A look at our Christmas on the last night of Hanukkah

Christmas Eve was also the 4th night of Hanukkah and Adam’s packaging job was just too awesome to not take a picture of! (I am pictured here with my mom and dad’s dog, Tony).

Also, because we were not going to be at home on Christmas Eve we took our menorah with us and for some reason my mom, husband and brother’s felt it was a good idea to dance around the table… I’m still not really sure why.

My parents wanted to go to the Christmas Eve service at there church and since one of my brothers (Aaron) was playing percussion in that same service it seemed like the place to be - so we went with them! After returning home and having an amazing dinner of Beef Stroganoff, my last brother (Brian) finally made it home from running sound at all 4 of the Christmas Eve services his church was doing and we were able to open our Christmas pajama’s all together - the baby even got new pajama’s that are very, very cute! Casey tried the baby’s pajama’s on the stuffed gingerbread man my mom has and Brian… well Brian was practicing being a good uncle.


After all putting our new pajama’s on we got in Aaron’s van and went out for our normal Christmas light watching. Unfortunately due to Brian’s late return home we were all very tired already thus resulting in just going to one house to look at the lights and not going to the Zanin’s house (a yearly staple) to show off our new pajama’s! But as usual, the one house we did see, was just as amazing as ever!

On Christmas morning my dad had to leave for work at 7am thus we all got up really early to open presents together - but it was still a good time!



After our morning present opening, the boys and my mom made breakfast while I got ready. We all ate together and then Adam and I and Brian and Aaron took off to go to our church’s Christmas morning service. After that hour service, Aaron and Brian went home and Adam and I went to his parent’s house. We had a very leisurely afternoon watching movies and cooking and chatting. A guys from Roger’s work joined us and we all had a great time sampling the many desserts before our meal… which was a fabulous meal of lamb and potatoes and some random mint sauce (not jelly, but a runny kind of sauce-thing) from New Zealand that was actually really, really good with the lamb! On our way home, we stopped by the Ward house real quick to say hello and to pick up a plate of cookies that we (mostly Adam) had made 2 nights earlier during out cookie decorating party!

So, that brings us up to date and tonight is the last night of Hanukkah... so here's the baby and I with the menorah ... only 6 weeks to go!!!!

3rd Annual Cookie Decorating at the Ward's

So, I never really considered this a tradition before but since it is the 3rd year in a row we have done it, I guess it sort of is a tradition now!

Here's some of our creations:
Even though we were all using cookie cutters, Adam had to hand shape a cookie that would look like a menorah.
Then he went on to decorate the cookie cutter cookies as things including but not limited to an ear of corn and a potted plant. Here is the Madonna and Child he made out of a Gingerbread man and a circle cookie, as well as the Yellow Submarine he painted on some other random shape! (If this teaching thing doesn't work out he's going to open a bakery!)


Hillary also made a cookie called "Sarah" and it's a little weird how much our shirt colors match!


And here's a picture of Tom and Katie. (Jane and Mike had already gone to bed)

So, YAY for officially recognizing traditions and having a great time with friends we love so dearly!

It's Hanukkah (and almost Christmas)!!!

So, Adam has officially completed his first semester of school and has made out with a bunch of loot too! Here's some of the non-food items... however the food items have been amazing and excessive and very tasty too!


On Saturday Adam and I drove out to Long Beach for a wonderful day! We went to Peet's Coffee in Long Beach to see my friend Katie's art that was hanging up there and also to meet my friend Jen's new boyfriend, Scott! After the art show we all went to lunch at Claim Jumper and had a great time! (And we all really like Scott, he's great and weirdly similar to Adam)


Here's Jen and I after lunch taking my 33 week picture. She had never been in a "week picture" before so she was very excited!


At church this last Sunday, Adam and I were the Advent candle lighters. Adam shared an awesome advent devotion about John 1:14 and how God came camping to earth! I read the prayer for the 4th week of Advent from the Book of Common Prayer, it talked about Jesus finding a mansion in us - I really liked it. (And look how cute Adam looked!)


The first night of Hanukkah was on Sunday night. I am quickly falling in love with this holiday, it's rad, you stay home for a week and spend time with friends and family and play games and get little gifts and can't do any work while the candles are burning - it's fabulous!

Fun Weekend!!!

Okay, so we had a busy weekend but it was super fun and I was so tired from my fun days I had no trouble sleeping! YAY!!!

The first fun thing of the weekend actually happened on Thursday evening. We went to Babies-R-Us to get a crib skirt for the bedding I'm sewing (I really will blog about the bedding at some point but I actually want to show pictures of something completed, not just half done... so it will come... hopefully!) Anyways, we had a 15% off coupon that expired on Thursday so we needed to go - thus we went. We went to the section with the crib skirts, picked out the all white one we needed and as we were walking out saw a cradle all put together. We were looking at it and saw that it was discounted. We asked the sales person what was wrong with it (being the "optimists" we are) and found out that nothing was wrong with it, it was returned because the color didn't match the other furniture in the peoples house. We asked if we could use our 15% off coupon on the discounted price and they said yes! So, we left with a cradle!

Adam was planning on making one, and we had it all picked out, it was going to look like this: But after considering both the money for materials and the amount of time Adam would have to spend (probably his whole 3 week Christmas break) we decided the Babies-R-Us one was a better value because I would rather have time with Adam then a fancy cradle - and guess what - the baby won't know the difference! So that was fun, and as you can see it's already in our room so we can get used to it and learn to not trip over it in the night time (I've only done it once so far)!

On Friday, I hit 32 weeks, thus marking the 8 month mark! (Which is crazy!) We went to dinner with the Ochoa family which was a very special treat because we love them so much and then went to a Christmas party at "the girls" new house in Menifee! Here's Katie, Becky, Hillary and baby Jackson cracking me up as Adam was taking a 32 week picture:
The only other picture from the evening is this one of the "Zanin" girls and me and Becky (aka: Katie's wedding party - just 5 1/2 years later).

On Saturday, Adam and I worked a ton! We got all his grading up to date and totally finished so that he could be as on top of things as possible for this week of giving finals to all his classes! We also finished our cute little tree that fits perfectly in our window seat - it will be great next year too when we have a 10 month old who wants to attack the tree! (Also, here's a picture of our cute barn decorated for Christmas too!)

Then yesterday, Sunday, we went to Disneyland for our last trip before our passes expire! We had a great time spending the day with 3 lovely 12 year old ladies as well as Brian and Lisa Tucker and Hillary and Andrea for a while too (Hillary and Andrea are friends from the organization I taught with in Russia: http://www.teachoverseas.org/ )

Hillary and I took the Disney personality test together and we got Jane from Tarzan - RANDOM!Here's we are with our 12 year old friends in CA Adventure:We headed over to the main park at the same time the first parade ended - it's was the craziest thing! It reminded me of the streets of Russia on one of their holidays!There was a beautiful sunset yesterday, and this picture ended up being pretty cool with Main Street in the background - a great last picture for our last trip to Disneyland (at least for a while - I'm not gonna lie, I'm going to ask for a pass for my birthday, so we'll see if that happens!)
All in all, like I said, we had a super fun, super Christmas-y weekend!

It Officially Feels Like Christmas

Here's my 31 week picture - we were going for some sort of "Christmas" feel to the picture, but I just kept laughing at Adam - so this is what we ended up with! (But you can see our cute front door too!)


We went with my family to get a Christmas tree on Saturday night and I thought - "Hmm, maybe we could take a Christmas card picture" Yeah, that didn't work out... (My brother took this picture while we were holding up on of the tree's my parents were considering) Here's the tree they ended up picking - it wasn't really falling on my mom, she was just messing around, but I think it's a really fun picture (especially since you can see my dad in the back ground just watching!)
The Elwer family's Christmas tree. Adam is looking at how tall the tree is!


Last night, was my church's annual ladies dessert night - it was truly the best one I have ever been to! It was really fun and beautiful and I had a great time! The theme this year was "Seasons" and focused on women and the different seasons of their lives. It was a beautiful program that I am excited to see how it progresses though out the year. Dessert night was also awesome because I won a 1/2 hour massage! (Which is not just awesome because it's awesome but because I had just told my mom that I wanted a massage for Christmas - so she was just as happy that I won and I was!)

Here's the cute desserts that were fashioned to represent the 4 seasons (from top left, winter, spring, fall and summer) and my funny little snowman thing that changed colors all night long! In October I started a Wednesday night Jr. high girls Bible study and it has been a joy to my heart since it started! I love these girls and look forward to the years to come as our relationship with each other and with the Lord grows and deepens! Luckily all the girls from the study were there and we took this cute picture after the night was over.
The sound man for the evening was also super cute so we took a few pictures together as well! Lastly, here's a picture with my mom and mother-in-law loving on their grandchild at the end of the night.

Busy Week!

So, it's been a while, sorry, we have been staying very busy and then getting very sick - thus, no blogging, but here's a little update:

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving we were invited out to Long Beach for a "feast" with Tom and Katie. It was a very lovely day and evening which included Lamb, pumpkin pie, a walk on the beach, sewing baby bedding (I'm sure I will blog on that later) and watching Periot. Katie and I also took a picture together because I hadn't taken a 29 week picture yet.

So, Adam had the whole week off from work thus he had lots of projects. He redid the shower, painted the baby room and had new carpet put in our room and the baby's room. Below is a picture I took while we were just starting to put the crib together (hence me sewing the baby bedding, I really should post a blog on that) and as you can see, Adam was tired and the next day (Thanksgiving) he was officially sick!

So, Thanksgiving was at our place this year! We had a total or 10 people over and it was a really fun day!

Here's the mom's getting some food:
Here's Adam and Aaron not even waiting to get to the table before they start eating!

Roger and Javier were the two contenders for the coloring contest winner! (But Roger pulled ahead and won the prise)

Here's Aaron and I:
Here's the Elwer family Thanksgiving photo - Adam hardly made it thru dinner before he was out like a light - oh well, he needed his rest!
And here's my dad and brother showing off some of their Pilgrim Presents - they really liked them!
So since Thanksgiving basically nothing has happened because Adam has been out sick and I have been taking care of him. We finally got him medicine on Saturday and he's on the road to recovery now. I took my 30 week picture myself (again, thanks to the wonder of the self timer button) and soon there after started feeling sick myself - oh well, such is life!