Merry Christmas everyone!

On Christmas Eve we discovered that the duck we had planned make was rancid. The grocery store was out of ducks, so they gave us two pheasants instead. Luckily, we found a great recipe and still had a lovely dinner. Afterwards, Rachel relaxed by the fire before we all headed off to midnight mass at Blessed Sacrament.

Hooray for progress! Although Kevin still needs to put in paving stones, fences, and the concrete steps to the backyard, I can now officially park next the house! This was a great Christmas present! He has really worked hard on this for many months. It will look amazing when it is completely finished.

Rachel took these neat pictures of me yesterday at 33/34 weeks pregnant. Thank you, Rachel! What a lovely Christmas present.

Advent is truly the most wonderful time to be pregnant. Waiting in anticipation and joy for the birth of Jesus means so much more to me this year than ever before!

Rachel gets cozy on the couch...

We are so glad she's here for Christmas!

This week Kevin completed the retaining walls around the parking space and in front of the house. So it might not be finished by Christmas... but we are hoping that everything will be done by February!

Tonight we decorated our Christmas tree with our friends Chris and Monica. Isn't it lovely?

Wow! Check out Kevin's progress on the Parking Spot Project! He is now building retaining walls with 60 lb concrete bricks. We are hoping to have it finished by Christmas...

This is also an old picture. Here Kevin is supervising his student and construction helper, Paul, on the removal of his make-shift frame for the concrete wall he had to re-build. It actually worked! Now Kevin is in the process of building the retaining walls. I'll post some more recent photos later...

The first snow in Seattle actually happened a week ago, but it took me a while to upload this photo of the first snow flakes falling outside our house. Seattle practically shut down for three days... for less than an inch of the while stuff. We did have some pretty scary ice, though!

Here I am looking pretty impressively huge at 30 weeks.

Baby is currently about 3.5 lbs and 18 inches long!

This weekend we had our first pleasant day in about a month, so I took advantage of the moment and planted some spring bulbs with my friend, Carrie Ann. We've had more rain this November than in the last 50+years! It has been truly miserable.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Kevin is in Florida, celebrating Thanksgiving Krentz-style with his Mom, Dad, sister, niece, nephew, brother-in-law, aunt and cousins. He got to ride his friend Mitch's Harley Davidson yesterday. This was the rough equivalent of giving our cat, Obie, a can of wet food: immediately, addictively, satsfying, and not an experience that will soon be forgotten. In fact, I am sure I will hear him meowing for another try for months. However, since it is also a DEATH TRAP, I will do my best to avoid letting this unfortunate event happen again anytime soon.

In the meantime, I am stuck in rainy Seatle all alone for Thanksgiving! I am going over to some friends' house for turkey later today, but it just isn't the same as cooking with family.

This is my adorable GRAND-NIECE ADELINE!!! She is about 4 months old and says, "Go Blue!" All of us University of Michigan fans (Molly-- my neice and Adeline's mom, and I both grew up in Ann Arbor) were very dissapointed in this weekend's big game against OHS. We are all rooting for a re-match. Adeline, Molly, and dad Jarrod live in Colorado Springs, CO. This is not far from Golden and baby Emory (www.gabeandandrea.blogspot.com) , so I now have too many good reasons not to go visit Colorado this summer!

My latest obsession is researching cloth diaper systems. Cloth diapering combines some of my very favorite things: babies, innovative and colorful textiles, functional systems, and oh yeah-- saving the environment, of course. I think I have done enough research to write a small dissertation on cloth diapering... except of course I don't have any data of my own! That will soon change! In anticipation of my new little research subject, this week I bought changing table from Craig's List and it is already stocked with my three different potential cloth diapering systems (also acquired off Criag's List and various local consignment shops). I have the ever popular "Fuzzi Bunz," the classic Chinese Prefolds and Diaperaps, and my all time favorite so far-- the highly adorable and amazingly cuddly "Snap EZ" fleece pocket diaper (that's the one I am holding). I also invested in a some fleece liners(to wick away moisure!) and yes... and few dozen disposables just in case cloth diapering ends up being a complete disaster.

Kevin had a studio class this week in our living room. Here is Weston on the spot and Kevin explaining the complexity of a good vibrato.

Here is the meager fruit of my garden this year: a bunch of green tomatos, a couple red (ripened inside), and one sweet little red pepper. We also got a lot of zucchini, but anyone can grow zucchini!

Hands in motion. CelloKevin practices on Saturday afternoon.

And the walls come tumbling down!

Men at play...
Kevin was a quick learn on the excavator. If the whole cello thing doesn't work out, we definitely have a back-up plan.

Before...

This weekend Kevin made some great progress on the Parking Space Project! Here he is before he starts, with his crew of four: good friend Chris Coward, and two of his students-- Paul and Jason.

Here is Kevin teaching a master class at the University of Montana a few weeks ago. Finisterra played a concert there with Christopher Hahn, our dear friend and a wonderful pianist. It was a rousing success!

Kevin made the scary intense pumpkin, Ursi made the anxious fearful pumpkin and Scott and Cher made the joyfully happy pumpkin. Which family do you want to be a part of? Okay, so maybe we're a little intense and anxious, but we're just about the best intense, anxious family in North Ravenna. Go Team Krentz!

Kevin and our friend Scott (of Scott, Cher and Chase) intently carve pumpkins last weekend.

Happy Holloween! Three pumpkins and one belly...

My Dad, Mark, celebrated his 80th birthday and his marriage to Emily last weekend in Ann Arbor. There was lots of family there to celebrate. What a joyful weekend!

Hello, and welcome to our blog! Here we are at my Dad's house in Ann Arbor standing next to the White Oak that I planted with an acorn when I was only 5-years-old.

In February we are expecting a new addition to the family-- we are very excited!