The Great Pumpking Massacre

Over the summer, my husband helped our cute neighbor with her garden. This is one of the pumpkins that was grown there!

I wanted to cut it open, keep a few seeds to plant, then cook the pumpkin down and freeze it to use for baking.


Well.....
After the giant pumpkin sat in the garage all fall and most of the winter, getting frozen and thawed over and over, I had finally had enough.


So last week, we cut it open and tried to salvage what we could. Jason had to use a saw to get the thing cut open! Then he had to punch it to get to the middle!

Michal took out the seeds. (about 100) We kept 5 or 6 of them to plant next year and cooked the rest with some salt. They tasted yucky because they had been frozen. The pumpkin was also ca ca poo so we had to throw that away. I was mad at myself for wasting it. Ugh! I just can't do it all!

Uncle Jay

This is our darling niece, Harper and my cute husband, Jason. Harper loooovveees her Uncle Jay. She has called him on the phone 2 or 3 times this past week. Just to 'chat'. She'll say, Hi, Uncle Jay! What you doin'? It's Harper. I call you on the phone. I love you Uncle Jay! She's sooo cute! Tonight we went to visit at Piper's house and Harper was showing Uncle Jay her laptop she got for Christmas. Later she was singing the alphabet and it went something like this: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, Uncle Jay! Uncle Jay! Uncle Jay! HA! Love this little girl!

Johnny's in a 'Hick' town

Check out some new pictures from our boy in Indiana. He's standing in front of a house that he calls "the house with the scary sign in the window". He says that he and his companion did NOT
knock on this door.














Here's a closeup of the sign.

















Here's another 'scary sign' on the door of a house.
He said they knocked on this door. I guess it all worked out because I got his email today:)











I love hearing from my boy. He's such a funny kid!

He loves his mission. He loves serving the Lord. I know he's having spiritual experiences because he tells us about them. The pictures just don't show much of the spiritual side.


This is a picture of the Elwood, Indiana district missionaries. Yes, that's my boy in the PLAID suit that someone gave to him. I wonder what Jesus is thinking. See his picture there in the background? Oh, it's a good thing the Church is true!
:)

Yes, I'm the Alpha Female!

These are my awesome colleagues at work. Today we celebrated the day of the 3 kings in our foreign language classes.


Tradition says that the 3 kings visited the
baby Jesus 12 days after he was born. In European and Hispanic cultures, children set their shoes out on January 5th and the kings visit and leave gifts for the children. We do this activity in our classes with our students every year. This year it was Sr. Flanders' idea to have our 3 male teachers dress up as the kings. I couldn't be left out of dressing up, of course, so I got to dress up as the Queen!




Here are my students' shoes, ready for the 3 kings.
















I love working with these dudes!
Sr. Lagerberg
Sra. Thackeray
Sr. Flanders
Mr. Jensen

Elder Thackeray's Christmas message

This was too big to put in an email so I hope it fits here.
I know it's not much of a video but it's the audio that's cool.
I love my missionary boy!

So this is Christmas!

Our Christmas Eve tradition includes a re-enactment of the Nativity with our cute neighbors, the Freeman family.





























We got our Christmas phone call from Johnny! He's doing very well. We had a whole hour to visit. We thoroughly enjoyed talking to him and hearing his strong testimony of the gospel. Yes, we did cry (not Jason) but it was a good cry.









Next it was off to Wa Wa Kathy's for food and fun. This is Harper opening her present. Johnny drew her name and sent her some Hoosier racing attire:)














Last stop, Grandma Thackeray's to hang with the fam for awhile. Everyone was intrigued by the new puzzles that one of the kids got for Christmas. It was an awesome holiday!

The tell-tale signs of Christmas!

The tree is adorned...


















Harper's Birthday....















Uncle Billy's open house........
















Santa's visit to the Thackeray family Christmas party.......














Christmas time is here!!!!