O' Christmas Tree....

Yesterday we set off to find our Christmas tree with my mom and Chip. Thanks to beautiful blue skies and Silverton being the Christmas capitol of the world (more Christmas trees come from Silverton than any other place in the world - they are harvested and shipped to Japan, Europe, etc.) it didn't take us long to find our perfect tree. We enjoyed hot chocolate and hiked around the 20 acre farm before cutting down our tree and heading home.

We spent the afternoon decorating the tree and making some gifts. Mira worked quietly on some holiday cards and then came to me and said, "Mom, I have a great new idea for our Christmas cards. How about if we write on them:

Although times may be hard, you still get a Christmas card!"

Wow. Guess all the talk of the recession has even gotten to her little seven-year heart. She is so smart and already I'm having a hard time keeping up with her.

Later that evening Shane and I snuk off for a date night to Toys R' Us. We stopped at Starbucks for a red holiday Starbucks cup w/ a latte and enjoyed an evening getting a couple things for the girls.

Advent & The Countdown to Christmas

I was inspired by my friend Tysha to blog about how our family celebrates the countdown to Christmas. Because I'm half Danish my family has always celebrated the Christmas season in Danish tradition. Shane easily adopted the Danish traditon of celebrating Christmas on Christmas Even instead of Christmas day, probably in part to the fact that he spent at least one Christmas in Denmark and was able to see how wonderful and family focused the Danish Christmas traditions are.

For us, celebrating Christmas in a Danish way means that on Sunday's we celebrate Advent Sunday with a four candle wreath (one candle lit for each Sunday that has passed), a special afternoon coffee time with family, singing Christmas carols and reading about the birth of Jesus and his life. We also have an advent calendar for the girls with chocolates in the numbered daily pockets and a string of little numbered gifts tied along the staircase leading to their room. We focus on time together with family, making gifts together (this year we're making soap and canning apple pie filling and hot mustard), baking and experiencing the holiday festivities in our community. The girls and I created a calendar last week for the month of December with one (mostly free) holiday activity to do together every day this month. Here's our list and if you're local and want to join us for any of these we'd love it! Or if you have special ways that you count down to Christmas let us know. I'm always looking for ideas and I love to get inspired by others.

December 1: Decorate the house for Christmas as a family. Drink hot chocolate and dance to Christmas songs. (Check! We had a wonderful time doing this and watching the girls unwrap and rediscover the decorations is priceless)

December 2: Bake the first batch of the year of gingerbread men and read some of our special Christmas books that we only get out at Christmas time.

December 3: Stay up late (late for the girls) and have a hot chocolate party in the living room while watching the classic Rudolph movie - TV special tonight.

December 4: Sit around the fire after dinner and talk about the symbols of Christmas (candy canes, the tree, etc.). Take a walk in the dark to check out the holiday lights on our street. Give a prize (our cookies) to the winner of our own little light contest.

December 5: We're having several families over for snacks and hot chocolate before the annual Silverton Tree Lighting. We live close to downtown so we'll walk into town together for the festivities.

December 6: Bundle up and head to the woods to find our Christmas tree. Tirza will enjoy a holiday luncheon with girlfriends later that day.

December 7: Children's holiday shopping trip at the Dollar Tree and lunch out with the children's pastor from church.

December 8: Watch Charlie Brown Christmas together (on TV tonight). This is also Annah's 4th birthday so we'll be having a little birthday celebration this day.

December 9: Make holiday ornaments together and mail our Christmas cards.

December 10: Holiday baking day: bake lots of cookies for the MOPS cookie exchange on the 12th.

December 11: Go to the Christian School holiday concert at church.

December 12: American Girl Holiday Tea with friends at our house. Each girl is studying about the culture and holiday traditions of one American Girl and brining a snack from that culture or time period to share with everyone. The girls will also be making stockings for their dolls.

Mom's night out that evening and cookie exchange.

December 13: Attend the Canyonview (local bible college and horse camp) holiday celebration and live nativity. That evening we'll go to Shane's work holiday party at Willamette University which is famous for its amazing dinner and chocolate fountain.

December 14: Children's presentation at church. Mira will be saying a bible verse (Matthew 5:16). Advent Sunday afternoon coffee and goodies following church.

December 15: Attend the Sound Jubilee holiday concert in Salem. This is a children's choir and instrumental band of more than 100 kids who are all homeschooled. Mira will start in the choir and violin lessons with Sound Jubilee next fall.

December 16: Monthly craft day with our good friends - the Mulkey's. The Mulkey girls are 3 and almost 2 and the oldest is named Tirzah! We'll be doing a Christmas craft.

December 17: Take the girls to the Oregon State Capitol (they've never been) for the December lunchtime concerts. Every day in December school kids are performing in the main lobby of the capitol during the lunch hour. I've been before and it's amazing!

December 18: Theater and holiday sights in Portland: I'll be taking the girls and my mom to see the Wizard of Oz performed by the Northwest Children's Theater in Portland and into the city to see the holiday tree in Pioneer Square.

December 19: Holiday Kids Night at church. The girls will have a fun evening with the youth group kids from church and Shane and I will get a rare night out together.

December 20: Silverton Together's Annual Celebrate Families Holiday Festival: This is an amazing community event that we never miss. A local organization dedicated to keeping families together partners with other local organizations to host a massive craft day for kids at the community center. The girls absolutely love it and we easily spend the whole afternoon there making really neat crafts.

December 21: Christmas caroling with the children from church at Silverton Hospital.

December 22: Make and deliver holiday goodies to neighbors and to the local homeless shelter. That evening we'll have our annual gingerbread house contest with my mom,Chip, sister Leyah, Eric and anyone else who dares to participate. :)

December 23: Lille Jule Aften: This is a special Danish tradition to celebrate the day before Christmas Eve. It's spent at home, enjoying a special Danish holiday treat, coffee and fellowship with family.

December 24: This is the day we celebrate Christmas as the Danes do. We'll get up early, put on our best dresses and spend the day cooking a big traditional Danish Christmas dinner, enjoying the company of both Shane's family and mine, and going to church before dinner. After dinner we'll read the Christmas story again, sing Christmas carols, light the candles on the tree (Danish trees usually have real candles), and share our gifts with each other. This year I'm making most of our gifts and have been busy knitting, making soap, canning, baking and sewing.

December 25: Christmas Day: On Christmas we normally have the girls open their stockings (there are no presents that morning since we do that on Christmas Eve) and enjoy a yummy breakfast. Later in the day we'll take a walk at Silver Falls State Park after having our usual Christmas brunch of gourmet cheeses, salmon, crackers, fresh rolls, meats, fruit and other wonderful goodies.

That’s our countdown to Christmas plan. What’s yours?

Here are some of my favorite photos of some of the things I love about simple Scandinavian Christmases:

A Simple Thanksgiving....

On Wednesday the girls and I had a pie baking party and we made six pies - two big and four small. We had so much fun making the "Farmhouse Pie Crust" and deciding how to decorate the pie with the crust. Mira decided to make a cross in her pie crust (not shown) and Annah made a heart with a cookie cutter. I made the lattice pie above. We saved one big pie and took the other one to a homeless shelter nearby and the girls were very proud to deliver their pie there. The people at the shelter were thankful as well. I think we'll make this an anual tradition!

Thanksgiving dinner next door at Mimi and Chip's house (my mom)

Watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade ~ An annual tradition.

"Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat..."

On Saturday I took the girls to see the arrival of Santa at the Woodburn Outlets. They were very excited and had prepared their wish lists the week before to give to him. We also saw live reindeer, elves and other characters. We've been getting in the holiday mood a little early this year. The girls have been singing holiday songs all week and we've started working on some homemade gifts. Now, if we could just enjoy Thanksgiving first!

Aren't these lists just the sweetest? Mira helped Annah write her list. My favorite is #4 on Mira's list: puppy who is good.

Letter From Sasa!

Today Mira and Annah received letters from their dear auntie Lissa (my youngest sister) who is faraway in Edinburgh Scotland where she living right now. Mira was so excited to read her letter that she tore into it right away. We love you Lissa and miss you!!

Silly sisters....

Tonight Mira made a bunch of our new favorite dinner roll - butternut squash rolls. They are made with real, pureed butternut squash! They are so good and Mira was so proud that she did most of it herself. These are to-die for and we make them often. You can find the recipe here (note: I substitute real butter for the lard).

The Final Result: Butternut Squash Rolls

Good Books for Girls

Several people have asked me for book recomendations for girls and asked me to blog about the books Mira has read, so here it is. I'm pretty particular about what she reads and I make sure it has a good message and that the characters speak kindly to each other, etc. Here is the list of books she read in September and October. These are just the books she read for fun and not for school so these are books that most little girls and boys would enjoy for pleasure reading. One other note, her very favorite chapter book series is the Childhood of Famous Americans series. These are wonderful books and there are about 50. She also enjoys the Magic Tree House Series, she just didn't happen to read any of them the last two months, probably because she read a bunch of them over the summer.

I'll try to post a list of the books Mira reads each month. I hope this is helpful to someone. I know I look at other people's blogs and book lists for ideas.

Books Mira Read in Sept/Oct 2008

• Sacagawea (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Little House in the Woods
• On the Banks of Plum Creek
• School House in the Woods
• Happy Little Family
• Elizabeth Blackwell (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Escape from Egypt
• Wilma Rudolph (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Clara and the Bookwagon
• Hannah of Fairfield
• Ramona and her Dad
• Felicity's Surprise
• Josafina's Surprise
• Meet Kit
• The Long Way to a New Land
• Happy Birthday Josafina
• Meet Addy
• Changes for Josafina
• Josafina Saves the Day
• Addy Learns a Lesson
• Addy's Surprise
• Emily's Runaway Imagination
• The Long Way Westward
• Pocahontas (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Davy Crockett (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Clara Barton (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Praire School
• Teddy Rosevelt (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
• Happy Birthday Addy
• Keep the Lights Burning Addy
• George Washington's Mother
• Buttons for General Washington
• Buffalo Bill
• Pony Express

Very Simple 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Here is my favorite bread recipe - 100% pure whole wheat bread. I learned to make this about eight months ago from my friend Nyla and I now make it every five days or so. We no longer buy any store bought bread products and not only do we save money (less than $1 a loaf for this bread), but this is so much better for your kids. It's supper easy, fast, soft, moist and so healthy! I prefer this over any bread machine bread and it's so easy, you don't need a bread machine anyway! Following are some pictures of the process and the actual recipe follows below.

Ingredients gathered: Whole wheat flour, yeast, salt (I use sea salt), molasses, olive oil.

After ingredients are mixed and the dough is kneaded for 10 minutes it's ready to rise in a warm place (I prefer my oven warmed up on pre-heat and then shut off once I put the dough in).

After the dough rises for one hour it should be twice its size like this dough in the bowl. I'm now ready to roll it out and shape into loaves like below.

Carefully rolling out the dough and shaping into two loaves, pinching the ends closed.

Into the pans and ready to rise for 30 minutes.

After it rises for 30 minutes and ready to go into the oven to bake.

Yummy bread, ready to eat.

Here is the recipe:

1 tbs honey
3 tbs yeast
1 1/3 cup hot water (about 120 degrees)
Another 1 1/3 cup hot water
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup oil (olive or the healthy omega 3 oil from Smart Balance)
2 tsp salt
approx. 7 cups whole wheat flour

Put honey and yeast in large bowl (I use Kitchen aid mixing bowl). Add 1 1/3 cup hot water from tap and let it sit for 5 minutes until it bubbles. Use mixer and add the other 1 1/3 cup water and slowly add oil while mixing on low. Add molasses and salt. Start adding flour. My mixer will only mix about 4-5 cups flour so I add that amount, remove from mixing stand and add the rest of the flour and stir with wooden spoon. Once dough is not so sticky, dump out on counter and continue to add flour as needed and start to knead dough. Knead for 10 minutes or until elastic. It's really important to knead the dough long enough or it won't rise as high and it will come out dense. It's also important not to add too much flour. The dough should still be slightly sticky when done, although not to the point where it will coat your finger when you touch it.

Once it is kneaded and ready, place dough ball into well oiled large bowl, cover with towel and put in warm place for one hour to rise. I like to warm-up my oven to 170 degrees while kneading and then turn it off and stick it in there to rise. It should double in size.

After 1 hour remove, punch down dough, and put on slightly floured surface. CUT dough in half (do not tear the dough) and gently roll out dough into rectangle shape, about 6 inches wide by 14 inches long or do. Then roll up the dough and pinch the ends together. Turn it seam side down into well-oiled bread pans. While doing this, heat your oven back up to about 170 degrees, turn off and put bread pans, covered with towel, back in oven to rise. Let rise for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove from oven or warm place, heat oven up to 375 degrees and bake bread for 30 minutes.

That's it! This is so easy and so inexpensive that anyone can do it. However, I will admit that the first few times I did it it did not rise as high or get as soft. It took me about 3-4 times of making it to get it right, so don't give up if it doesn’t come out right your first try. Let me know if you have questions! Enjoy!