Heidi the Beautician!

Mom thought this was a unique sight.  I'm combing David's hair.  He only brought a short comb and is used to using a long one, so he was having a harder time getting it to lay down nicely.  Actually, I used to comb David's hair all the time...when he was about Zach's age.  But then, Joe used to braid my hair all the time too...that's was a really long time ago!

Bible Quizzing

No, we didn't do it, but we got to watch it as it was a part of the service on Wednesday out at Friendship Baptist Church in Iowa.

Marquette hosts a Bible quizzing tournament every year, but most of us had never actually seen it take place before.  I had often wondered how this and that worked as I'd heard about it afterward, but it certainly helps to see it for oneself.

Anyway, that was something interesting to me at least.

There were three groups: the Rapid Reciters (teens), the Mighty Memorizers (elementary), and the Quick Quoters (adults).  Can you guess which team won?

The adults won, with the elementary kids close behind.  The teens...umm...well...they didn't do so hot....

I must admit that I would've guessed it wrong.  The adults were really on their toes and the elementary kids were doing extremely well at keeping focused in.  My automatic would have been that the teens should have had it easy, being a little quicker than the adults and more focused than the littler ones.  I totally guessed wrong - the teen group's final score was...umm...still  zero.  Ouch!

UPDATE ~ I stand corrected.  The teens did answer one correctly.  They ended up with 20 points.

Pictures Anybody?

Guess what?!  We got some family pictures taken at Portrait Innovations (the same place Jared, Becca, and the boys go) while we were out in Iowa over the week of New Years.  I know, you are all so disappointed that I'm going to show you pictures instead of just talking a lot....

Well, I guess I'll stop jabbering and start the "scroll-show"!  :-)

Scroll down, please.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Bill & Sandy Mueller

(We call them Dad & Mom)

These two people are rather an important part of our family tree, not to mention our daily lives.

The Mueller Family

(We'll let the ladies go first....)

The Mueller Ladies

(The gentlemen may come now....)

The Mueller Men

The Mueller & Barta Families

(Willie & Conner were fighting a losing battle against colds and not sleeping well so they were having a hard time with the pictures.)

The Original Mueller Clan in Order by Age

I especially like the age-order ones.

Well, there you have it - our photo shoot...and a post of lots of pictures!  :-)  I hope you've enjoyed it.

Oh, by the way, you might have noticed that we had matching outfits for the pictures.  The tops were Christmas gifts from Jared&Becca and the skirts and jeans were from Dad&Mom.  We got to open those the day before Christmas Eve (Christmas Adam - he came before Eve...that was David's joke.), when we swapped gifts with the Bartas.

Here's what the emblem thingy looks like.  It was designed by our wonderful brother, Joe.

P.S.  I know my humor with the "scroll-show" was pretty sad, but I'm afraid you only have two choices - either put up with it or quit checking our blog....  I won't ask you to let me know what you decided.

A New Experience

We headed to Iowa on Tuesday the 29th, and the Bartas (Tim & Julie) had us over for dinner and a wonderful evening.  While we were there, they had fun showing us how to use their Wii.  Now that was a new and interesting experience!  Personally, while it was fun, I thought it was really weird!  It's one of those things that you're trying to figure out "How does it know?"  "How does it do that?"

Mr. Tim Barta and Willie set up and show us how to do the Wii.

Daddy tries out the Wii.

Everybody was "tuned in", trying to figure out how to do it and how it works.

So, was it a White Christmas?

Well, I guess that's up to you.  It's not a black or white decision this year.  I think it all depends on how you look at it.

There was snow on the ground all of Christmas Eve, though the rain was working all day at melting it.  We woke up Christmas morning to a bunch of greenish grass and a pond in the field that backs up to our lot.  Christmas morning was not white!  It snowed later in the day, however, and by the time we were heading back from the Mueller side of the family Christmas celebration, there was snow on the ground - not a ton, but enough to make things look white.

I believe it was the day after Christmas that we got a significant amount of snow.  It was a beautiful, snowglobe-like snow, huge flakes, and light and fluffy.  I believe the bit we have left to this day might still be remnants of the time.

Here are a few pictures, but somehow they don't really capture it all.

I took a few videos, which capture it a little bit better, but I don't have time to figure out how to upload them just now.

So, what's your opinion?  Was this Christmas a "White Christmas"?  I'd love to hear your take on it.