My brother is coming home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just found out today that my brother gets to come home from Iraq, and he will be staying home for good!!!!!! I am so happy and relieved. He messed up his shoulder pretty bad a couple of weeks ago and they sent him to Germany for testing and he found out today he will be sent stateside tomorrow so they can do surgery. When he is finished with that, his new assignment will be to help the soldiers who come back from Iraq tansition back to civilian life. Ohhhh, I am so happy. This is his 2nd tour over there, and he just had a baby 2 months ago, so this will be so nice for him and his family to be back together again!!!! I am so happy :)

Cinnamon Roll Recipe

So one of our missionaries told us his mom had the best cinnamon roll recipe. So we decided to go ahead and email her to get it and then suprise this missionary on Christmas Day with his mom's cinnamon rolls. He was not kidding!!!!!!! These are the tastiest, softest, most melt-in-your mouthest cinnamon rolls I have EVER eaten!!!!!!!! They are too good to not pass on to everyone who reads this. So here it is. Enjoy

Cinnamon Rolls

1/2 C sugar
1/2 C powdered sugar
1/2 C potato flakes
2 t salt
4 C plus 3 C flour
2 T yeast
1 C butter
3 C water
2 eggs

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Add butter mix slightly then hot water. Mix by hand or with mixer for 4-5 minutes. Dough will be sticky. Add eggs and 3 more cups of flour. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated. DO NOT ADD MORE FLOUR!! Dough will be very sticky.

Let dough raise until double. Dough will be sticky. Roll out onto floured surface into 1 largle rectangle, spread 1 stick of softened butter over dough, spread with 1 cup of granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon. (she uses brown sugar instead) Roll up dough and cut into 24 even slices. Put onto two greased cookie sheets, 12 per sheet. Let raise until double. Bake 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. When cool, frost with frosting.

We haven't ever measured when we make our frosting, so here is a VERY rough guesstimate of it, so please alter it to your tastes. 2 cubes of butter, melted. Approximately 2 cups of powdered sugar. 2 tablespoons of milk, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, and 1 teaspoon of almond extract. Mix it all together and taste. Add more of any of the above ingredients to make it to taste.

So we went out to dinner tonight with my grandparents and parents. It was a nice evening. I have noticed that both my grandparents are getting skinnier and more frail looking, but I haven't really admitted it to anyone, because if I did, then it would mean it were true.....So every time they invite us out, I really want to make it becuase I honestly don't know how much longer they will be around. But tonight as we were sitting there, I couldn't help but notice how skinny and frail my grandma is getting....It makes me sad. I am not looking forward to the inevitable....

Gingerbread Houses

OK, so we finally got to our gingerbread houses. Actually, it was a gingerbread village, but whatever. We got those from my parents probably the first or second week in December, and just did them tonight, haha. Here are the pics of what our creations made, kinda fun!!!

New Year's Eve Dance

So the youth had their New Year's Eve Dance the other day. Here are some cute pics from taht night. The highlight, for me anyway, would have to be human bowling... I was standing with a group of our youth, just talking, when the next thing I know, I am on the floor. This guy comes running in our direction and slipped on some water and his feet slid right into me from the side and I dropped faster than I could say STRIKE! After I picked myself up off the floor, I couldn't stop laughing!!! It was soooooo funny.

The other highlight for my night was when one of my young women got on the microphone and announced to all 500 youth plus leaders that it was my 40th birthday that day. I couldn't believe she did that, but apparently most of the youth were in on it. It wasn't my birthday, and I am not even close to 40! Gotta love the youth!!!!

Christmas Day

Christmas was a fun-filled day at our house. We had most of our family over in addition to the missionaries from our church and a new friend of ours. It was such a fun day having our house filled with lots of people and gifts. I really enjoyed watching my kids open their presents. I had to try and open my gifts really fast when all 3 of my kids were taking a break. It was really nice spending the day with my grandparents and aunt and uncle, becuase we don't see either of them as often as we would like. William is moving back to Utah tomorrow, so it was sure nice to have him around. And we just loved having the missionaries over! I hope we could fill the void of sadness and home-sickness on their part just a little...I know we can't duplicate what they are used to, but I hope they had a fun day.