A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

Final Four!

If you haven't been following the two previous posts, Andy's brother Ben is in a blogging competition for Mormontimes.com. The contest started with a ton of applicants but it is now down to the final four contestants, and Ben is one of them (the best one, I might add). If you go to www. mormontimes.com and click on the Blogger Brawl icon you can read Ben's blog about single life as a Mormon and you can also VOTE for him. The voting closes Sunday night at midnight. We would love to have as many votes as we can for Ben. Thanks!

Ben Again

Hello Folks,
We do not currently have the ability to take pictures off our camera and put them on our computer, so that is the main reason for the lack of blog posts lately. However, I can't be lax about posting this- Ben won the last round of the blogger brawl (thank you for all your votes) and he is in the running again today! Please go to www. mormontimes.com and click on blogger brawl to vote for Ben again. The voting ends tomorrow (Friday) at midnight and we can't bear to see Ben's talent go to waste when you could be enjoying a weekly blog from him. Thanks for all your support! Go Ben!

Vote for Ben

I know, I know. It's been months since I last updated the blog. I promise, more is soon to come. But important things first:

Andy's brother Ben is really witty and funny and talented and is also in a contest on MormonTimes.com to become a regular blogger/ columnist. And he needs YOUR votes. He has made it to the second round of the contest which means the competition is getting fierce. We know he's the best but you can find this out for yourself by going to http://www.mormontimes.com/ and clicking on the Blogger Brawl icon at the top of the page. Click on the listing for Ben Craven and read his ingenious thoughts- and then vote for him! We'd love to see Ben go all the way in this competition and be able to read his column every week. And we'd love to have you help him get there. You DO need to hurry, as voting for this round of the competition ends Wednesday (the 14th) at midnight. So what are you waiting for? Have fun! And tell all your family and friends!

Cold

I know what you're thinking- two posts in one day?! It turns out I have some extra time today because church was cancelled. It's too snowy and cold to get to church safely. We've had crazy weather here for the past few weeks. Earlier this week we had some freezing rain that encased everything in ice and made everything slick and then it started snowing Thursday afternoon and didn't stop until late Saturday night. Andy has already shoveled three or four times since Christmas and we're running out of places to put the snow. One of the unusual things about Omaha (or maybe just the area where we live) is that we get very strong winds and we're at the top of a hill so we have nothing below us to block the wind. We get some huge snow drifts when it snows because the wind blows it around so much. Here's a few pictures we've taken this week.

This is Andy standing at the end of our driveway. It snowed some more after this was taken.

This is our neighbor's house. You can see how the wind has blown huge drifts around. It snowed quite a bit more after we took this and the snow completely covered the porch. They are out of town and Andy was nice enough to go out and shovel their driveway and porch so they could get in when they get home. He's so thoughtful.

Ice on our Christmas lights. Everything was encased in ice.

I don't think our tomato plants are going to make it. What do you think?

Merry Christmas

We hope all of you had a very merry Christmas. We certainly had a great day. Andy is working hard in the ICU this month and we've missed having him around more often. He was able to get off early on Christmas Eve and doesn't have to go back until Monday, so it has been nice to spend time with him. We stayed in Omaha for Christmas this year and it has been nice and relaxing. We miss our families more this time of year, but it has been nice to not have to worry about traveling in the bad weather.

Eden was very excited to get lots of "Princess Stuff" for Christmas. Santa really came through for her this year. He took good care of Andy and I as well. One of Eden's favorite gifts this year was a small tent that she loves so much we had to move it into her bedroom so she could sleep in it.

Andy wins the prize for "Biggest Present" this year a couple times over. Eden gave him an air hockey table and he also got a ladder (now he doesn't have to borrow the neighbors to take the Christmas lights down). He also got a new leather jacket and a remote controlled helicopter which has been buzzing around our kitchen for a couple days now. Thank goodness for vaulted ceilings!

Santa brought me some beautiful new dishes, a digital picture frame, a new coat and a fun Wii Fit game. For those of you who think that exercise isn't fun (as did I until recently) you should try out Wii Fit. It's been a lot of fun.

Christmas was wonderful and we were sad to see it go, but he're looking forward to another great year to come. We hope the rest of the year is peaceful and safe for you and that next year brings new joys. Have a Happy New Year~

One more week until Christmas!

Guess who's getting excited!
I guess it is about time to post another blog. We've been so busy lately getting ready for Christmas, it just hasn't happened. We've had some requests from family lately to post some pictures of our house decorated for Christmas and so for those of you who care, here they are.

Our living room with the tree. For those of you who heard about her huge Sleeping Beauty ornament, it is the big pink thing on the tree.

Andy put up lights this year. They look really great. I just wish he hadn't done it in the dark on a windy day. BTW, this is not what our yard looks like anymore. We now have 4 and 5 foot piles of snow everywhere.

The shelf by our stairs. We love those nutcrackers!

Eden has been asking how many days until Christmas since the day after Thanksgiving so I decided to make her an advent calendar so she could see for herself. I found this idea from a blog I love called allsorts and started to make it the last couple days in November. Each pocket has a number and inside is a chocolate and a little tag to hang off the pocket. Eden loves doing her calendar every day. She doesn't like sharing the chocolate.

Eden was very excited for our ward Christmas party this year. If any of you remember last year, "Santa" was not well liked by Eden, despite him being almost a fatherly figure for her. This year, we talked about Santa for weeks ahead of time to prepare her to sit on his lap. She was a little afraid but she wanted to be sure he knew what she wanted for Christmas. She waited patiently in line and was only a little afraid to sit down. She made sure to tell Santa what she wanted ("Princess Stuff") and was super excited to get a candy cane when she was done. It may just be a small thing, but we're really proud of her for doing this all by herself. We love our cute little bug. She is such a fun girl.