Celebrating

We had the privilege of closing out 2014 with Johnny and his lovely girlfriend Karen, who snuck away for a quick visit.  We chilled out, laughed, ate lots of junk food and, much to everyone's delight, set off fireworks.  This was Johnny's idea, and he found a backpack set on sale at the local fireworks store.

Braving the subzero chill, we enjoyed sparklers and larger pyrotechnic displays:

Thane, especially, had a ball.  Truly, his squeals of delight were hilarious!

It took awhile for our very excited children to drift off to sleep, so we let Annabel read for a bit.  It turns out that during that time, she completed her very first "big" book, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.  

It's going to be a good year!

Gledelig Jul

We have decided to embrace our mutual Norwegian heritage.  One of the ways in which we love to do this most at Christmas is by consuming large quantities of lefse, a traditional scandinavian flat bread. There are as many ways to eat lefse as there are recipes, but we prefer ours with raspberry jam, nutella and whipped cream (or any combination of the three).  My one and only attempt at making lefse was nine years ago with Jordan's mom, so I was a bit nervous about making it on my own this year.

First, you mix the dough and form it into golf-sized balls.

Next, you use loads of flour to roll out the balls into a flat disc.

Then you fry up the bread on a dry skillet.  

Once cooled, you spread on your topping of choice, roll it up and (tada!) you have a tasty norwegian treat.  Hey - it may not look perfect, but it tasted divine!

Later on Christmas day, we took a walk along the river in gorgeous traditional sweaters handcrafted by Jordan's mom, who raised the sheep, sheared them, washed the wool, carded and spun it, and then knit the resulting yarn.  The amount of wool that went into each sweater is mind-boggling!

To end the day, we watched a new movie and then the kids donned their Rudolph noses.  Reindeer are scandinavian, too!

So, whether you give season's greetings in Norwegian (Gledelig Jul) or English, the Lentz clan wishes you...