Our Christmas

My gifts for Jacob that I had Lilah help me wrap.  I love brown paper packages tied up with string!

 Jacob's gifts for me... yep... this is how it is every year!  I don't mind though really.  It's the thought that counts :)

 He is a Tundra maniac (thanks Mark & Erika Mueller!)

 Definitely a good sign for his shop!  Don't touch them!  Don't move them!  Don't borrow them! Don't even look at them!

 My loot.  He got me some winter running gear...

...and a ipod/phone running arm band, a blowdryer, lots of chapstick (I use it all the time and have to have it everywhere!), work gloves, warm socks, wireless mouse, and miscellaneous others.

We hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and that we always keep the real meaning of Christmas in our hearts!

Game Night

We got some ice and snow right before Christmas.  It was so pretty on the trees and grass, I had to get a few pictures.

 After Christmas Eve services we had the Luthi cousins out to our house for games.  It was good to be together again!

 Then there was the anti-social one who wouldn't put the Tundra comic book down :)  P.S.  Don't tell him his picture is on my blog~ he will not be impressed!  He barely lets me get pics of him as it is!

Work Christmas Open House

We had our bank Christmas Open House a couple weeks ago and this is what it looked like.

 Kansas Maid Pastries donated the cinnamon rolls.

 In the morning we did coffee, hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls.

 At  11:00 we put out little smokies, summer sausage, cheese, pinwheels, fruit, cheeseball, and cookies.

 A close-up of my snowman cheeseball.  I used almonds for the eyes & buttons, pretzels for the arms, and shaped a orange pepper for the nose.

I also made the snowman cupcakes.  I used mini M&M's for the eyes and mouth and a orange tic-tac for the nose.

I didn't get a picture of the water bottles, but the labels said "melted snowman" on them.  Yep, we had a snowman theme :)

Deer Hunting Outcome {Warning: Graphic}

I finally got my deer one afternoon when I got off work.

There were 2 deer in the field, Jacob & I both shot at the same time and they both ran a little ways into the creek and never came back out.  When we were heading to the house to get the truck and load them, there was another one in a different field that Jacob got.  A guy that works for Jacob's dad loves deer meat, so we gave them all to him!

Here is the picture I text my brothers and dad so they could be proud of me... haha.  My dad said it looked like a coyote on his phone and my brothers told me I got Bambi and that it didn't count unless I gutted it.  But my husband was pretty happy with me even attempting and then hitting it on the first shot that he didn't care what size it was.  Verdict on being a deer hunter:  Probably won't do it again unless it's warm or another decides to jump out in front of my car.  I didn't mind it, but I didn't get a thrill out of it like avid hunters do.

Camera Dump

Since it has been a little longer than I anticipated since the last post I will try to do a quick catch-up.  I have been busy getting ready for the many Christmases that we have this year and also trying my hand at deer hunting.  I decided to give it a try again this year since I hit one with my car earlier this fall.  However, I decided I am a fair-weather hunter and not that interested in sitting in a blind at 6:00 in the morning with 15 degree weather...  Now, the first day I went out it was 40-ish and I really enjoyed the peacefulness of the  morning and had some quiet time with God.  I never did see anything.  But I still enjoyed it.  Not so much after that...

My wonderful hubby trying to make me as comfortable as possible so that I would WANT to continue to deer hunt.  It really couldn't have been any easier of a hunt.  I walked outside about 100 yards and climbed up in the hay blind.  I didn't have to climb any trees or walk down in the woods or anything like that.

I had my friend Lilah over to help me with some Christmas baking one Saturday.  Then we did some crafts together.

Being silly with Aunt Jannette

We made this book about her family.

She wanted a list of questions to ask each of her family members (the same list I used for the other books I made) and then we cut out some shapes with my Cameo that she colored.  This one is for her mom and she is helping her mom clean.

I got my Christmas decorations up before we had the church over to wrap gifts for the Hartford Training Center.

The fireplace.

The sign I designed and made.  I had an old vintage coffee sign that I got at a flea market and never used, so I painted it and cut out the vinyl lettering to put on there.

I just loved these sparkly brown deer to go with my neutral/rustic theme

I looked all over for wreaths to hang in my windows.  Since I needed 14 of them, I decided it was way too expensive to buy that many wreaths and instead bought a plain garland.  I cut the garland up and put the berries in.  I got 3 wreaths out of one garland, so it saved quite a bit of money.  Then I just hung them with burlap ribbon.

Don't mind the plastic wrap that is sitting under the window sill :)

I put the Willow Tree Nativity set on the piano this year with lights under the snow.  Jacob built me the stable one year for Christmas out of our old barn wood.  I got around to staining it this year.

All the gifts we had to wrap Friday night.  We (Kent, Marissa, & I) shopped for 77 residents of the Hartford Training Center and then the church came over and we wrapped and tagged everything.  The kids always have so much fun with this!

On Saturday, Marissa had the ladies and their daughters over for a Christmas brunch.  It was delicious and so enjoyable to spend time together!

These glasses out of the toy box were a huge hit!

Then we made cookie jars.  We cut out circles of fabric to go over the top of the lids to make them festive!

Teagan trying to hide behind the counter so I don't get her in the picture of ingredients.

 The finished product.  These are always so fun to make and give as gifts or even have on hand when you need a quick snack to take somewhere.

This week I am focusing on getting everything ready for our Christmas open house at the bank... so stay tuned!