31DEC08

Happy New Year's Eve everyone!!! I have a big night planned... I plan on watching some t.v. talking to Travis and being in bed sometime BEFORE midnight! :) HA HA! I am excited for the year 2009 to start though b/c that is the year Travis will be home!! :)

We went to Sternenland yesturday ( indoor playground.) Nate is home for his R&R (yay for The Holtgrewe's!! :) ) So they invited me and our friend Britteny to go play. I always say I want to bring my camera and I FINALLY remembered! Not all the pictures are that great b/c the girls were more interested in playing than taking pics (jeesh what are they THINKING??) Anyways, this place is so cool!! Plus it's pretty cheap considering everything they have. We payed less than 10 euro for all of us!!!

Ryan on the walker. She is really starting to get the hang of walking!

Crawling around the "baby" area.

Playing in the ball pit with her friends (Eric, Lexi, and Ryan!)

Lexie's favorite way to slide (these slides are HUGE I think it's just so she doesn't go too fast and fall down going the normal way!)

So fun!





Playing with Uncle Na Na and Anya in the ball pit (I know it's not a great picture but you can just TELL she's having a blast.)


The bumper cars (this is my personal favorite!)

The trampolines. I swear this girl has no fear. That other little boy WAS jumping on it and she just got on started going for it. No worries that there was a big kid on it too!

Have a wonderful and safe New Year's and I hope 2009 is a wonderful year for everyone!

25DEC08

Merry Christmas!!! We had a fantastic Christmas. Yesturday we frosted cookies for Santa and then had Cristine, Anya, and Eric over for a tradition we always did with my family which is finger foods or apetizers for Christmas Eve dinner. Then, the girls got a bath and unwrapped their ONE present which were of course Christmas jammies (and I even got some too!) Before they went to bed we read from Luke. Alexis enjoyed that more than I had thought she would. After Anya left she said, "mommy I want to read more of this" and pointed to my bible. So we read a little more of that. Then we woke up and unwrapped our presents and the girls and I both got some great gifts. The rest of the day we just hung out with the Holtgrewe's and enjoyed all of our new toys (including Cristine and I playing my new Wii THANKS DAVE AND KERRY!) Thank you to everyone and we really hope you are surrounded by people you love. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Decorating cookies for Santa. Don't worry we left him milk and celery for the reindeer!

Opening our Christmas Pajamas!

All of us ready for bed!

I LOVE this picture of Alexis!

Happy girls all ready for Santa.

All their loot! Don't you love Lex trying to keep Ryan in the picture!


Playing on her new desk watching her new movie!

This was the only sad part... Travis got Lexie an easy bake oven and some accessories and she was SOOO excited to bake. So after Ryan went down for her nap we got everything out only to realize I didn't have the right kind of light bulb! I felt so bad. Hopefully I will be able to get the right one tomorrow so she can do some baking! She LOVES to cook!!! But hey she LOOKS adroable right?? :)

Ryan very excited about the orange in her stocking!

25DEC08

I just watned to say Merry Christmas to everyone!! We just opened all our presents and had breakfast casserole. We had a wonderful morning and we know it will be followed by a wonderful afternoon with our friends who have become part of our family. Travis was able to watch us this morning on Skype and we are a very blessed family. I will post pictures later but for now...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

21DEC08

I love that Alexis is getting old enough to teach her about Christmas. We have been talking about Christmas a little bit and she will now tell you that Christmas celebrates Jesus' birth. She will also tell you that Mary was his mother. She is picking stuff up so well and I'm so excited and proud. I have also been having SOO much fun doing all the great Christmas crafts with her this year and I'm so glad she loves this stuff! (Of course all the candy eating probably doesn't hurt!) So we did gingerbread houses yesturday. No we didn't use actual gingerbread, we went the easy route GRAHAM CRACKERS!! We also did our trees with waffle cones and marshmellow snowmen. Alexis and Anya had so much fun.

Okay we're all ready to start!

The roof is getting a good start!

Concentrating HARD!!

Almost done (note the now MESSY face and yes she still has candy IN her mouth! :) )

Me and my girls!

Proud of their finished houses!

Here's what Ryan was doing!

She is SUCH a cheese! As soon as she saw the camera this is what she did.

Hanging out after we were done. (I can't get this flipped and I'm too tired to worry about it! Just turn your head to the side...)

They fight like sisters but they are also so sweet like sisters.

A couple of other notes... I was just called to serve as our branch Primary President!! I am so excited! I've loved serving as a counselor and I love these kids. I have so many ideas and I can't wait to get started. So far we've only called the 1st counselor but I have the others in mind and they are all wonderful women. I am so excited to serve with them!

We also booked our plane tickets for AZ!!! We should be there on the 30th of January and we will be there till the 3rd of March! I'm excited to see everyone so put me on your calendars!!

Merry Christmas everyone. Those who I won't get to see I will miss and I hate being so far away sometimes but we are looking forward to a wonderful Christmas Day with our family and friends. Have a GREAT Christmas week.

17DEC08

Ryan cut her first tooth last month. She is so easy going that I didn't even realize it was close until all of a sudden it was there!! Even though she is 9 months old and was bound to get teeth at some point... These pics are small so it's really hard to see but they're cute pictures anyways so does it really matter? Take my word for it she has a tooth on the bottome left side! :)

16DEC08

I found a recipe for making ornaments so I decided to give a try. I just made the dough and used cookie cutters (Lexie kept asking me if they were cookies.) Then we baked them and painted them. Alexis LOVED it and they turned out pretty dang cute. My only mistake was putting out black as an option b/c we have a little bit of a goth Christmas tree! :) Oh well there is always next year to try again!

Concentrating hard!

Having fun (notice the brush going to the black again!)

The finished products.

Putting them on the tree.
YAY! The finished Christmas tree!

Just so you don't think Ryan is being left out of ALL the festivities here is what she has been up to. We have all our gifts under the tree and usually she is pretty good at not touching them or stopping when I tell her no but this time she got a little farther than normal. Don't worry Grandma Kerry we put it back under the tree and told Ryan she can't have it till CHRISTMAS! :)


We're so excited for Christmas and hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

15DEC08

We had our Branch Christmas Program this past Sunday so I decided to have us all wear our Christmas dresses for it. I thought the girls looked adorable! :) We had a great program (even if I was pretty late for Church b/c I was trying to get pictures of all 3 of us with the timer on the camera.) It was a nice day. I do wonder about Alexis b/c she was playing model striking one pose after another.

On a side note I was asked to speak next week. Since it's the week before Christmas it's on the birth of Christ. No pressure right? Wish me luck! :)