Cut out cookies galore!

Amanda and I spent the first Saturday of December baking LOTS of cut out cookies for our Community Life Student Leader Christmas party.  I had the made the dough in November and froze it until a day before we were going to bake.  We then set up a little assembly line where Amanda cut them out and I baked them.  They were sugar cookie perfection!

Amanda popping a snowflake out of the cookie cutter.

Me unloading the cookie sheet.

We baked over 100 cookies!  :)

Christmas Program

Here are some photos from our fabulous Christmas production!

A shot of the entire stage.

The Angel of the Lord telling Mary that she is going to have a baby!

Mary sings about the glory of what is happening to/through her.

Mary & Joseph making their way to Bethlehem.

Mary sings to Joseph who is holding baby Jesus (a real live baby!)

The Angel of the Lord speaks to the shepherds.

King Herod on his (awesome) throne.

The wisemen visit baby Jesus.

The entire cast along with their amazing director, Olena (in the center).

Santa gave me a little hug after the program!  :)

Christmas program music

Our Christmas program always has a LOT of music!  It's something that I love about the program.  I decided to break my Christmas program post into 2 seperrate ones...one highlighting the music and the other will highlight the acting.  Here you go...

Amanda conducted the choir!

(Putting that music ed degree to good use!)

Henry, Greg, Vernon and Steve were a special quartet.

Students from the Ukraine singing Christmas carols in Ukranian.

Latvian lads & lasses sing a Latvian carol.

Three Moldovan angels share their song.

Belarussian beauties sing another carol.

Lithuanian gals sang for us as well.

The Bell Choir.

Ira, my SOS leader from last year, is in the bell choir!

Before the Christmas program

The week leading up to the Christmas program was busy for most of the Student Life departments.  Few of us were actually IN the program, but we all had various responsiblities to help prepare for the show.  I volunteered to make a throne for King Herod to sit on.  This swung from an easy to accomplish task to one that had me ready to pull my hair out.  That is, until I looked at it as an opportunity to work with others instead of something I had to do all on my own.  You see, I originally had all sorts of great ideas of how to create the back of the chair out of some sort of foam insulation board.  This was a great idea except that I couldn't exactly carry that home with me on the bus and I didn't want to have to borrow a car.  I ran idea after idea over in my head of what to make the back out of.  In the end I asked my friend Andrew to cut the back out of some wood that we had leftover from Karklu dorm.  After he did that I asked Kim to help me cover it with the shindy gold & jewel toned gift wrap that I had purchased.  We worked together for an hour or so and created a pretty awesome looking throne for the king to reign from!

Me placing the jewels on the throne.

I look pretty royal, don't I?!  :)

An added random photo...

One of our students painted a "face in hole" scene for photo opps!

November Student Life Birthdays

Both Margarita and Kim have birthdays the last week of November.  Our department surprised them with a cake and flowers during our Management Team meeting that week. 

Margarita & Kim

Making gifts

The Community Life team decided to make ornaments for all of our Student Leaders this year.  Amanda found an idea online for ornaments made from paper that had been torn into small pieces, blended with hot water, pressed into a cookie cutter, then baked/dried out in the oven for several hours.  Here are some photos from our afternoon of ornament making...

Alex, Levi, and Olena watch as Amanda blends the paper mixture.

Pressing the paper mixture into a bell shaped cookie cutter.

Levi & Olena making ornaments.

Alex & I pause for a smile.

Kim's Birthday!

Kim's birthday was on a Sunday at the end of November.  I invited the Stave family over for dinner after church that day.  I also invited the Millikens to join us as a little surprise and some added fun!  I made Husband's Delight for dinner and we had a great time celebrating Kim!  She's such a great boss and an amazing friend as well! 

Kim holding baby Greta and blowing out her candle on the chocolate mint cookie that Rachel made.

Isak enjoyed his cookie!  :)

Great friends - Rachel, Kim, and me!

The Birthday Crew

This was the first party I've hosted where someone took their pants off multiple times!  Noah is going through a bit of a "free spirit" stage and kept removing his pants!  :)

Orange Saturday

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we celebrated "Orange Saturday" on campus.  Orange Saturday was a several hour event that included decorating the campus for Christmas and celebrating Thanksgiving with a potluck meal.  All of the faculty and staff were invited to join in the fun!  We called it "Orange Saturday" to tie in the orange of pumpkins/harvest/fall and the orange of Mandarin oranges (which are a key element in Christmas decorating/celebrations around Eastern Europe.)  I was one of the organizers, so I was pretty busy throughout the day and was disappointed when I got home and realized that I had taken very few photos.  Here are a few that you might enjoy...

I cooked one of the turkeys for the potluck meal.  Here I am with "Tom" in my kitchen before he ended up in the oven.

That's my pumpkin pie in the middle...made COMPLETELY from scratch...no premade pie crust, no canned pumpkin, no pumpkin pie seasoning.  It was just me and that raw ingredients.  Know what, it tasted really good!  :)

Our two Levis - Levi, one of my RDs, and Levi, my former little neighbor.

Ilona is ready to dig in!