Help for Haiti

The Girl Scouts collected money for the Red Cross of Mexico last week. Sarah and Grace made posters and I made some cans for collecting donations. They had a great time every morning chanting "Help Haiti...make them smile!" Sarah danced around drawing attention to the signs and what we were doing, and Grace was upset with me when I wanted to take a picture of her working...I wasn't letting her do her job. Throughout the week I didn't hear any complaining about having to get up early, and I think they felt really good knowing they could do something to help the earthquake victims. Collectively, the Girl Scouts raised 31,481 pesos for the Red Cross. Good job ladies.

Sacrament Speaker

No, it wasn't me, and it wasn't Andy(though he speaks quite often in chuch)...it was Jake! Sunday before last, Jake gave a talk on Agency and Accountability, from the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. He was the first speaker in Sacrament meeting, and he was awesome! He spoke clearly, looked up from his notes often, shared personal experiences, read scriptures, had good inflection in his voice, and did I mention he gave the talk IN SPANISH!? Wow, I was so impressed. Nice work Jake.

Zacatecas, Mexico

We took a little road trip with Vicki and Larry to a city called Zacatecas, about 4 1/2 hours southwest of Monterrey. It was a great trip. This was our hotel, Meson de Jobito.


It was nice just to walk around the city. The streets are all stone, and all of the signs over shops are painted in black, so there aren't any neon signs advertising anything. We enjoyed peeking into all of the quaint little shops, searching for treasures, and listening to street performers as we strolled.







Walking around downtown at night was another highlight of the trip. Yummy hot chocolate kept us from freezing our noses off!

During our sightseeing, Rachel's favorite activity was scaring the pigeons away from everywhere we were, and Sarah had to do a perfect cartwheel in every place! Cute girls.

This is the Museo Rafael Coronel. It used to be a convent. The architecture was great and had little pathways winding through arches and gardens. Just beautiful.






This little restaurant was great! El Rincon de los Sabores. I LOVED the sopes and the tacos al pastor...so good!This was a nice trip...we might be headed back when my folks come to visit! There's still more for us to do there!

Ruins of La Quemada

While visiting Zacatecas, we travelled a little further south to visit the ruins of La Quemada. Though it was extremely cold and windy, and sand and little rocks were constantly being blown into our eyes, it was a highlight of our Zacatecas trip! We were free to run up and down and all around the ruins, for the small fee of 84 pesos($6). What a bargain! The settlement was cut into the side of the tallest hill/mountain in the area and has great views in every direction. So interesting...











Jake, Sarah and Andy all made it up to the very top of the hill, where Andy got the great overhead pictures of the ruins!

Christmas Morning

Our spoiled children...


We have a problem when shopping for Christmas..."Even-ing Out Presents". If it seems like one kid is getting more than another, then we have to buy the other(s) another present to "even it out." So, all of the kids end up getting more from us than we had intended to get for them in the first place. Does this make sense? Are we the only ones with this problem? It's a darn good thing my kids are so wonderful...I can justify spoiling them a little. Santa brought them some pretty great stuff too!

Christmas day consisted of opening presents, playing, cleaning up wrapping paper, playing, eating french toast, playing, trying on new clothes, playing, talking on the phone with family, playing, eating filet mignon for dinner, and playing some more. How fun is it to not have any worries and get to play with your kids all day? Really fun!

Christmas Eve, La Noche Buena

Christmas Eve traditions...
Everyone gets to open one present Christmas Eve...This year we all got pajamas! Surprise!
Shepherd's dinner by starlight(candles, tree lights and star lamps),
Read the Christmas story in Luke 2,
Cuddle up on the couch and watch Joy to the World and Mr.Krueger's Christmas,
Sing carols before family prayer,
Cookies, notes, and a V8 Splash for Santa...a carrot for the reindeer,
Andy and I watch It's a Wonderful Life after the kids go to bed!
The kids are always so happy and smiley, helpful, loving and super sweet every Christmas Eve. It reminds me how wonderful having a family is...a little bit of heaven on earth. We did enjoy la Noche Buena, the good night.

Gingerbread Houses!

We invited some friends over to make gingerbread houses with us, and we all had a good time. The kids were very creative with their houses...Jake had some sort of gingerbread robot with gummy bear minions working on his house. Grace used the white icing to decorate most of her house, then left half of the roof off so she could fill it up with M&Ms. Sarah made Santa on the roof, his sleigh on the ground, and a gingerbread kid peeking to see Santa. Rachel made a cute snowman out of big marshmallows and a mint-chip Christmas tree. It is always fun to see how different each house turns out! I love it.