Holiday Times!

Our holiday time was filled with good times.

There was some fun added this year because Magnus was more aware of what was going and got excited for many of the activities. He really liked looking at the Christmas trees.

We spent Christmas Eve with Farmor. We had fun listening to Elina play carols, have a fire in the fireplace, and eating delicious ham.

We even did the traditional dessert of ris a’lamond. Dana found the whole almond this year and won the treat.

Magnus thoroughly enjoyed the gift opening time. He had gotten elf gifts every morning this month, so he was pretty skilled at tearing through the paper. He really liked the gifts he got, especially the car ramps.

By the time we went home he was all tuckered out, though he insisted in carrying this present to the car.

 

 

 

Santa visited during the night to Magnus’s delight:

Back at Farmor’s for breakfast, Magnus found this tent left by Santa for him. He made both of us climb in with him, while barring any other person from entering.

We then headed down to Salem. Terry always decorates so beautifully!

The next week was filled with some birthdays and then on New Year’s Eve it snowed, but mostly only at Farmor’s house. Magnus thought the snow was weird. Dana took the opportunity to build a snowman before midnight.

At midnight, we toasted each other and celebrated the beginning of a new year

Happy 2013, Everybody! And thank you for sharing 2012 with us.

Merry Christmas One and All

Merry Christmas from the Jensens.

We hope all our family and friends are doing well and we send our best wishes to you.

We will leave you with some fun pictures of Magnus as he gets excited for this wonderful holiday:

Here Magnus shows off one of the elf gifts he received. He thought the reindeer were delicious.

Magnus also wishes you all Season’s Greetings!

“Gingerbread Houses”

I really like building and decorating gingerbread houses. But I don’t actually like gingerbread – neither does Dana. Also, Dana’s creative prowess is such that we don’t really construct houses either. So I think a more accurate title for this would be “Building Edible Holiday Structures.”

So here are our edible holiday structures:

As is tradition, I finished mine before Dana really got started.

I built a schoolhouse with a bell. But it must have been built of shoddy materials because it fell down.

 

It was refashioned into a tent.

Dana built a log cabin with sled and puffy marshmallow smoke.

Magnus liked helping by sampling the array of candies.

 

And here are some cute pictures of Magnus from the last few weeks:

To the Woods to Find a Tree, and some other Cool Stuff

My good friend Brian recently moved to Carson, WA in the Columbia River Gorge for his work. Last week we finally had a chance to go and see him. We started in the morning with a quick stop at Cape Horn, a very nice view point.

We asked Brian if he would help us find a Christmas tree in the National Forest. So, we headed up in to the woods to find our perfect tree. Here is Magnus helping us with our search:

Finally we found one that was the right size.

A little further up the road we found some snow. Magnus thought the stuff was weird, but he liked stomping around in it.

Brian and Magnus playing in the snow.

On the way down the mountain we stopped briefly at Panther Creek Falls. All the recent rains had made it very full (especially compared to when we were here in June). It was a very awesome thing to see.

Brian took us to a great little restaurant in Stevenson (my burger’s patty was half beef and half bacon and it was delicious). He also showed us his family’s house there that they rent out. The house was cool and the view from there was amazing.

Magnus liked this big chunk of petrified wood and Dana liked these cute little mushrooms.

On the way back home we took in a view of Beacon Rock.

And Cape Horn in the evening.

It was a good day. Thanks, Brian for helping get our Christmas Tree.

Mary Rode to Bethlehem on Me

Ivan wrote this song a few years ago and just recently had it made into a children’s Christmas book. He hired an illustrator himself and got it published. We are so proud! You can find the book on Amazon – it would make a great Christmas gift