Christmas Wishes

 It's so hard to believe Christmas time is here!  We've gladly welcomed the holiday, taking a lot of comfort and excitement from our Christmas traditions and our old Christmas decorations that fill our new house!  We have been so blessed this year and can feel the excitement rising as our preparations for a Christmas Utah ski trip are now a part of our daily conversations!  Despite the move and the tough transition to a new city and schools, we're busily and anxiously discussing our future in Africa and trying to incorporate the preparations for that big move into our life, too.  

I can't believe how fast time goes by and I never want to forget any of these precious faces, lit up with holiday cheer!  Here are their Christmas wishes for this year...

"I wish for a baby sister, a little baby puppy, and a Puppy Surprise.  I hope that the people in Africa have a good Christmas and have nice home and enough money.  I also hope that people make Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes for Christmas because it really helps and makes the children who get them thankful.  I think everyone should make one."  - Maida Raine

"I wish I could have a toy monster truck race track (like Bumpa and Grandma's)  for Christmas.  And it's my Christmas wish that the people in Africa stay warm at Christmas, have some good food to eat, and have a good Christmas with good presents from Santa."  -Skogen Roux 

"It's my Christmas wish that homeless people have food and that's all I wish for."  - Klaasen Burke

"I wish that Santa will come."  - Torsten S

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving was so much fun this year!  We hosted Erik's brother, his wife, and their kids, along with Erik's mom!  We had the best time just being together since we don't see each other much.  I am super thankful that they drove up and back safely and were willing to make such a long drive!  I will forever remember the great shows the kids put together, complete with dimming lights and costumes.  I'll never forget our card games (and how Karlie and I kicked Erik and Brandon's butts in Hand and Foot!)!  Following with tradition, Karlie and I made a big Thanksgiving meal!  We enjoyed it on Wednesday since Erik had to work on Thanksgiving Day.

Decorating the Thanksgiving table!

Our Thanksgiving meal!!!  Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, sweet potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, rolls, and pie.  YUM!!!

After our Thanksgiving meal, we ventured down to the park to play!

After we finish at the park, we went shopping at the mall!  There was a big carrosell at in the mall, lit up and right as we walked in.  The kids begged to ride it and how could we say no to such cuties?!!  

Thanksgiving Day was very lazy!  We woke up with waffles and bacon for breakfast as we watched the Thanksgiving Day parade.  Then we bundled the kiddos up and sent them outside to play!

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with sweet cousins

Introducing our southern cousins to Minnesota snow!!

We spent some time cutting some shoes for kids in Uganda.  It felt good to do something for someone else, especially on Thanksgiving when we were feeling so blessed.

We made snow ice cream with the fresh snow that had been falling all day!!

As I have been going through and pasting pictures here, I realize how many pictures I should have taken and I didn't.  Many good memories were made and I hope that even though I don't have the pictures I should have, we'll always remember and treasure our time together.  The last night our Oklahoma family is in town, we ended our time together with a Christmas light show.  It was the type of show where you drove through with your radio tuned to a specific station.  The lights dance and blinked to the music!!  SO FUN!!  It was a great ending to Thanksgiving and a great welcome to Christmas!

November 2015 in Pictures

At the beginning of November, our best friends from Rochester came to visit!  It was so refreshing and nice, but so so sad to see them go.  Lucky duck Maida was able to go back to Rochester with them for a slumber party with Hailey.  It was a much needed time together!

It was strange to have only boys at church with us when Maida was in Rochester! 

We picked Maida up in Rochester on Sunday when we went to make sure we had gotten everything out of our old house!  We feel so blessed to be able to have sold it so quickly.  Definitely the answer to prayers we were hoping for!

Celebration dinner at Red Lobster to celebrate selling our house!

The manager at Red Lobster took one of the lobsters out for the kids to pet!

Skogen had a Veterans Day program at school and Erik was invited to attend!

Each kid in Skogen's class wrote a note to a veteran and Skogen was able to give his to Erik!  So sweet.

I got all my Christmas shopping done and presents wrapped!  Always a great feeling to get that done.

One short weekend, the kids and I took a trip up to Park Rapids for deer hunting!  I sat in the stand with my niece, Sarena.  Even though we didn't get any meat, it was great to be in nature for a while.

Maida's friend, Natalie, was able to join us up north for the weekend!

Africa has been on our minds!  The two years of waiting before we go seems so long at times.  

Torsten and I got to eat lunch with Maida at school one day!

Erik and the boys did some worm collecting!

I started my planning and decorating for Thanksgiving!  We were expecting Erik's family from Oklahoma!!

The kids and I spent a day at the Minnesota Zoo!  We really enjoyed all of the animals, who were rather lively, but especially loved the brown grizzly bear named Sadie.  She played and played with us at the window!

Maida and I read, "Number the Stars," and then did some research on where the title came from and the parts of the story that were true!  It was so fun to do this together.

The boys found some ice outside and they were excited that this meant snow was coming!  (Yes, they are wearing their underwear over their pants...)

We got our Christmas tree!  It was fun to put up in the new house and we decorated it in record time this year!  The kids were great about doing all of the ornaments and getting them evenly spaced on the tree.  It turned out beautiful!

Klaasen had a trial run at a preschool run by the school district.  He had a great week there and we hope he is selected to attend preschool there more regularly to get him ready for Kindergarten!

We finally got snow and the boys were SO excited!  They played for HOURS.  Even when it was time to come in from playing outside and take Maida to gymnastics, they still asked to play in the snow while we waiting for Maida at gymnastics!