Steinbeigle Family Bakery

Christmastime is here and the Steinbeigle family bakery is OPEN! We've been cooking up a storm all week! Every year my family makes an assortments of cookies to snack on all through the holidays as well as to give out to friends and neighbors. My mother and sisters and I have been busy making pinwheels, sprits, molasses cookies, chocolate dipped sugar cookies, melting moments, chocolate dipped pretzels, white chocolate covered popcorn, cookie cutter sugar cookies (hand decorated, too!) and gingerbread houses! Here is some of what we did!

Every artist needs a signature! I may start using this more often!

This are the cookies my baby sister Savanna decorated

These ones are decorated by Amber-an artist herself

These are Micheley-belles!

A few extra ones I decided to get artsy with

Here are the ones I decorated

Gingerbread houses! This one in front is mine!

This one is Amber's. We keep teasing her that it looks like an outhouse. She thinks it looks like a man with his mouth open!

This one is Savanna's!

Here is Michele's! I like the pearl decorations!

Here's our little town!

My favorite part about all of this is just getting to spend time with my sisters and parents. I sure love being home for Christmas and they make it so much more special! I'm happy we all get to be together for this special season! Happy happy Christmastime!

Work in Progress Character Lineup

Just wanted to post a couple characters I'm working on right now for my Character Design class. I'm supposed to do a character lineup, so so far we have Fleuder Flam (Compare to the Fleuder Flam I attempted at the beginning of the semester and you will see how far I've come!), Princess Eloinwy, Taran, and a witch whom I am still trying to figure out. 

I've already been able to get some feedback on them from class yesterday, and it was definitely helpful!  Most of it was for Taran. He definitely looks more like a she now that they mention it. He needs to some how be boxier, boy-ier... so they gave me some tips to make him look more like a him than a her. Some of those suggestions include: giving him a boy haircut instead of a girl's, making it less well trimmed (take away the bangs and give him some hair sticking up), make him more boxy and wide. He looks to slender, especially with the hourglass shape that his legs and shawl are making. They were all good ideas and I will be sure to redo him and incorporate as much as I can! We'll see! Hopefully tomorrow's version turns out better than this one, still! (Also, they'll be in color! Woot!)

Goodbye Missionaries

Once again, another set of missionaries finds its way out into the Brazilian mission field, also temporarily known as the MTC. This wonderful set of missionaries is so well prepared for the challenges that lay ahead! Unfortunately for us, we only got to work with this amazing district for a short time! Four weeks after they arrived, they had already received their visas and were on their way!

from left to right: Elders forgot his name, Frogley, Wilson, Green (Verde), me, Yorgesen, McIntosh, forgot his name, Witt, e Jones!

Oh man, the name of the companionship of blondies has for some reason escaped me, but these missionaries have been such a pleasure to work with. They are so hard working, motivated, and care so much about the gospel! The have been given some of the most amazing comments during class discussions and are picking up the language so well! We had an amazing experience with two of the missionaries who had been struggling with being able to teach well to investigator needs, so we arranged for two missionaries who had been at the MTC for longer to teach them as if they were the investigators. It was amazing what things they picked up on during that visit that were things we were wanting them to improve upon, but weren't sure how to explain to them how to do it. The picked up nicely on a few things that will be helpful for them to incorporate into their teaching. It was such a neat experience as much for them as it was for us to observe! These missionaries are so great! Even the substitutes who taught them while I was on vacation said how much the just love being with these Elders. They are funny, happy, motivated and obedient, and will be exactly what the people of their different missions in Brazil will need! Boa sorte, missionarios! Amo-vos muito! E espero que tenham muito sucesso na sua missao!  Voces sao maravilhosos! :)