The one with New Years 2013

New Years Eve with young children is really just another boring day. In fact, I had told Jon earlier that day "New Year's Eve is really boring, its just another day except I HAVE to stay awake until midnight. Ugh". Our kids are still too young for me to want to deal with the orneriness that is sure to make my night and next day a disaster. So for now, they go to bed a their usual time. They don't know the difference. Maybe next year we'll let T stay awake. I dunno.

So when I got a text from Jon asking if I wanted to go out that night, I was more than a little shocked. He had found a sitter and had told me we were going to a country dance hall. That in and of itself is a shocker. Jon wanted to go to a dance hall!! I was blown away. His hatred of dancing has made it so I've never actually dance with him. Not even a slow dance. We haven't had much opportunity since he is never willing to go to a place where dancing is going on.

I was a little nervous to go out just because Ellie had been acting a little ornery and didn't take her normal nap. She only slept for an hour instead of her normal 2-3 hours. Then while they were in the bath I realized why she was acting so unlike herself...she wasn't feeling good. She threw up while in the bath. As a mother my first thought should have been for my little girl, but I'm willing to admit that that wasn't the case this time. (It was my immediate 2nd thought though...I'm not THAT terrible of a person) My first thought was "NO! now we aren't going to be able to go tonight" I know, I know, not the best thing to admit. But in my defense, since we've been here in SA (almost a year) we've been on 2 dates. Both were out to see a movie and thats it. We haven't done anything other than that in I can't even tell you how long. We have ZERO social life. We never go out. Military income and young kids make it kind of hard. Needless to say we were both extremely excited to be getting out of the house to do something fun and new.

We were both secretly hoping it was just going to be a one time thing (her throwing up) and we were still going to be able to go. She went to be early but was restless and I could tell she still wasn't feeling good. That night she threw up multiple times. Plus Taegen woke up with pain in his leg/foot and was up multiple times after that complaining about being scared. (I didn't get much sleep that night) In the morning E threw up once, then slept for 3 1/2 hours and was good. So really she was sick for just the 12 hours of New Years Eve. Oh the joys of parenting. So instead of going out, we stayed in and watched Fast and Furious 6, which we both really liked. :)

I took some pictures of us after we were all ready to go, just to document that for once we did have plans, even if we weren't able to follow through with them. At least we had something to do on New Years Eve. Don't mind the terrible quality. They were taken with my iPhone, which I hate for more reasons than just it's sucky camera. Jon was actually willing to take the pictures, so we goofed off a little :)

Hope you all had a wonderful New Years Eve

The one with Christmas

Christmas really is better with kids! This year Jon and I decided not to get each other gifts until after we move and get our taxes/move money back. So Christmas morning was 100% about our kids. I even had a dream about Christmas morning and how excited they were going to be. And it turned out to be just as awesome as in my dream.

Our festivities started with our Christmas Eve dinner. This year was the first year I had to make the whole meal by myself. Everything turned out great except the brunede kartofler(sugar browned potatoes). I added the butter too early so it wasn't caramel-y, but all clumpy. :( So it didn't stick to the potatoes. I also learned there's a wrong way to cut meat. I had to make the flaeskesteg all by myself, which was completely traumatizing I might add. You can't find a real flaeskesteg in the U.S. without special ordering it (it needs to have the skin still on it). So I found a butcher and special ordered it. Although it did come with a bone in it (which is unusual) and WAY bigger than I wanted. But thats ok. It still tasted the same. I got it out to cook it and my whole kitchen smelled like a butchers shop, with blood everywhere. YUCK! Then when I went to cut the skin and it wrinkled, rolled and moved with the knife, which I wasn't expecting. It looked like there were wrinkles on it. So nasty. Anyways, this is where I apparently went wrong. I just cut it randomly and of course it was going the wrong direction. I put parallel to the bone and was supposed to cut perpendicular. whoops. It made it hard for Jon to carve.
The kids didn't like the Rodkal (the red cabbage) but loved the agurksalat (the cucumbers) and frikadeller (meatballs). Gotta train them young :)

 I even made risalamande. Jon hates it, and since I didn't want to have to eat the whole batch by myself, I made the kids try it. Plus the obvious incentive of winning the prize by getting the whole almond, I was sure they'd love it. I tried to explain it to Taegen "if you feel an almond in your mouth, don't chew it, spit it right out" and the minute I put it in his mouth he spit it all out. haha. He then saw me feeding it to Ellie, who loved it, and he got all concerned and said "Is Ellie getting my prize?" I asked him if he wanted to try it again and re-explained the rules. Emphasis on when and what to spit out, and he found the almond and got his prize :)

That night we left out some cookies and milk for Santa. I wanted to leave out Risengrod, but since Jon doesn't like risalamande, theres no way he'll eat Risengrod. So the chocolate covered "danish" cookies is what we left instead.

Our tree was also decorated by the kids. Jon made me leave all my Christmas decorations back home in storage so we had to make all our decorations this year. We started making popcorn strings, but those are so tedious and annoying that we only made a few strings. And we ran out of paper for our paper chain. 

The kids, well mainly Taegen, went to bed so excited for the next morning. He woke up and came into our room and said "Did Santa come, did Santa come?" :) He first went and checked the cookies to see if Santa ate them..and sure enough, he did.

 Ellie found the stash of candy!

 Just hangin out playing with all my new toys

 Ellie hangin out on the couch with some of her new toys

Between Santa, grandparents and great grandparents my kids got pretty spoiled this year. We had a great Christmas and now it's on to the packing!

The one with the Christmas Letter

Hello family and friends;

This year has been a brand new experience for our family. At the end of February we moved from Hurricane UT to San Antonio TX. Jon has been attending the BMET (bio-medical equipment technician) program at Fort Sam Houston. It's a 10 month program so in just a couple weeks we'll be moving back to UT.Here's just a little update on us.

Jon really enjoys working as a BMET, or in layman's terms he fixes medical equipment. School has never been something that he enjoyed, but now that he's finally going for something he enjoys, it's been a whole new experience for him. He has worked so hard and will be graduating top of his class. The past 10 months have kept him really busy. His day starts at 4:00 am and doesn't end until about 6:00pm. Needless to say he's excited to be graduating soon. He will be starting his new job as a BMET in the civilian world in January and he couldn't be more excited.

Taegen turned 3 in April and is very active, loves being outdoors and playing with friends. He loves anything Disney's Cars, Avenger's, Spiderman and Toy Story. His favorite color is red, which comes from all his favorite characters: Lightening McQueen, Iron Man, Spiderman etc. He is a great big brother and is always watching out for Ellie. Of course he is still a 3 year old, so Ellie gets her fair share of teasing. Taegen played soccer in the spring, which he didn't care much for. He mainly stood there and watched the other kids play. But now he talks about “when he use to play soccer” and asks to play again. He really is so smart and is growing up so fast.

Ellie turned 1 in September and is so much fun. She started walking right before Thanksgiving and is now trying to run everywhere she goes. Although it looks more like a fast waddle than an actual run. She loves shoes, stuffed animals, Taegen's super hero action figures and dinosaurs. One minute she'll be asking me to put on her shoes and the next, she's running around the house with Taegen, dinosaur in hand “roaring” back and forth. Her vocabulary is growing each day and her favorite thing to say right now is “Oww”, which she says even if she didn't hurt herself. She is full of personality and we're loving seeing her learn new things.

I am still loving staying at home with the kids. They can push me to my limits at times, but most of the time I really enjoy it. I've also started sewing more and am learning it's something I actually enjoy. Which is not something I thought I'd ever say :) Jon and I are also Nursery Leaders in our ward,. It has been a hard calling, but I think it's helped us both have a lot more patience.

We've had a great year here in San Antonio but we're looking forward to the new adventures that 2014 has to offer. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Love,

Jon, Kristina, Taegen and Ellie Evertsen

The one with the family pictures

We finally got new family pictures taken. My friend Liz took them. She did such an amazing job! Especially considering Ellie was rather grumpy and is pretty much frowning in all of them. She is most definitely my daughter. She's got her scowl down! haha There are just as many pictures of Jon blinking or not looking at the camera as the kids. Seriously he's like a big little kid. Of course it's hard to get all 4 of us looking and smiling at the camera at the same time. So they aren't perfect, but they let our personality shine through, which I totally love.

*picture overload headed your way...

 Remember this photo?... from 2010

We did a remake of it 3 years later. 

 He is such a ham. He kept asking Liz to "take a picture of me"

 We asked him to sit down and this is what he did. Totally posed

 this is my favorite one of these two. So studly! 

 Seriously, his face is awesome!!!

 Jon's face is awesome. And Taegen loves doing this. 

 This is pretty much how she was the entire time. We're lucky we got any shots of her being happy.

I love the progression of these next few. Oh the simple joys in life :) 

 Turns out all she needed was a little bit of food..yummy banana

 MUSCLES!

 Jon was trying to get E to look in the direction of the camera, so he's holding a fruit snack out in front of him. 

*sorry if there are any repeats. I tried to sift through them, but I did this post two different times so it was hard to remember which ones I had already put up. And since there are so many, I probably posted some twice and didn't notice.