A cookie story

Last night I made cookies. Yes, we do on occasion make cookies and no, they were not vegan! Anyway I was making cookies while Jeff was putting Rylan to bed. I went up to say goodnight to Rylan after having taken a bite of cookie dough. When I gave Ry a kiss he says to me, "I smell somefing in you mough mommy, what you eating?" I was just laughing during this little monologue of his when he continued on by saying, "Can I have a cookie?" I never even told him it was cookie dough, but the boy has a sniffer like a hound! He can smell anything on our breath, especially if it is of the sweet nature! He really makes us laugh!!

Christmas Decorating

Rylan being a goofy boy!

Rylan loves listening to Great Grandma Burns read him this story!

It has her voice recorded into it. He thinks it is great!

Carsten wearing a Mickey Santa hat!

We finally got the chance to decorate for Christmas this weekend! Rylan was so excited. He was giggling as we opened up the Christmas tub. Carsten was in bed, so it was a good time for us to spend with Rylan. We even made some cookies to make it an extra special event! We had music from the Nutcracker on in the background and it was a really joyous evening!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for everyone who follows our family happenings. Thank you for your support of our family. It means so much to know you are thinking of us on a regular basis. We are so grateful to have family and friends like you. We wish we could be there to celebrate Thanksgiving with you in the states, but our potluck dinner with the other students and staff here will have to suffice! We hope you all enjoy time together with your families today!

Whirling by

 My blog updating has been lacking lately...sorry! Life just seems to whirl by me sometimes and I can get so caught up in the day to day routine that I forget important things like our blog. A lack of sleep has not been helping either. Carsten is teething again (we think) and therefore has been pretty fussy and waking up some nights for an hour or more at a time. Add that to late nights and early mornings and it makes for a tired set of parents. Things are going great, just busy as we get more in more involved in life here in Canada. Here are some recent pictures of the boys.

Carsten recently learned how to clap!

 

 

 

Rylan loves to ride his horse.

Carsten was desperately trying to get outside where brother was!

Having reading time together before bed.

Being a "helpful" big brother...without being asked!

Potatoes & a sick baby

We have been so fortunate to receive a lot of food donations lately, so we are trying to make the most out of it. Recently we were given lots of apples which I previously mentioned, but we were also given tons of red potatoes and some butternut squash.

Today we spent most of the day peeling, cutting, cooking and freezing the potatoes and squash. We decided to make french fries that are similar to what you buy in a grocery store frozen and then you bake them. Basically you blanch the potatoes in oil for about 4-5 minutes, just until they are barely brown. After that you dry them off and then freeze them. Then when you are ready to use them, you just put them in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. We really don't eat fries very often, but figured we could store some for future use. We are also making up large batches of mashed potatoes and freezing those as well. We cooked the squash up for baby food, which Carsten loves!

We feel so fortunate to have received this food. We are making everything we can think of that uses potatoes so that we can freeze them before they go bad. All that to say we have been busy and I am tired of cutting potatoes!

On another note entirely, I am pretty sure Carsten has an ear infection. He has been fighting a cold the past few days with a fever. Just noticed to day that he seemed to be in pain anytime I got near the one ear. Hopefully we can take care of it quickly. Think of him in the next few days!

Bath time

Carsten loves taking a bath each night!

Rylan will literally stay in there until the water is freezing!

 The other night we gave Carsten a few pieces of banana to see how he would do with it. Well it ended up all over him, so we opted to throw him in the kitchen sink for a quick bath before dinner. Once Carsten was in the sink of course Rylan wanted to be as well, so we filled up the other side and let him take a quick bath as well. He looks huge next to Carsten!

November already

It is amazing how quickly time flies by. It is hard to believe that it is already Temperatures are dropping here and we continue to see little glimpses of what lies ahead...snow and more snow :) We can't wait!

It was lightly snowing this morning when I took Rylan down to preschool. He was so excited. He kept saying, "look mommy there is snow on your jacket." When I told him there was snow on his jacket, he just laughed. When he got into class he ran up to his friend Elroy and said, "Elboy (how he pronounces it) it is snowing outside, Elboy,  you see the snow outside?" They were both giddy about it.

This week has been a busy one. Someone donated several boxes of apples and several bags of potatoes to the school, so we have been processing a bunch of those. With the apples we have made raw apple sauce to freeze for Carsten and we are drying out a bunch of them in a borrowed dehydrator. With the potatoes, we are making a bunch of meals that use potatoes and freezing them for future use. It has been a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it!