Caramel Rolls

For New Years Eve I was going to make some Caramels from my mother's caramel recipe. I carefully and lovingly cooked it and stirred it for a long time. Then chilled it like the recipe says. However, when it came time to cutting the caramels I discovered that I hadn't actually cooked it as long as it needed and it was just a pile of ooey gooey caramel. So instead of caramels it became caramel rolls. I've made caramel rolls a few times and have tweeked the caramel recipe everytime and I thought that I had it right. But THIS caramel recipe is amazing for the rolls. Just don't cook the caramel as long as needed and it's beautiful to add rolls to.

I got so excited at how well my dough turned out that I needed to take a picture. I just realized however, that I never took the "After" picture when the rolls were done. Probably because I ate them too fast. Anyways, if you need a good caramel recipe for caramel rolls, this one is great! It's a good thing I don't know how to cook right.

Pump-It-Up

So for Steve's birthday this year he wanted a home gym where he can work-out at instead of going to the YMCA every day. He found this "little" beauty on Craigslist and now it is taking up half my family room. You can do benchpress, pull-ups, leg curls, lats, blah, blah, blah, I don't even know what else. And it's all on a pulley system (which isn't attached yet) so that when I can't benchpress that 135 lbs. anymore my Safety Spotter will kick in. And of coure there are numerous weights to add onto that extremely heavy bar. Now instead of sitting on my rear all day long I can go downstairs and benchpress!

Christmas Cookies for Santa

And this is what happens when the adult leaves the uneven bosch alone on the counter.

Sneaky Preston

After we finished decorating the trees we hung candy canes on the one downstairs. After a while Preston disappeared and wouldn't tell anyone where he was when we were calling him. Five minutes later we found him hiding behind the couch....with a few real candy canes, a fake lollipop ornament, and a Candy Cane Reindeer ornament that I had made 20 years ago. Unfortunately he tried all of them and ended up eating the 20 year old candy cane! Mmm, Yum!

Decorating the Tree

Once again I have downloaded the pictures in the wrong order and cannot figure out how to rearrange them, but you get the general idea. We have a tree upstairs with matching ornaments and then another smaller tree downstairs with all the ornaments that we have gotten in our stockings. The kids thought it was quite fun to decorate two trees.

Aaron and Kari

As I mentioned in my snapfish pictures, Kari loved singing along with Aaron as he played the guitar. She wanted to sing a song from Annie, but Aaron didn't know the chords so he looked them up. Neither of them knew the words too well, but it was still cute to watch.

Thanksgiving in AZ

Once again we went to Mesa, AZ for Thanksgiving. Steven's Grandma and his aunt and uncles all live there. Four of his siblings and his dad were also able to come. Here are just a few pictures of our fun time. If you want to see all the pictures, just ask me for a link to my snapfish account.

While there we were also able to meet up with some friends from our IOwa days in dental school. Here we are with Serg and Lisa Montes and their six children: Tiana, Angel, Ammon, Alexa, Isaac, and Caleb.

This is Sedona, Az a very beautiful area between PHoenix and Flagstaff.

Somewhere in Sedona is this amazing bridge-like rock. I didn't actually see it because I took the kids home, but Steve and his siblings hiked to it.

On Thanksgiving day Grandma Swenson rented a bouncy house. Preston thought it was THE greatest thing ever. He was entertained for hours.

In Steve's Aunt Ann's backyard there are numerous toys for children. The kids couldn't believe that I didn't show them this yard until the 5th day we were there.

Steve and I tried out our skills with Guitar Hero. Needless to say, I stunk at it and gave up within 10 minutes. Aaron, on the other hand, was amazing and very fun to watch.

We all went to see the lights at the Mesa Temple. I loved that there were so many "willing" and able men to carry my kids around. Thanks guys, you were a great help.

Before we left we took one last family picture. We greatly enjoyed our stay and are so grateful for so many wonderful family. I missed my little family get together in Utah, but I was grateful for Steve's family putting up with us for so long.