Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas. We stayed at our home this year. It was Mikko's parents turn, but they went to Finland this year. We started off the celebration on Christmas Eve with a yummy dinner. We invited Uncle Pekka over and he was a culinary surprise. He brought Christmas tarts, orange rolls, cookies and drinks. Since the better half is from Finland, and they have a traditional Christmas dinner every year, I decided to be kind enough to cook their favorite Christmas Finnish dish. Mikko chose Carrot box and Pekka Potato box, they are casseroles. My first time making them and the men say they were good. I also provided my favorite Finnish dish, Karelian Pies. We all enjoyed the food and then enjoyed it two more times on Christmas day!

Finnish tradition is that Santa comes with gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner and you open all your gifts then. Since I am American I just can't let go of my tradition of opening gifts on Christmas day. I let the two kiddos open a gift each on the eve. They got some PJ's and we got the kiddos off to bed.

Pekka stayed over and the kids both woke up at around 7:50am. It was fun to watch Kaleb he had such a great time. The highlight for him was his IronMan action figure, he sang "I am Iron Man" all day for a few days. He was again spoiled by family and he has been enjoying all of his great new toys.

Mikko got lots of movies, Pekka got lots of books and my highlight was a new SLR camera. Now I need to learn how to use it. It takes some great pics.

Christmas night we went to a house in Murray that had lights set to music and that was a fun little ride. We had a great day and I am so thankful for a wonderful family and for a Savior who has made it possible that we can be a family forever.

Saturday we went down to Utah Valley and McKay and Lois were kind enough to watch the kids while Mikko took me to "Avatar". He wanted to take me so bad. After the movie we had a yummy pizza dinner at the Brown's they are such great cooks and we opened some gifts from them. They gave us matching Suomi shirts. I will post a pic of us showing they off as soon as I make some PJ bottoms to go with them.