Happy New Year!!

Looking forward to 2012!!

My Nephew: Colin Robert Wilson

After a super long labor Colin Robert Wilson is finally here!!  Way to go to my sister Carolyn and Mark. 9lbs of cuteness.

Cousin Time is the Best

Christmas Goons

Christmas Morning!!  Thank you Oma, Opa, Chief, Great Grandma, Grammy, Grandpa, Nana, and Poppy and everyone else!!

The Grinch Tradition

Asa loves the Grinch (he's been singing "da boo doree" for a couple weeks).  And Aunt Naphtali is the one to read it!

(last year)

Nativity Set

The kiddos love playing with Nana's wooden nativity set, so we started looking for something for them to play with at our house. I found this felt one on Amazon and they love love it! It all goes together with velcro and Ida can't break it - win win.

We've got a little boy who's extremely excited for Christmas!!

Mexican with the Graukes

Mike made some delicious deconstructed fish taco bites for an appetizer! (That's Katie's beautiful brand new kitchen!)

sorry I didn't have the camera settings quite right

Kelsey's yummy cilantro rice and pulled pork from the Grauke's pig.

I took a bunch of short cuts on the yule log and turns out that my cake recipe didn't work great as a roulade, but we were able to reconstruct it.

Shoveling

We had a light dusting of snow last night so Asa was set to get out and shovel. (He's been begging for days to use the shovel Great-Grandma got for him!) He busily set to work.

It's been a little while since I've posted some Asa Sayings so here's a few!

Last night he came into the kitchen wearing only his scivvies, wooden Dutch shoes, and Santa hat exclaiming, "I'm Santa Claus!" He then went over to Ida's bouncy seat, "I'm Santa Claus Ida. What do you want for Christmas?"

This afternoon I handed Asa Ida's diaper to throw out. (He does this all the time.) He paused at the doorway and turned around, "Momma why does this smell like poo?"

"because it is."

"oh." And headed out.

He went on a "date" with Miss Rachel to Starbucks for donuts.  "I like your car Miss Rachel."
I love this crazy boy.

Love Them

Happy St. Lucia Day

Ida 7 Months

Little Miss Mae is growing up!  She hit the seven month mark on the 5th.  She's gotten very mobile with her inchworm crawl, loves playing trains with Asa (although this mainly involves breaking the tracks he just laid and eating the cars), and eats everything we've thrown at her!  We just want time to slow down a little bit - I tell yah!  With Asa we couldn't wait for each milestone - but Ida's hitting them and flying on to the next almost before we notice or can grab the camera!

her inchworm crawl in progress

Hunting for the Tree

We trekked out to our local tree farm last week to cut down our tree! It was cold cold cold - but Asa cheerfully went from tree to tree measuring to see if it was tall enough.

Ida and I tried to stay warm and take pictures - but it turns out it's really hard to adjust the camera settings one handed so most of them didn't turn out. (Notice Ida's cute hat!? Mom C whipped that up for her and Dad did the pom pom!)

Gingerbread Houses!

It's a tradition for us to do gingerbread houses, but this year they went to a whole new level!  And since the kids aren't really interested in decorating (as much as eating) the houses, the work ends up getting done by the adults.
Seth told me that this year he wanted to do a cathedral.  I was thinking a small church - he was thinking Notre Dame.  He kindly offered to help me bake and brought over all his plans.  Mike, Seth, and I made 7 batches of gingerbread to make everything!  So here's the results:

Seth at his table. There's a bunch of pictures so I added a break - click below for more.

Cancer Update on My Mom

In light of all the things to be thankful for, we're very thankful that all of my mom's latest round of tests (mammogram, ultrasound, bloodwork, etc...) came back clear!! Praise God!