Megans Art Work

So, I'm really behind again, but Megan came home with a poem she illustrated from scratch the other day and it was so amazing I had to scan it in a post it. First, she's in grade 2 (age 7) and has been going through a ream of printer paper a month drawing and doodling for over 4 years. She loves to draw. This year her creativity, imagination and skills have all finally started to come together though. On this assignment the teacher gave them a poem to illustrate, and they could draw what ever they wanted to draw.  This was Megan's imagination...

11 Year Anniversary

2010 was 11 years for Candice and I, and to celebrate we went to our favorite new restaurant in Minneapolis called Fogo de Chao.  It's a brazilian meat buffet where the servers dress up as brazilian gaochos and bring the different types of meat around and cut it off right at your table.  We usually don't have to eat the next day either.  Michael took these of us after we got home a few pounds heavier.

Holiday decorations

For Family Home Evening this week we made ribbon Christmas trees for our holiday decorations this year.  Kids had alot of fun making these (after the arguements were over).  See if you can pick out whose is whose.

Tom, Michael, Candice, Megan, Rachel

Tis the season for snow also...

We got our first snow around Thanksgiving and its been white ever since.  A few weeks ago we had the biggest blizzard in 19 years where it dropped about 17 inches in one day.  The only problem is it was really windy so that 17 inches turned into 3 and 4 foot snow drifts on our driveway.

This is the view out of our (really old) living room windows.

Me outside using the snow thrower.  Notice the 4' drift infront of the door...

Have to bundle up with all that cold snow.

The best part is after the driveways are clear, the snow plow comes by and drops another 4' wall at the end of the driveway!!

Candice standing infront of the mailbox next to my nicely carved out wall, so we can still get the mail.  Yes, to that snow wall is about 5 feet tall.

That's the view from the front of the house :)

Tis the season for Christmas cookies

Making treats each season is one of the favorite family traditions.  We've done Gingerbread houses a few times so this year we tried a gingerbread tree.  You'll get the see the results below :).  Candice always comes up with really good cookie ideas also, and this year we used the Charlie Brown cookie cutters we had from when I was a kid.  I even included "the making of" video.

Rachel, or is it Candice?

So Rachel is the same size as Candice now, which means she likes to wear Mom's clothes, especially for church.  It's weird when at first glance I think she is Candice from the back sometimes.  Here she is reluctantly posing for a picture before church. I took it because she likes to wear the same thing over and over and over again and it was nice to see her dressed up :)

Our first "couples" half marathon

So, earlier this year I talked Candice into doing her first half marathon with me, and we both trained all summer for this.  This was my second year doing it and Candice's first and longest race to date.  In fact, the longest race she had done before this was a 5k (3 miles vs 13 miles in the half).  It was great weather and a perfect day for it.  I dropped about 28 minutes off of my PR and Candice beat her goal of 3 hours by a ways.  She would have gone even faster but the last 3 miles really started to hurt her shins.  She's already signed up to do it again next year.

Here we are pre race at home.

You can find the results below as well as a video of each of us crossing the finish line on the far right.

Candice's is here and Tom's is here.