Christmas Eve Fun

We went downtown this morning to see Santa and the German Christmas village. Had a nice time, and left just as the snow started to pick up.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Christmas activities are in full swing at our house. I love Christmas activities except for one. That one is making Christmas Cookies with the kids. I hate the mess with icing everywhere and ending up with ugly cookies. I always have to guess at what character they have decorated. They don't like it much when I guess wrong and think their "Jesus" is a snowman. However things have changed. This year I went to a cookie exchange with some friends from church and one lady brought the most darling cookies. She called them Cookie Carolers. She makes sugar cookie dough and cuts off several chunks of dough and tints them different colors. The kiddos use the dough like play dough to make their amazing creations and then you bake. The kids loved this activity (even my teenagers). They had so much fun that they asked if we could call that our trial run and do it again. The best part for me is that it's not as messy and they turn out so cute. Love It!!!

Dan and Tithing Settlement

Yesterday our family had tithing settlement. Before we met with the Bishop we helped Dan figure out how much he would give to the church. Dan would give 68 cents. In our meeting the Bishop asked each of the children how they felt about the money they had given. Each of the four oldest children expressed their gratitude for the blessings that has come into their lives because of tithing. We thought we were in the clear with just little Dan to go. Hopefully we would make it out of tithing settlement without our children saying something weird or our children's favorite.... not answering questions posed to them by the Bishop but instead staring off into space as if he didn't exist. Maybe this would be "the year" that we would be somewhat normal. However, when Dan was asked how he felt about the opportunity to give to the church, he said, "Well, I was going to go to college in China with that money but I guess I won't now."

A Day at the Circus

We went to the Hadi Shrine Circus in Evansville the day after Thanksgiving. Teresa remembers going to this same circus when she was young, and they had some of the same acts. The kids seemed to like it a lot-- the favorite was the bear act. Grandma Rane also came with us.

Wikipedia steps up

I was working at an international congress of allergists and immunologists a couple of weeks ago, and saw something that I didn't think I would see. I was sitting in a symposium led by a world leader in allergy and asthma research, and on the bottom of one of his more technical slides, he included the reference as just: "Wikipedia". Wikipedia has definitely made it to the big leagues! :)

A Few of My Favorite Things

1. Dan still blows me kisses as he is pulling away on the bus. He keeps blowing them until I can't see him anymore.
2. Allie is a chatter box. The second she steps into the house after school she tells me every detail of her exciting day. Allie never has a day at school that isn't exciting.
3. Ty loves to play piano. I never have to remind him to practice. He sometimes practices multiple times a day.
4. Hal spilled a huge bowl of spaghetti on the kitchen floor and proceeded to clean up the whole mess. He even mopped the whole kitchen floor. I didn't have to say a word. He just did it.
5. Court kept Dan completely occupied during Stake Conference. We even got there 1.5 hours early so the boys could help with parking. The last 15 minutes of conference Dan was completely done with the whole conference thing but Court continued to try to keep him happy.

My disappointment in kitchen cabinets.

Every house we have lived in the past had really old kitchen cabinets. I hated how ugly they were and dreamed of new cabinets. So when we moved I was sooooo excited about this house because of the new kitchen cabinets. However, that excitement quickly diminished. They are very pretty but are poorly made and are not meant to withstand the heavy use of a large family. Plus the previous owner installed them himself and didn't know what he was doing. One fell apart last Christmas, but luckily my brother-in-law, Chuck, was here and he fixed it for us. Recently, the ones holding the microwave oven up fell completely apart and became a huge hazard. Harry helped me take it all down in pieces. As we were taking it down, I was sure we were in big trouble and that it was going to cost us a small fortune to return it to some type of a normal kitchen. I slowly tried to replicate what Chuck had done and added some of my own inventions. I was able to get the cabinets back together but was nervous about getting them back up and stable enough to hold up the microwave. But we did it and it really didn't cost us much of anything other than wood glue, some scrap wood and some metal reinforcements. Yeah we did it!!!! The funny thing is I would rather have the ugly stable cabinets than these. I guess... I'm just never happy.

Dan documentary made by Tyler

Courtney's last swim meet of the season

Courtney did great in her JV conference swimming championships yesterday. She got 1st in 50 yard freestyle and 2nd in the 100 yard freestyle, which was pretty cool. She's the one in front in this picture.

Dold for Congress

Yesterday we met Dold the republican candidate for the House of Representatives. I love the pic. of Dan and Dold. Dan has a very discerning look on his face. As if he is not convinced that he should vote for this guy. However, Dold definitely has my vote. Go Republicans!!!

Trunk or Treat

The kids had a wonderful time Trunk or Treating this year. Dan wanted everyone to be a Mario character. Dan did his best to convince Hal he needed to be Donkey Kong and Court should be Princess Peach. But Court had a Swim meet and Hal is getting to "cool" for dressing up. He is more into being the candy man, which IS a huge help.

Halloween Hustle

Harry and Hal ran the Halloween Hustle 5K on Saturday. They did awesome. Hal came in 34th and Harry came in 61st out of 469 runners. The race was supporting a program called "Fathers Supporting Fathers". There were lots of fathers and sons running. The weather was perfect... a little crisp but sunny. We all had a great time.

Allie's First Violin Concert

Allie started orchestra about 4 weeks ago. This was their first concert of the season. All the kiddos were soooo excited to show off all they had learned. It was fun! Allie is using one of the violin's Grandma Linda gave us. Hal used it and now Allie. It's getting lots of good use:)

Dan and Harry's little project.

Pumpkin carving

Pumpkin Patch