Watching a bowl game is tiring

Kyle's little brother Mark played in a bowl game this year, the Armed Forces bowl, against Army.  While SMU did well, they didn't quite win.  We were all able to go in support of Mark and the team.  No stellar pictures of the event, but you can tell how much it wore Zoe out, keeping up with all the action:

Christmas 2011

Zoe insists that the newly created

Lego creature is part of the family Christmas photo

We spent Christmas this year at Grandma and Grandpa's house, finishing up with a small celebration at home. We drove all the way there, but Zoe was well rewarded upon arrival.

 hot cocoa is plentiful and Grandma & Grandpa's

 Zoe shows Grandma some new bread-baking tricks

We were also rewarded with pentiful snow and col weather.  The snow only stuck for a few days, but Zoe enjoyed playing in the little bit we had.  Grandma won pretty much all of the snowball fights.  That's what growing up in Wisconsin will get you.

a new train!

plentiful bounty

new cape, skirt, and bear

 We took a few hikes up in the woods to check out the bugs and sticks and stones.

An enjoyable holiday break!

We have floors!

So awesome! And I think Zoe agrees:

Our floors (laminate wood-look primarily, with linoleum in the laundry) have been installed, and the house trimmed out. Painting soon, then plumbing fixtures installed. I am SO RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY to have that awful carpet gone. It's been in the house since we purchased it 7 or so years ago, we've power-cleaned it probably three or four times, but it was still so disgusting. You just can't keep that stuff clean with animals around. I'd much rather have area rugs that I can remove from the house to have professionally cleaned, or, worst case, gotten rid of if need be.

You may notice spots for TVs -

care to donate one?

Just kidding, of course.

Maybe.

Insulation, breaking through, and sheetrock

We finally have one big connected house. The exterior doors arrived, allowing us to insulate and put up sheetrock, as well as bust a whole through Zoe's old bedroom and into the new hallway. The 'new house' has heating piped to it, but the ducts are closed off right now to (supposedly - ha!) prevent too much dust from getting into the 'old house.' In reality, there is dust everywhere: our couches need constant vacuuming, floors dusting, return air filters changing. Soon, though, the new floor will be in place, which should cut down on the dust drastically. Looking forward to that point, when this will really start to feel like a complete house, instead of two different parts.

Mo is old

For my birthday this year, Kyle and Zoe made a donation to the Missouri state board of tourism, and in exchange got these wonderful t-shirts: