer field

We came home and practiced.  We had Joslyn lay down on the sled while we pulled it around the soccer field by our apartment.  She thought it was a lot of fun.  Whenever she sees the sled in our closet she wants to get it down and go play now.  When it warms back up, we'll try to take her sledding again.  She's doing a lot better walking in the snow too.

Today is game day.  Our two favorite teams are playing.  Of course, we still root for the Seahawks.  What's so cool is that the stadium they're playing in is about a quarter mile from our house.  We can hear the cheering and noises from here.  It's an outdoor stadium, so it's going to be very cold.  They're saying it may be one of the coldest NFL games ever.  Isaac wanted to go because the tickets are really cheap, but Kim said no way.  Joslyn likes the Seahawks too.  Whenever she sees football on TV she raises her arms above her head and says "Go!"  Also, a couple weeks ago Isaac was wearing a Seahawks shirt, and we told her the picture was a Seahawk.  Now, when we're watching football she always points at Isaac's shirt and says "hawk!"  It doesn't matter what shirt he's wearing, she still does it.

New Year

This week was our anniversary! We've been married for 3 years now! We swap babysitting with some friends in our ward that live near us, so they watched Joslyn while we went to see the new Star Wars movie. We really enjoyed the movie.
Also, every year on our anniversary we go get a new bear from Build-a-Bear Workshop. The closest Build-a-Bear is at the Mall of America (which is only like 20 minutes away), so we headed out there right when it opened to avoid all the crowds.

Joslyn had fun with the toys at the mall

It was a good thing we did, because right as we were finishing our bear, a big birthday party came in to make their bears! Because we went to see Star Wars this year, we decided to make a Star Wars bear!

Joslyn is still a little scared of the bear, but she sure loves his light saber!

For New Years we didn't want to keep Joslyn up all night so we decided to go the the zoo on New Years Eve. They have a big event for kids and instead of counting down to midnight, they count down to noon, and drop beach balls shaped like animals. It was really fun! They had lots of fun activities for the kids, plus the normal zoo and conservatory. Joslyn had a great time.

We got a few inches of snow, so of course we went and played in it. Isaac made this awesome Olaf snowman for Joslyn and she loved it!

Our recipe this week is crock pot chicken and dumplings. I can't take credit for this recipe, I found it on Pinterest forever ago. 

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I doubled the recipe since we were cooking for extras and I only had three chicken breasts. It worked out great though.)
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 1 (14.5 oz) can chicken broth
• 1/2 onion, diced OR you can use 2 Tbsp. dried, diced onion
• 1 Tbsp. dried parsley
• 4 Grands flaky refrigerator biscuits

Put chicken in the crock pot, and then just put everything else, except the biscuits on top of it.  Cook on high for 3-4 hours, or low for 6-8 hours. After the chicken is cooked, shred it, and the put it back. Then cut the biscuits into 9 pieces each, and put in the crock pot, and cook on high for another hour (I usually make my own  biscuit dough, and just drop spoonfuls of it in the pot). Then stir it up, and serve.

This is a great recipe for cold winter nights.

Christmas

Christmas has come and gone! We had a great time celebrating as a family. After we did our own Christmas morning, we drove down to Rosemerry's in Rochester to celebrate with them. We had a really good time exchanging gifts, and playing with all the kids. There are a lot of cousins that are Joslyn's age, so she had a blast.

Christmas morning, Joslyn ran up to the pile of presents, but she didn't know what they were, or what to do with them.

She figured it out pretty quick, and after that, she had a great time unwrapping everything.

Christmas night it snowed a few inches, so the next day we got to go out and play in it. Joslyn really loves the snow. It's like the cold doesn't even bother her if there is snow to play in.

On Christmas Eve we made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. Isaac made an igloo (it really is made out of graham crackers), but since we started watching the Star Wars movies, he decided that it's Luke Skywalker's house on Tatooine.

We also made and decorated some sugar cookies. Joslyn had a really good time. It was her first time eating a cookie. (Once she realized she could eat it, she didn't decorate anymore.)

           

Beginning of Christmas Season

The Christmas season has begun here.  It's cold and there is snow everywhere outside.  It's funny.  Joslyn has watched the movie Frozen a thousand times, but I don't think she ever knew what all the white stuff was.  Now that she's seen all the snow around here, I think she finally understands.

The community we live in already had a little Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun.  Joslyn got to sit on Santa's lap and take a picture for the first time.  She was very good.  They also had a real horse drawn carriage pulling people around the neighborhood.  It was pretty cold sitting in it, but we still enjoyed it.  Joslyn kept saying "weeeee!"

We stopped by the Como zoo and conservatory again this week.  It was the first time we've all gone together, even though all of us have been there separately already.  It was also the first time any of us went through the conservatory part of it. They keep it at 80 degrees, so it was a nice break from walking around outside.  There must have been a million poinsettas, as well as cocoa plants, sugar cane, star fruit plant, avacado, and more.  Joslyn really liked the pond full of koi fish.

Joslyn loved the polar bear exhibit too!

These monkeys have really funny mustaches, I just had to put up a picture.

On our way to the zoo, we got stuck behind a reindeer-drawn sleigh! It moved out of our way, but it was kind of crazy seeing it in the road!

This week's food is probably our favorite so far.  It's a delicious sweet and sour chicken.

So you start out with boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces (we've done it with chicken thighs before, but it really didn't turn out as good). Then you coat the chicken with corn starch (or flour works pretty well, too), dip that in some egg, and fry it in vegetable oil until it just turns golden brown (just a minute or two). Then put it in a 9x13 baking pan, and pour this mixed sauce over the chicken:
1 c sugar
6 Tbsp ketchup
3/4 c vinegar
1-1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1-1/2 tsp garlic powder
Bake at 350 for 1 hour, stirring the chicken every 15 minutes.
Serve with a side of rice and maybe some steamed broccoli!

It's usually not swimming in sauce like this.  We didn't have very much chicken this time.