Happy Holidays!

We hope you all had a great holiday. I thought I would update you all a bit more! Scroll down further to see Lee's post for Christmas. Cal decided to add one more injury to his repertoire before the year was out. We also found a place to live in Johnson City. Check out pictures for both on Lee's blog.

Saturday was a great day weather wise! In the afternoon we enjoyed playing outside with the volleyball and other toys.





Saturday morning we went to the Erwins. They are in my parents ward. The Erwins have a few acres with their house, along with a pond! With all our moving Clark has had time to explore Grandpa & Grandma's garage. He found the fishing poles and said he wanted to go. Grandpa got some Canadian night crawlers for us and we enjoyed fishing and visiting. (Thanks for doing all the dirty work Dad!) We weren't as brave as my nephew Jon though. He'll catch the fish and bring them to my parents' home and eat them too! We caught them and threw them back. One little fella didn't make it back though. Steph beat us all by catching 5 fish! I caught one about 15 minutes before we left. We all caught at least one fish each. (Except for the babies of course.)




Jeff & Lois Heit (Lois is my sis)

Andy & Steph Gerla (Steph is my sis)

We enjoyed ourselves at the Lake Benson Park in Garner. Clark & Cal played and all of us went on a walk. We even saw a white deer! Possibly albino? (Well, I think it is.) We are also able to fit 4 kids in a double stroller! Pretty amazing. You come up with crazy things when you have 4 little ones. A few days before Christmas I was multi-tasking by holding a baby, sewing and talking on the phone all at once!

Us with Uncle Sam minus the girls

Cal snuck in some chocolate cake before breakfast this morning.

Back to the park...more pictures!






You may be wondering why Cal had access to delicious chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce that Lee made for me? It was my birthday on Sunday! (Thanks for the recipe Gianetta!) We saved a peice for Steph and Andy. They didn't get home till midnight though, and starting watching It's a Miracle. But because of the delightful humor and catchy tunes of that movie, I think they completely forgot about their saved dessert. (But the son in the movie remembered to boil his eggs!)

This recipe is from Gianetta Schauerhamer. To transform the cake into a more decadent dessert, serve with a quick and easy chocolate sauce. Melt chocolate chips and whipping cream together in a saucepan on medium heat. Stir constantly until smooth and serve it over the cake. Milk might work too for making the sauce, but I've only tried this simple chocolate sauce with cream. Hey, it's the holidays! If we didn't gain a little weight, there'd be no new year resolutions!

Creamy Devil's Food Cake


1 pkg. Devil's food cake mix
1 (3 oz.) pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1/3 c warm water
1/2 c oil
1/2 pint sour cream
12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet)

Mix cake mix and pudding mix together (dry). Add all wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into greased bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Cool. Turn out of pan and garnish with powdered sugar.