Christmas Craft

This is our first year for Christmas Craft time during G.C.!! We decided that we are going to make an advent calendar. Brian said the Halverson clan had a Christmas tree and each day you would put up a different tree decoration. Does anyone still have this so I can see what it looked like? I also went online and found a few cute ones I thought I might be able to recreate.

This one is too fun and looks easy enough, right?

Elyza loves animals and I thought this would be her favorite one to play with, and it would be fun to make all the animals. It looks like everything is padded and I am not sure how to do that on so little pieces. Any ideas? Oh, and I love the palm trees!

I thought this would be so fun to do for Elyza. It is a bit busy so I would try to tone it down a bit, but I think Elyza would love all the sequin sparklies on it. If anyone else has any ideas on calendars or stockings, I would love to see them!

Precious

This was at the Oregon Coast this summer. I love this picture.

Yummy yummy to my tummy

I found this really great recipe for waffles and wanted to share. I also added our favorite recipe for salmon for you fish lovers out there.

Sunday Morning Waffles

2 cups lukewarm milk, 1 package active dry yeast (.25 ounce), 4 egg yolks, 2.5 cups flour, .5 tsp salt, 1 tbs sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, .5 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 stick melted butter, 4 egg whites.

Pour the milk in to a large mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the top. Stir well to dissolve, making certain that no lumps remain. Beat egg yolks and add to cooled yeast mixture. Combine the flour, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg; add to mixture. Add the vanilla. Stir in the melted butter. Beat the egg whites until stiff (about 4-5 min); fold into batter. Let the mixture stand in a warm area for 1 hour or until double in size, then pour 1.5 cups into your waffle iron and enjoy!

Grilled Salmon

Make sure you have a fillet with no bones, and with the skin taken off. You will have to double the mixture if you have a big fillet. Mix together one third cup soy sauce, one third cup canola oil, one third cup brown sugar, and one fourth cup water. Mix well. Pour over salmon and marinade in fridge for at least a half hour. Grease your grill with oil and put the salmon directly on the grill. We have a gas grill and it takes about 5-7 minutes on both sides, but we like it a little black, so just cook it to your liking! Seriously the best salmon I have ever had. We have also tried this marinade on chicken and shrimp, but it is best on salmon.

Back to Work

Today is Bri's first day back at school. He left at 8 a.m. and, with all of his meetings and classes today, will not return until close to 7 where he will then have to go to the church for scouts until 8:30. We have been so spoiled these last few weeks with neither of us working and just being home doing whatever we want. I start tutoring 3 days a week as well so we are officially back to the grind of regular people living.
An update since we have not posted for a bit:

• Brian did an internship with the City of Troutdale this summer and had a great experience. He has decided being a city manager is exactly what he wants to do for a career. We had so much fun in Oregon with friends and family but were excited to come back to our own place and to get the next 8 months started so we can finally be outta here! Brian graduates in April, and then, who knows?

• This year Brian was elected President of the MPAA, Master of Public Administration Association, and is also a T.A. for his old economics professor. In a couple of weeks he gets to go to Virginia for an International City Managers Association conference where he will hopefully meet some city managers that will help land him a job in April.
  

• We also celebrated Brian's 30th birthday on the 29th. We stayed in and had curry and pumpkin pie and played LOTRO*. It was a pretty chill day. Elyza has a Strawberry Shortcake video that is about a birthday party so all day long she was saying "a happy birthday to you!" Darling.

• Elyza is 20 1/2 months now going on 5. She is such a sponge. She picks up the littlest things and runs with them. She can now identify all of her letters, say her abc's (which she does all the time), identify and spell her name, count to 10(except for 4 which doesn't exist to her), speak in sentences, potty on the toilet, half way dress herself, prepare meals even Eric would be proud of**, and is taller than all the 2 year olds in the nursery.

* Lord of the rings online. It is a game Brian and I play that we are a bit obsessed with and is so much fun!
** We recently got Elyza some fake food and dishes. She loves to take our order, run back to her room to fill it, then bring it back and watch expectantly as we pretend to gobble it up.