GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS

We made gingerbread houses at Chase's School. The one on the left is Chase's, the one in the middle is Maddi's, and the one on the end is mine. I am bummed because I left my camera at home and didn't get any photos of us making them. It was a lot of fun though. Maddi went crazy with the candy. She would not stop getting candy to put on her house. She loved it. Chase only cared about making a Christmas tree and a snowman. It was a lot of fun.


We set up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I am still slightly bitter about having a fake tree, but it is almost a must over here. I just have to say we made it longer with a real tree than some people that moved here from Oregon last year. Maddi and Chase were very excited to set it up. Christmas was so much fun this year. Both kids were very into it.


Chase really wanted to help so I told him to go and separate the branches. He did it in such a funny way. It was adorable.


Ethan let Chase help put the top of the tree on. He was barely able to lift it up, but he did it.


We decided to let Maddi put the star on top of the tree this year. She was sitting on Ethan's shoulders while he untangled the cord.


She sure tried to put it up there, but just wasn't tall enough. In the end Ethan did it.


Usually Chase is under the tree with Ethan, but this year Maddi was so excited and Chase was all into the ornaments.


Chase hanging his first ornament. We always start by having the kids hang the ornament they got the year before.


Maddi hanging her ornament.


Ethan hanging his.


This ornament is always a hit with the kids. I have a photo of Chase doing this exact thing.


Me hanging my first ornament.


Can you tell this is Madison's section of the tree. I love how at this age, the kids put all the ornaments in one place.

CHASE'S FIRST MISSING TOOTH, ETHAN'S BIRTHDAY, SWIMMING AND OTHER FUN STUFF

Chase lost his first tooth. It was loose for a while. This is before I pulled it out.


This is after I pulled it out. He was very brave about the whole thing. He was very excited for the tooth fairy to come visit, so when I told him that I could pull it out, he was all over it. A couple good yanks with the tooth floss and out it came. He is growing up so fast. I think I actually cried after he went to bed. It is so hard to watch your little ones grow up.


Chase was playing at our neighbor's house when they decided to rake the leaves in the front yard. They buried all the kids and then rang the door bell. When I came out the kids jumped out of the leaves. It was fun to watch and Chase loved it. My neighbor took a video of it, but I don't have it yet. I will have to post the video later. After they jumped out of the leaves, they played around in them for a while.


I think Chase got covered with the leaves the most, but he really loved it. Maddi was napping through the whole thing. She really missed out this time.


Our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner spread. It was great food. I believe I messed up on the turkey though. We cooked it in the bag like we usually do, but Ethan and I (the only two that ate the turkey) were sick later that night. I ate some leftover turkey for lunch the next day and got sick again. We think it was undercooked, but it is so hard to tell.


As most of you know, I worked really hard for a special project for Ethan's 30th birthday. I started writing e-mails for it in late October. I wanted letters with memories of Ethan from people that are close to him. I wrote an e-mail to everybody that I knew of. I was so disappointed at the lack of response. For most of the people, I only had Facebook as a way of contacting them. In the end, I only got a letter from 1 high school friend and one local friend. Thank goodness Ethan has such a big family. They really pulled through with a lot of their favorite memories. It was so fun to read them. Ethan laughed a lot. He thought it was super cool. Thanks again to those of you that got to participate. This is a photo of all the letters put into a separate envelope and tied together.


Madison is at the age where birthdays are really exciting for her. She has been looking forward to her birthday, so when it was time for Ethan to blow out the candles, she felt she had to help. Ethan was so great about it. He hates to be the center of attention, so I am sure he was happy when she wanted to help.


Ethan was so mad at me for taking this picture. I thought it was cute that Maddi was trying to put the fireman hat on his head. We had a few friends over to celebrate Ethan's birthday with us. I wanted to go all out, but Ethan told me he would be so mad if I planned a big party.


Chase decided to put on everything that Ethan got for his birthday. He was very excited about it. He put it all on and then said, "Look, I'm daddy."


When Breaking Dawn came to the theater over here, we had a wonderful girls night out. We decided to make fun of the teens over here and take funny photos with our tickets. I am just going to say, I am not a "Twihard." I actually think the movies are done terribly. I liked the books, but now when I re-read them, all I can think about is how annoying and whiny Bella is. I like the story, but I am not as into it as I was when it first came out. It was so much fun to go out with the girls though. It turned out to be a goodbye night with one of our friends because she her husband got diagnosed with cancer the next week and they had to leave very quickly.


Ethan and I were joking around about my hair being long enough to be Cousin It or whatever his name was from the Adam's Family. The kids loved it and kept trying to get me to "get them."


Madison is really a character. We have been working on de-cluttering our house. We found this mop in the basement and it went into the pile of things to go. This picture is exactly why we wait until Maddi is asleep to go through things. She likes to pull stuff out of our get rid of pile and play with them.


Our ward Christmas party was at the elementary school this year. For the party they decided to write letters to wounded warriors, missionaries, or deployed service-members from our ward. Chase wanted to write to a wounded warrior. He is getting pretty good at sounding words out and writing. He loves it. He was very excited to write a letter.


Chase loves our neighbor Lucy. I am sure you have seen other photos of her on here. They play a lot. They are so crazy when they are together.


Chase loves swimming, so when Chase broke his arm, he was sad he wouldn't be able to go swimming for a while. We promised him that as soon as he got his cast off we would all go swimming. It took 3 months, but he finally got his cast off. We had a lot of fun at the pool. Ethan found a basket, which I am sure he was not supposed to play with, and poured some water on Maddi. I love that I almost caught it perfectly. The only problem is that I am standing above Maddi so you can't really see her face. It was classic.


Maddi decided to try and get Chase to help her get back at Ethan. Ethan is so good and just sat there waiting for them to get him.


This is what happened when Maddi tried to get water on Chase without any help. She ended up dumping it back on herself.


I had to put this photo on here. Maddi's face is just awesome. Plus Chase was getting Ethan with the water.


Maddi was running trying to get away from Ethan who was playing like a shark and trying to get her. We all had a blast at the pool. It was a really good family time activity.

CHRIST, DER RETTER IST DA! FROHE WEIHNACHTEN

CHRIST, THE SAVIOR IS BORN! MERRY CHRISTMAS

I have to share our church experience from today. It was so interesting. Before I tell you about that, I have to go over some background information about our area and how things work here.

Where we live there are two military wards and one German branch that use the same building. It is the stake center, so whenever the Germans are having stake conference or ward conference our meeting time changes and the same for them. The two military wards alternate meeting times every other year. One year we go at 9am and the next at 1pm. The German branch will not change their meeting time because in Germany, German's go to church at the same time. That is the time for church, there is no change. It is usually at 10:30, but they cave a little and start their church at 11. This year the two bishops and branch president talked and decided that 9 was a little early for Christmas morning and 1pm was a little late in the day and a lot of people would want to be home with their families for dinner and what not. They decided to combine both the military wards and the German branch for church. We had church at 11. They only had Sacrament meeting. They even blessed and passed the sacrament.

Because of the combined meeting, there were obviously two primary languages. The opening prayer was in German and the closing in English. They blessed the bread in German and the water in English. Both choirs sang together, one song in English and the other in German. The spirit is so strong when that is all you are relying on to understand. It was so amazing.

The German branch president shared a story for his talk that I just have to type up. It was an amazing story. I am going to try and remember it as best as I possibly can. I might not describe it as well as the branch president did because Madison can be pretty demanding at times.

There once was a man who collected amazing works of art. Beautiful expensive pieces from Picasso, Van Goghe, and other notable names. His son was soon drafted into the war as a medic. His soon learned that his son was killed while rescuing some troops that were wounded. After the war had ended, the father began trying to cope with his loss.

The next Christmas Eve, he received a knock at the door. It was a young man. He told the Father that he was one of the troops the his son was rescuing when he died. The young man then told the Father that he had painted a picture of his son. He told the Father that it wasn't the best painting. It could never compare to some of the paintings in his possession, but it was a good likeness. He gave the gift to the Father and they went their separate ways.

Some time later the Father passed away. In his will, he stated, he wanted his art collection auctioned off. The day of the auction came, the first piece was the painting of his son. The auctioneer asked, "Who will give me 100 dollars for this piece of art." The room was silent. The auctioneer asked, "Who will make the first bid." Again, the room was silent. Finally, a man at the back of the room said, "Can't we just skip it and go on to the more important pieces?" Many of the other people in the room voiced their agreement. The auctioneer replied, "No, we must go in order." Finally an old man at the front of the room said, "I knew the son, I will give 10 dollars for the painting." The auctioneer said, "Ten dollars going once. Going twice. Sold for 10 dollars. That concludes the auction." The people began to object, "What do you mean the auction is over? What about the other pieces?" To that the auctioneer replied, "The directions in the will were very direct. The Father said, whoever gets the Son, gets it all."

I know that my Redeemer lives.

TEARS FROM THE LAUGHTER

So my friend posted this video on her Facebook page. I was going to re-post it because it might be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Then I started thinking about all my German friends. I don't want them to get offended. It is so funny though. I just thought I would share.

http://www.vidaddict.com/german-guy-confused-by-meaning-of-party-pooper/

And just for good measure, I will put this one on there. It is really funny too. Definitely something to watch if you are having a down day, or just need to laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR0lWICH3rY

Just to be clear. If I were a German, I wouldn't find it offensive. We were actually talking about American slang at my last soccer practice and how weird it sounds when it is translated directly instead of the intended meaning. It is fun to look at it from an outsiders point of view.

HALLOWEEN

I know I am super late on this update, but I figured better late than never. Anyway. This year we painted pumpkins instead of carving them. We really did this because we ran out of time. Our weekends seem so short and with Ethan working swing shift, we can't do pumpkins together as a family at night. I finally grabbed the kids some pumpkins, found some paint we had lying around our house, (word for the wise, don't use washable paint, it will wash away when it rains) and had the kids paint them. Maddi thought this was a genius idea. She must have painted for record time. She made a colossal mess though.


Chase's favorite color is green. He was having a lot of fun painting green eyes and a green mouth and green whatever. He wasn't as excited about the painting part. He was really excited that we had pumpkins though.


The kids standing by their finished pumpkins. They were so proud. The hats are really McDonald's boxes that you can turn into viking hats. They were both pretty stoked about those.


Chase was so excited to be Luke this year. It was really an easy costume. I gotta admit, I was truly annoyed by his attention to detail this year. When he told me he wanted to be Luke for Halloween, I was excited. He loves Star Wars, and I was so happy that he was going to take part in picking his costume and stuff for Halloween. I got on the internet and started looking at costume web sites for a Luke costume. I found the orange one he wears when he is flying and destroys the first Death Star. I thought it was better than the one from Luke at the beginning of the first movie. It looked cheap and I hate those boot things that go over the shoes. Anyway, I showed Chase the orange one thinking he would be so excited because it came with a cool helmet. Boy was I wrong. I almost put him in tears because he wanted to be the "Jedi Luke." (For all those non-Star Wars fans, or moms who are forced to watch it over and over again, that is the costume Luke wears at the beginning of Return of the Jedi.") I searched. It seams that no other kid aside from mine wants to wear an all black Luke costume. I started researching trying to find what I could get that would work so it looked somewhat like Luke and Chase would be happy. I learned a lot from what I researched. There are a lot of people out there who truly are obsessed with Star Wars. To buy an actual costume it would have been around $200. Crazyness! I ended up buying a black turtleneck for the top. I got lucky and found a cape on a craig's list type local web site. The boots were another story. Just in case anybody is wondering, they don't sell boy boots that are long like that. I bought some girl boots and figured Maddi can have them when she gets a little older. Everything was coming together alright. Then I got the boots. THEY HAD FLOWERS ON THE BOTTOM! Ugh, how was I going to hide that from Chase. I figured I would just cross that bridge when I came to it. The first time he put the boots on he saw the flowers. 20 minutes of crying later, I put duct tape over the bottom to cover that up. Problem solved. I had a very happy little Luke for Halloween. Thank goodness I already had the green light saber.


I had a blast making Maddi into Princess Leia. I ordered the dress. Thank goodness she doesn't care about detail like Chase does. She was thrilled to be Princess Leia. I am not sure if that is because of the word "Princess" or because she gets to watch Star Wars a lot too. Chase can be pretty convincing about that. It was good fun. The kids had a blast. I just have to say, Maddi is about the cutest Princess Leia I have ever seen.


I thought they were both so cute, I had to take two pictures. Sorry to bore you, but I couldn't decide which is cuter.



We didn't go trick or treating in the technical sense this year. They never have trick or treating on Halloween. They pick the best day for the base. This year it was the Saturday before Halloween. Since I decided to join a soccer team, our Saturdays evenings are pretty booked. I have games on most Saturday nights. It is a big commitment. Instead of doing the regular trick or treating, we did two "Trunk or Treat's." Our ward had one and Ethan's work had one. I didn't get any photos of the kids at the ward one. So these are all from Ethan's work.


This little girl is actually in Chase's kindergarten class. She was pretty excited to see him, and Chase was excited to see somebody that he knew. We don't do many of the parties Ethan's work puts on, so we had no idea this girl's dad works with Ethan.


The kids both loved the cake walk. Ethan and I get really bored with it, but the kids had so much fun. They probably loved it so much because they got a lot of candy from it.


Maddi didn't want to stop doing the cake walk. I think this is her third time.


This cake walk was a little different. They would stop the music and pull a number. If you were standing on that number, you got a cake. If you weren't, you got to spin this big wheel and it told you how many pieces of candy you got. The kids loved it.


This was by far the most entertaining part of the night. The kids got to race the baggage carts. It was so funny to watch Chase try and steer with his broken arm.


He had so much fun though.


Typical Maddi in her stubborn fashion. She didn't want ANYBODY to help her. She would scream if you tried. It took her quite a while to get to the top of the hill


This is when she finally let somebody help her. She wouldn't let us come near her, but some random guy came to help her out and she let him. I am thinking she let him because she is so shy and completely shuts down when there is a stranger around.


After our ward party, we went bowling with some friends. Chase and Maddi both love bowling. By the time we hit frame 8 or so, they are completely done. It is a lot of fun.


Chase only started using these after he saw his friend use it. They are a catch 22. I hate them, but Ethan loves them. I want the kids to learn to bowl and not use those things, but Ethan looks at it from a realistic point of view because half the time if they don't use it the ball gets stuck.


I had to put this one on here. Ethan hates it when I take action photos of him. It is pretty hard work to actually get one. I was pretty sneaky for this one. I used a couple kids to block me until I was ready to snap it.