Our spelunker

One of our favorite things about our house is the network of trails behind it. If you walk about3/4 mile up the path and cross the street by the elementary school you'll find even more trails and one of them leads to a..... BEAR CAVE! Okay, no bears have ever been seen there, but it is called the bear cave to give it a more exciting feel. Well, cousin Malachi and Uncle Brent discovered a small cave within the bear cave and Henry is now hooked on spelunking. Here his is decked out in his spelunking gear.

Notice the serious expression. Appropriate for a kid who is going into a cave that is only 5 feet tall and who knows how deep. Luckily for mama's fears he is only up to about 3 minutes of exploration at a time.

Oh, and Henry also talks about the little spelunker in my belly-- his little sister. :)

Christmas-- the condensed version

To help get this blog up to date here's the quick version of Christmas. With Grandma and Grandpa Dunn in town we had lots of fun. We spent Christmas Eve morning mini golfing. It was gorgeous weather-- notice the sandals and T shirts, don't notice how my tummy looks like a beach ball. And to preserve grandpa's dignity I won't post the video of him falling into one of the water features. At least it was a warm day. And in a Christmas Eve miracle we all ended up with the exact same score!

Christmas Eve night the parents went to Alec and Dixie's to have their time with them. We all gathered for a delicious meal of soup (thanks Dixie!) and read the nativity story. Henry and H were more interested in the flashlights though. Then we headed home to get things ready for Santa. Henry went right to sleep-- I was sure he'd try and sneak down but he went right to bed and didn't wake till his normal time. Watching him come down stairs was adorable. To everything he said "it's just what I've always wanted!" He dumped out everyone's stockings to make sure that we noticed all the great stuff we got. It ended up being a bit of a wii Christmas for us. Henry got a Diego wii game from Santa, Dell got Boom Blox wii from Santa, Henry gave me Tetris for the wii (0h so fun, I play almost every night!), and then Uncle Dave and Auntie Margaret became the king and queen of Christmas with their gift of Lego Stars Wars. Henry is completely obsessed now. And it's hilarious! Henry also got a riding horse, space shuttle toy and a knight castle. Both have been well played with, thought the knights sometimes have hilarious battles.

The day after Christmas the parents had to head home to Utah and my cousin Alan and his family arrived from Houston to spend the night and attend their niece's baptism the next morning (quick explanation-- Alan's wife is Holly. Holly's brother lives in our ward. Brother's house was already full of family coming for the baptism so we hosted Alan and Holly's family, plus Holly's sister.) And Alan and Holly play settlers so we had a great time with them. Come back anytime Alan and Holly!

Then the night that Alan and Holly left Dell's brother Brent and his family rolled into town. (Though their family of 7 stayed with Alec and Dixie so our house felt a little empty.) Now Brent and Shauna are some of the most FUN people I know. So you know we had a blast. For pictures of the spray whipped cream, marshmallow and pudding fight check out my sister-in-law Dixie's blog (see link on the side). We also went to Sea World. I love the dolphin show!

Here's all the cousins outside of sea world. My sweet little boy picked a pansy for me to wear in my hair. Have to teach him that bringing his mother flowers is wonderful, but we shouldn't pick them from other's yards. Oh well. It was fun to have a yellow pansy in my hair for a bit.

Henry was about 1/2 an inch too short for every ride by this one. Can you see the smile on his face? Henry had always professed to be afraid of rollercoasters (though facinated by them as well) but he loved this Shamu one. Hopefully next time we go he'll be an inch taller and we can go on more rides together.

Highlights from Sea World include:

• The man that tried to park his family right in the middle of 20 Dunns at the dolphin show-- he was upset that we were saving seats but since we'd been hanging out for 30 minutes and there were plenty of seats elsewhere we weren't feeling too sympathetic.
• Auntie Shauna dancing her heart out and singing to every song before the Shamu show-- and it got her and Aerie up on the big screen.
• All the cousins playing in the giant sandbox together.
• Watching Henry on the roller coaster
• Henry and the map. That kid loves maps.
• Watching my niece Sally while everyone else was off adventuring. I think we played with a rockI drew a face on for 20 minutes. It was great fun.
• Being with Dell. Thank you to the kind radiologist that let him off early that day.
• Having so many Dunns together and watching how well the cousins play together.
• Getting to chat with my dear sister-in-laws. I have the best sister-in-laws in the world!

So that's our Christmas in a nutshell. Ya'll are invited next year. Let me tell you, Texas Christmases may not be white, but 70 degree weather and blue skies seems a fair tradeoff. :)

We made this new salad a few times recently and it turned out really well. I wrote up the recipe for Anna's mom and figured I'd post it for anyone interested.

I found a warmed (wilted) spinach salad recipe online for the sauce, I added the walnuts, feta and apples.

Ingredients:
-As much spinach as you want to eat...there ends up being a kind of filling, large, non-spinach component, but it does shrink with the wilting.
- Onion
-Bacon (if unavailable, could just use oil, with bacon bits...oil in the sauce and blue cheese sprinkled on top would also work)
-Garlic (1 fresh crushed or 1/2 tbsp of the jar stuff)
-Brown sugar
-Cider vinegar (others would be fine too)
-Walnuts
-Apple, cranberries be a good substitute/addition
-Feta cheese, swiss might work too
-Salt
-Pepper

1. Get spinach out...should be at least room temp before final steps. Did this the 1st time and not the second and there was a difference in outcome.
2. Cook up 3-7 strips of bacon to extra crisp in a decent sized frying pan.
3. While bacon cooks, mince 1/4-1/2 onion depending on salad size...red onion might be nice, haven't tried it yet. Crush 1/4-3/4 cup walnuts (I just squeeze them in my hands) and cut one large or 2 small apples into 1-2cm size chunks.
4. Grab the bacon strips out, crush (hands again) and set aside, leave the fat in the pan, it's the oil and flavor for the sauce. Supplement with 1-2 tbsp olive oil if not enough.
5. Throw the minced onion in and cook, when almost done cooking onion add garlic for 20-30 sec
6. Then add 1-2 tbsp brown sugar, 1/4-1/2 tsp salt, some pepper, and 2 tbsp cider vinegar (you can make this in a cup while onions cook)
7. While sauce heats up, put feta on spinach. Once sauce is fully heated (bubbly) pour over spinach/feta in serving bowl then mix to coat and wilt all the spinach. (you could microwave fridge stored sauce, but I think warming in a saucepan is better)
8. I think salads are best served individually, so I put portions on plates then generously sprinkle the apple chunks, crushed walnuts and bacon over the top. Looks really pretty on the plate, a few cranberries also fit the color scheme well. It works fine to mix everthing, the chunks tend to get unevenly distributed and the apples yellow though. We ate this with a piece of bread and an orange and it was pretty filling for a main course from all the protein. The first time I also had some Frozen Foreman-ed Chicken with just one of those flavor sprinkles on it that also went well with it.

Enjoy! Happy new year.

This is a similar recipe that sounds good. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/warm-spinach-salad-roasted-pecan-bacon-dressing-with-goat-cheese-recipe/reviews/index.html

Christmas part 2

We did a great job of spreading out Christmas this year. We had Christmas with my parents while we were in Utah and Henry got to get his unwrapping practice in. (His form really improved during that time. Now he knows to start with the taped side. Makes a big difference in his overall speed.)

Then when Dell's parents came into town on the 22nd we had another Christmas with them. Here's a quick video of Henry unwrapping his gift from them. I love his little squeals!

Henry on His Trike

Henry has been having fun riding his trike up and down our street. Not squealing his tires, but squeeling nonetheless.

blog slacker

Okay, so I've been a total slacker about updating our blog. I will try to do better. I need to since I love looking at all of your blogs and get so excited when you have a new post. So here's to a less slacker Anna in the future. Cheers!

Here's a quick update of all we've been up to in the past months.

Wonderful visit from Dell's parents. We love being with them. We had so much fun showing them our favorite bits of Texas. Hiking Enchanted Rock, eating at Rather Sweet bakery in Fredricksburg, and the stopping at the living history farm at the LBJ Ranch on the way home. Henry got to gather an egg from a real live hen house!

Here's a picture of Henry and Grandpa having a nice chat on their way down Enchanted Rock.

We Decked our halls! I love Christmas and putting up our Christmas stuff makes me so happy. I love having a Christmas house. For the first time ever we put up lights on the outside of our house-- way to go Dell! (Super efficient LED lights which are awesome!) And Henry and I handled the interior. Though Henry roamed back and forth and took most of the picture from the event. I love our Christmas tree. It is huge and bushy. Looks totally wild with branches sticking out everywhere and it was so tall we had to cut off some of the top since our 6-7 foot tree from Lowes was scraping our 9 foot ceilings. What else has been fun is how into the tree Henry has been. We have the lights on a timer and every night when they turn on Henry comes running. "The Christmas tree is sparkling!!!" He also loved hearing the story of each of our ornaments and when Grandma and Grandpa Dunn called that evening he gave the a telephone tour of the tree. "and that ornament, see (holds phone toward tree then brings back to his ear) is from when mommy was a little girl. And the star is to help us remember Jesus, and....." Super cute. I love almost 4 year olds.


Dell putting up the Christmas lights. Picture taken by Henry


Once our house was Christmasfied we headed to Utah for a quick visit with my parents. It was much too short but oh did we have a great time. Dell taught Henry to ski which was the highlight of the trip for him I think and I was so impressed at how well Henry did. (Since his mom is terrified of skiing and hates fulfilling her wifely duty to ski with her sweetheart.) But Henry just strapped on his skis and went off with Dad for an hour. Then, when they came back to the lodge at Alta to warm up a bit, I asked Henry if he wanted to stay with me and he said "nope, I want to go practice skiing some more." And off they went for another hour-- this time up the sunnyside lift. Henry's favorite things: "going super fast", red light green light, and bowling (where Dell would give him a little push and he'd scoot forward like a bowling ball.) The day after Alta Dell and Henry hit Snowbird and skied for another couple of hours-- this time taking several lifts. Luckily I got to hang out with my brother on the patio near the fire. It was great to have some time with Mark.

Little Skier

Other highlights of the trip include: Henry playing with cousin Sams and Eden, celebrating Christmas and birthdays, lights at Temple Square, gingerbread party with my aunt and cousins, the traditional Hedengren sibling lazar tag war-- oh how we have fun. Though being 7 months pregnant really hurt my ranking. Emily was the new queen of lazar tag. She dominated this time! Henry also loved going to the Children's museum in Salt Lake. He still talks fondly of the "boys and girls museum" and wants to go back almost every day (though we are moving to just twice a week mentions of said museum.) And I learned that I am super grateful for the USO where during our 3 hour layover on the way home I got a nap, some food, books, and met a really fun couple that happen to live just down the road from us. Small world huh?

Dell and Henry at Temple Square

Our most recent activities include scurrying for Santa, playing with family, and enjoy Texas in December. While we've had some cold (35-45 degree days) we've also had some 60-70 degree days and oh do we love those. Yesterday was such a day and we spent the whole day outside working on the garage, watching Henry race his trike up and down the sidewalk and we finished with an Arby's picnic in front of the garage after a last run to Home Depot. Oh what a great day. (If only BYU had won. Sorrow and sigh. Oh well, there's always next year. Go Cougars!!)

Halloween

Henry was a cute lion again this year. First we tried being pirates, but when he saw his old costume he wanted to change from pirate to lion. And when I saw how cute he was, I agreed. He got a little hot in it, but was too determined to trick or treat to let a little thing like sweat deter him.
Roar!!!!
Henry got quite a haul of candy too. He took the giant trick or treat bag (the one I used to use to hand out candy from) instead or his little pumpkin one. But it was half full by the time the evening was over. We canvassed our neighborhood first-- to meet the neighbors which was great! And then went to Alec and Dixie's to join the cousins and a bunch of other people from the ward in that neighborhood. Lots of good candy there too.

Henry was adorable. And each house he said the obligatory "trick or treat" but followed up with a heart felt "where are the halloween games?" Because he knows that every good party has candy and games and the candy was plentiful, but games were few. Luckily in one cul de sac we found a game like atmosphere with hayrides, movies and a spook alley (which Henry wisely choose to skip-- even big kids were getting scared.)

We ended up at cousin's house where Henry and H had a fun time playing relay games with Grandpa Dick and the big bag of Halloween candy to give away. Then we took a tired little boy home. What a great Halloween, and the first that Henry really got into. It is so fun watching Henry grow up. He makes holidays so much better!!