It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Right after Thanksgiving, we went to a local tree lot and picked out what appeared to be a normal-sized tree.

We had to do a little rearranging of our furniture to get it to fit. There are still some branches who we're sure are uncomfortable smashed up against the wall. We decorated with popcorn, cranberries, and gingerbread cookies. Edie is loving the open snack bar.

She also loves "accidentally" knocking ornaments off the tree, shaking needles onto the floor, and reminding us "water, water, water" (which translates into "Don't forget to water the tree, mom and dad!")

I also made a kissing ball at an Enrichment Activity. Apparently, it's the New England equivalent to mistletoe.

We also had our first real snow. We found Edie this rockin' snow suit at Building 19. Besides the fact that she couldn't move her body, she seemed to really enjoy the weather. The whole day she shouted, "Noh, Noh, Noh". At first we thought she was just being difficult, but then we realized she was saying, "Snow!"

Here she is with her life-size snow buddy.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

A Tribute to the PCA

Saturday took us to the far away state of New Hampshire in search of wood for Nate's airplane. When, what to our wondering eyes should appear, but the Texas Roadhouse and a full slab of ribs! We felt it a tribute to the PCA to stop in and indulge. We thought of poor Jason Tang stuck out on Oahu with only mahi-mahi restaurants to fill his ever-shrinking stomach. Nate shared many a memory with me of quality time spent with the boys over ribs and peanuts. He told me about the time he ordered two meals of ribs so he could take one home. This, of course, was justified because they had gone without dates; Nate was only spending money he would've wasted on a girl.

Members of the PCA...you are missed.

Note: The Roadhouse can make even the whiniest kid smile.

Thanksgiving Break

Hello and welcome to our Thanksgiving Break log.

Team Kanoodle headed west to Montoursville, PA for the holiday.

Edie entertained herself during the first portion of the 8 hour drive by reading and napping.
She had only one major breakdown later on which was caused by a minor episode of choking on a juice box...well, the juice in a juice box.

We stayed at Nate's parent's house from Wed. to Sun. and had the best time ever! Edie fell in love with her long lost family and had some good sibling practice with her cousins Brynn and Kenley.

Here's a slide of some other things we did.

View Album

Get your own

We also went out to dinner a lot and to the Reptile Museum, but the batteries in our camera died, so these are our only pictures.

I wish I could've captured the sweat on Nate's brow while eating some spicy hotwings. Or Jon on the floor approximately 23 seconds after Thanksgiving dinner, who so somberly slept while some naughty boys built a block city on his backside. There were also the many WWF matches of Brynn vs. Edie on Grandma and Grandpa's bed, respectfully refereed by Adam and Jon. And finally, I wish I could've gotten the snake eating a mouselicious dinner at Reptiland on film. This will have to do.

Thanksgiving dinner was not only delicious, but well appreciated. We had a great break! If interested, feel free to look at Matt and Regen's blog for more pictures and info: knoebelluv.blogspot.com

(plus you'll see some cute pictures of Kenley)

Oh yeah, and here are a couple videos:

Playing at the gate

Best Friends Forever

A Trip to the Boston Children's Museum

Wall of Turkeys

As a child who was turned off by any food not in the dessert category (a disease similar to Kaden's), Thanksgiving was absolutely my least favorite holiday. When Nate learned this, he made it his goal to transform my paradigm. You see, Nate adores Thanksgiving. This is how our Wall of Turkeys was born. We decided to start a tradition of making hand-turkeys and disguising them as something different every year. Here are this year's creations:

A nun

By Mandy Knoebel


Modern Art Turkey

By Edith Knoebel

Bowling League Turkey, complete with a comb-over

By Nate Knoebel


Wall of Turkeys

And now, I adore Thanksgiving too.

A New England Halloween

Ma, Pa, and little chicken

Edie helped clean out the pumpkins.

A proud chick

Enjoying her spoils

Dad to the Rescue

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who had lots of clothes. She kept them all in a dresser given to her by a magical fairy named Regen when she was born. She had so many clothes shoved inside the dresser that it finally broke. She could no longer open and close the drawers by herself and became very, very sad.

Then one day the princess's Grandma and Grandpa bought her a new one! She was so excited until her Grandparents told her there was a catch. They told her that she needed to learn how to work and therefore had purchased her a yellow dresser. She would need to paint it.

The princess was so upset because she was too little to paint. She didn't know who to turn to...

Then, a studly guy showed up with paint and a roller. He painted the dresser for her!

He had saved the day! The princess then had a brand new beautiful dresser to store all of her clothes in. When she asked the studly guy for his name, all he said was, "They call me Maroon Madness."

The princess was so grateful to her Grandparents for the new dresser and to Maroon Madness for doing the work for her.

Will the princess ever learn how to work?

...to be continued.

Edie Videos

These videos show some of our glamor girl's new tricks:
talking, cleaning, sharing, and lookin' good.

Introducing Allison!!!

We would like to introduce you all to our new little baby girl, Allison. She is 18 weeks into her incubation.

For Halloween, she'll be dressing as a skeleton. Here she is in her costume. Isn't she cute!!

She can already wave too! It looks like we might have a child prodigy on our hands.

The doctor said everything looks great with her development! We're soooo excited to have another girl, although Nate has been heard to say, "I feel like I lost my chance for glory." (He wanted to father the first grandson on his side of the family.) Well Nate, at our rate, there's still a chance.

Our Apartment

This is our new apartment! We have the second and third floor that you see here.
Edie likes to sit on the front porch to wait for her daddy.

We got new couches and we love them! They're perfect for Sunday naps.

One day, we'll buy a TV stand and move the chess table to a more appropriate location.
Kitchen:

Dining room is across the hall from the kitchen.

Our room is the third floor. It includes a half bath and...

an airplane hanger, which will soon be turned into a nursery.

I forgot to take a picture of Edie's room, so I'll do that later. Until then, here's a picture of Edie herself.

Edie's Birthday

Edie's birthday was the best. Nate had finished his defense the day before and was able to fully function again. My dad was in town, so we had lots of family together. And, the weather was fantastic. We went to the same park that we'd gone to with Matt and Regen for Memorial Day and ate a delicious lunch.

This cake was honestly the best I could do...kinda depressing. My dream cake seemed unattainable.

Nevertheless, Edie did not seem to mind. She did not seem to understand that she was supposed to eat it either. She sat like this forever, bringing her hands toward the cake and then pulling them back to her just before she touched it.

In the end, she looked like this. So, it all worked out. The poor birthday girl had to be cleaned in a freezing creek, which she did not seem to enjoy nearly as much as the cake.

Despite what this may look like, Edie is not spoiled. Yeah right. She got some pretty sweet presents, including a flying monkey, CD player, fridge game, CD's, clothes, a plastic dog to walk, blocks, airplane, and much more. It's a good thing Ana's kids were there to help her learn how to open them all.

We sure love this girl. She had a great first year!

...And Some Other Summer Fun Adventures

Since I haven't posted in months, I thought I would just provide a brief overview of some of the things we did this summer.

Ana and I, with the kids, toured Temple Square. I made Edie match me so that everyone would know she was my daughter.

Nate and I thought this was a funny picture. We took Edie shopping at the mall and got her a smoothie with a gift card given to me by one of my students. She just lounged in her stroller lookin' Edie-licious while sipping her smoothie. Maybe one day she can star in Clueless 2.

Nate sold the truck! We both miss it, especially on all of our recent trips to IKEA.

Wheadon got hitched! Congratulations! She looked beautiful! Edie got her first glimpse of some PG kissing too.

Matt and Regen had their baby! Kenley Rose is gorgeous! You can't see her very well in these pictures, but you can get an idea of how small and precious she is.

Nate's family came out to see the baby and visit relatives. Regen's family came out at the same time too. It was so fun spending time with everyone, eating out, and swimming.

I'm sure more things happened this summer, but man, it seems so long ago and I just can't remember.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

by Nate Knoebel

This summer I left a butt imprint on our kitchen chair. I also suffered severe eye damage from staring blankly into a computer screen.

I hung out with my friends a lot...well, friend, I guess. We spent nearly every day in 100 degree temperatures trying to get impressive flight data for the many readers of my thesis.

I had one break this summer for a drink of gatorade. But my hard work paid off. I finished school! My wife and I are still together too. All in all, it was a pretty productive summer vacation.

Independence Day

We love our country, so we dressed Edie up in her most festive hand-me-down.


We met up with family and friends that night on campus. Unfortunately, the field we'd chosen was occupied by EFY groups and we were forbidden to enter. So...we sat on the other side of the fence and still had a pretty good view.

Kalia shared her favorite snack with her favorite pal.

The show was great! Edie was only freaked out for about 2 minutes. Luckily, she was so tired afterwards that she slept through the hours of traffic home.