Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

So, here is my very over-due Thanksgiving post.  Quite a bit has happened around here since then, but I might as well start at the beginning and go from there.

Our Thanksgiving celebrations started Sunday, November 23.  We had Kate and Mike over for an early Thanksgiving dinner because their baby was due on the 25th and we wanted to make sure that they would get a proper turkey dinner.  (Their baby was finally born on Dec. 2; more about sweet Emilia Rose in a following post).  On Wednesday night Paul and I made lefse a traditional Norwegian flatbread made from potatoes.  My mom started making it when us kids were little and a few years ago she and my dad gave Kelsey and I all of the equipment. Kelsey by now is already a lefse expert, but this was my first solo attempt.

This is Kelsey making lefse in her kitchen

in Idaho; isn't she cute?!

First you have to boil potatoes and then

rice them for the dough

From left to right: the pastry board, pastry 

rolling pin and the lefse griddle

Lefse cooking on the griddle

Paul was the official lefse flipper!

Ta-da!

And just to make sure we were doing it right, we video conferenced with my parents and Jacy over Skype (you can see my mom in the foreground and dad behind her)  It was a lot of fun. We felt as if we were making lefse together despite the 1,500 miles that separate us.  We have been Skyping a lot lately so that my parents and my sisters can interact with Emmeline.  It has been a great way to keep Emmeline reminded about her family and it has been fun for them to see her play, eat, take baths or whatever.  It is so much more fun than pictures.

On Thanksgiving Day, Paul and Emmeline watched the parade. Emmeline now knows who Santa is and names him whenever she sees him.  I made Monkey bread that morning and brought some fresh lefse over to Kate and Mike's (they were still waiting for that baby!).  Later that evening we went to one of my professor's houses for dinner with her family.  She has invited us to Thanksgiving for several years now. We are so thankful that she and her family invite us to share their company and holiday with us.

Monkey bread: our traditional breakfast pastry

that we make for Holidays.

Dinner was late so we put Emmeline

in her pajamas.

She had fun showing off for everyone.

Yum!  The desserts!  We brought the pumpkin pie.

The remnants of our lovely dinner...

Emmeline was completely pooped out

and fell asleep on the ride home.

On Friday, we were invited to our neighbor's parents' house in Newark for chili and cornbread and tree decorating.  We have decided not to put up a tree because of our very curious little toddler and three cats so we were glad to have a tree to decorate.  Emmeline did a good job and got the hang of it pretty quickly.  Though once the tree was decorated, she started taking the ornaments off.

Paul showed Emmeline how to hang the

ornaments

Soon she could do it on her own...

...but then started to take the ornaments off.

Silly girl!

Emmeline has learned to say "Cheese!" for the camera

That Friday night Paul got a poker game together with some friends at our house.  We forgot to put the poker chips away so Emmeline made a bee-line for them the next morning.  This kept her occupied for close to an hour which is rather incredible.  She sorted them, stacked them, put them in things, threw them down the basement stairs, hid them, and rattled them in different sizes of containers (what beautiful music to Paul who was still sleeping!). We also practiced her colors and counting.  She has got white, red, blue and black down!

Ooo!  What fun!

Even more fun when they are

dumped out...

I'm 'all in'!