Just Another Day

I am in charge of the babies’ Christmas jammies. How can you pass up little striped pants?

This was year 2 of lefse making at Grandma Katie’s. It’s one of my new favorite Christmas traditions. I arrived on a Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago – feeling lucky to get my spot on the Aune Lefse List. These ladies had already seen hundreds of pounds of potatoes transformed on their lefse griddles; I was the last round for the year.

We got 84 pieces of lefse in my batch, and I actually learned how to roll it out this year. (Okay, they may have had some strange shapes, but they passed!)

More than anything, though, I love the visiting, the stories, and the tradition.

We wrapped the evening up with burgers from the VFW and an episode of Minute to Win It. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Soon Christmas will be upon us, and I woke up feeling like I haven’t really gotten into the spirit of the season.

We’re not exchanging gifts this year. Not Bill & I – not with our families. It’s kind of nice… definitely less stress. I got to shop for the little ones, which is fun, and then I called it a wrap.

I’ve been piping Christmas music into our house over the weekend, because I just have this panicky feeling that I’m going to miss out this year. It’s already December 12, and I haven’t even watched Elf without commercial interruptions!

April and I headed to Virginia yesterday – basically I rushed her through Super One and declined a trip in to Target. Of course, it was still a good time, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’m constantly forging ahead to the next item on the list without stopping to enjoy right now.

Life is just moving so, so fast. So today, as the stress of having to get the house cleaned (it really could use it), the wood hauled, school work acknowledged, more cleaning… well, I hopped in the truck with Bill and headed out to find a Christmas tree. Jesse came too, and he helped us set a record time for tree hunting. We made it home with lots of afternoon to spare – so I made some cut-out sugar cookies. (The added bonus is that my sweet little Kate brought her mom out to help!)

Today was all it took to get my holiday cheer back in check.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, my cousin Andy got married last weekend. They had a nice ceremony and a beautiful reception.

One of my favorite parts of Aune wedding receptions is watching my Uncle Bill & Auntie Sue dance. They grew up in a time when people actually learned how to dance together – not this flailing about we do nowadays.

It’s become tradition for the three of us to get a picture together at weddings.

We all had a nice time – a perfect start to the holiday season with family.

These are the fish that required the rather time-consuming construction of a fish box. I wonder if Mike’s is still in the freezer?

I just now realized that mom may have bought that robe to blend in with the kitchen appliances. 🙂

April hated having her picture taken when she was little. This one says it all.

Yahoo!

My cousin Andy is getting married next weekend. That’s him in the middle.

We are the three youngest of the Aune crew, and we spent lots of time at Gram & Gramps together. Andy would come and stay at the lake, G&G took us on trips to Wisconsin… really, lots of my memories include times when the three of us were together. (That is, of course, if the two of them weren’t ganging up on me!) 🙂

It seems like those days weren’t that long ago.

I go in spurts where I just feel like blogging. I’m not sure what it is – but tonight I just feel like putting something out there. So, I decided I’m going to declare “Random Picture Week” on my site. There are so many amazing pictures (mostly of my childhood hair) to share.  So, tonight’s picture is my 3rd grade tap costume. (Be thankful I’m not accompanying it with the picture of me trying the same costume on in college!) It’s funny, I was only in tap through 3rd grade. I hated the recitals so much. Just as I hated piano recitals, and pretty much any sort of performing. In fact, I still pretty much hate having to get up in front of a crowd. When I speak up at staff meetings or give a training I can feel my face flush bright red. And I’m self-proclaimed socially awkward – feeling lucky to have a very extroverted husband to carry us through evenings of conversations in big-group settings. (How did I miss out on the Aune gift of gab??)  Anyway, tonight I post my last tap recital photo. I think we were dancing to “New York, New York”. Uncomfortable as a lot of those activities were for me, I’m glad I can look back and laugh.