Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  It was neat to have Christmas on Sunday and to have a special program at church.  I think it really helped us to focus on Christ.  We also enjoyed giving gifts to each other.  I overdid it last year, so this time around I went ultra-frugal, and everyone was just as happy!  We bought a used 3-in-1 game table as our family present for a great deal, and we've been having lots of pool and ping pong tournaments (including after the kids go to bed :).  I'm loving the presents Tim picked out for me--remote bbq thermometer and a hand-crank pasta machine!  We were touched by the thoughtfulness of gifts from Grandma Kathy & Grandpa Zane and Nana & Papa, whom we love and miss dearly.  Tyler and Claire have been learning how to sew with the sewing kit from Nana & Papa, and the kids have all been so warm and snug in their cute pj's handmade by Grandma!

We're thankful for Grandma & Grandpa!

We had such a fun time with Grandma Kathy & Grandpa Zane! They got to spend Thanksgiving break with us. We went to the science museum, watched Polar Express 3D at the IMAX, played hours of Huckle Buckle Beanstalk, played Dominoes and Blockus, ate lots of junk (my gall bladder isn't so thankful for that), and just enjoyed our time together. Thanks for coming to see us, Zane & Kathy! We'd love to have any other visitors, too!

Don't try this at home...

What to do on a free Saturday afternoon? The boys wanted to build a fire in a tin can (of course, fully supervised the whole time). Tim wanted to make it bigger. He even took an old fence board to use as firewood. Then the kids had fun roasting mini marshmallows. Luckily, no neighbors complained or called the police or fire station...

Fall Festival

Claire was upset about not having a ward Halloween carnival, so I decided we should have our own!  We invited our ward neighbor friends--the Cherrys and Robinsons--and had a blast bobbing for apples, fishing for prizes, and fattening ourselves up on junk food.  (thanks for letting me steal these pics, Jana)

Claire was my co-party planner

lining up to fish (somehow Tyler snuck out of camera view for all the pictures!)

ring toss prizes

the donut was a little too big for Lil's lil' mouth

can rack for food storage

Audrey-this post is just for you! I thought I'd put it on my blog in case there happens to be anyone else interested in making can racks for their food storage. I couldn't find the website that we looked at to plan out the racks, but here's a pretty good one: http://www.hersidefunnies.com/the-mormon-can-museum/ This style of rack utilizes space a lot better than the Shelf Reliance ones (although those are really nice), and it's nice that we could personalize our rack for the cans we use.  Tim dadoed into the supports which made it look nicer.  I put labels (with sticky tack so I can move them) on the front and back, so for multiple rows of the same food we know what row to get from/load into.  If you want actual measurements, I can ask Tim for his Excel file, but I don't know how readable it is...

Fire in the hole!

Yesterday was the first annual trebuchet contest for the teachers quorums in the Houston area. Tim calculated spending about 28 hours these past few weeks planning, building a prototype, and building the actual trebuchet with the teachers quorum and YM leaders. It was a fun project for him and a good challenge.

After they set up and got all the weights in, they did a trial run. And it broke. The leaders were ready to call it a day, but the young men were determined to find a way to stay in the competition. The Tomball stake kindly donated supplies and help, and somehow they got it working again. And, to everyone's surprise, our trebuchet ended up winning the competition, earning first place in almost every round! What a great lesson in never giving up.

Family history-we are doing it!

We had Stake Conference today, and the talk by the Stake Family History lady helped me to remember that we're supposed to be doing family history.  Both Tim and I have relatives who have done tons of genealogy, so I've always felt like, "What more could I do?"  Plus the fact that I can't exactly read Chinese characters.  So I was surprised to discover this evening that there is still temple work to be done for my family!  My maternal grandmother's side.  Most of the work is for males, so Tim will be busy, but I also found some family sealings that we can do together.  I'm SO excited!  This will be the first time that I will be doing temple work for my side of the family.  Thank you, Uncle John, Mom, and Dad, for all your genealogy work and the records you got from China, and my cousins for doing the translation work and all the hard stuff.  And thanks for letting us be a part of completing the work!

If you're not familiar with the website, check it out and see if you can find your ancestors: LDS FamilySearch  It's for anyone to use, not just members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.