Two orders of business...

1) Mission Call

My younger brother is AWESOME. Over the summer he was our apartment

buddy. We have enjoyed being able to spend so much time with him the last few

months, especially Sunday dinners and watching  Once Upon A Time. As you can see, he has

 been called as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We could not

 be more happy for him, not to mention proud :) So here is the news:

Mission: Houston, Texas

Heads out: February 15, 2012

 He is going to be the studliest missionary ever! At least we think so.

We took a few family pictures before he took off to Idaho for Christmas break.

2) The Leavitt Cookie-Cook Off



What you see here is least year's Cookie Cook-off Champion. Yes indeed, it
was yours truly.



My family has a tradition that on every New Year's Eve we have a cookie cook-off. This is not an ordinary competition, but one full of top-notch competitiors and judges. Anyone who knows anything about my family is aware of the fact that we are extremely competitive (in a loving way of course). Jake and I have been practing our cookies all year long, because in this contest, only the most delicious cookies are allowed.

 I cannot say that there are not occassional cookie failures:

Kara's pineapple cookie incident

 Kailee's hair-in-the-cookie

 Hollie's cookies melting through the cooling rack

 Mom's rock hard ginger snaps (they still won the 1st year)

However, these are rare instances.

All who participate enjoy the most mouth-watering, tasty cookies anyone can imagine. There is quite the rigorous judging process and the competition is usually pretty intense. It is considered by many a rare priveledge and honor to be invited to judge this competition.

Here are a few highlights from last year:



It was the stiffest competition yet!