Making noodles

Today we went into Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Shirley's house to make noodles. It was the first time making homemade noodles for both Oliver and I. The noodle maker (for lack of a better term) is Great Grandma Peterman's that she gave to them with instructions on its use. And, knowing Grandma Mary, she probably gave the recipe that you have to use too.

He helped Grandpa crank to flatten out the dough.

This was Oliver's favorite part, making the long strings of noodles.

Oliver was only interested in the making the noodles into "strings" and soon lost interest and wanted to play train instead. Hence him sitting in the background of this picture watching his train go around the track. This picture is some of our noodles drying. Shirley said that they dry for a day then she can package them up and put them into the freezer or we can eat them as is. Can't wait to have homemade chicken noodle soup this week. Sounds like it's going to be cold again so it will be great weather for it. 

Great Grandparent Christmas

We all packed up and traveled down to Davenport on the Saturday after Christmas to celebrate with my Grandma and Grandpa Doerscher's house. My Aunt Debbie and cousin Dalton were able to join us all as well as my dad's cousin. My Grandma made some delicious homemade soup, my sister made yummy homemade rolls and I took the easy route with crackers and cheese but did get complements on the deer sausage.

Oliver was adamant about bringing in elephant and couldn't leave him in the van. So, Oliver ran around with it and checked the place out stopping at the statue of the cow where elephant had to kiss it.  

After eating a yummy lunch of homemade soups, the kids checked out the tree while my Dad and I did the dishes. 

Oliver loved the Case IH tractor ornaments on the tree.

It's present time and everyone was really patient by this time and good about taking turns since they had practice earlier in the week.  

Before all the wrapping paper was even off Oliver shouted "firefighter" and started pushing the buttons to make siren go off. He loves his firetruck. We took it with us to my Grandma's in Walcott and all the kids there liked it too. So much so that we had to take it away so that there weren't more tantrums when one of the kids would take it away from the other to play with.  

Later that afternoon we did head in to Walcott where my Grandma along with a lot of my Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and their kids joined us for our last Christmas celebration of the year. We ate first then all of us gathered in the basement. All of a sudden we heard that familiar noise of jingle bells and who should appear but Santa. Oliver was one of the only younger kids that wasn't afraid of him but went right up to him and started looking in Santa's bag. 

Oliver didn't have problem with wanting to sit on his lap. I guess he had plenty of practice this year and after talking about Santa for the past few weeks he wasn't scared at all.

Notice all the stocking hung on the fireplace. There are so many with all my cousins, our significant others, and my cousin's kids that Grandma had to make another row of them below. 

Oliver's first present was a Mickey Mouse laptop computer. He didn't want to open the rest of the presents after he opened this one. Needless to say this came out of the package right away too. 

Before Santa left, we all sang "Jingle Bells" having Oliver and Brady ring the bells on Santa's lap.  

Oliver stole the bells away from Santa but gave them back for the reindeer's sleigh. 

We spent the night at Great Billie's house where Oliver continued to have fun with Ian and Annaliese until we left the next day to come home and clean the house and find a place for all the new presents.