Christmas at the Pfeil's

Directly after graduation we went down to spend a few days with Marks parents in Muncie. It was really wonderful :o) AND! We actually got to enjoy our time there since we didn't have ONE BIT of homework to worry about looming over our heads! WHO-RAY! :-D

Marks Mom and family had been decorating for Christmas and it was so lovely! :o) In the living room they put a Christ tree that is decorated with things that help them to remember the savior. Under the tree I believe they also put a large nativity scene. In the family room (and I may have the room labels mixed up... I'm not good with room names) they have the Christmas tree that is decorated with Christmas-y things and decorations that the kids have made over the years :o) Fun Fun! Mom had also put up her Christmas village and her nativities around the house. Marks Mom loves nativities and leaves many of them up all year round--like a beautiful wooden one Michael brought her from Germany. My mom also loves nativities and has them around everywhere too--some all year long as well. I continue to be amazed by how much our mothers have in common. But ANYWAY! This post is about Christmas time!

We had Christmas dinner the day before Christmas Eve with Marks family because we were flying to NM on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas Day with my family. It was so much fun! We had roast and potatoes and BROCCOLI (I was happy) and shrimp cocktail (mark was happy) and Becky made jello salad and lots of other yummy yummy things. Also, we had a Pfeil family traditional punch/beverage that was really yummy but that I don't remember the name of. BUT! I took pictures of it! (Mark had been telling me on several occasions how excited he was to have this holiday beverage, I am glad that I finally got to try it :o) Here are pictures of dinner! :-D

the table all decorated! oo! how FESTIVE!! I can almost taste the deliciousness!

bringing out the tasty snacks! :-D

here is that family beverage! It has floating sherbet in it that are slowly (albeit deliciously) melting and chilling said beverage.

aaaaand here is the other end of the table...DINNER IS ALMOST UPON US!! :-D

I realized while posting this that I effectively took a picture of this table from almost every angle whilst circling in anticipation. Hmm...it looks like someone was excited to eat...so out of character... ;o)

Dinner was wonderful, we talked and ate and talked some more...and ate some more... :-D exactly what Christmas dinner is all about. :o)

AND!!! we made A GINGER BREAD HOUSE!!!!!! :-D

it was SO MUCH FUN! Marks Mom started this tradition when the boys were young and they LOVED making the gingerbread house at Christmas (especially the eating of the excess candy tradition) and they have done it pretty much ever since :o) SO FUN! She has this TOTALLY cool little pattern and stellar recipe for the gingerbread (and, as an aside, have you ever noticed that you KNOW a recipe is going to be good when a mommy lovingly pulls a yellowed, wrinkled, stained and faded old recipe out of their stash? They are always the BEST! I think every mommy must have a few up their sleeve: recipes that mean HOME). ANYWAY! we mixed up the gingerbread, spread it onto the baking sheet, and let it cook! After it was done, we laid the pattern on top, and using sharp knives, cut that bad boy out and let it dry!! (I was a little too enthusiastic with the cutting and our ginger bread house had a front door AND a backdoor...whoopsies!) We let the gingerbread dry on the kitchen table for a few house and then after dinner...WE DECORATED THE HOUSE! :-D it was SO MUCH FUN!

here are pictures:


NOTES:


You can tell this is the door that I decorated since I added the realistic wood grain texturing (courtesy of twislers pull aparts) AND i functionally put the hobbit style doorknob on the INSIDE of the door ONLY. Whoopsies! Becky and mark both noticed; I didn't! he he! They had to point it out. I defended myself by saying it was an added feature to the dwelling (not really): see, this way you can escape from the house but no one can come in without your permission. A little cut throat, but thats the way it is sometimes when you live in a candy house (good thing we had two doors in this lovely little dwelling and Becky built the otherone normal style) ;o)


Finished product!:

HOW CUTE!! right down to the licorice icicles (courtesy of twislers pull aparts) and crushed M&M walk way ;o) Way to go guys! I tiled the roof with color coordinating M&M's, mark did the front and a side and I believe Becky did the back and a side (I know she at least did a side for sure) I am pretty sure I also decorated one of the doors and the chimney too. CUTE CUTE! :-D

It was LOTS of fun visiting, SO nice that we didn't have homework, and SO nice to spend that time with Mark's Family. It sure is nice having them so close and getting to spend so much time with them. Family is so important. We were there for a few days there and then high tailed it (SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY DUE TO THE FREEZING RAIN) to the airport and flew off to NM!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! :-D

Getting Gradjeated!

I would like to preface this blog with a CAUTION to all who plan to graduate in the winter semester: RECONSIDER! Especially if you live in the Midwest. I am pretty sure I could feel the blood congealing in my veins. It took all my self control just to walk across the street in my Sunday clothes to go to Marks reception. The boys went and got the car to come pick us up after. They are so brave (I stayed with Marks mom, grandmother, and sister. Moral support. And self preservation) Then we went home and changed before the ceremony. I put on 4 layers of clothes under my dress pants. It was still cold. I can't fathom being one of the people freezing in their dress clothes and flimsy graduation robes moving from the Armory to Elliot Hall. POOR MARK! At least he had pants on. He was still cold. I was REALLY empathetic for the ladies wearing skirts. If I graduate in the winter...I am thinking about not walking. Or, walking in an eskimo suit. Hey, its fashionable.


Mark Pfeil Graduated from Purdue University on December 21, 2008* and was awarded a Bachelors of Science Degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.

Mom, Dad, Uncle Ken, Aunt Lauren, Grandma Pfeil, Becky and I were in attendance.

Yay for our grajeated engineer!! :-D

Since we never did find mark walking in, here is a video of the engineering flag walking in. Its kinnda the same thing :o)


(THIS VIDEO IS NOT WORKING, AND WILL STILL BE POSTED! IT IS MY FAVORITE VIDEO, THE PRESENTATION OF THE GRADUATES, AND YES, IT IS THE VIDEO THAT DID NOT WORK :( very sad :(
I will work on it at campus and see if I can get it to work. SO! more to come! )

HERE IS MARK GETTING HIS DIPLOMA! :-D And, yes, sorry, that is me yelling at the end. I couldn't hold it in. I'm am a yeller. That's why we cant go to nice places ;o)

the handsome graduate!

here are some more pictures of the day! Particularly, pictures of Mark with his parents, grandmother, sister and me! He is so great!


I love this picture :o) And off he goes, into the wild blue yonder, chasing his dreams.

CONGRATULATIONS MARK! WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!


*NOTE: this was our 1 year anniversary! CRAZY!?! Since we spent the day doing graduation stuff, we officially celebrated our anniversary later

Christmas Cookies!

We invited the MJ to come over and decorate gingerbread men! :-D

The idea was that we would take the plates of cookies to members of our branch and sing Christmas carols. We had the words and everything (in english and spanish. Yeah. It was pretty awesome) But! when the moment of truth avrived...we were to scared! Oops! There were only 4 of us and three of us were pretty shy...so, we opted for a hearty "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" instead (or, if you were Zaira, "Happy Christmas!" :-D That was pretty cute). I think at one house we got out a round of "We wish you a merry christmas! ... and a merry new year." It was lots and lots of fun!!

Pictures:
Heather Hill (wonderfully AWESOME MJ president!) is on the lower left, and the lovely girls Ardiana and Zaira are center and far right respectively.


cutting the shapes!
getting ready to bake!

So...it looks like I got all the intermediate pictures, but none of them actually decorated. Oops! I missed the BEST PART!! :o( We were pretty hurried at the end there to get out the door since they didnt come over until, like, oh, 8...so...we were caroling REALLY late. Good thing we knew all the people we were going to go see REALLY well ;o)

The cookies were SO CUTE and we had lots of fun! Its been a while since I decorated with candy, and I only remember that the candy was always "magically" there...[selceted and provided by my mommy or my teacher] so I never thought about it. Since I was an "adult" in this cookie expidition (one of them) I had to select the candy this time. :o) Mark informed me I got some REALLY wierd candies for gingerbread :o) Like skittles. And gummy life savers. And twizlers. How cute he is to think about how they are ACTUALLY going to taste. I was definitley not thinking about the flavor combinations when I bought them. They were just so cute! :o) Thats the important part, right? ;o)

Lets just say when you acutually ate one...it tasted a liiiiiiiiitle odd. Molases and orange skittles. Quite the combination. Mmmm... ;o)

Ice Cream B-D Cake

So. I love making cakes. You really have to twist my arm to make a cake. Oh? Its sunny outside? Better make a cake! Oh? Its gloomy and rainy? Better make a cake! :-D

For the young women in my ward, I love making cakes for their birthdays!! However, school always interferes with my baking ambitions :o( So! This is the cake I made for Lilliana and Jessica Cervantez for their joint birthdays :o) which was late...for both their birthdays...oops!



It has 2 levels of devil's food cake and a level of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. There is also a middle layer of chocolate fudge. We covered it in ganache. They said it was really really yummy!

I was having a pretty hard time getting it to freeze hard in our little little freezer. When I was ganaching it, the cake was melting and sliding all over the place. I had to keep sticking it in to refreeze it. :o( But! it was made with love :o) I made some little fondant flowers and leaves to put on the top. Then, I used the little frosting pens that I had from my aunt...that didnt go over so well. I had to scrape it off twice. So then the ganache looked REALLY bad and spotchey. And it is still off centered and the letters all melded together. But! it was, again, made with love, and the girls said that it was really yummy and THAT is all that REALLY matters :o) Yay! Happy Birthday girls!

Caroling with the MJ!

For a mutual activity, we went Christmas caroling at an assisted living home in West Lafayette. It was really really fun :-D We got requests from the guests who attended our little "concert" and tried our best to sing them (a couple of the songs, we only knew the first line too if it wasn't in our book...oops!) It was really wonderful, and after singing we were able to go around and take people cookies and visit with them. A life is made of memories; it is so special to get a chance to listen to some :o)

Heather (the MJ president) is taking the pictures, and I guess I had a bad setting on the camera, so the pictures are blurry. Here is the caroling!
That is Adriana and Zaira that I am singing with :o)

It was really really fun, and a great experience for the MJ. Their moms had been asking us when we were going to sing again with the "viejitos" :o) I was glad that we were able to go :o)