I made gingerbread- I MADE GINGERBREAD!!!

just look at me! another post!!
i worked harder this weekend then i ever do in a 40 hour week- my feet even ached after all of this. but it was worth it! we made gingerbread houses with 8 of our friends and we made the gingerbread ourselves (janelle, amanda and i)!!! the recipes that we looked up on the internet all gave a level of difficulty and guess what it was for making gingerbread?- DIFFICULT- and that it was to be sure. but we tackled it. isn't it grand??
look at that!! we made it!!
we actually ended up making more gingerbread than we needed and used up all the molasses in it. i would have to say that the batch we made with a little bit of honey was far better than the one with a full cup of molasses- note to self. we mixed up the dough on saturday and then let it set in the fridge overnight (you really only need to leave it in for 2 hours). then on sunday we pulled it out and rolled it out on the back of a cookie sheet. we had to make a lot of houses so it was tricky cutting them all out and making sure they were the right size but thanks to amanda we got the pattern just perfect. this is definitely a task that cannot be done solo- we worked as a team. then all of our husbands got to do the fun part of making the houses with all of the colorful candy. but i am jumping the gun... ----matching game- which wife belongs to which husband???----...before we made the gingerbread houses we had a nice potluck dinner. i made the infamous pomegranate salad and we had enchiladas and baked chicken (amanda i still need that recipe- yogurt and ritz- who'd a thunk?), and potato salad- i love aissa because she doesn't put yucky onions in her salad, and rolls and....other stuff. so we ate all the good food and then had a great time putting these lovely houses together. I can't believe that it worked! and our house is still standing two days later!! the candy canes are melting because of the humidity but my goodness! it worked. look at that masterpiece!! can you see where we have picked off of it?
i taught juano how to do this... so so so much fun!! i love these guys!!

Forget about the rest of our trip way back in SEPTEMBER!!

...its nearly christmas....so it is time to move on!!
recent haps....
Hallowing came and went like ichabod crane on a horse. laura sent us those classic scary stories to listen to while admiring our masterpiece of a pumpkin. we got so scared listening to 'em that we had to cut them short. it took too long to get to sleep- we had to hold each other and just when we were about to dose off one random light turned on in the house. we felt like a ghost was roaming around and didn't want the lights out. SCARY!! we prayed and were able to get to sleep.

My birthday followed halloween and juano planned a surprise party with a bunch of our friends. he got me good. we went to play volleyball and he skipped out early telling me that he had to do some homework...i should have known but i didn't have a clue. he had already invited a bunch of our peeps over and they waited patiently for me to finish playing. i didn't want to leave so i made them wait. it was fun to come home and find a bunch of people celebrating my day. it was fun- i love our ward.

the day after my birthday i found out that we had a miscarriage (oh yeah- we were pregnant for a little while). i had a D+C a few days after and have recovered well. to make things a little easier on my emotions we put a cute little christmas tree up and lights in our living room. i have had the tree up for about a month already and i love it. isn't it cute?
we are going to utah for christmas!! we leave in 15 days!! i can't wait to go home- i don't know what i would do if i couldn't be with my family for the holidays!! it will juano's and my first christmas together married!! this picture was taken last year around this time right after we were engaged.