'twas the night before christmas....

christmas eve was full of family and fun and lots of traditions.

one of our christmas eve traditions is a simple easy dinner of chicken strips and french fries on paper plates (easy clean up!). it drives my mom crazy every year because she wants a fancy dinner, but we all rally together and have won the battle year after year. it IS tradition, after all.

martinelli's is always on the menu.

cheers!

recreating the story of the birth of Christ

the night was finished out with garrett putting on a dance concert for us.
this kid has moves.

my favorite tradition we have that i didnt get pictures of, is we draw names and have to make that person a gift instead of buying it. we open these presents christmas eve so they dont get lost in the shuffle of the presents on christmas morning.
when you get married, you get kicked out of the rotation, so me and cosmo made presents for eachother and joined them when they were exchanging their homemade presents. i made cosmo a carrying case for his crokinole board (awesome canadian game if you havnt heard of it, come play with us!!) and he gave me markers with a dry erase picture of himself with his hair gone, so i could do his hair however i wanted, since i am always trying to groom him. cosmo is a little creepy looking bald, but it made me laugh!

i love this time of year spent with family.
it cant get much better then this.

happy hip day!

yesterday marked the one year anniversary of cosmo breaking his hip while snowboarding.

so to celebrate, he went to solitude to go snowboarding with his brothers.

i was not thrilled.

but he promised to "take it easy" and i have to admit, he looks pretty hot snowboarding...

he said the snow was perfect powder

david, cosmo, and trent

david, trent and cosmo on the lift

he came back in one piece, a little sore, but no broken bones this time.

which made me happy, and as we know, thats the most important thing...

away in a manger

its a tradition in our family that once you get married, my grandma hand paints you your own nativity set. i have watched my mom set hers up on top of the piano year after year since i was little, and it is one of my favorite things about christmas.

i never thought the day would come that i would get mine, so literally one of the first things out of my mouth after cosmo proposed was- "yes!! i FINALLY get my nativity set!!!" (this is a true story. cosmo can vouch for me)

i was so excited to get it this christmas and it was one of my favorite gifts received.

after we opened it and unwrapped all of the figures, cosmo was comparing it to my parents set and realized that we didnt have a camel like theirs. my grandma kindly told him that only some of the first sets made had camels because she hasnt been able to find them. cosmo then so kindly told her that he would not be satisfied until we had a camel.

i figured it was a friendly argument that was shrugged aside and forgotten about, but when ken and delaina came down later for christmas, they brought a small package for cosmo. he opened it and there was our camel.

he apparently opened a flood gate because now everyone else wants one too...

sorry grandma.....

but thank you so much for our nativity set! it means so much to me and i will treasure it forever! especially cosmo's camel.

holy crap! its christmas time!

merry belated christmas from the krummenachers

its been a busy busy month, so here is a recap of things we enjoyed in the month of december:

FAMILY:

for family night before christmas we had a little family christmas party.

it started at our house with steve's krazy subs for dinner, then we drove around in the rain and looked at christmas lights and ended up at greg and brooke's house for dessert.

garrett, brodie, and cosmo checking under the christmas tree.

(i LOVE this picture!!)

delaina and ken

brooke, greg, julia and angela

alisha and brodie, michael, erika and my nephew garrett

dad, mom and ken

EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT:
cosmo painted the frames gray and got pictures to put in them. he made the frame to go around all of the pictures and painted the shelf that holds our last name. i love it! homemade presents are the best! i got it early so my family could see it up while they were here.

FRIENDS:
one of my really good friends "genius mike"
he was visiting from cali where he is a hoity toity recording engineer at bomb shelter studios (look it up!) and its always rad to see him
"...i got a $20 bill...."

watching the UFC fight.
i'm not talking about the outcome once again....

dinner at some fancy schmancy pizza place: la grande orange pizzeria (but say it with a french accent) with dick and erica

dick and cosmo trying out some new root beer

erica, sean, and lafe roasting marshmallows (notice lafe's burly man beard)

lafe and bea had a christmas party with DELICIOUS hungarian food that bea made and then we made smores on lafe's outdoor fire place. i wish i had taken more pictures that night because we had a lot of fun!! thanks lafe and bea!

cosmo playing with bubbles in lafe's backyard...

this is why i love him.

BAKING:

cosmo cutting out sugar cookies for our nursery kids.

(for those that dont know, me and cosmo are nursery leaders... can you believe they trust us with kids?!)

look what we did!! i dont mean to toot my own horn, but we are so nice. except who knew 2 year olds went to bed at 8:30!? apparently we didnt... oops.

cosmo's creation: they are peanut butter rice krispie treats dipped in chocolate. and dont worry, he meticulously placed each little speck of holly on each one.

my holiday wreaths. basically rice krispie treats with corn flakes instead of rice krispies and green food coloring. spectacular.

*WHEW* so that was a quick overview..

christmas eve and christmas day to soon follow.....

a new addition to the family

while aimlessly wandering around michaels, something we like to do in our spare time (even though cosmo will never admit that he secretly loves that store), cosmo ran across this little gem.

at first glance you might think to yourself- 'whats so special about a nutcracker??'

oooh but look closer.

this is no ordinary nutcracker.

this is a MONKEY PIRATE nutcracker.

how could we pass up this wonderful opportunity to have such a find in our home!?!

meet pagota the monkey pirate nutcracker.

yes, we named him.

pagota is currently standing under our tree guarding all of our presents.
who would want to steal presents with this staring you in the face?!
i hope he doesnt scare off santa....

aww...nothing says christmas like a monkey pirate nutcracker...

pick one up at your local michaels store.

the transformation

it started out as part of a halloween costume, but halloween came and went and the beard and hair stayed....and got longer, and longer, and longer.....

i knew he had had it for too long when i actually started liking it.

last week my dreams came true when he decided to shave and get a haircut.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

he looks like a little boy! i love it!

so what does everyone think? before? or after?

pass the turkey please

this post is a few weeks late, but its been busy. tis the season.

thanksgiving was spent in st george utah with cosmo's family. it was nice to get out of the heat and to catch up with his family.

i'm still getting used to this 'spending the holidays without your family' thing.....

cosmo and his brother trent.

when cosmo isnt all beardy, they look pretty similar. i think trent got a few butt smacks from me thinking he was cosmo... oops...
jenn #2 and jenn #1.
this is trent's wife jenn. of course we both go by jenn with 2 n's and since she was here before me, she gets to be jenn #1 and i'm #2. it makes for fun times. she just passed her BAR which makes me feel very unaccomplished figuring she's just a few months older then me...

eva (trent and jenn's daugher) and cosmo playing in the park.
i'm convinced that she hates me. she's way way too cool for school.

the day after thanksgiving cosmo and his dad and brother's went golfing
left to right: jeff (cosmo's dad), todd, trent, brett, cosmo, and david. eva sneaked into the front