christmas randoms with new camera!

my best present

I have been saving up my money for a long time... and here I have my Nikon D3100~ Now, I just have to learn to use it.

The rest of my pictures from Minnesota are from this camera. Super fun.

christmas morning

Here is our lovely cabin Christmas tree. Dennis picked it out himself. It was short and VERY round. If we didn't trim the back side it would have taken up the entire room! Santa came in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping and left a load of gifts!

This was his first glimpse of the morning loot.

Here is the few moments of happiness with his new soap until he finds out that it is toy story and not cars.

Here are the three boys in their matching pj's. Dennis was SUPER excited to be matching with them. They are forever going to be his favorite pj's.
Here James got a mini hockey goal. He is obsessed with anything that has a ball. Randy is trying to gear that love towards hockey pucks as well. James has two really clear words that he says all the time: ball and bottle. Super cute kid. I would take him home in a second.
Norah got a bike! She was such a doll the entire trip as well. She was very good at passing out the presents to everyone.
Dennis could hardly wait to open his big present from Grandma and Grandpa... When I finally let him open it, he was so thrilled. I wish I got it on video because he LOVED his present. He got a marble run.
Here is a picture of Dennis doing a warrior dance in celebration of his marble run. It even included a series of noises made with his tongue!
It was a good morning.

christmas eve

Dennis went out for a walk across the lake with Grandpa.
Here is Dennis' cousin James.
...and his cousin Norah.
On Christmas eve everyone spent the day relaxing at the cabin. We had a huge turkey dinner.
Chrissy enjoyed reading How the Grinch stole Christmas to Dennis and Kevin.
We have a tradition of going over to my dad's cousin John's house for carols and Santa that night. It is a tradition that has been going on way before my dad was even born. This is a traditional Finnish Christmas celebration. John's grandkids put on a show every year. This year they sang a song and invited all of the kids up to sing. I was so proud that Dennis just bounced right on up and joined in the singing for us.

We sing carols until Santa comes to hand out presents. Here is Dennis' face as Santa came in the door.
Some year's our Santa looks more authentic than others. This year, his whole hat and wig fell off as he was digging through his bag. Dennis could tell that something was not right because the next day when we saw a more authentic Santa (more details to come) he said to me, "Hey, that's a different Santa!"
James was a good boy this year.
Dennis got a dog pillow pet that he totally LOVES... and seems to think that he doesn't need a real pillow anymore.
All the grandboys got matching pj's and Dennis was super excited about it.
Norah was super excited.

I guess Ryan was a good enough boy this year to get a present.


Here is my uncle, John, with his latest injury. He picked up the wrong bucket in the sauna the day before and poured boiling hot water on his head instead of his bath water. Ouch.
Santa brought Dennis this awesome remote control car... it broke 2 days later... but he and dad went to the store and bought super glue and fixed it.

making a gift for camille

Dennis sure loved making Christmas ornaments for Camille. He did a very good job painting and gluing all of the pieces together.


I also made a bag for Kristen similar to this one. And Ryan made Thomas a bow tie. Pictures will have to come later... I didn't take any.

catch-up stories

The first Sunday of December, Dennis decided that he wanted to bear his testimony. He asked me, "Is it my turn yet?" So, without preparation or even discussion about what to do when one goes up there, Dennis was on his way. After Dennis waited his turn on the stand he marched up to the podium, pulled the microphone down and said, "thank you for this day, thank you for this day, thank you for Jesus, thank you for Heavenly Father, um um um thank you for church, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I stood there totally awe struck and teary eyed trying to find words of my own as I stood there in front of the whole congregation. I was expecting to prompt him with something to say. But, he truly does have his own. He is a special boy.

While talking to Dennis about his little sister coming and sharing a room with him: Dennis said, "she will be scared of the monsters in the closet." Me: "yeah, but you can protect her because you are a big boy." D: "yeah, I will pray for her."

At the cabin, Dennis went out to help grandpa make the sauna. Since they weren't planning on being gone long, Dennis just threw on his jacket (not zipped up) and boots (without socks)- no hat and no mittens. Grandpa ran into some trouble getting the fire good and hot so he was preoccupied and thought that Dennis had gone back up to the cabin. (10-15 minutes later)Grandpa comes up to the cabin and asks if Dennis came back. NOPE. Luckily, I looked out the window just at the exact moment that Dennis and the two dogs were entering the woods (I thought they were following grandpa) so I knew which direction they were going. BLESSINGS! We went out in search for D. We walked a ways down the path and found Buster. And then I called out, "Dennis!". D responded: "Where are you?" Looking all over for him, we finally saw the small orange stripe on his coat way off the path up in the brush of the woods. ME: "Where were you going?" D:"I was following my dogs" ME: "We never go into the woods without an adult." D: "I tried to turn around but I fell and I fell and I fell." I am so happy that it wasn't a super cold day and that I knew which way to start looking for him. It could have been much worse. Dennis learned that day how to find his way back by following his footprints in the snow.

While shopping in the stores pre christmas, my response to all of the I want's and I need's was that we should tell Santa and maybe he would bring it at Christmas. This happened many times with many things but the one thing that Dennis always remembered was the bottle of soap. And, everytime I would ask him what he wanted for Christmas his response was SOAP! So, Christmas morning came and he found a bottle of soap in his stocking! After two seconds of sheer joy, his smile turned to a grimace and he said, "Hey that's not the soap that I wanted! I wanted CARS on it!" Oh boy... Santa thought he would prefer to have bubble bath than body wash and they didn't have CARS bubble bath. I guess, we will have to make an exchange to Target. And, Santa will have to stick to the wish list next year. :/

parent-teacher conference

This was a first for me. Dennis has already started with parent- teacher conferences. It was wonderful to hear what his teacher's thought of him. Here is the paper they wrote up about him.