Christmas Newsletter

Dear Loved Ones,

2009 has been our most eventful year ever! Let's take a quick look at the past 12 months:

In December of last year, Jenny graduated with a Bachelor's Degree from BYU-Idaho.

In April, Travis finished his undergraduate work at BYU-I.

In May, we welcomed our sweet daughter, Grace Lorraine Holloway, into the world.

In July, we moved cross-country to Ohio and began renting our first house.

In August, Travis started his first semester at the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine.

In November, we had our first Thanksgiving away from home.

And in December, Grace met her great grand parents and Travis completed his first semester at OCPM as a straight-A student.

All of these changes, though big, have been such a blessing for us. Although we miss being close to family and familiarity in Idaho, we really enjoy living here in Cleveland, and feel blessed to still live close to some family (Travis' brother and sister-in-law) and to enjoy all of the new opportunities that are here on the East Coast. We like our new ward, and enjoy the friendship of the other students and their wives that are in it. Travis is currently serving as the Second Counselor in the Young Men's Presidency (over the Teachers) and I am the Compassionate Service Leader in the Relief Society, both of which keep us busy. Travis enjoys Podiatry school, and we're all so proud of how well he's doing. Jenny loves being a stay-at-home mom and homemaker, though it's harder than she expected! And Grace is almost 8 months now, and enjoys sitting, scooching, smiling, laughing, talking, biting (with her 4, and almost 6 teeth), eating, bathing, and being the joy of our lives.

At the end of this big year, we feel extremely blessed and grateful for all that the Lord has given us, and we hope that, in this new year, heaven smiles upon you too!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

Jenny, Travis, and Grace Holloway

Root Beer Float Cake

This is our all-time favorite chocolate cake recipe--we love it! And since we've shared the actual cake with many of you, we thought we'd share the recipe as well so you can make it too!

Root Beer Float Cake

Ingredients

2 cups root beer (not diet)

1 cup (dark unsweetened) cocoa powder

1/2 cup (unsalted) butter (1 stick), cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (dark) brown sugar

2 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 large eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spray the inside of a 10 inch Bundt pan (we use 2 9-inch round cake pans) with nonstick cooking spray, or butter generously and dust with flour, knocking out the excess.

In a large saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder and butter over medium heat until butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until just beaten. Then whisk into the cocoa mixture until combined (Note: you must let the cocoa powder cool first as per the directions, or you'll be cooking the eggs in it right now!). Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy. (You can give it a quick whisk if you like, but don't over beat the batter or it could cause the cake to be tough. Don't worry, the batter is very loose.)

Pour the batter into prepared pan(s) and cook for 35-45 (25-30 minutes for the rounds), rotating the pan halfway through baking until a sharp knife inserted in the center comes out clean (ignore this for the rounds). Transfer to a wire rack to coll completely, then loosen edges with a butter knife and turn out onto a cake plate.

Chocolate Root Beer Frosting

Ingredients

2 ounces 60 % cocoa, melted (we just use Hershey bars or chocolate chips)

1 stick (unsalted) butter, softened

1 tsp salt (you may want to use less, maybe just a 1/2 tsp)

1/4 cup root beer

2/3 cup (unsweetened) cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Directions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or using an electric hand mixer, beat softened butter and cocoa powder, Once combined, add the melted chocolate, salt, powdered sugar and root beer. Beat together until smooth. Spread on top of cooled cake. Slice and serve with vanilla ice cream.

This cake is awesome--like your favorite chocolate cake with a little extra kick, and it's moist, and the frosting is deliciously light and creamy (our favorite frosting EVER)....SO GOOD! Anyways, we hope you all enjoy this treat as much as we do!

Halloween 2009

As it was Grace's first Halloween this year, there was a lot for her to learn about this ghoulish holiday, like:

1. Pumpkin carving.
We bought a Grace-sized pumpkin for her, and although she wasn't sure what to think about it at first...


she warmed up to the idea pretty quickly...

and then had some fun watching Travis and I carve our pumpkins!

Travis (aka the headless carver) with his pumpkin:

His pumpkin all lit up--pretty sweet lookin' huh?


Me and my pumpkin:

Boo!

Our family of pumpkins on the front porch:

2. Dressing up

Call me cheap, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume Grace wouldn't remember anyway this year, so I borrowed a cute caterpillar costume from Rachel instead, and...

Super cute huh?! I didn't think caterpillars could be so cute, but there she is--living proof!

I just wanted to squeeze her!

She didn't LOVE wearing a costume (being a girl who loves to eat her toes), but I have a feeling she'll have a blast with it next year (I mean, what girl doesn't?).

3. Trick or Treating (which is, quite possibly, the greatest idea anyone ever came up with).

Right from the start, Grace knew that this trick or treating thing was a good idea (notice the way she's staring at the candy in this picture--love it!).

Here in Cleveland, people sit out on the front porch to hand out candy during a designated time slot (also genius), so here are Trav and Grace on the porch ready to deal the goods:

Rachel gathered all of the kids on the front lawn for a picture before her and I headed out trick or treating with the kids. (I knew Grace was pretty young for it, but I thought she'd enjoy being with her cousins anyway, and the neighbors had fun seeing her.)

We just made it up and down our own street, but that was enough for Grace to gain some experience AND some candy. Yummy Crunch bar!

And now that Grace has been schooled in all things Halloween, she's all ready to take it on again next year! Til then...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Funny Grace

I just wanted to share a funny thing Grace did yesterday. Travis and I were at the dinner table, saying a prayer over the food , when we heard some clinking noises. We opened our eyes to find that Grace had grabbed the serving spoon from the vegetables and was shoving it in her mouth (successfully, I might add)! Needless to say, we had to take a little break to put the spoon down and get a few giggles out before we finished the prayer. What a funny girl!

Patterson Farms

Today we loaded ourselves up and headed over to Patterson Farms for a bit of Fall fun. This place was amazing! The foliage there was beautiful, and they had tons of fun things for kids to do. This is definitely some place we'll return to year after year!

Here's the entrance to the Farm:


And from there, we were kindly escorted to the rest of the farm on a tractor-pulled-trailer. Grace thought it was a super fun ride (though you can't tell from her expression)!


A view of some of the fun kids toys (that Grace is going to love next year):

They even had some adult toys too. Here I am trying my hand at stilt-walking. I have to admit, it was pretty tricksy, but after (cough) several tries (and some help from one of the farm hands), I actually got the hang of it.

After a little fooling around, we headed into the woods...

....for a ride on the 50 foot slide...

...some time on a tree fort...

...and a gorgeous walk through their acres of woods!

The foliage was SO BEAUTIFUL!! I'd never seen so many colors of leaves! And it was just so nice to be out and enjoying the beauties of nature as a family.

After our wonderful walk through the woods, we did some more walking--but this time it was through the Corn Maze.

Travis and I had always meant to go to the one in Rigby but never got a chance to, so completing Patterson's Corn Maze was something we couldn't miss!

Travis and Grace thought it was pretty great...

and I got kinda claustrophobic. But hey, now we can check "do a corn maze" off our list and move on, right? I had fun taking pictures of it at least.

After going maze crazy, we finished off our day of fun with another tractor ride, or two.

And Grace learned that driving your own tractor is just as fun as getting a ride from one!

We had such a fun day together as a family, and can't wait to go again next year!

First Taste of Food =)

After about a month of watching Grace stare us and our food down at the dinner table (I mean, leaning forward to watch every bite we took!), we decided (October 13th) to finally start her on solid food! After all the anticipation, she actually wasn't too sure what to think about her rice cereal for the first few days, but by day 5, it was a hit, and now she enjoys carrots too!

Here she is all ready to give her first bite of food a try (as you can see, she has no idea what's about to happen to her, or I think she'd look a little more excited!):



This is how most of that 1st attempt ended up--on her chin!

Here's a video documenting her first meal:

We wanted to let her play with her spoon so she'd get used to the idea and taste of it, so here she is weilding a spoon for the first time:

Since Grace had decided that rice cereal was a go, we decided to try a new food on her yesterday--carrots. And just like with her successful attempt at rice cereal, she opened her mouth for it and even sucked some of the carrot puree off the spoon! I thought it was so fun how she wanted to help me feed her, by holding my hand and pushing it toward her mouth! I think she's liking this new real food thing =).

For your veiwing pleasure, below is a video of her trying out carrots. (She'd make a little bit of a funny face because it was sour, but she liked it enough to keep coming back for more!)

While I realize that with each new step she's getting a little older and farther away from being my little girl (which makes me a little sad), I'm also excited about all of the new things she's doing and the progress she's making, and especially about the fun little person she's becoming (or that we're now realizing that she IS).

We sure love you, Grace girl!

Grace Update--5 months!

I know, I know--a post about Grace is LONG overdue. So, here is a post full of pictures of our sweet Grace since the last time we posted.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to get Grace one of her Christmas presents early because now is the perfect time for her to start enjoying this exersaucer/walker. It has noises, lights, and lots of fun toys, and she loves it!




Grace also enjoys some other fun toys (now that she's become more proficient at grabbing and manipulating things), including this table top toy (which we also stick on her
exersaucer) and the curtains (I know), and reading and snuggling with mom and dad.


This cracked me up--she's playing with it with her feet!


Didn't you know that curtains were fun to kick and pull and put in your mouth?


We have a tradition now of reading this bedtime book and the scriptures before bed...

...laying side by side on the floor together. And I love it, especially because Grace gets so excited when we do it--smiles galore--because she knows the routine.


We love snuggling with our sweet Grace!



Grace also loves figuring out how her cute little body works. She recently became aware of her feet, and is now in love! She puts them in her mouth whenever possible. =) I just can't believe how flexible she is!

Chewing on feet also often leads to chewing on socks--yum!

Of course, she still loves her hands too :)

All of these body parts are so fun and exciting to her because she has been teething for a while, and finally, last Monday (10/12), she got her first tooth!

So now, she's also aware of her tongue (as it slides oh-so-nice over that fancy new tooth), and enjoys sticking that out often as well.

She also finds it quite funny when we repeat her trick and stick our tongues back out at her--funny girl!

Oh, I just want to squeeze her!

And now that she knows about teeth and tongues, she thinks our mouths are pretty interesting too!

Grace even has a new smile now, which she does while sucking on her lower lip. I just think it's so darn funny, because it makes her little chubby cheeks look huge!

Sucking on her lower lip...

...then breaking out into a smile! (well, maybe a half smile)

(there's a full smile!)

And speaking of smiles...

...and laughs...

...and funny faces...

..she's full of them, and they make our days and melt our hearts!

Grace also has a couple new tricks up her sleeves. The first is that she's sitting up and standing pretty well if shes sitting against or holding onto something, which is pretty exciting.

The second is that shes been scooching forward lately, as well as getting up on her elbows and knees, so the beginning stages of crawling are underway!

I can't believe she's already five months old! Our little girl is growing so fast!!

Well, that's all for now, but soon to come are some recent videos of Grace talking and (so exciting!) trying rice cereal, so stay tuned!