Another Christmas?!!

As if three Christmases weren't enough...Eric, Wendy, Amora, and I rented a car and drove down to Medford to have a 4th Christmas with my mom and little brother. Needless to say, the trip revolved around Amora.

Jeremy loved spending time with his niece. He would have made such a good big brother!

I don't know what they were all looking at, but Eric got his third car kit! I guess everyone was thinking the same thing.

Jeremy was very proud of his gift to Eric, and Eric liked it!!

Jeremy doesn't get a lot of brother time, so it was cute watching them bond.

Typical pose for the three of us.

I love my sissy kins!!

If one picture could sum up our family...

oReGoN tRiP

The day after Christmas Eric and I hopped on a plane to Oregon to have Christmas #3 at my dad's house. There are always a ton of people there for Christmas with my siblings, step-siblings, and their kids. This year was VERY chaotic. Presents were being opened left and right and there was no keeping track of what was going on. It was crazy.

Even though Christmas was a day late, Santa didn't forget about us. He made a surprise appearance. My sisters and I got to take our annual picture on Santa's lap in matching Christmas shirts.

Eric felt left out because he didn't have a matching shirt, so he bought himself a nice festive one to wear.
These are my two favorite tiny people:
Amora wearing her new headband I got her. It took awhile for her to get used to it, but I think she looks so cute in it!

A lot of kids are afraid of Santa, but not Billy. He walked right up to Santa waiting for his chocolate.

Sisterly love!

First Christmas Together!!

Eric and I were finally able to spend Christmas together this year! Yay for being married. We had our own little Christmas in our apartment that morning. Santa was nice enough to get us Wii Fit! For weeks I joked that every present under the tree for me was the Wii Fit but I had NO IDEA! I'm glad to know that Santa supports our New Year's Resolution of getting fit and healthy.

Like every year, the first thing we did when we woke up on Christmas morning was look in the stockings!!

After Christmas in the apartment, we headed over to the Walker house. It was a different experience for me. I've never had Christmas away from my family. Not only that, but I can't remember a time that I've had Christmas with all my siblings and both my parents in the same room like Eric gets to have every year. I look forward to many more years of that.

I don't think the Walker side of the family is as big on pictures as the Kooistra's, so I felt too awkward to take pictures every second like I normally would. But here's a couple pics of the gang.



After opening presents Holly, Eric, and I had a blast playing Super Mario Brothers for HOURS. Thanks for all the presents everyone!!

Another Tradition?

This being our first Christmas together, Eric and I didn't have very many decorations to put on the tree. However, we did have an ornament decorating kit that I got on sale last year after Christmas. I thought, "Hey, this would make a great tradition. We can do something crafty AND increase our ornament collection!" After seeing the end product, I may have to reconsider.

Eric started decorating the snowman. Why is it blue? I don't know. When he finished coloring he said, "Why did I make it blue?!" At least it's unique!! Great job Eric.

I didn't have a lot to work with when I decorated my ornament. It was just so round and empty. We never found a first Christmas ornament that we liked so I tried to make it relate to that. Nevertheless, I'm still set on buying one.

So should we keep trying to decorate every year or just give up!?! I don't know.

Holiday Cheer

After two long and stressful weeks, Eric and I are finally done with the semester and finals. We have no idea what our grades will be like. I have senioritis and really don't care if I get A's right now. I just want to be done with school forever!! One more semester to go. If only Eric were that lucky...he still has years ahead of him.

Work has been pretty crazy with the holidays. You'd think people would be nicer this time of year but NOPE! Now that school isn't consuming all of my time, I don't know what to do with my free time. Luckily my friend Sara told me to write a blog post or I might be going crazy right now.

Last year Eric and I made cookies for Halloween and this year Halloween passed by before we knew it, so we made some pretty awesome Christmas cookies.

Of course, Eric started eating the cookies before we were done decorating them.

Here are some of the finished products.

Eric's attention span is pretty short...he left me to decorate the rest of the cookies. Then I told Eric he could only eat the cookies he decorated :) That left me with a lot more!!

Last weekend Eric and I decorated gingerbread houses with our friends Ruby and Brett. Here we are with our little house.


You may be wondering what that white and red clump is. We seem to have a murder scene on our gingerbread house every year. This year the snowman was the unlucky one. His head got shot off.

Here's Ruby and Brett with their house. It was Ruby's first time making a gingerbread house!

Unfortunately, their frosting sucked and the house slowly started falling apart...sad day.

Christmas is only a few days away! It doesn't feel like Christmas to me AT ALL. I'm so glad Eric and I did most of our shopping the day after Thanksgiving so we don't have to stress too much before the holidays. I'm not that excited for Christmas just because it doesn't feel like Christmas, but I am super excited to go to Oregon the day after and see my family and have a week away from school AND work.

It's That Time of Year Again

We LOVE Christmas!! On Wednesday we bought a Christmas tree and decorations. We couldn't even wait until after Thanksgiving before setting it up. We couldn't figure out how to get the pole to stick in the stand for the longest time, but luckily Eric used his brain power and got it to work.


The tree is growing!! (Ignore the birthday balloons coming out of Eric's head. They like to follow him around the apartment)

Eric started putting the lights on the tree...

and then I took over because I'm such an expert!

After the ornaments and candy canes were hung on the tree, Eric topped it off with the star.

Here's the tree all lit up. The star flashes green and blue. We're not quite sure why it doesn't flash green and red...but whatever.

We love our very first tree!!

The Big 2-4

That's right everyone, Eric is officially 24 years old. Last Monday was his actual birthday so we spent the evening with the family eating dinner, having cake and ice cream, and opening presents. His birthday request was to have funfetti cake!

Here's the birthday boy ready to take on the world!

All the siblings checking out the Noah's Ark puzzle that Eric got for his birthday.

He got Monopoly City. It swipes credit cards instead of paying with cash. If anyone wants to play it with us then give us a ring!

Eric's been talking about Nutcrackers nonstop so I had to fulfill his wish and get him one. I made sure to get a green one since that's his FAVORITE color.

And last but not least, he got Super Smash Brothers. He's wanted that game for quite some time. He wouldn't stop playing it the next few days.

GREAAAAT News.

The other day Eric was opening his mail and there was a letter from the chiropractic college he plans to attend. What did this letter say? We get free money!! Not actual money, but Eric got a scholarship! What made this even more surprising is the fact that Eric never applied for any scholarships. He was recommended by his admissions advisor (who just loves us because we're so lovable, right?) and the scholarship will be covering a quarter of his tuition. I don't know if all of you devoted readers understand how big of a deal this is, but that's over $24,000!! We are pretty dang excited.

Needless to say, Eric is definitely going to attend college in Kansas. We plan on moving after he is done with his summer semester at BYU (at the end of August). It looks like everything is going perfect. Let's just hope Eric passes all his classes!! :)

New Moon!!

Eric's birthday is today!! Yay. He is getting pretty old...24. My big surprise was a party for Eric with all of his friends on Friday night. For the surprise, I told him we were going to see the new movie New Moon with our friend Taylor. The original plan was we would go to his parents house to pick up some candy and soda, but his mom had a better scheme. She told Eric her work had free tickets for the movie and he could pick up the tickets before the movie on Friday night. He totally bought everything we told him throughout the week, but once we got to his parents' house, we couldn't get Eric downstairs where all his friends were waiting to yell "surprise!" I asked him to get us some sodas for the movie but he was being very difficult and told me to do it. His mom was searching the entire house looking for fake tickets to give him and Eric was joining in on the search. After what seemed like forever, Eric went downstairs...

I completely forgot to take pictures during the party but we had a lot of fun. There was excellent food (thanks to Eric's mommy), poker, wii, pool, and Jenga. Thanks to everyone who helped out and showed up!

Eric was very excited and extremely surprised about the party, but a little sad that we weren't going to the movies. I was sad too. But not to worry, we made it to New Moon the next night with Blake and Kim. It was Eric's birthday present from them :) How sweet!! Thanks you guys! And yes, the movie was AWESOME. I will be adding to my collection once it comes out on video.

Eric and I doing our "excited to see New Moon" face.

Blake and Kim's excited faces!!

What Happens in Vegas...

A little over a week ago Eric and I had the opportunity to meet up with my sister Audrey and her friend Derek in Vegas! How could we pass that up? It was my first time in Vegas and we had a blast on our little weekend getaway!

I had quite a few firsts on this trip. It was my first time:
1. going to Vegas
2. gambling (shhh...don't tell my parents)
3. going to Cirque du Soleil (very cool)
4. to the top of the Eiffel Tower (it was freezing but an amazing view)
5. seeing the water show
6. getting a 400% return on an investment (at the penny slots!)
7. seeing Elvis in person
8. watching Eric try on jewelry
9. seeing such a happy tree!
10. riding in a cab (some of the drivers are really creepy)

That's all I can think of at the moment. Enjoy the pictures from our trip!

This is HALLOWEEN...

The Sunday before Thanksgiving we carved pumpkins at Eric's parents' house. Then we got sick and have had a bunch of midterms so I haven't had time to blog this yet. Better late then never!

This is Eric carving his pumpkin.

His mom helped him put ears on. Yes, his pumpkin has ears.

Lauren and Mark. There's Holly in the background! Eric's dad was sick with the swine flu :(

The finished product! We are excellent carvers.

Note: Eric's expression is like his pumpkin's.

My pumpkin.

Eric's pumpkin all lit up. The teeth looked awesome!

My sad little pumpkin didn't have a real candle in it so it wasn't very bright.

And then my camera died so that's all the pictures I have!