December at the Blaser's

When December 1st came around I found myself missing the advent calendar that my mom put up every year. It was always a highlight of my Christmas seasons and I think I speak for everyone when I say that it was sooo exciting no matter how old you were, when you were the one to get baby Jesus. :)

So, with no time left to really be creative and no money to spend on a nice advent calendar, I was left with two choices. Either purchase one of those cheap paper ones with all the little doors that have pieces of "chocolate" in them that taste like nasty plastic... or try to creative and make my own... that night.

So this is what I came up with. I got some chocolate that we will actually enjoy eating, and wrapped Christmas quotes around each of them. I got the quotes off of a website and since I didn't want to spoil this whole thing for me, I only scanned over them and I am hoping that we don't get any crazy weird quotes.
This is how it has developed over the last week or so. I'm oddly proud of my little creation :) -- and as a side note, all of the quotes have been very nice and have started our days on some very sweet notes :)

We also made our Gingerbread Houses!!


We used Chad's coveted grahm cracker with melted sugar technique.


I decided to rebuild the same Gingerbread House that I attempted last year (but if you all remember... that crumbled to the ground) -- So I took this picture before decorating it, JUST IN CASE I failed again, I needed a picture of a house that was standing ;)

We split up and both made our own messes. I took the desk and Chad took the counter.

The next thing I knew, I turned around and this is what I see.


Yes... this is a battle field. The army men with their gold and diamonds, and the animals are on the attack.


Needless to say, the boys were fans.


Chad let the kids come over and take pieces of his creation and handed out some extra candy that he had.


Meanwhile-- I was still working on decorating my cottage.

A bit latter I finished my creation as well- as you can see, it's a bit more traditional than Chad's.



Hope you all had as much fun decorating for Christmas/making gingerbread houses as we did!

Merry Christmas, and we'll see you all soon!!!

Angie's Bday

I'M 22!!

Here's a small pile of some of my gifts. Thank you everyone for your thoughtfulness!

I loved my little puppy cupcake!

I absolutely LOVE Chad's gift that he got me!! He got me a book that I've been wanting, but waiting until it was available in paperback. He also got me some art supplies!!! I've been really wanting to get back into my art and I thought that was the perfect gift and just what I need right now. (He also remembered the type of oil pencils I had when we were dating) :)
We ended my birthday celebration next door. Once again, it's soooo nice to have these guys so close!

FHE

Chad and I haven't been the best at doing an FHE once a week, so when I came home on this particular Monday (a few weeks ago) I was surprised when Chad had us sit down and he had a whole lesson planned with a song picked out to sing and everything. I was even more surprised when he pulled out the supplies for the activity that he wanted to do.


Haha, I think you can get the gist of it from the pictures, but the reasoning behind it is the cute part. The day before this I got really sad and missed my family. It was cold and dark and all I wanted in the world was to be at Mom and Dad's house next to the fireplace playing a game with my family.
So we made our own fireplace, played Scrabble (which was a BIG sacrifice for Chad to have to sit through) and for the treat we made smores :) Best Family Home Evening EVER.

Chad's Surgery

I just wanted to let you all know that Chad's surgery went fine. All of the nurses just kept saying that he did so well, and Chad (still a bit drozy and out if it) kept replying by saying how hard he tried. I think the after affects of the anesthesia just made him very tired and his humor a little odd, but mostly he was himself. I was a bit disappointed because I thought he was going to be all loony, but he wasn't and therefore I have no funny stories about the postop.

I'm so happy to have a healthy husband, and that we had the insurance coverage to be able to get the operation, and Chad, taken care of. He will still be in a lot of pain for the next couple of weeks, so your thoughts and prayers are still appreciated.

We love you all!

The Aurora Bridge Troll

Chad and I have heard about this Troll under the Aurora Bridge but still hadn't seen it since we moved up here... so we decided to go on a little adventure. I wanted to look online to see where this was (because Aurora Avenue is a long, main road in Seattle and has many bridges) but Chad just wanted to go and find it, and it was actually pretty fun checking under all of these bridges.

Bridge #1: No troll.

Bridge #2: As you can see, no troll but a nice bit of artwork.

Bridge #3: We started to get excited when as we were coming down the pedestrian walkway we saw a few people standing around with cameras :)

Meet Seattle's Troll.




We had a lot of fun finding the Troll, and then climbing all over him.