random christmas day snapshots

An elephant book for Olivia, yay!

Will "playing" with some of his toys that Santa brought for him.

Ben's crystal garden from Grandma Becky. It started out as a paper landscape, then as the paper soaked up the water from the tray underneath, all these colorful crystals grew within about 8 hours! Ben was LOVING it. We have some time lapse photos he did of the whole thing. The crystals were soft and fuzzy like cotton candy, and they would crumble when you touched them.

It looks like the bath crayons were a hit with Hannah and Nina!

The day after Christmas...Nerds for breakfast anyone?

We spent Christmas having a nice big breakfast at home with the kids, then we went to Papa Steve's and Grandma Ruthie's in the afternoon. Then we went to Mormor and Poppy Per's to open gifts and have leftovers from Christmas Eve. We stopped in at Mom and Dad's for a bit before heading out to a movie with Kerstin and Brian and their kids...the boys all went to Tron, and the girls all went to Tangled {and loved it!}. Fun, fun day. :)

millions of little lights

These trees are absolutely stunning in Draper City Park. Fabulous job, whoever did this! On Christmas Eve, my kids wanted a closer view, so we pulled over and I let them run over to the tree out in the middle. They stood under the glowing branches with the soft light illuminating their faces. Beautiful, beautiful.

a merry christmas to all

Since I didn't quite get the cards out this year, here's something for all of you, sent without postage but with plenty of love. Merry Christmas!

party time!

It's that time again for the line up of family parties! Here are a few highlights from this year's festivities...taken with our little point and shoot because I was too overwhelmed to pack in my good camera with loading all the kids, diapers, gifts, food, p.j.'s, etc. Dang it.

The annual Nativity put on by the Tycksen grandkids at my in-law's house.

Clayton and all the brothers {minus Erik who is in Kuwait}, brothers-in-law and our friend Joey surprised Ruthie by singing a few carols. She loves to hear them sing, and I thought it was really sweet they put that together.

Needless to say, the white elephant game ended in tears.

Little Will overwhelmed by the chaos. Or maybe he's enjoying it, I'm not sure.

My kids spent at least an hour on their gingerbread houses!

Liv decided to paint her fingernails with the frosting...

...and her toenails! I love that she's wearing her angel costume in these pictures.

So pretty!

Casch and Ben at my mom's dinner party. We always have "crackers" that pop with toys, lame British jokes and crowns inside.

Grandma reading her joke...I love that she's wearing a crown too!

Me and "Willoughby."

My BFF, Emily, came to town for the holidays...we had a sleepover at my house, soaked it up in our "KSL Hot Tub," and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU.

All the girls {minus Cami} at my grandparents' house on Christmas Eve.

Little Norwegian girls! Nina, Olivia, and my niece Bria.

Poppy Per making faces in the background, haha!

Baby Casch sporting his Norwegian costume. I love him!

Every Christmas Eve of my life {except for one} has been spent with my dad's family, gathered around a constantly expanding table for a Norwegian Christmas dinner. It's my favorite meal of the whole year! Clayton was sick this year and missed it, poor guy. He loves the dinner too. At the end of the night, Poppy Per drops one blanched almond into the giant bowl of riskrem {rice pudding} and whoever ends up with it in their bowl wins a tall chocolate Santa. Guess who won this year? Our own little Olivia! Hooray!

Here's the recipe if you ever want to try it for yourself...it's super delicious.

Riskrem

{Norwegian Christmas Rice Pudding}

Ingredients:

3/4 cup long grain white rice {not Minute Rice}

1 teaspoon salt

1 quart whole milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups heavy cream, whipped and sweetened to taste

1 whole almond

Raspberry Sauce {recipe follows}

Directions:

Cook rice, salt, and milk in double boiler until rice is soft and mixture is thick - about 1 1/2 hours. Fluff the rice a few times for the first half-hour to prevent lumps on the bottom. You want the rice to be nice and fluffy.

While still hot, add sugar. Cover with plastic wrap, directly onto the rice to prevent a hard film from forming on the top, and chill. When completely chilled, stir in almond extract. Fold in the whipped cream. Add the almond and stir to hide it. Serve topped with raspberry sauce.

The person who receives the whole almond receives a special gift {often a marzipan pig or a chocolate Santa}.

Raspberry Sauce

1 pkg. Danish dessert {near the Jello at the grocery store}

3 1/2 c. cold water

small pkg. of frozen, sweetened raspberries

Cook the Danish dessert and water until thickened. Cool, but do not refrigerate {if you do, it will jell too much}. Add desired amount of raspberries with some of the juice and serve on top of the rice cream.

nina's santa

This is my favorite picture of Santa ever. The skinny hat. The 5 o'clock shadow. I love it. My sister Hailey and I had a good laugh over this one, and she took a picture of it with her phone because she loved it too.

o christmas tree

Say hello to my little Christmas tree! This was the first year that we didn't do a fresh cut tree. I never thought I'd be one of "Those People" who only do fake trees {no offense}, but here I am. Just like I swore I'd never drive a minivan, right? I did miss the smell of the fresh tree, but it was sure nice to not shell out the money for it. And even nicer to not have to vacuum up pine needles for two months!

We have quite the collection of ornaments around here. My cute mom-in-law gives each of us a new ornament every year, so now that's 7 a year for our family! She lets us each choose one from the Hallmark catalog. They are so great! This year Will's is a miniature version of the old Fisher Price Little People airplane. The door even opens up and you can see the tiny people in it! The kids will take their ornaments once they've moved out, of course, but for now it's a lot of fun to plaster them all together on the tree.

Last year I bought a box of blue and silver ornaments on clearance at IKEA, thinking, "Hey! These would be perfect since I have blue walls!" I put them on the upstairs tree this year, but it just wasn't hitting the spot. I just couldn't do without red and green. So I decided to decorate it with all my Norwegian/Elf/Woodland themed ornaments instead, and it's a keeper. Some of the ornaments were brought from Norway years ago when my sister Cami went there to study abroad. My parents gave me a few from Norway too. The little green elf is part of a collection made by my super awesome friend Julie, and she gave me the little grey-bearded elves from IKEA too. Others, including the Norwegian flag garland, were purchased as newlyweds from the Scandinavian shop downtown {when it was still in business, so sad it's gone}.

I let the kids decorate the other little tree in the basement with all the ornaments from Grandma Ruthie, and we love it! Ben even made a popcorn string for it...too bad Olivia ate most it.

That's the story of this year's Christmas trees. I think we'll do the same thing next year!

All I Want For Christmas

Keep your ears open for a soon to be Christmas classic by Nina, "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Butt Cheeks."

Leave a plate of these for Santa and he'll probably leave you a few extra gifts as a thank-you.

I typically double this recipe, making about 4-5 dozen, depending how big you make them.

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

1 1/2 c. plus 1 Tbsp. flour

1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder

1 stick butter

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. molasses

1 tsp. baking soda

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 c. granulated sugar (or “In The Raw” sugar for more sparkly cookies!)

1. In medium bowl mix together flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and cocoa powder.

2. With an electric mixer beat butter until whitened, about 4 minutes. Add brown sugar and beat until combined. Add molasses and beat until combined.

3. In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in 1 1/2 tsp. boiling (or really hot) water. Beat half of flour mixture into butter mixture. Beat in baking soda mixture, then remaining half of flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Heat oven to 325. Roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls and roll in granulated sugar; place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake until the surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes on pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dad's Christmas Star

My Awesome Dad, Harold Haugen.

My Awesome Husband, Clayton.

My dad under the tarp which covers the generator, adding gas to light the star.

A view from where the star is...don't slip!

We made it!

Me, thoroughly winded from the climb.

Ahhh! Let there be light!

A view of the star from the other side of the valley where I live...see that tiny dot of light above all the others?

Six years ago, my dad had this idea to build a giant Christmas star out of pine, attach light bulbs to it and haul it up the mountain behind my parents' home where he would mount it and light it each night through the Christmas season with a generator.

Not only did he have this crazy idea, but he followed through with it. Now every year after Thanksgiving, he and my husband and brother climb the slope with the big slats of wood, piece by piece, then carry the heavy generator up as well. Then they assemble it on the side of a rocky cliff and pin down a thick tarp to keep snow off of the generator.

My dad hikes the very steep mountain face every night at 5 pm to light the star, from December 10-January 1, and over the years has attracted a lot of company on his hikes. Youth groups have gone up with him, several friends and neighbors, complete strangers, and family members, of course. He has rarely hiked it alone. It has become a great tradition in the community where he lives, and he often finds thank you notes and treats that people leave up there for him to find. Needless to say, my parents now have a nice collection of star-shaped tree ornaments too, as thank you gifts from random people.

What I love about my dad is that he didn't do this for recognition...in fact for a few years hardly anybody knew it was him doing it. He is just one of those people who likes to do awesome things and spread the Christmas spirit, and would rather remain anonymous.

But now I don't think he can be secret about it anymore...look for him on KSL news, and in The Deseret News!

Thanks for our Christmas Star, Dad. I love you.

Sorry these pictures are crappy, I was using my phone since I didn't want to risk slipping with my big camera! The last picture was taken by my husband, only not with a phone. :)