have a schmitty christmas.....

Nothing says christmas like a terrible sweater...and a tall glass of wine. Here's a little peek at what you people missed....

le colonial for dinner.

"soulja boy"

Cousins Visit Fort Wayne to Make Cookies and Meet Rivers

This weekend a group of us drove down to Fort Wayne to visit Grandmother and Grandfather, say hello to my mom, and of course meet Rivers. Laura, Jeff and I had a bit of trouble getting out of the city. We got a block away from our house when we realized that we had a flat tire. Jeff put on the spare and two hours later the tire was repaired and we were on our way. The late start meant we didn't get there until after 1am. Jeff said he made record time and the trip took just over 3 hours. (Laura and I cannot verify this as we were asleep the whole way.)

Nevertheless we started the baking early on Saturday. On the list to be baked: sugar cookies, mexican wedding cakes, buckeyes, fudge, spiced pecans and spritz cookies. Almost everything turned out well. Here's Laura making buckeyes.

Emily, Abby and Maggie arrived just in time for lunch. After lunch we made fudge and Maggie took the lead. I am pleased to report that Maggie did not ruin the fudge. She did learn a difficult lesson about the repercussions of not taking the instruction to 'stir constantly' seriously.

Not to worry - Grandmother came to the rescue and the fudge turned out okay.

Later on we attempted to make spritz, or cookie press cookies. I cannot exaggerate how unpopular the cookie press was. I had to run an errand and was not present for the cookie press disaster. However, as it is my cookie press and I made the double batch of dough for the cookies, I take full responsibility for the failure. I hope to be able to redeem cookie press cookies in the minds of those present at some future date.

Here is Laura and Maggie mixing up some dough:

The look like they are working hard.

Of course the absolute highlight of the weekend was meeting Rivers.

I truly was not prepared for how adorable and cuddly he was. Naturally I expected him to be a lovely baby, but he exceeded all my expectations. He's wonderful. Here are a few pictures:

I know other people took a few more pictures and it would be great to see those too. I didn't get pictures of everyone there.

If you are wondering what Jeff did while we made cookies:

He watched sports. KU v. DePaul. KU won.

Saturday night my mom made a fantastic dinner of enchiladas. It's been a long time since we had so many people around the dinner table and it was great. That night we played a few games of SkipBo. Grandmother won of course.

Cousins Visit the Pumpkin Patch

Here are a few pictures from the trip Jeff, Laura, Emily and I took this fall to an apple orchard/pumpkin farm. Originally we had planned to pick apples, but we were too late and decided to get pumpkins instead. We each picked out a pumpkin from the patch.

Jeff spent the most time making sure he found the best pumpkin. There were also animals and a few other attractions. After we picked the pumpkins we washed them at the pumpkin washing stations.

It was a fun day. Next year I'd like to go earlier in September and pick apples too.

Rivers made his first visit to Great Grandmother and Grandfather. Grandfather finally got to hold a baby, for the first time since Maggie was this small!

(Picture of Grandmother & Rivers coming soon. File is corrupted or something. Will post when fixed.)

Nice Job, Henry!

Grandmother asked me to post some good news for her. Henry recently passed all of the testing and requirements to become a certified Volkswagen technician! Congratulations Henry!

Thank You Abby!

Good morning! I just wanted to say thanks to Abby for finally getting the Cousin Connection started. I'm so excited about this blog and can't wait to hear from everyone. I wish I could post some pictures with my first post, but they will have to wait. We don't quite have Internet at home yet, and tasks associated with unpacking and setting up our new house are taking priority over other things. But, over all the new house is great. Please come over and visit. Anytime. The last month was a little stressful and challenging, but it was all worth it. Ann and Brian were so wonderful to let us stay with them and we really appreciated it. They even drove us to the train everyday and picked us up and night, so we wouldn't have to contend with the unreliable Pace Bus. We felt like kids going off to school. It was cute.
Laura has temporarily settled into the front bedroom and is adjusting to living with me and Jeff. You can ask her how it's going. I hope we aren't annoying her too much. She's very easy to live with. Last night she made homemade macaroni and cheese, which was great. It was so nice to come home to dinner and not have to think about what to make. Thanks Laura!
Looking ahead I'm very excited about this fall/winter. There is so much to look forward to in the next few months. Jeff's parents are visiting soon and we have thanksgiving and cookie decorating coming up. Also - we are going to have to meet our new nephew, Rivers. I'm hoping Sarah will be able to bring him over to Grandmother and Grandfather's house to visit when we go in December to make cookies.
Has anyone seen Tom lately? Where is Tom? Tom - if you need a break from studying we are going to go watch the KU football game Saturday night. I think the game starts around 6:30 and we will be at a bar watching somewhere because we don't have tv yet. I think by that time I will be ready to get out of the house because Jeff and I are going to spend Saturday building a closet organizer. This will probably be the biggest construction project either of us has ever attempted and I'm a little nervous. Has anyone built a closet before? Does anyone have a stud finder?
As soon as I can I'll post a few pictures from our trip to the apple orchard/pumpkin patch last weekend. Next year we'll have to plan ahead a little bit and hopefully more people can go.

Molly & Jeff are proud new homeowners!

Molly and Jeff just bought a lovely 2 bedroom condo in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood. After several weeks of patiently waiting for the construction to be completed, they were extremely relieved to finally move in. Congrats Molly & Jeff!

Cry me a "Rivers"

Sarah and David are happy to introduce the newest member to their family, Rivers Himmelhaver. He weighs 7 pounds 10 ounces and everyone is doing fine! Congrats to the Himmelhaver family!

Maggie Got a Job!

As the Global Programs Coordinator for the Office of International Programs Development at Northwestern University, our little Maggie is growing up. It is quite possibly the perfect job for her. For example, dressing like Rambo would not be acceptable in most workplaces but at Northwestern, it appears they find it endearing (well, at least when she wears Wildcat purple!). As you can see, she has been hard at work...