Getting our Christmas Tree and Making Gingerbread houses!

It's become a tradition for our little family to get a Christmas tree at Ted Drewes' Custard. We loved our little tree this year. It's always so fun to enjoy an evening or two sitting with the lights dimmed and the Christmas lights plugged in.

Making gingerbread houses has become quite the little family tradition for us. Kevin and I did our first house when we were dating in the Prov. Come to find out later, this was a date he'd done with a few other girls. But I'm okay with that. I'd rather be the last than the first in this situation;) We've since upgraded. Well, actually the Newmans have improved our house by actually making real gingerbread cookie pieces that you can fit together to make your own cozy little place, with gingerbread people no less. (We've done this with them for the last two Christmases and think that this alone might just be enough reason to stay in St. Louis for residency.) This year the Valentines joined us. We hope no actual marital spats arose from this evening, as it can sometimes be difficult to meld (is that a word?) two visions into one when it is something (like gingerbread house decoration, and therefore post-decoration candy eating) so important at stake. Merry Christmas!

Back at the Riv. December 2004
December 2007. Jill is about 18 months and we were expecting Peter.
Marie and Blake, pre-Isaac. They were expecting too, unbenounced to us.

December 2008, Isaac not pictured here. Something funky going on with the camera. These are the master cookie bakers.

The Valentines and their masterpiece

Family...isn't it about time?

Thanksgiving Festivities

At last our Thanksgiving Festivities! We woke up early to run the Arnold City Gobble Gobble Run. To us, it was worth leaving our warm beds and we hope to make it a family tradition for the years to come, even if there isn't an official race in the place(s) where we live. We finally convinced Jillian to put on this blanket right before we got this picture, crazy girl! Peter had his own personal goal, which we didn't find out about until half way through the race. He wanted to see if he could scream for one and a half miles. Well, he did it:) Luckily people were full of holiday cheer and lots of people reassured us "Don't worry. Been there, done that." Once again, we discover how warm and kind midwesterners really are! Emily also used this "battle cry" to keep pace. She would hear us coming and speed up:)! We ran the race in under 33:00 minutes, with which time we were pleased after having to stop several times to try and appease our Peter, to no avail. Now we also have a goal time to try and beat next year. There was a couple who we repeatedly passed and who also passed us as we fixed blankets, secured hats, picked up toys. The dad, we assume, was pushing a double jogging stroller and the mom had a single jogger. At the end of the race we were ahead of them and they came sprinting past us. It was quite clear, and funny, that their goal was to beat us! Maybe there was an award for the fastest stroller to cross the finish line? We didn't stick around to find out because we had to get home and finish cooking!

The shirt did not disappoint! Which is good, because isn't that half of the reason for running the race? A cool shirt?

There was quite a crowd there, with over 500 people coming out.

Jillian was such a big helper in the kitchen!!!

So we didn't get a picture of the finished product but here's the big bird ready to roast!

I look forward to some day looking back at this picture and reminiscing on the fun of cooking a whole Thanksgiving dinner in this tiny kitchen! Aside from one long cabinet and two short ones, like the size that fits over a refridgerator, this is our storage space in the kitchen. It has forced us to pack up most of our kitchen stuff and store it in the basement, which has actually been really nice! Simplify, simplify! It was quite the juggling act though on Thanksgiving.

Jillian and Elliot trying things out. I had a fun time setting up the table display and we're grateful the Blanchards let us borrow their table! As you can see, we set things up in the family room to have a place big enough for everyone to sit.

Here is Emily and our new friends Madelyn and Brian Blanchard. Unfortunately in the excitement I didn't get a photo of Kevin and I or the Karimnejads! Sorry guys!

Sweet Peter hanging out behind my chair during dinner!

In honor of the old Calvin and Hobbes reading days with my Dad

These are great, festive and hilarious cartoons! Check them out on here.

Just a question

Has anyone every tried changing the email address they sign in under? We want to because currently we're not using our gmail account so automatically our computer signs into Kevin's mission's blog and then when we do sign out of that and sign back in under our other account it kicks us out of our gmail account and we have to sign in again. Annoying. But it would be even more annoying if we attempted to change it and our entire blog got erased or something. So, just wondering if anyone has ever attempted this, and if you were successful, how did you do it? Thanks!

New Calling and other exciting news!

Well, Kevin and I got a new calling today. We will get to work together....any guesses. Of course, I always think of callings that would be super hard for me, i.e. Primary Chorister, for those of you who don't know, this requires SO much energy and talent:) But that was not the calling. We were called to teach the sunday school class for the youth! We are REALLY excited. It has always been my dream to work in the Young Womens program and I was pretty disappointed when we moved here and found out there weren't any young women in the ward. Just the other day I had the "passing" thought "Huh, we've been here for more than three years and neither of us have had the chance to work with the youth. That's too bad. I think we would have enjoyed that." And then, she-bam. New calling to work with the youth. So, either, Heavenly Father was preparing me or He heard me. Either way, He knows me and we are excited and feel lucky to have this opportunity to study the lessons together and teach the awesome youth here. We do have a few Young Women now, one of whom is the sweetest new convert. We also have two brothers and a few others who we are anxious to get to know. There is only one class since the youth program in our ward is so small. Yeah for new callings!

Peter, your crap me up!

So I guess it sounds gross when you write it out but Jillian kept saying this tonight and was "cracking" me up. Especially since, with two kiddos in diapers, I can totally relate!

She also recently discovered a piggy bank someone gave her when she was born. She wanted to know what it was for and when we told her it was to put money in she said "Oh, I know where to get some money. In Auntie Em's purse!" And she ran to get some "monies." We, of course, told her she needed to "earn" the money she got to keep and so she's been giving us back scratches at every opportunity. I still catch her pilfering any coins she finds though!