Christmas at the Kings

We've had a very productive weekend at our house. Not only did I get the first 3 chapters of my research paper completed, but we also completed our Christmas decorations!! Yeah!!! I LOVE CHRISTMAS! I love it for many reasons. I love Christmas because it's a week after my birthday, because I love snow, because Christmas trees are amazing, because I love presents, and because it's Jesus' B-day!

Matt reluctantly (ok, not reluctantly, frankly he was a bit pissed to help me decorate, well at first at least) decorated with me. We headed outside, and I knew it was meant to be when we saw this:

Before pic of our house:

SNOW! (I know it's not much, but I love it!)

Matt putting up the lights

We decided to keep the decorations simple this year, because, we are trying to sell our house after all. For those of you who know me well know that I have an obsession with outdoor decorations. And, I'm not ashamed to admit that I have several blowup yard decorations (ok, so like 6 or 7). =) After many discussions we decided to keep the blowups in the garage for the year, but I did get to do icicle lights and one other decoration... a miniature ski lift that connects to the roof and takes characters up and down the lift, it's way cute, trust me! =)

Here is the final look of our house:

And here is the ski lift:

Before:

And our Christmas tree:

(which caused a few curse words from Mr. King because it is a pre-lit tree and several sections would not light up this year, and it's maybe just a bit crooked, but I still love it!)

Our living room:

And MY VILLAGE! My friends say I'm 70 for having a village but I think it's amazing. So far I have the church, with a couple outside on the steps in their wedding attire, a house with a family outside unloading the Christmas tree off of the top of the car, a tree that has carolers all around it, an ice skating rink that lights up has six moving ice skaters!!! A ski lodge that lights up and has a man and woman walking up the steps, and my favorite... a ski slope that has people skiing up and down the slope. And I know I have a few more coming this year from my mom, yes.. she's really not good about keeping secrets.

And a final note to my husband: (that's still weird to see, ha!)

Thank you for making our house a Christmas Wonderland, I love it!!! And thanks for climbing up the shaky ladder and freezing your hands to get the icicles perfectly straight. And thank you also for helping me rearrange the village 7 times before I decided it was perfect. =)

And the last picture... Junie being stinking cute!

painting and magic!

Keri was back for the week and you know what that means... quality time with the fam! We went to Picasso's on Main Street to paint some pottery for my dad. Keri had given him a bowl a few years ago that she had painted and he had also seen all of the awesome cups that everyone painted for my bachelorette party in March, so he decided that he wanted a whole set of painted dishes!

So on Friday when I had the day off of school we headed downtown to start our painting fiasco, with the plan of finishing the rest of the dishes over Christmas break when Keri is home again. Dad decided that he wanted big plates, little plates, and bowls. The funny part of this whole story is that Dad really thought that it would take ten minutes to paint each piece. So when he showed up to start helping us and 30 minutes later he was STILL working on this fine plate :

I didn't feel bad, because now he will actually appreciate all of our hard work!

Here is Dad and Keri working:

Matt & I working hard:

Some of our final pieces!

A plate that Matt painted, if you look close it spells out I- O- W- A in a very artistic way!



My last and favorite plate! (In honor of Wilson, Dad's awesome dog that Grandpa & I picked out when he was out of town a few years ago!)

After painting on Friday it was time to gear up for the Hawks game on Saturday. It was the only game of the season that we went to and, if you have seen any highlights on ESPN, it was the BEST game of the year!!!! However, it was absolutely freezing! We had hand warmers, blankets, long underwear, sweatshirts, coats, hats, and gloves! We had assumed the game would be a blowout so I had mentally prepared myself to only have to sit though half or MAYBE 3/4 of the game. I was wrong, but that's ok because the game was awesome!

Here is a section from The Des Moines Register:

No way, said Iowa's Daniel Murray, 45 minutes after making the biggest field goal of his life.

"I knew I was going to make it," he said after his 31-yard kick with 1 second to play resulted in Saturday's 24-23 upset of third-ranked Penn State and turned Kinnick Stadium into a mosh pit - twice.

Fans stormed the field immediately after the game-winner, and then were shooed away as Iowa still had to kick off. They came out again, this time for the real post game party, after Hawkeye Bruce Davis recovered the short boot.

"Biggest win in Hawkeye history? Who knows," said defensive tackle Mitch King, on the field for nearly 36 minutes of the 60-minute game. "Let's just say this is something I'll remember as long as I'm alive."

This is believed to have at least equaled the biggest upset in Iowa football history, according to the rankings.

And for the record, yes, the Leymaster family did join in for the rushing of the field! (Ha, sort of that is. We went out about 5 minutes after the real surge of people... but we were still out there.)

Here are some pictures from the game.

Evan (Keri's best friend) & Keri

Keri & Dad

Mom & I

Matt & I

The winning field goal kick!!!

After the game, see the scoreboard?!? Way cool!