The Udstuen Family Christmas EcoCard

Merry Christmas from the Udstuens!

In the spirit of "Going Green", we have decided to publish our annual Christmas letter online. Now for those of you keeping track, there are a number of flaws with this line of logic. First of all, we still sent out cards (not particularily eco-friendly). Second, we were never that good at getting a newsletter out before. So if we've never wasted the paper on a newsletter in the past...it's not like we're really saving any energy or trees. But we feel it is a step in the right direction...

2007 Highlights

• Jonah turned three in January. His favorites include: Dinosaurs, Spiderman, pirates, oatmeal, riding a bike, teaching Ben new words, and being melodramatic.



• Spent a week on Captiva Island, FL in February. We highly recommend this destination despite the fact that the temperatures during our week there were actually colder than those in MN.
  


• Ben celebrated his first birthday in May. His favorites include: food of any kind, Elmo, Johnny Cash, and splashing his brother in the bathtub.



• Vacationed in Alaska in July. Our new nephew Marcus was baptized.



• Mark and friend/business partner launched a new company "Prairie Offsets" in October. The company sells terrestial carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions.
  


• Rachel finished her MN licensure for Principalship and passed her panel review in December. She continues to work part time as a Curriculum Director at the public school in Spring Grove.
  

It has been a wonderful year.

Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!

Here We Go to Bethlehem

We had the Trinity Church Christmas program on Sunday. Jonah was an angel...and behaved like one to the relief of his parents!


What's a one year old to do during the practice? Eat five cookies!




Singing "Here We Go to Bethlehem"

I love the video below! First of all, only one line of the song seems to be sung with confidence, but fortunately it keeps repeating! Second, towards the end you can hear that Ben has finally located his big brother as he shouts out "Nonah!"

Dressed in their Sunday best...notice the lack of ornaments on the bottom half of the tree. :-)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

We spent Saturday decorating, baking cookies, and listening to Christmas music. Jonah really enjoyed decorating the tree (and there are a few heavily ornamented areas on the tree to attest to this!)



Ben was less impressed; 5 minutes into the tree decorating he picked up a book and headed to the couch to read!

He did eventually get into the spirit!

Jonah wearing "Santa's socks"



Hanging the angel



Ben helped unpack the decorations - and felt that ALL of them should be on the end table. He spent quite awhile arranging, and rearranging...and fortunately didn't realize that they had all been moved when he woke up from his nap!

The First Real Snow - November 30

Love this photo - Jonah is showing Benjamin the new snow, and explaining that Dad is "Shoving the snow off so he can see".

Santa Visits Spring Grove

Jonah gave Santa his wish list last weekend - he asked for toys. When Santa asked if he wanted any special kind of toy, he said "Toys for boys." So I guess we'd better return the Princess costume! ;-)

Benjamin kept his distance, but there were no tears - and he happily accepted the gift bag of food!

Marcus in Minnesota

Cousin Marcus visited the first weekend in November. He was a great sport, and hardly had time to miss his mom and dad (who had overlapping trips) with all the attention he was receiving from us. Grandma Mary did the hard work - but Jonah and Ben did their best to wear him out during the day. Come again soon Marcus!

Playing with Grandma

You eat WHAT?!?

Marcus thinks maybe table food is a good idea... (notice the baby sign language!) :-)

I think I could do this again!

Happy Halloween from the Udstuens!

Halloween was full of parties - three to be exact! We started out with a party at daycare. Amy had a pajama party (smart idea!) complete with a pirate themed treasure hunt and cupcake decorating. We headed home for a quick lunch, Ben took a nap, and Jonah dressed for his preschool party. His preschool class rode a school bus up to the nursing home and assisted living to have a costume parade and sing for the residents. A backpack full of candy later, we were heading to the big town party. We're convinced that every kid in the town was running around the Fest Building this evening on a sugar high. Our kids did great and were both fast asleep by 8 p.m. Whew - what a day!

Cupcakes at Amy's.













A few more fun pictures below of Captain Jack - the beard was popular, but didn't last more than 30 seconds.

Pumpkin Carving

Jonah and Dad set out to create one of the most elaborate pumpkin carvings I've ever seen! As you can see - it was quite a success!

Captain Jack Character Study: After we finished the pumpkins on Sunday evening, it was time to introduce Jonah to Captain Jack. The three of us headed down to the movie room and watched about 10 minutes of "Pirates of the Caribbean".

Happiness is...flying through the air

A favorite pastime when Dad get's home from work...launching the boys.

Weekend at the Goulds

We had a wonderful weekend in the Cities at the Gould's house last weekend. Saturday was spent picking out pumpkins, drinking hot chocolate, and wandering through a straw bale maze.














There were rows and rows of pumpkins - hard to pick just one!













Of course, Jonah eyed this one!














We also spent some time at the Minnesota Zoo - here Mara and Jonah are checking out the camels. Ben called them (and every other animal that day) "Puppies!"



















Mara and Jonah finished the day with a movie (and yes, those are Captain Jack Sparrow eyes on his cheeks! Stay tuned for the Great Pirate Costume this Halloween!)

Table for four please..

We had three couples over for supper the other night. 8 adults, 8 children...everyone was exhausted by the end of the evening. But these four managed to spend 30 minutes dining at the picnic table! And another 2.5 hours running, shrieking, and laughing (the loud kind, not the quiet, pleasant giggle). We wouldn't want it any other way.

"I can't find my blue basketball shirt!"

This is what happens when I give Jonah some "alone time" in his room. When I asked him what he was doing, he simply said "Looking for my blue basketball shirt." He had emptied 7 of the 8 drawers before he gave up. And guess where the blue basketball shirt was.....drawer #8!

Once Jonah had decided what to wear, the whole family went to Early Childhood Family Education class for scarecrow building. Jonah named his scarecrow "Jaguar". I think you'll all agree from the photo that Jaguar is a little scary - at least Jonah thinks so!

We Love Wednesdays!

Wednesday is the day I get to stay home with the boys each week and yesterday was great! Jonah and Ben took an hour long bubble bath, we went to the library, made Mac and Cheese, took naps, played outside, and went for a walk. Life is good.

On a side note, I pulled a muscle in my back a few days ago - a first for me. I'd been racking my brain trying to figure out what happened. Then this morning it all clicked. When I went to get him and saw this...it was pretty obvious. Can you believe how big this kid is?!? 16 months and he's almost outgrown the pack and play!!! (Note: Ben normally sleeps in his crib, but his attempts to serenade his brother at 5 a.m. resulted in a bed transfer! :-)

Crazy Jong Yeon Dance

This video for Uncle Dave and Aunt Jen - Jonah has been practicing and seems to think he's ready to be a student in your class! (For the rest of you - just an entertaining video of Jonah hopping!)

Jen and Dave (Mark's sister and brother-in-law) are teaching kindergarten students in Korea this year. Although they are many miles away, sometimes it feels like they are sitting at our dining room table (or on the computer on the dining room table anyway!).

For more about their adventures and the original Crazy Jong Yeon Dance, check out their website:

http://www.jjanddave.com/node/201

Meatball Dinner Season

The end of summer...the beginning of fall...Norwegian Lutherans have another season that they celebrate - Meatball Dinner Season! The entire Udstuen family looks forward to Wednesday evenings and takeouts dinners. Benjamin's favorite - LEFSE! We know Grandma Henzler is smiling!

The first day of school...sort of!

Jonah's first day of Preschool was Monday, September 17at 1 p.m.. We packed the backpack the night before, printed off a new picture for his attendance chart, and put out his "fast shoes". He was ready! I dropped him off at Amy's daycare on Monday morning and all seemed to be going well.

I arrived at 12:45 to bring him to preschool...and all was not going well. Jonah was so exhausted that he decided to take a nap on his own (!) at 11:30 a.m. He woke up, looked at me, and started wailing, "I want to go to school! I'm not sick.". But the runny nose, fever, and cough indicated otherwise. By the time I had loaded him in the car, even he agreed that school might not be such a good idea today. We dropped off his picture and forms, said hi to his teacher, and this sick boy headed for home. :-(

A Big Boy Bike!

Rite of passage #47...Check. Jonah has put about 15 miles on his "Magna" since we cracked the box open three days ago. Hopefully winter will be late this year - we need to put on a few hundred more before snow hits.

Benjamin - A Year in Review

Since there were no updates to our website after Benjamin was born, it seems only fair that we devote an entire blog to him. So here it is...A Year (actually 14 months) in Review:

Welcome Ben! Born MAY 3, 2006 at 10:22 p.m.

Slept through the month of JUNE!

Starting smiling in JULY.

Baptized AUGUST 27.

Observant in SEPTEMBER.

Solids receive a favorable response in OCTOBER.

Found his voice in NOVEMBER. (The video is a 1 min of Ben talking; so feel free to stop at anytime. For someone who has just learned how to blog, editing vidoes is obviously way out of my expertise!)

Ben's first Christmas in DECEMBER.

Sitting in JANUARY.

Crawling in FEBRUARY.

Classical studies (piano and vocal) begin in MARCH.

Loads of teeth by APRIL.

Ben's turns 1 on MAY 3!

Biking in JUNE.

Walking in July!