A Fun Duet

This is a little preview of the song Christian and Lissie put together for the holidays.  I might post another version later, but for now, here it is . . .

Elves and Other Christmas Highlights

We were invited to spend Christmas with the Clarks in Ramstein this year. Jeanette and I had fun in the few months and weeks before Christmas with the preparations -- we made pajama pants and designed T-shirts for everyone which were then specially packaged and delivered by little elves on Christmas Eve.  Such thoughtful elves --  see how festive (and ready to sleep) these kids all look:

Christian LOVES California

 Taylor LOVES college life

Bryant and Ezra LOVE Garmisch!

 (an inside joke after spending six weeks of last summer together there)

You can find Brian in his Christmas PJ attire (down below)

Erin LOVES Brian

(Brian LOVES Erin)

Lissie LOVES dance

Jessica LOVES soccer

Rachel LOVES seminary

The kids all stayed up late to watch movies and listen for Santa.

Tracy and I stayed up late to listen for movies to end (and for Santa, of course).
Around 2:00 a.m. I checked to see if everyone was settled down for the night,

and then around 7:30 a.m. I heard some movement on the stairs . . .

Before I knew it, or had a chance to pull out the camera,
the kids had delved into their stockings
 and found the note from Santa announcing
an upcoming Garmisch ski trip
(Bryant and Ezra were overjoyed, of course)

Here are CLB a few hours later modeling their new ski hats:

Bryant proved his patience and persistence over these past two Christmases -- with his own hard earned money, and the help of sisters and parents and Santa, he finally had all the parts he needed to build his own computer.  Here he is with the final needed part - the processor.  He was anxious to drive home later that day and start putting it all together.  I'm impressed!

Lissie and Erin received some matching items for Christmas this year.  I don't think it was all planned out that way, but it was fun to see them in matching outfits again.

This time it was Christmas pajamas and new H&M coats

Christian is getting ready to serve his mission in California, so Lissie made sure he got some new hipster glasses for his scripture study.  He doesn't wear glasses, but these are just what he will need on his mission, right?

And here we have Lissie and Christian getting ready to share a fun song as we ended our Christmas morning festivities.  I will try to post a video too.  Christian asked everyone not to laugh as he brought out his best base voice for "Baby, It's Cold Outside."

As we celebrated Christmas this year, it was so nice to be with family and friends 

and make special memories together. 

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

O Christmas Tree!

Here we are (look very closely) in search of the perfect Christmas tree
 at a little farm near Heidelberg . . . 

Lissie loved the whole idea and even got all dressed up in some stylish wintry garb; Bryant just wished he could have stayed home. Lissie romped through the little forest looking for the *perfect* tree, while Bryant found a Charlie Brown special.  He rather quickly decided it was the one he wanted. I told him to take a picture (because we definitely weren't going to buy it), but he didn't. Some of us were having fun though, and we continued our search until we finally found this lovely, perfectly shaped (not too tall and not too wide) evergreen darling:

And here it is all decorated with mostly Lissie's ornaments.

  Bryant and Christian's are in their tins under the tree, just waiting . . . and waiting.

There seems to be a little imbalance in Christmas tree excitement around here.

I'm not sure what happened . . . but,  

Merry Christmas Everyone! 

Princess Elisabeth

Elisabeth turned 18 earlier this month

which called for some royal celebrations:

A visit to Princess Cupcakes

Hauptstrasse Shopping in Heidelberg

Dinner at Da Mario's

And a trip to London (still to come)

Here are Lissie and Shanice enjoying their cupcakes and hot cocoa, and then a few more pictures

 of Mom and Bryant. Dad was also with us, but he somehow managed to avoid the camera.

Happy Birthday, Lissie

We love you very much and wish you a wonderful year!

The Advent Calendar Saga of 2012

Here is Cole checking out his advent calendar in Texas: 

And Annabelle (a.k.a. Apple) testing a drawer from hers in Utah: 

And, lastly, Liam and Juliette anticipating some chocolate from theirs in Washington:

And yes, I stole all of these pictures from my girls' blogs . . . sooo glad they posted them.  I'm just wishing I  had a picture of Bella having some advent calendar fun too (hint, hint).  Plus, I'll have to get a future picture of Henry (a.k.a. Nik) when he's old enough to enjoy some of the advent festivities.  I'm pretty sure Christmas will be one of his favorite seasons, especially since he was born on the 6th of December (a.k.a. St. Nikolaus Tag).  His arrival certainly makes St. Nikolaus Tag even more special for our family.

So on with the saga:  I was so proud of myself in October when I finally decided what to get the girls and their families for Christmas -- wooden advent calendars which they could enjoy for many Christmases to come.  I went online and did a thorough advent calendar search . . . I found palaces and houses and trees and angels and rectangular boxes with little wooden drawers.  I finally decided on something I had found on Etsy and placed my order.  But very quickly and to my dismay,  I noticed that the beautiful calendars I had chosen were made of cardboard, not wood.  So I requested a cancellation.  I had no idea that a simple (or so I thought) cancellation would turn into a two month battle. But I'm happy to report that I finally got my money back a few days ago (a little persistence and a lawyer husband were all power for the course). 

In the meantime . . . I found some rather unsightly wooden house calendars while shopping downtown.  They were pink and blue, and yes, ugly!  But I had this vision to repaint and remake them.  The above pictures show off their new paint and Martha Stewart "Winter Wonderland" decopaged drawers.  I was so excited to send them off in mid-November; and I'm actually wishing I had made an extra one for me (which I could eventually give to Lissie and her family).  But alas, I don't seem to be that forward thinking.  I do, however, have plenty of leftover MS Winter Wonderland paper to put one together someday. 

So for the past 9 days I have been envisioning my sweet little grands enjoying some daily countdown excitement packed into little wooden drawers. Happy Christmas Little Ones!