Mexican Tortillas and Enchiladas with Patty

These videos are especially for my awesome family and friends in Denmark who have been asking me to either send them Mexican food or to tell them how to make it. The problem with mailing Mexican food is that it will go bad (heh) or that a  can of enchilada sauce and a stack of tortillas would be very expensive to mail considering how heavy they are. So that brings me to the second request. Tell them how to make it.....hhhmmmm....that requires me to KNOW how to make it from scratch. Yea, so that is a problem as well so I decided to go to an expert if you will, because that just makes a whole lot of more sense. So I have to tell you that this was yummy!
Patty is this fantastic lady that I have gotten to know and she was such a good sport! And I got to stuff my face with crazy good food! I still do not know how to make the corn tortillas but I think it would work with the flour ones as well even though she says not to.......hhmmmm..... anyways. Maybe I can convince her to teach me how to make salsa as well! She actually also shows how to make refried beans in this here fantastic educational experience of a video sequence! Enjoy and please ask questions!

Tutu Time with Maja

Enjoy the sweet sound of giggly little girls and ignore the sound of big brother crying. Don't worry if you listen really carefully you can hear Dad taking care of him.

For some reason a ton of tutus came our way in the form of hand-me-downs and birthday presents

We had a fun party for the twins at the park and once I get the pictures I will post them.

Now it was time for our little family party.

All the Halloween junk is still all over the living room

Jed and I decided that now that the twins turned 4 they were old enough to get an allowance like their big brother and sister.

So they each got a wallet!

They were quite happy about it.

This was something they had been looking forward to for a little over a month!

Big tank you hugs to Maja!

A typical Anna pouty face who knows why.

Pouty face soon erased by a big smile.

And a Hug from Astrid I think Anna opened Astrid's present to her and this is actually Anna giving Astrid a thank you hug. Heh!

Wives and Daughters

Another great show from girls night!
If you missed last time we watched episodes 1 and 2
all 4 are on here

wives and daughters

Big BIG BIIIIIG Spider!

As we were getting ready to leave bull creek my most observant mother spotted this specimen.

It was most intriguing and ever so fascinating.

I know next to nothing about spiders so i have no clue what kind this is.

It was slow and timid

And Even though I have lived in the Austin area for 8 years i have never seen anything remotely like this around before

I had to constantly remind myself and the kids that if you do not know if it can hurt you just assume that it can.

We asked a random jogger if he had ever encountered one of these before and despite running there on a regular basic he had not.

He then brought back some friends of his who were in a different part of the park and one of them thought we ought to squash it.

My mom got quite defence on behalf of big creepy spider so as far as we know he did not get squashed

He mostly just froze and every now and then tried to run away.

as soon as he realized we were following he would stop moving again and just sit there

I found a long twig and carefully poked his leg then he would run away so I think this was not the attacking sort.

I was hoping someone out there might know what sort of critter this is

Do you think it is someones pet spider that they just left in the park?

Eventually we gave him more space and he just slowly made his way down to the water

After getting in the water for a little while, I'm guessing getting a good drink, he started moving back to the trees where he first came from

here is a little video for your enjoyment!

Glædelig Fastelavn

Fastelavn is the danish carnival. kids dress up and go door to door and sing this song!

It is basically the same as trick or treat.

Fastelavn is my name

Rolls is what I want

if I don't get any rolls

I will make hullabaloo (trouble)

Rolls up rolls down

rolls in my belly

if I don't get any rolls

I will make hullabaloo (trouble)

The kids will carry around little cans with a coin slots for people to put in money or sometimes they will get lucky and get a fastelavnsbolle ( a pastry/sweet roll). OR unlucky, like my friend Karina and I was one year and have a guy pull 2 hardy whole wheat rolls straight out of his freezer and hand to us with a satisfied look on his face. I'm sure our faces were quite fascinating to look at once we realized what just happened.

For the fastelavn party we take turns hitting a barrel with candy and oranges the person who knocks out the bottom is the Cat queen and the person who knocks the final piece down is the Cat king. Here is a random video to illustrate how this goes down.

This group clearly had a toddler barrel, They make them in different grades of toughness and adults get into it just as much as the kids. I've seen several fastelawn bats splintered before the barrel came down.

This is the main reason why I have a hard time getting used to how weak pinatas are.

These pictures are from our ward Halloween party and this cat is my excellent sister Maja.

Tomorrow we are going to celebrate fastelavn with our local danish family, Kasper and Lindsay.

Since we are related by marriage, he is my brothers wife's cousin!, we are going to attempt our own fastelavn fest tomorrow!

I'm so excited!

The Inheritance

Another of the treasures I discovered at our ladies movie night group. We've had so much fun enjoying these stories together and of course eating lots of yummy snacks and chatting each others ears off.

North and South

And now allow me to present North and south!

This is not the North and South about the American civil war but about northern and southern England.

We've been watching it at our girls nights and it is just fantastic!

if you can get over the fact that it is in small bits and that it has to stop and load this is great quality!

it takes the story a little while to get interesting so just give it a chance and I'm sure that by the time you get to the end you will be very glad you did!

So now that you have watched this whole wonderful thing you might wish to read the book! I sure do!
Here are links for the movie and the book, just in case you wanted to do some shopping.

Chicken Mama

Anna loves animals, especially birds. I noticed when she was little that when we went walking it was the birds that she was the most excited to see outside.

Of the 4 kids she is by far the most excited by our chickens, She will happily chase them around and pick them up any time the opportunity offers it self.

Astrid answered the last question incorrectly! Our chickens are most certainly NOT laying any eggs and it is very frustrating. Even after the nesting boxes were installed still no eggs. grrrr.

Pumpkins pumpkins we love pumpkins

This year Halloween was on a Sunday.

I really wanted to find different ways to make it special since we were not going to go from house to house and do trick-or-treat'ing

In the beginning of the year I promised my self that I was going to make sure that each holiday was special for the kids.

So I saw this kit for painting pumpkins at HEB and decided to go ahead and spend the money.
I'm really glad that I did because we somehow never ended up carving our big pumpkin.

 It really was a lot of fun.

 It was such a fun evening.

 I think Anna's princess here is the scariest pumpkin we had this year.

 I've been trying to make sure that we do more of these sort of fun little things together.

 For some reason we have not done any of the crafts I remember doing as a kid.

 I have fond memories of salt dough,paper mache, Perler beads and making tissue paper roses.

 I have been trying to make up for that.

 I hope that my kids are not going to look back on their childhood and wonder what in the world they spend their time doing.

 Besides silly faces that is.