Memorial Day BBQ on Faith Lane

Can I just say... I love having a home where we can have people over!!!!
We decided to throw a Memorial Day BBQ and have some friends over. It turned out to be quite the crowd! We were lucky enough to have the Posts, Fifes, Paynes, Earls, Tubbs, Ochsenbeins, Weavers, and Prescotts over to party with us! The skies threatened for a few moments before the guests arrived but then it was like a hot Summer Day! Love it!
My favorite thing about hosting is the fact that I don't have to make anything extravagant but always end up having a glorious meal! People are always welcome when they bring food! ;) We started up the fire pit and Brett turned on the Grill. We had tons of sides and even home-made ice cream! Awesome!

We are in love with our backyard. We had basketball games, trampoline fun, bug catching, visiting and kids even enjoyed the basement. It was really a perfect day! So glad our friends could spend time with us! We have so much to be grateful for. Happy Memorial Day!

We were all in love with my neighbors little girl. She was a up-ity "cheeser" at everyone but if we laughed at her too much- she would get pipping mad! It was so darling! love her!

Primary Scones

January flew by so fast with "Christmas Recovery" mode & then a flu bug that the whole month felt like an anti-social month. [inert sad face] The kids have been buggin' us that we haven't been doing our Sunday Scone night. I have missed having people over. And I'm a little bummed that hardly anyone got to see how cute my house was decorated. Bummer! 

Tonight we got on the ball and invited over the Primary Presidency (including the darling music people) & their families. We see each other every week but it was so great to just hang out! Fun people! I adore them. {The boys went out to play on the tramp and I never got a picture of them. Oops!}

We are almost finished with our Primary Bulletin Board at Church. I have been taking pictures of all of us for weeks. Then making them look like Polaroid photos on my scrapbook program and adding names. It turned out so fun! I love that we get to see all the awesome people we have in our Primary in one place. Plus it is extra helpful as some of my Presidency learns the names of all the kiddos. I love pictures!!!! (Below) Here's the picture we took of our Presidency. We giggle every time we see it because of our drastic height difference. LOL Granted that I had to sink down a bit to hold the door open with my foot but it made for a pretty awesome picture. I love these ladies!!

Smørbrød Party 2014

We decided to start up our Smørbrød Tradition here in Helena. {Check out our past documented parties from 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009.}
As a brief explanation- if you aren't brave enough to check out all the past info about it. LOL--
Smørbrød is pronounced Smurd-a-bra. The word smørbrød in Norwegian means "buttered bread" or aka the Scandinavian open face sandwich. Every year growing up, my Bestemor (Norwegian for grandmother) had a Smørbrød party around Christmastime. A couple years prior to my documenting phase of our lives, we started our own Smørbrød Party in Fargo. It's a tradition that our family loves & wanted to share with our new Helena friends!

MENU

We always have tons of Scandinavian food and desserts. There's open-faced sandwiches of every kind. . We made ones with crab salad, chicken salad, goat cheese, tomatoes and egg, ham, turkey, chicken, Munster cheese, Gouda cheese and pepper-jack cheese. We love trying all the different breads. We had wheat, white, pumpernickel, a couple different ryes, and a fancy red & green white bread.
For dessert I, of course, made Krumkaker. We love it! I made small batch of Berlinikranser. {Both of which were done with the help of Brett at 2 am the night before. We are CRAZY!}  The kids helped make brownies and we found some rosettes at the last grocery store we checked. It turns out that Helena is not very strong in it's Scandinavian roots. LOL
We also always have hot chocolate with home-made whip cream. Yum! Last year, we bought a family sized hot choco maker. It is so fabulous! And let me tell you- we get sooooo many compliments on our hot cocoa even though it's the generic kind made with water from Walmart. There's just something about it heated & frothed from a dispenser that makes it FABULOUSO!

FESTIVITIES {TALENT SHOW}

Along with the food, we have added a few of our own traditions to the evening's festivities. Tonight was a night of some amazing talents. LOL
Brett made a set of pipe chimes several years ago. We love pulling them out with a group of friends and trying out our musical abilities. ;) We rocked it! I think?
The little ones even put on a concert of their own with our "Elf" microphones. They were quite the hoot.
We had a budding model in our midst which wouldn't get off the bench until I took a million pictures of her. Cute baby!
And there was even a little hula-hooping going on in the cold backyard. Talent galore, my friends!

AND... it's not a Seamons Party if you don't get a few shots of the families. Oh how I love pictures of people! Thanks guys for joining us! We love you all! Until next year...

Scone Night with the Allens & Posts

We had the Allen Family & part of the Post Family (her Hubby had to work) over for Scones tonight. We love that it's an activity AND treat all in one. So fun to get to know new people! Adore them!