Wintry things

This week I am 13 weeks along growing our new baby, and just today things have started to turn around.  I actually made dinner (!) and then cleaned up (!!!) and had a little project night with Jason and Hazel.  We made pomanders.  Klaas sadly could not participate since he went to bed early.  We're going through the stage of "I will only eat meat and nothing else and scream when you attempt to put vegetables in my mouth."  So after a brief battle, which included the technique of tickling to get the little guy to open his mouth for a bite, we sent him to bed.

Jason got Hazel ready for bed, as usual, but tonight he basically was running her around the living room trying to get her wiggles out.  She was doing jumping jacks for 5 minutes and wanted to do more when we finally started to wind down.  Last night it was jumping on her bed.  If it wasn't so cold outside now, we would send her out to do laps after dinner to get the wiggles out.  We even spent a good part of the afternoon walking around the mall today, but I guess 3 year olds just have endless supplies of energy.

We finally decorated for the winter season this week.  Hazel and I made snowflakes and got out some other decorations, mostly Swedish straw ones for Santa Lucia Day next week.  I do want to make some little Lucia figures with her and maybe a little skier like this.

Tomorrow we're excited to have an early Lucia Day party with a few other families (one of which is actually Swedish) who celebrate this holiday.  So we have cardamom bread rising and tomorrow morning I'll start the lussekater before church. 

If I am feeling very ambitious, we'll also have another family night of baking and make pepparkakor.  

Klaas decided to chill on the couch with an apple the other day.  I think he was imitating mama.

 Making pomanders tonight with mom and dad.