Christmas Sugar Cookies

Waaayyyy back in the first half of December, while Milayla and I were still hanging out at the hospital, we got to go home for a weekend. After being in the hospital for two weeks about the only thing I wanted to do was curl up with our little family at home, eat cookies and watch movies. And, well, aside from a couple necessary trips to the grocery store and market, that is exactly what we did. When it came to cookies we went all out. So happy that we had Keely here to help because I always forget just how many cookies can come out of a batch and how much work goes into making, rolling, cutting, baking and decorating those things. We had fun though. And, we got to document it (a LOT) because Keely is whiz bang good at photography and always snapping away. So here goes...a whole lot of Christmas Cookie Making fun. Looking through these pictures kind of makes me wish we still had a few in our freezer (we don't...). OH well :). 

Atticus is an awesome baking assistant and did a great job mixing up our cookies. 

I love this picture that Keely got of those cute little feet of his hanging off the back of his chair, neatly crossed as he mixed to his heart's content. It seems to remind me that even though he has grown so much in the last few years, he is still so little with so much to learn.  

Milayla happily snacked away in her high chair next to us and listened to the Christmas music. Those eyes...gorgeous!

And Keely snapped photos of our Christmas Advent Calendar (love that thing and I am so glad that Jason and I hunkered down and made it a few years ago. It's become a much-loved family tradition).

I'm pretty sure that Jason was busy chopping vegetables in the kitchen for dinner, but he managed to escape photos. Shame. 

Required cooling time for the dough meant that we wouldn't be rolling out our cookies until the afternoon but our time was happily filled with games, books and music. And after naptimes it was time to get to work. Look how serious these boys are about their cookie making. 

I was pretty excited that our Christmas themed Cookie cutters arrived the day before - just in time :). Having the perfect cookie cutters sure makes things just a bit more fun. Though, there were some definite favorites, we seemed to end up with way more Angel cookies than anything else. 

Man, we made a LOT of cookies...

And Milayla was the perfect little cheerleader. Not to mention all the fun that Keely and I had taking play breaks with Milayla. 

And then, finally, after lots of rolling and cutting and baking, the cookies were left to cool before being loaded onto plates to gift to some very deserving folks at the hospital. Of course, we made sure to keep plenty for snacking on for ourselves and were sure to decorate them with plenty of icing and sprinkles.

Oh, what a fun day it was. We all just seemed to get sucked into the moment and enjoyed every last bit of it. Definitely a great way to spend a Saturday in December. Can't wait to give it a repeat.

Bremen 1860

Here and there, people have mentioned (and recommended) Bremen 1860 to us as something to do with the kids. At first we put it off because it didn't sound like they had anything that Milayla was old enough to enjoy and then we put it off because the weather was much too nice to stay indoors and then we put it off because we were focusing on getting Milayla better. Well, last month the stars finally aligned and we did a trial run. We headed to their combined age class of music+motion which is geared towards young siblings so that a parent can bring both kids to the same group (a very good idea, if I say so myself). When we arrived, one of the first things that Atticus saw was a child throwing a huge tantrum for some unknown reason and Atticus clung on tight to us and seemed to wonder what on earth we had brought him and Milayla too. As a result, the first 15 minutes were him being a tad uninvolved while everyone else sat in a big circle and sang welcome songs. It wasn't until everyone started kicking some soft blocks around that he started to get interested. Milayla, on the other hand could not wait to get involved. Man, that girl has no social fear and usually jumps right in when we take her to new places - this particular day was no exception. 

After songs, the door into the next room was opened and the kids were ushered into their own little kiddie-play-heaven. Seriously. There were two separate rooms, one with a variety of giant swings hanging from the roof and one with a ginormous fort decked out with all sorts of goodies. The kids were so excited. I tried to get pictures of their initial excitement but the best I got was a blurry photo of Atticus smiling while climbing up the stairs...

And Milayla well on her way up the stairs. No fear that girl. Love it. 

 For nearly the next 30 minutes, the kids bounced, slid, climbed, jumped, balanced, swung, hid and ran to their little hearts content.

please ignore the goofy look on my face; I was pretty darn excited for Atticus swinging on their on his own.

 Then it was time to sing the goodbye songs. We walked in circles and sang along. As soon as we passed the door to the big fort Milayla tried to make a run to go back in for another go. Next time, my dear, next time.

 After us girls got suited up into our winter gear we waited for the boys to get dressed (talk about a role reversal...us girls waiting for the boys. Slow pokes :) ). Milayla discovered a Judo class across the hall and would have marched right in and joined if I had let her. Instead, she thoroughly fogged up the glass with her face squished right up as close as she could to see every little detail in that room. It was very sweet.

 Well, I'm certainly glad that we made it to here eventually; it was definitely a very busy place but everyone seemed to have plenty of fun.

The Last of Fall

I so thought that I had posted these photos, but I cannot seem to find them anywhere on the blog so here I go (and hopefully for the first time). I believe this is the last of the fall photos, then perhaps I will finally get those Christmas photos up :). 

There was plenty of leaf collecting this fall on all of our many walks. The leaves here turn brilliant colors that I certainly never saw back in Calgary. It's gorgeous and I love it so much I really try to ensure the kids appreciate just how beautiful nature's pallet is. While, I don't think their appreciation is quite at that level yet, they did love collecting, sorting, comparing and crafting with all sorts of different leaves. 

This particular leaf was Atticus' pride and joy. He could not believe that leaves could get that big; just wait until he sees some more tropical leaves one day. 

In the fall, it rains here, a lot. So we've become pretty big duplo building experts (when we aren't trekking to the library or the museum to stay indoors). Both kids love building and tend to work pretty well together so it makes for happy kids and a happy momma which is always nice.

Looking back at these photos, I can definitely see how long over due Milayla was to get some bangs. Funny thing is, now that she has bangs she loves having hair clips in her hair and doesn't want to be without her new sparkly silver and white ones. Funny kid.

As a team, they set to work building the tallest tower they could. I loved the team work. Milayla stacked them until they were too tall for her to reach and then Atticus took over while she handed him the pieces. It was fun to be a part of their efforts.

They both loved posing with the finished product and were so pleased with themselves that it was bigger than both of them. They're still working on how to make it taller than me; it's pretty cute hearing Atticus try to strategize that one with Milayla.

Milayla's excitement to be at the table with all of us has certainly increased and we are super happy about that because with that, her appetite has also increased. YAY!

And don't be alarmed by that unusually large bandage on Atticus' face. It started with a scratch on his nose that he was was worried was dirt (or left over dinner; which is not all that uncommon around here...) and didn't want it on his nose so to keep him from trying to "clean" it off the bandaid went on. This configuration was the only thing we seemed to have (from a medicine cabinet exploding in band-aids) that seemed to stay on his nose. Thankfully, that didn't need to stay on too long.

And trains...oh, the trains. Christmas was good to these kids. Between new tracks and trains that we had bought them and more that Grandparents had sent out they more than doubled their train collection. Man, are they excited. And I thought they were excited before...

Pretty sure that Milayla is going to get lost in that train box one day. She gets so excited about playing with the trains, it's cute.

The best part of it all is that Milayla is really starting to understand the concept of building with trains now and instead of pulling apart all the train tracks that have been put together, she is contributing and building as well. Atticus is a pretty happy camper to have another set of hands to build because it takes quite a while to fill up our living room with their railroad (but they do it again, and again, and again...).

I feel pretty spoiled to get to take care of these two kiddos and be a stay-at-home mom. Okay, it isn't all smooth sailing, but I feel pretty darn lucky even with the little bumps in the road. They are good kids and I am blessed to be a part of helping them progress, develop and discover who they are.

And, of course, we can't forget to add a couple photos from Marlo's visit this past fall. She was doing a whirlwind visit of Europe with a friend and hopped on a train to come visit us for a day. She's awesome. The kids and I loved giving her a tour of Bremen before meeting up with Jason for a very traditional German meal of bratwurst and potatoes. We loved having her here and hope to see her again soon!

It was a pretty awesome Autumn and now we are well into trying to make the most of these chilly winter months. I don't mind the cold too much, it's all that extra time it takes to put on the layers to get outside that may be driving me a little bit coo-coo these days, but if that's the worst of it I think we are doing a-okay!

Jason's New Year Talk

Jason gave a talk in church back at the end of December (after Christmas and right before New Year's). Seeing the time of year that he was giving the talk, the topic was on New Beginnings. December was a pretty crazy month with everything that was going on and I am so impressed that he was able to carve out some time to write a talk and a really great one at that. And he did an awesome job delivering it. Of course, he delivered it in German (thanks for the translation, Ingo!) but it's here in english for everyone.

We sure wish that our family and friends in Canada (and sprinkled throughout some other countries as well) were able to come and give their support in person, but since the logistics of that are a little tough I thought I would post his talk on here (with Jason's permission, of course). And even though you weren't about to be there in person, we sure do appreciate the thoughtful emails, calls, prayers and cards :).

When Jason was up giving his talk, Atticus decided to draw a picture of Jason giving his talk. So between Atticus' picture, and getting to read Jason's talk it is about as real as it gets without having actually been there (short of Jason recording his talk, maybe I should do that next time..).

Without further ado, I introduce Jason (enjoy!!!).....

:::::::

As we complete our Christmas celebrations and near the end of this year, many of us look forward to our future in the coming year.  What will the year bring? What will I accomplish? Who do I want to become? Whether we seek to improve some specific aspect of our life, or want to completely recreate ourselves, now is a wonderful time to consider where we are, where we want to go, and how we can get there.  This is especially applicable to our spiritual selves.  As spiritual children of a loving Heavenly Father, we all have the divine potential to become great.  Great in how we live, love and bring God’s truth to the rest of his children.  Yet we all make mistakes, and, as the apostle Paul wrote “come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). There is wonderful news, however, for anyone who may feel discouraged by the imperfections of their mortal nature.  The prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament taught us an important lesson.

One day, Jeremiah was in his house and heard the Lord saying:
“Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
“Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
“And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
“Then the word of the Lord came again to me, saying,
“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? … Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.” (Jer. 18:2–6.)

Though each us has has flaws, the Lord does not throw us a way.  No, he can make us anew.  He can make us into something useful, something beautiful, something great!  But for that to be possible, we must be moldable in the Master Potter’s hands.

Thirty years ago, in a 1982 general conference, Elder Hugh B. Pinnock of the Seventy gave a talk titled “Beginning Again”.  He says that from a spiritual perspective, we may all begin anew, and gives us eight ways that we can do so.

First, Elder Pinnock says that we must eliminate the phrase “if only I had done something differently” from our thinking and vocabulary.
If only David had not gone up on his roof that fateful night, he might not have fallen and committed murder.
If only the Nephites had stayed humble and acknowledged God in their lives, maybe they would have remained a great nation instead of being exterminated by the Lamanites.
If only you had not gone on that date, or taken that trip, or made that investment, or met that person, your life might have been different.
How much time do we waste thinking about what might have been had we done something differently.  Our thoughts and our words are precious resources.  Continually asking ourselves “What if” is not the question to ask if you want to start again.  Instead, we must face today, and accept where and who we are; look forward with faith and optimism to the future, and not waste precious time dwelling on the “what ifs” of yesterday.  A better question would be “what may be?”

Second, do not wait for tomorrow to begin again. In Proverbs we read “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” (Prov. 27:1.) This is particularly important to me.  Too often, I make a resolution or goal...that I will start tomorrow, or the next week.  Now -- right this very second -- is the time to resolve to change and become who we want to be.  

Third, Elder Pinnock admonishes us to commit to living the gospel of Jesus Christ in its entirety. “For you shall live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.” (D&C 84:44.)

Elder Pinnock continues by saying,

“Many people live the gospel according to themselves. That is self-deception. There is only one true gospel. We may alter it or tint it with our own notions. But if we will adhere to the pure teachings of Jesus Christ, we will eliminate many of the rationalizations that lead to problems. The menu has only one entree. To pick and choose which of God’s precepts to live is satanic self-centeredness. Integrity is the foundation of our life-style.”

It is not enough for us to choose which principles, commandments and covenants we will keep if we hope to gain salvation.  In his Lectures on Faith, the Prophet Joseph Smith explained that “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”  If we want to be saved, we must strive to obey all that God has instructed us to do.

Fourth, face reality.  And I would add - accept it! If we wish to journey somewhere in life, we must first know from where we begin; otherwise, the directions are of little value.  Often, it seems like it would be so much easier if we could simply run away from our difficulties.  King David was someone who thought this way.  He had been a good man, even a chosen and elect individual.  But he buried himself under his own lies, until they spiritually crushed him.  We can understand a little of what he felt from Psalms where he cried, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.” (Ps. 55:6.) Do we try to escape our problems by running away physically or emotionally in some way? I believe most would agree, however, that this cannot solve any problem.  It is only when we accept personal responsibility for our lives that we can begin to escape the weight of guilt or trial that weighs us down.  Remember, the Savior said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28.) He invited us to learn of him and to take his yoke (a much easier yoke) upon us. (See Matt. 11:29.)

Fifth, approach our challenges positively! Look up! Take charge! Sound the battle cry!
A poet wrote:
Never give up! If adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup,
And the best counsel, in all your distresses,
Is the stout watchword of “Never give up!”
(Martin F. Tupper, “Never Give Up,” in Poems of Inspiration, sel. Joseph Morris and St. Clair Adams, New York: Halcyon House, p. II-77.)

If we do not know how to begin making the changes we want to see in our lives, recall what the Savior said:“Seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (JST, Matt. 6:38.) Just a few verses later, the Savior tells us, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Matt. 7:7.)  The Lord has the answers we seek for, if we will but ask him.

Sixth, don’t begin again partially. We must be thorough and complete.  Have any of you tried to patch an old piece of clothing with a new patch? The patch will not hold.  I love how the Lord puts it: “No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for … the rent is made worse.” (Matt. 9:16.) Don’t patch. Begin a completely new life.

The wealthy young man described in the New Testament missed an opportunity to follow the Master because he was unwilling to give all he had. Instead, “he went away sorrowful” (Matt. 19:22), and is never mentioned again.

Seventh, be open and candid in your relationships with others. I cannot agree with Elder Pinnock more on this point, and yet, I admit, for myself, that expressing my feelings frankly and honestly is a huge challenge.  Elder Pinnock said, “So many of life’s difficulties are brought about by being double-minded. Let us learn to say it as it is. Think of Peter’s extreme discomfort when the Master addressed him after Peter had been teaching a false concept: “Thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of man.” (Matt. 16:23.) From that moment, Peter was a greater disciple. The person who is open and honest will be vindicated. Time is his friend. Trust is his reward.”

Last, but perhaps the hardest of all; forgive. Paul said, “To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also.” (2 Cor. 2:10.) In order to begin again, we must be willing to “love [our] enemies, do good to them which hate [us], Bless them that curse [us], and pray for them which despitefully use [us].” (Luke 6:27–28.) When we harbor resentment, hate, anger, or envy towards any man or woman, the only person that we hurt in the end is ourselves.  We cannot move forward spiritually while we carry the chains of the unforgiving.  I love the example that Elder Pinnock shares in the story of young Joseph in Egypt.  Here was a man who had initially been left for dead by his brothers and subsequently sold into slavery.  If ever there was someone who had reason to want revenge or to carry a grudge, it was Joseph.  Nevertheless, he chose not to.  Joseph said to his brethren when they encountered him in Egypt as Pharaoh’s deputy, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, … to save much people.” (Gen. 50:20.)  Because he chose to forgive his brothers, the Lord blessed Joseph immensely and made him an instrument in helping his family.  

I would like to finish by quoting Elder Pinnock once more:

“Yes, so much of heartache and grief eventually become blessings, our earthly instructions, and condition us spiritually. Even if we cannot understand the “whys” of our tribulations, we can still turn to God and rededicate our lives to his safekeeping. Yes, “he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” (D&C 59:23.)”

I challenge each of us this day, to commit to beginning again.  Become the person we want to be, and who our Heavenly Father knows we are capable of becoming.  If we want to know better what that potential is, we need only ask him.  Remember that we are literally his children, and as such we carry within us the seeds of divinity.  Each of his children born on this Earth were born to greatness, but it is for us to decide whether we will accept that role, that potential.  In the words of Eleanor Powell, “What we are is a gift from God.  What we become is our gift back to him.” Through the atonement of our Savior, even Jesus Christ, we can accomplish all things and bless the lives of our families and those within our reach.  Begin again, my brothers and sisters, and not just today, but every day.  

I testify of the truthfulness of this gospel and its power to save all who abide by its precepts.  Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. He has given us the power to begin again.  It is why we partake of the sacrament each week, and attend the temple as often as possible.  They are opportunities to rededicate ourselves to a higher purpose and better self.

Reaching Goals

As I wrote about back in our New Year's Eve post, we've been working on teaching the kids to set goals; not just at New Year's but all year round (we just used New Year's as an easy starting point). Well, it turns out the kids are crazy about goals! 

The deal was that we all had a week to reach our goals by the end of the week. That gave us 6 days (as we were not working on our goals on Sunday) to work toward them. We wrote down each of our goals and made little tracking charts to color in. Also, each day that we all worked on our goal we got to color in a slice of pizza on an additional sheet. If we all worked towards our goal each day (and reached our mark for each day) we would get to celebrate with pizza at the end of the week. 

Well, Milayla reached her final goal the first day. Hers was to walk 6 steps and on the first day she walked 10. Then she promptly went back to crawling so we kept working every day with her to get her to prefer walking over crawling. It's a little puzzling; this walking thing with Milayla. She's been walking since 13 months and is presently quite strong and balanced when she walks. However, try as we might we can't convince her that walking is better than crawling. I'm sure she'll make the switch at some point when she decides it's the cool thing to do. Perhaps she needs to hang around more big kids. In any case, check out her cute little victory smile (sorry about the red eyes, those iPhones can only do so much...). In any case, with this girl's determination, intelligence and hard work we really need to be setting out some more difficult goals for her. She is one hardworking baby, and cute too ;) .

And Atticus had a goal to write his name all on his own. He could already write all the letters without our help (and the rest of the alphabet for that matter) but we would have to tell him which letter came when. Well, not anymore! Man, is he hard working. While helping him work towards his goal I learned that he works well under pressure. I was trying to let him set the pace and take initiative on his goal so that he could really feel like he earned it, but he would sit at the table doodling each and every day... Finally, on the second to last day I brought out our bedtime clock (a clock that works some great miracles around here at bedtime, I tell ya :) ) and set it for 5 minutes. In that 5 minutes, he had written his name (on his own) not once, not twice, but three times without anyone at the table pressing him to work on his letters. And when his time was up he was simply beaming about his accomplishment. As well he should be.

As for Jason and I. Well, both our goals that we set to work on with the kids (we each have a goal book that we work on continuously through the year) were tied in with music and complimented each other quite well. Jason wanted to learn another song on the piano and I wanted another song that I could sing. So we picked out a song together and both learned the same song. It was rather nice to sit down each day and practice together and all that time together led to a new song as well (even with me being sick for most of the week; though I can't vouch for how good my vocals were that week).

It was a fun week and we plan on instituting goal week around here a lot more often (hoping to make it every week soon!). So glad we gave it a try with the kids!

Laughter is the best medicine

These photos are a little outdated now, but I figure since this still happens posting these photos a little late isn't such a bad thing. 

Any guesses what Milayla is finding so funny?

It's Atticus, being goofy.

Oh man, I love listening to these two get going. They laugh, a lot and work together really well (at least, most of the time).

New Year's Eve

New Year's was super low key around here. Just after Christmas Atticus, Milayla and myself got sick. When the weekend rolled around we still weren't doing too great and weren't sure if we were going to have people over. Come Sunday evening, we decided we better have at least a small group of friends over to ring in the New Year. So after a day of taking it pretty easy with the kids (and a little New Year with the kids) we had the Lorenzes over for some games, sparklers and fireworks. 

While Germany isn't quite as fanatical about fireworks as the Netherlands is, there are still quite a bit of fireworks and we enjoyed watching them from the balcony. It was a little chilly out on the balcony without jackets, but the fact that we were ringing in the New Year and it was above zero was a pretty nice feeling. 

Atticus even (reluctantly) let me get him out of bed to watch the fireworks (Milayla had seen some of the earlier folks setting some fireworks off at dinner time and that seemed enough for her - at least this year). You can really see how enthused Atticus was about getting out of bed, the scowl says it all.

The fireworks won him over pretty quickly though.

That's better .

Then it was back to bed and time to bid adeau to the Lorenzes.

 It was a fun evening. I love the feeling of New Year's. While we love goals around here, we try not to call them 'New Year's goals' as we are always making more throughout the year (as we reach our old ones). I, however, am a big fan of choosing one word themes for each year as a nice little reminder. And with all the New Year's hoopla we thought it was a perfect opportunity to start teaching the kids about setting and reaching goals. We kept the goals small, with one week completion dates, so that the kids could keep interest. Milayla is a little young still, but Atticus has certainly caught on quickly. We each have a goal and have posted them with a chart to mark our progress on a wall next to the table so that we can talk about them (how we're progressing, what's hard, what's going well etc.) during meal time. At the end of the week, if we have all been successful, we will build pizzas for dinner. I'm pretty happy with how well it has gone so far; when we tell the kids it's goal time they get pretty excited and grab their needed items. Milayla even runs to the book shelf to get Atticus' writing practice book out. It really has become a family affair to all reach our goals together and I love it. It's a nice time and I hope that we are able to continue to feed that excitement with more goals and progress.

And with the New Year officially off to a running start, I had better run and work on my week goal.


Wishing everyone a very happy New Year filled with love, joy and peace.