Christmas fun

It has been such a fun Christmas holiday. We have just been hanging out spending time together as a family. Yesterday Jim and I helped the kids make a sledding hill in the backyard.

Yes, Jim is in shorts. He always wears shorts!

The boys have been having fun with their remote control cars, especially on our hardwood floors.


Jim is excited to have all of his favorite team pennants that his sister sent him for Christmas. We hung them up in his office next to his bowling trophies. I bet you didn't know Jim is a really good bowler!

Merry Christmas

This has been a crazy holiday season for us. I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't send out Christmas cards this year. I don't feel too bad though because I have only received six, three of which were from family. That means only three of our friends are more on top of it than I am. LOL!
This has been a good year for us, it hasn't all been easy, but we have been blessed and are truly grateful for what we have. We are so grateful for this season when we get to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the knowledge that even in this world of turmoil, we can have hope. We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Christopher earned his bear

Christopher earned his Bear for Cub Scouting. We are so proud of him! It was a lot of hard work, but he got it all done, plus a gold and two silver arrowpoints.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Here are a few of our Christmas decorations. It is so fun to try new things in a new house.

We didn't have a fireplace at our old house, and even though we don't dare burn any wood in this one until we get the chimney cleaned, it has been fun to decorate.

I also have a banister which I love that I can hang garland on.

One of our traditions during the holdays is to put together puzzles. Caleb loves them the most. He has put together this puzzle several times already and doesn't seem to get tired of it. We buy new puzzles every year to put together as a family. Big and small, from 100-1,000 pieces.

Katrina wanted to do a holiday craft the other day, so I got out these ceramic ornaments for her to paint. The boys also painted some. I had them write their names on them so that some day when they have trees of their own, they will have some hand made ornaments to remind them of their childhood.

I have a tuna can ornament from kindergarten with a picture of me inside the can and a gliterry drawing of a Christmas tree on the back. I still hang it on the tree every year for sentimental reasons. Do any of you have ornaments like that?

Thanksgiving Road Trip

This Thanksgiving we decided to make a road trip to California to surprise Jim's family. Can you say numb bum?? It started raining 3 hours from home and continued to rain the next 11 hours of our drive. We got there really late Wednesday night and came home Saturday.
14 wet hours to get there and 10 1/2 sunny hours to get back home with 2 days of fun with family and good food in between.


Because of Katrina's injury, she got to ride stretched out on the middle seat. We took a bunch of those squeeze and shake ice packs for her to put on her ankle while we drove. P.S. We found out Monday that it isn't broken afterall, but it is a stage 2 severe sprain which is treated as if it were broken. She will still be in a cast for the next 4-6 weeks. Bummer!

It was so worth it to have a fun time with family, eat good food, and get one sunny day (which happened to be the day we drove home).

Here are the Karper boys. Jim, his dad, his brother Pat, Christopher and Caleb. No resemblance there, huh?

And, of course, no trip would be complete without several stops at In-N-Out.


We also made our mandatory trip to Rosa Maria's for 25 burritos to bring back and a stop at Rite Aid for Thrifty's Rocky Road and Butter Pecan ice cream. I am ashamed to say that I ate a whole garbage burrito plus half of a relleno burrito for lunch on Friday. Oh man, it was SO GOOD!