'Tis the Season

This past weekend Kurt and I watched my 1 year nephew and 6 year old neice while their parents were celebrating their birthdays at a weekend getaway. My neice had a gingerbread house kit to make while she was with us and after that Kurt wanted to make a gingerbread house so we bought a few kits, a lot of candy and began building........
The lighting in these pictures is pretty bad, but my camera battery was dead, so I was using my phone camera.

Kurt is definintely a perfectionist and since he used to build houses he wanted his "walls" completely straight. All of his icing lines were completely straight and neat. Mine were thick and messy-but unique nonetheless.

Merry Christmas!!!!

I love Christmas!!! So many christmas parties, family fun, gift exchanges, lights, decorations, christmas movies and yummy food. It is probably my favorite month of the year! I love giving gifts and I put creativey and alot of thought into the gifts that I give. One of my favorite family childhood traditions are getting a box of cereal by our stocking every year. It is something my mom started doing when we were little and each of my siblings have carried on the tradition with their family and it is still a family favorite. Kurt used to get a can of mandarin oranges in his stocking every year and he loved that tradition. Christmas Eve is the day that we celebrate with my family. We start eat dinner, exchange gifts (we draw names for gifts) and play the white elephant game. This white elephant game is super fun. The white elephant gifts are food related and we play the game where you can either choose a new gift or "steal" what the previous person had opened whether you like that treat or not. We have a lot of fun with that one.
Christmas with Kurt's family is different each year. His dad and stepmom live nearby, but often travel out of state to visit her family. Kurt's mom and stepdad live 5 hours away so we don't get to spend every Christmas with them, but have been blessed to spend the last 4 Christmas's with them. Although traveling on Christmas Day is not fun, we enjoy the time that we get to spend with them. This year we have decided to stay home for Christmas.

We hope this holiday season brings you much happiness and joy.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
-Kurt and Jodi

The many adventures of Kurt........

The day before Thanksgiving Kurt was able to go elk hunting and he was successful; the only problem was he went hunting alone and was not able to get the 1000 lb animal out alone. He called me around 3:30 and asked me to call some friends for help. I was able to get my brother-in-law who has a 4 wheeler to help. Another problem arose....there were only 2 people that knew where Kurt's location was. Desperately I called one of those friends and he was getting ready to leave for Thanksgiving, but took time away from his family to help us. We finally arrived to help Kurt around 5:30. We drove the 4-wheelers in about 5 miles and hiked down a mountain another 50 feet (in the 10" of snow and pitch black) until we finally found Kurt. We spent another hour getting the elk up to the 4-wheelers. It was freezing cold, muddy, pitch black and crazy. On the drive home we almost hit 3 or 4 deer that ran in front of our truck.
What an adventure!!!! There is certainly never a dull moment with Kurt. He always keeps me on my toes!!
We were very grateful for our friends that day that always come to our assistance when we need it.