HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I hope everyone is having a joyous Thanksgiving and that there is at least the option of turkey even if the main dish is lasagna.



Maybe we could each share something we are thankful for even if we don't get to it today. I'll start. I'm thankful for the supportive family that I had the good fortune of marrying into. There is rarely a cross word and there is always a fun time to be had when we're together. It's great to know that you all are here for us when we need you and I hope that you can say the same for us. Please join in the thankfulness and enjoy your tryptophan comas.

Quick update

Just thought I'd let you guys know where we are with the house. We are actually in limbo right now. We have everything lined up on our side, but we never got the title work from the seller's title company. So yesterday we finally got ahold of someone at the auction house who knows what's going on and is aware that it's not our fault that we can't close by tomorrow. We are hoping that she will be able to extend the closing date out for us so we can still buy the house. If she can't, we will get our deposit back and we guess the house will go back up for auction again. So we'll let you know when we hear more. Thanks for your prayers. Keep it up :).

Christmas for Grandpa and Grandma

Speaking of Grandpa and Grandma, Kendall is collecting money from us siblings (don't any of you expect to contribute because it is all taken care of) to purchase a digital picture frame for them. What he has asked us, and we are asking you, is to send him three of your favorite digital pictures of your family to be included on the picture frame when he gives it to them for Christmas. If you will send me the pictures, I will compile them with ones from us and send them to him. Just think, the next time you visit them after Christmas, you will be able to see your lovely families with all your cousins' lovely families floating through the frame. What a treat!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for your help.

The Great Train Ride

I wish I had taken pictures this weekend...but sometimes you are just having so much fun you forget. This past Friday Noah and I took the train up to a city just outside Chicago to visit our friend from EFY and her husband. We didn't even stay a full 24 hours, but we had a great time. We went to her sister's Super Saturday and below are pictures of the things that I made. I am soo excited to display them in my house when we decorate for Christmas, I am pretty proud of them...they're simplicity is deceiving, they were actually very time consuming.

The train ride went fine, for all of you who are wondering. It wasn't very fun, but it went okay. It was a 4 hour train ride and it was just Noah and me. Noah did fine, not super fussy even though it was pretty late both rides. I honestly just felt bad for the boy because all he wanted to do was crawl around and explore, but, of course, I couldn't let him. He was also super tired but it was too bright, too many noises and people to watch. But everybody thought he was so cute that they kept him entertained by making faces at him-that was actually very nice for me. We came home Saturday night so that I could be at church today to lead the choir in practice. All in all, it was a good trip and I was glad to see our friend...but I was very happy to be back with my hubby.

FYI: We will be in Michigan Thursday evening!!! 3 days until we leave!!! Needless to say I am SUPER EXCITED!

Good Winter Recipes

Winter is settling in here in Michigan. Does anyone have any good winter recipes to share? I always make more chili and bean soup in the winter but I'd love to add something comforting to our repertoire. I've liked all of the other recipes we've shared on here before. I'll try to think of something to post myself soon.

Thanks, Hillary!

When Mom and Dad came in September, they brought this ExerSaucer with them from Hillary. At first, Noah wasn't too interested in it, but now that he is using his legs more and he has the urge to stand more, it has become one of his favorite toys. It has also become a favorite with our friend's kids too. So, thank you, Hillary-you can tell how much he loves it.

Did you know???

Grandma recorded a bunch of stories from her life and I have been typing them up over the last, um, lots of months. I recently realized that if I am going to complete my goal and have them finished by Christmas, I need to get cracking! Today I spent over 2 hours listening and typing, and have learned some new things about our dear grandmother, and thought you all might be interested. Here they are:

Did you know...

1. the first time Grandma had electricity was on her farm and it was powered by a windmill? Her dad hooked up a windmill to a battery, waited until several batteries were fully charged, and then hooked them up to their house for light. They just had single light bulbs dangling from the ceiling.

2. Grandma's Uncle Jess was killed at 24 when he was playing a game called "stick horse?" He apparently tried to jump over a broom handle, landed on it, it pierced his backside and went into his intestines. He immediately came down with an infection and died shortly thereafter.

3. Grandma cheered for the Brooklyn Dodgers?

4. at one time they had TEN people living in their tiny, four-room house? Her mother and father, brother and sister, her Uncle Loren and his three kids, and one of her uncles. Whew! Imagine cramming all those people into four small rooms--just two bedrooms, a kitchen and living/dining room. (And we think apartment living is bad...)

5. they used to cut chunks of ice from the lake in the winter and keep it in an ice house, insulated by straw and hay, for use in the summer? Grandma said she had delicious homemade ice cream many times from ice from the ice house. (It reminded my of Bye Bye Birdie.)

Isn't all this interesting?!?! I have really enjoyed learning about Grandma, especially from her perspective. This project has been wonderful. Thanks, Mom, for the idea!

Snow!

It snowed for the first time this season yesterday. Of course the lawn in back is covered with leaves that haven't been taken care of. That's what happened last year too. Maybe it will dry up enough to be able to mow them before the next snow hits. Dad talked to Grandma last night (and so did Jana, Grandma said), anyway, I just want you to know that she and Grandpa are both doing fine. Dad's in the middle of his class and is feeling stressed. He's still employed, which is nice in this time of uncertainty. He doesn't know what will happen at the end of the year, maybe nothing. We're just living day by day and hoping for the best. We look forward to Thanksgiving when we'll get to see everyone, except Jana who will be going West young man (and old idiom). It will be fun to be together.

Check out the house we bought

Alright, to walk you through the pictures, so you know what you are looking at, first we start with the master bedroom which is on the main level. Then we move into the master bath. Don't you just love the built in jacuzzi tub? (not! we will actually be taking that out eventually) Then we move into the family room. The fireplace is a see through into the living room on the other side. The next room is a random smaller room off of the master and the family room, next to the dining room. We had contemplated making this another bedroom so everyone could have their own room, but Makayla and Chelsea want to share so we aren't going to worry about it. We'll probably just make this an extension of the family room. The next room is the dining room, the one with Makayla in the picture. Don't you just love that wall paper? (yuck!) We'd like to build the wall back between the dining room and that random room and put a pocket door there. We'd also like to put in a door wall off the dining room with some nice french doors and build a deck off the back of the house (of course this is way in the future). The next room is the kitchen. Whoever designed it sucked because that half wall is right in the middle of the room and totally cuts it up. We will definitely be changing the set-up of the kitchen as soon as we can. What's weird is that they actually used marble counter top too with particle board cupboards. I have no idea why you would use such expensive stuff with crap cupboards like they have. Next we have the another random room off the other side of the kitchen. We'd probably use this one as a pantry/den. Then there is the bathroom off the garage. There is a stand up shower in there with really nice tile, it just needs to be grouted and the there are laundry hook-ups in this bathroom too so we won't have to have the laundry in the basement (yeah!). Then the picture of Chelsea is the living room and the stairs lead to the upper floor. There are four bedrooms upstairs. I'm sorry that two of the bedrooms turned out dark. They really aren't that nice to look at anyway. The bathroom upstairs needs a lot of work. The floor, toilet and sink are all new, but the tub look like it might fall through the floor. So we'll have to address that issue at some point. We aren't sure how quick though if the other bathrooms function well enough. The last picture is of the view down the hall, to the bedrooms, from the top of the stairs. There are two bedrooms on the front of the house and two on the back, with the bathroom in the middle of the two in the back. I hope I've described it well enough. I will enjoy comparing these pictures to the new pictures as we fix the house. I think it will look so much nicer once we're finished with it.

Picture catch-up

I finally got a converter to download my pictures with. Here are some pictures I've been waiting to show everyone.
http://picasaweb.google.com/hillaryahicks/ErwinSTrip092708#
http://picasaweb.google.com/hillaryahicks/Harvey1stBDay102508#
http://picasaweb.google.com/hillaryahicks/HalloweenPic1008#

Does anyone know how to make a word be the link to the photo album? I figured I'd ask instead of waste my time trying to figure it out by myself.

We won the house!

We went to the auction today to try to buy that house we put an offer on. We won the bid. We are pretty excited! Now we just have to get the paper work going for a mortgage because the closing deadline is Nov. 26th. We have to wait 7 to 10 business days for the bank to approve our bid and then we can close. We are hoping to get as much paper work finished as we can before we hear back from the bank so it won't take as long to close once we hear whether or not they accept the bid. Chances are good that they will accept, but we still have to wait. Then we have to pray that the house appraises for what we need the mortgage for which is $67,200. We actually bid $64,000, but there was a 5% auction fee tacked on top of that. So we are hoping to be new home owners by the day after Thanksgiving. This month will probably be a whirlwind of paperwork and stuff. Keep us in your prayers, please. :D

Another First for Noah-Halloween!

Look how much a like we look

This year, obviously, was Noah's first Halloween and I would only rate it as a 6 and only that much because we have awesome friends who have cute kids that are older and more fun to play with. But Noah made an adorable lion and we had a lot of fun going to a lot of activities-we actually whimped out on some because we were Halloweened out. You've seen the pictures before that we took at the YMCA Halloween festival but click here to see pictures from the ward party and trunk and treating that SAA (the organization I'm a part of) put on. We almost went to down town Kirksville to their little festival, but Noah was tired and he can't really participate. Next year will be a lot more fun, I'm sure of it-but we still had a good time. And we did even go trick or treating with my friend Megan and her kids and got some candy, but I felt like we were cheating because the people at the door had to know the candy was for us and not Noah. Oh well!

trick or treating

I'm glad you like the new background. Now I just have to change the picture in the upper corner. Here are a few pictures of us going trick or treating with our friends. The trick or treating here was pretty disappointing, only every fourth or fifth house participated, so that stunk. Oh well, Addie seemed to have fun, and we enjoyed eating her candy (except the suckers, she LOVED the suckers!). I just read the comments from our last post and I think it's great that the Hicks went real trick or treating! Doing trunk or treats at the church doesn't even compare!

Oh, and yes, Mom, we're off to Idaho November 22nd until the 30th. Jason's sister, Gemarie, is getting married the Saturday after Thanksgiving so we'll be helping with her reception. It will be VERY VERY crowded in their house that week, but should be lots of fun!

New background

Nice background Jana. It's very Fall and Thanksgivingish. Are you and Jason and Addie going to Idaho for Thanksgiving, and if so when?