Katie's Big Day!

Not too big of a day, but to Katie it sure was! Loren let her get her ears pierced for Christmas. She's been asking for awhile, and last night was the moment. Here are the shots....

Right now she is completely ashamed of me because I'm taking sooo many pictures.



Marking the ears with the marker...the excitement is building!!



Sammy watches with a smile!



Ouch!!



Ice cream makes everything better! She really was very brave and stopped crying right away :)



A hug from Daddy can't hurt either!



Sammy was enjoying the whole ordeal too...





Last but not least, a blurry close up of the newly decorated ear...

Christmas Eve

We spent a wonderful, joyous evening with Loren's family tonight. We started off with an absolutely delicious dinner of briskit and baked potatoes followed by some yummy Christmas treats! Next we sat in the living room singing Christmas songs, knitting, ringing jingle bells and playing with the train. What a wonderful start of our celebration of the birth of our Savior!

It's a Festivus for the restivus!

Happy festivus everyone! For those of you "normal" people, Festivus is a silly holiday on the Seinfeld show. Instead of a tree, there is a metal pole. Here is the best part....you get to tell all your family members how they have dissapointed you over the year. All in good fun of course! Every year (for the 10th year now I believe), we get together with Loren's family and fondue for Festivus. The fondue is not part of the show, but hey, it's fun and yummy!!

Popcorn Balls

Every year at Christmas, Grandma Verna slaves over the stove making syrup for popcorn balls. The rest of us scurry and stir like mad attempting to form the "perfect" popcorn ball. They taste oh so yummy too! Thanks GV for being the brains and the talent of the whole operation. We look forward to doing it again next year :)

Snow and Katie the missionary

We finally have snow!!! Here are the kids having some fun...









I got some new cookie cutters on Saturday. I'm so excited about these so I have to show them. It all started with a conversation with Katie in the car last Friday.
K: Mommy, wouldn't it be fun to make baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph cookies this year?
Me: That would be really fun. But where would we get cookie cutters like that?

Fast forward to the next morning at Carolyn's Cakes just browsing by myself. I look up on the wall and what do you think I see? Imagine Katie's excitement!

So here's the Katie missionary part....I am not aloud to say anything about Jesus to anyone in her class anytime, even at Christmas and neither is her teacher. BUT, Katie may say anything she likes! So Katie will be taking these fun cookies to share with her class at school tomorrow and while she is passing them out, she is going to share the real Christmas story with her classmates. Cool huh? We're very excited to find out how this goes! There are so many kids in her class that have never heard of Jesus and at least one whose Mom believes in Allah. Katie is very excited about this fun way to share about Jesus :)

O Christmas Tree

For the first time as a family, we hiked into the mountains and cut down a REAL Christmas tree! It was so much fun, we think we'll do it again next year :)



Here we are....I think this might be THE SPOT!



This is the one :)





Cutting down a tree is hard work!



And here is our Charlie Brown Christmas tree....and we love it!!