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.  

Thanksgiving

It was great having a break this week and getting to spend a lot of time together as a family. We tried to spend as much time as we could outside before the snow came because Joslyn can't really play on the playground while it's covered with snow. On one of the playgrounds, there are some tunnels to play in, and I just thought it was so cute when Joslyn would poke her face in one of the holes and yell 'hi!' as loud as she could.

For Thanksgiving we were able to go down to Rochester and visit family there. There were lots of other kids there that were Joslyn's age, and she had a blast running around with them. Dinner was great. There were three different turkeys, all cooked differently. I really liked the smoked turkey. Kim's favorite part of the meal was the mashed potatoes. It was really a lot of fun talking with and getting to know the family. Kim spent some good quality time with cousins looking through Black Friday ads after dinner.
Also on Thursday, we got our first real snow fall of the year. Joslyn was too young to play in or remember any of the snow we got in Utah last year, so this was her first time playing in the snow, and she loved it! She just ran around and brushed the snow off of all the playground toys. Later the snow got pretty deep so she had a hard time walking in it, but she loved looking at it and watching in fall.

Friday morning we got up and went shopping. We didn't go super early, it was like 8:30 when we got to Walmart. But when we got there, there was like nobody there. I guess all the big sales that started Thursday night were all sold out, so we didn't have to deal with big crowds while we looked at the things we wanted.
Later that afternoon, we went to the Mall of America to do some shopping. It was pretty crazy how many people were there, and how difficult it was to find parking. I think we must have missed this store last time we went to the mall, because we didn't see this before, but in the store Creative Kids Stuff they have a cool play cave for your kids to play in while you shop in their store! Joslyn spent a lot of time playing the baby grand piano they had in there. It was like her favorite toy ever.

Minnehaha Falls

It's started to get really cold here! I'm walking to school in freezing temperatures (usually somewhere in the teens lately). But this week we decided we'd try and venture out in the cold to visit a park that everyone has been talking about since we got here, Minnehaha Park. The park itself is huge. Mostly open area with picnic tables scattered around. But the main attraction in the park is Minnehaha Falls, the waterfall in the middle of the park. It's not a huge one, but it was fun to go see.

It was so cold that the mist coming off of the falls froze on the trees and grass right next to it!

Even though it was so cold, Joslyn still had a good time!

Because it gets so cold here, a lot of places have fun indoor activities for the kids. It's actually really great when we just need to get out of the house for a little while. This week, one of the libraries near us had a toddler obstacle course. They had a lot of fun activities. Joslyn especially liked playing with the hula hoops!

Because it's Thanksgiving this week, we wanted to share a Thanksgiving food, but not a typical Thanksgiving dinner dish. So here's what we came up with: Cornucopias!

We made them out of our favorite roll dough. We got the cone shape by wrapping the dough around foil covered cardboard cones made from old cereal boxes. We buttered the foil really well, and then let them rise, and baked them.
Then, we filled the cornucopias with a chicken salad. But you could probably fill them with anything you want! Even Joslyn loved this one!

Wedding!

This weekend, my sister Elizabeth got married!! I was able to fly out for the wedding in Oregon, and stay for a few days, while Isaac stayed here with Joslyn.
The wedding was so much fun! Elizabeth and Paul were sealed in the Portland Oregon temple, and all but two of my brothers were able to make it (one is on a mission, the other is deployed). It was great to see everyone, and to witness such a beautiful sealing. It's the first sealing I've been to since ours, and it was great to just sit and listen.
It was pouring down rain when they came out of the temple, and pretty much the whole day, but Elizabeth was beautiful in her wedding gown, and they looked so happy together!

The Portland temple has an indoor atrium, so that you can still take nice pictures when it is raining, so that was really nice.

My sister Amanda made their wedding cake, and it was awesome! I didn't get a picture of it, but it was white with blue trim and butterflies all over it.

Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!! We had a great week, and an especially great weekend!

Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of everything, but we have some that turned out pretty nice.

All week we watched scary movies after Joslyn went to bed. But after watching Insidious on Wednesday night, Kim couldn't sleep. So on Thursday night instead of watching a scary movie, we watched Warm Bodies and carved pumpkins.

Kim's is a Haunted House, and Isaac's is Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting in the lava cave. 

On Friday we let Joslyn color on her pumpkin, and it turned out great!

On Friday night we had our ward Halloween party. It was really fun. We didn't get any pictures of our costumes, but Kim and I were both skeletons, and Kim had a baby skeleton on her belly. Joslyn was a ghost. They had a chili and cornbread cook-off, and then different families in the ward set up fall games and activities for all the kids. After the kids participated in the activity, they got to trick or treat for candy in that room! Some of the rooms were really neat. There were campfire stories, a cake walk, mini pie making, and Joslyn's favorite was the Halloween dance party room! She probably could have stayed there all night dancing and staring at the lights.

Also on Friday night Jarom and Paige came and stayed the weekend with us while they were going to a business conference here. It was a lot of fun meeting Paige and having them here.

We really wanted to do a lot of Halloween decorating and make Halloween foods.  So, we decided to throw a party.  Unfortunately, we only got a couple of pictures, but it was a lot of fun.  Here are some of the decorations.  

Custom made electric chairs for people of all ages.  

Joslyn just wanted to watch the movies.  

Kim made a cool spiderweb on the door.  

 There were a lot of other decorations that we tore down before photographing.  All kinds of bats and zombies and spiders.

Miniature pumpkins

The best part was probably all of the fun foods we made.  

Eyeballs

Monster Munch

We cut a huge pumpkin in half, cleaned it out, put a clear punch bowl in the bottom half, and used the top half as a platter for some seasoned pumpkin seeds.  There were many more foods that we don't have up here.  Our cabinet is now full of leftover pieces of skull, spider, and eyeball shaped foods.