December Fun

December is a really busy month for our family.  We have lots of traditional events that we attend every year and we throw in a random mix of parties and school functions just to add a little crazy.  Add in the fact that I had about 92 research papers to grade during this time period, and to say that we were a little busy would be a gross understatement.


On the first Saturday of the month, we headed out to the Christmas Mall to do a bit of local shopping.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we ran into Emmy's best friend!



That evening Brad and I headed out to a winery in Belville for his company's Christmas Party.  It was super fun, and the food was amazing!





The next week Emmy had her party at school complete with a book exchange.  This is the best Christmas tradition for a school in my opinion.



We went to a graduation party the following Saturday.  These two ladies fought tooth and nail for their degrees and emerged victorious!



That Sunday was our church's first Christmas play.  "Someone" had the honor of being one of the little animals in the nativity scene...I wonder how she got that job? ;)





The kids in our church youth group really are the best. 



So many super fun things going on, but I will admit that it was nice to know that this was my last big event before Christmas break started.  From here on out, I was just going to relax, enjoy my family, and meditate on the reason for the season.

Mother's Day 2014

We started off our Mother's Day with a trip to Sunday morning services at our church.  I am so thankful that I have such an amazing church to take Emmy to where she can learn about Jesus.  There she sees strong women that are both amazing mothers and educated ladies.  She sees many examples of what loving families look like.  It was the perfect place to spend our Mother's Day.

True to form, we took a few photos before service.









It was my Sunday to teach the youth class, so after our lesson, I had all of the kids write something about their mom on the chalkboard.  I of course couldn't resist writing my mom a message too.  Pinterest Win!



Since it was Cameron's first Mother's Day, I thought it was only right that he should get to take a photo too.



Of course we also needed a photo with the woman responsible for creating this little gaggle of girls.  My mom is such a great example of how a mother should behave.  She sacrificed a lot of her time and goals for us growing up, and I hope that every day, my sisters and I show her that her sacrifices were worth the effort.



In addition to a few presents, my sisters and I created some new and improved (or not) versions of a couple of my mom's photos of us as kids.  We decided that this should be a summer project where we redo bunches of our childhood photos.  For now, we started with the following two.






Happy Mother's Day!

NOW GET OFF THE COMPUTER AND GO KISS YOUR MAMMA!  :)

Easter Sunday

Easter is a special holiday for our family.  Not special in a "we celebrate in a big way," but it is special because we reflect on everything that Christ did for us.  Growing up, we did not really celebrate the way everyone else did.  We didn't hunt eggs and the Easter Bunny didn't visit our house.  I am okay with that.  I don't think I was deprived, and I don't know that I really missed out on anything.

We have decided to do things slightly different with Emmy.  We still focus on the reason for the holiday--Jesus Christ--but we are letting her participate in some of the other fun.  She knows the Easter Bunny isn't real, but she gets to join in on some of the fun things that other people do like hunting eggs.

And this girl can hunt some eggs.  BUT...I am getting ahead of myself.

First we went to church.


















Then we went to Mom's house for lunch because we live in a small town and most of the resturants were closed for the holiday...as it should be.  The food was delicious.



Then it was finally time for the main event--the Easter egg hunt.  She had so much fun.  There were so  many eggs that she needed several baskets to collect them all.


















When she was finished, she hid them all so we could have a turn "finding" them.  Most of them were dumped in a pile by the tree.  Hopefully she gets better at hiding stuff.  If she doesn't, I guess my job will be super easy when she's a teenager.




It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed getting to spend time with people we love.  I am so thankful for a savior that was willing to give his life so that we can live this beautiful life.

Happy Easter!

BTAC Chili Cook-off

My church had a chili cook-off in honor of our pastor on Sunday.  I wasn't going to enter in the contest because we went out the night before, but I was afraid that we wouldn't have enough people enter the contest.  Early Sunday morning, I got up and prepared some chili.



As it turns out, there were plenty of contestants, but guess who won?  Nope, not my dad.

THIS GIRL!  Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!













It was Mike's Birthday, so of course we had cake!

One Sweet Fundraiser...and a Long Night

We recently began helping out with our youth group at church again. We came up with the idea of making giant heart shaped cookies to sell for Valentine's Day. If each youth group member sold five, they would have enough money to pay for the camp that they want to attend in August. The group's goal was to sell 100 cookies. This may not seem like such a big deal, but the reality is that our church no longer has a kitchen or a facility appropriate for an undertaking like this. We decided that we would meet up at different adults' homes and break the kids into small groups to do all of the work.

This process was broken into three parts:
1. Dough Making & Heart Shaping
2. Heart Baking
3. Cookie Icing and Decorating

The biggest and most arduous of these tasks was the dough making and heart shaping. We started on the Friday night a week before the cookies would need to be made and iced. We met up at Nicole's house to begin our adventure. There was a great group of girls that came that night to help. They stirred dough until their arms felt like they would fall off. We did manage to stay focused by having a few mini dance parties and eating some pizza.





We made enough dough for 40 cookies. We thought this was a great start, but we didn't take into account that all of those cookies would need to be rolled out that night as well.





The kids all started drifting off either to sleep or went home around midnight, and that is when the real work began. Nicole and I stayed up until 5:00 AM rolling, shaping, and cutting out all those hearts. By the end of it, we weren't sure why were helping out at all anymore. There may have been some temporary bitterness involved.





By Sunday afternoon, we were feeling up to more baking, so we split the kids up and did some more. This time, we made sure to get the kids to handle the process from start to finish.











The next weekend, we met up on Saturday morning to bake and ice the cookies. I had a small group, but they were really hard workers. I even convinced a few adults to come over and volunteer their time as well.


At the end of the experience, we were dead tired, but we made over $1400 in profit. That's a success in my book any day.