Friday, December 31, 2010

Looking back over the last ten years.

As we leave 2010 and start a new decade, I decided to take a cue from a friend of mine on Facebook and try to do a quick summation of the last ten years. James is using his status to summarize each of the past 10 years in 5 words or less. I may not be able to keep each year to 5 words, but I will keep it short.

2001 - College Graduation, Moved to MN, 9/11, Met Mike
2002 - Got engaged, Bought house, Scooby, RIP Jim (Mike's dad)
2003 - Got married, Zoe, Mike shoulder surgery #1
2004 - My Sister got married, RIP Grandpa Johnson, Got pregnant
2005 - McKenna and Lucas were born, Mike's mom got remarried
2006 - I changed jobs
2007 - Mike turned 30, My 10-year class reunion, Found out about Kenna's cleft palate
2008 - First vacation since getting married (Vegas), Kenna got ear tubes, I turned 30, Replaced
my 13 year-old Grand Prix, RIP Grandma Pearson, Mike had appendectomy, RIP
Grandpa Zweber
2009 - Mike helped my dad replace our back deck, bought 1962 Galaxie, (pretty uneventful
year)
2010 - Kids turned 5, Kenna got second set of tubes, RIP Scooby, Kids started Kindergarten, Mike had shoulder surgery #2

Now as we are about to enter the new year, we are happy to know that Mike will be returning to work after being off for just over 4 months. The kids a growing by leaps and bounds, loving school and making great friends. We look forward to spending more time with family and friends. It is exciting to see where we started 10 years ago and is amazing to think of who we may be 10 years from now.

I pray that everyone have a very happy and healthy 2011 and that the next 10 years brings everyone as much happiness as we have experienced over the 10 years.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Monday, December 27, 2010

Wonderful Christmas Weekend

It truly was a Wonderful Christmas Weekend! Other than the fact that we all had colds and Mike wasn't able to go to Christmas Eve at his aunts' with us everything was wonderful!

We started the weekend with me getting off work Christmas Eve morning and driving home on snow covered roads after yet ANOTHER snowfall. That may sound like a bad start to the weekend, but there wasn't much traffic on the roads and knew I didn't have to work that night so I didn't mind. After a couple hour nap, I got up and we made the choice to attend the 3:00 Christmas Eve service. We all got cleaned up and dress. For a while Mike even started to think he might feel good enough to go to his aunt's. With that in mind we headed to church. The kids behaved so well in church I was actually able to pay attention to the sermon.

Buy the time church had ended, Mike was starting to feel pretty poorly and decided to was going to stay home after all. Despite that, we decided that the kids and I would still go and he would stay home and try to get a little rest. I put together my veggie pizzas to take and off we went. I'm so glad we did. Normally for Christmas Eve we have appetizers and then exchange white elephant gifts and play some games. This year, since Mike wasn't there we just decided to go to eat. Before eating I got a chance to spend so time having some fun time talking with Mike's cousins and family. The food was great as usual.

When we got home, the kids put out their reindeer food and we crawled into our new jammies, cuddled a bit and then put out cookies and milk for Santa and headed to bed.

Christmas morning came early. This year we actually woke the kids at 6:00 since Mike and I could no longer sleep due to difficult breathing and coughing from our colds. It was the best Christmas morning since they were born! They finally are able to really take their time opening gifts and enjoyed everything they got. Santa brought Luke his remote controlled monster truck and Kenna's remote controlled Barbie car. Luke got LEGOs and hot wheels roads. Kenna got Barbie stuff, littlest pest shop, and tangled stuff. They both got movies, puzzles, books, games, and art stuff. I received a beautiful necklace from the kids that has four hearts on it, which I was told stands for our family. Mike gave me a digital frame. He receive a rechargeable trouble light that he wanted and the kids gave him a new video game. We both received US Mint watches from my parents.

After spending some time at home opening gifts we went over to Mike's mom's house to have brunch and open gift there. We had some yummy food, opened presents and then some of them played a game. The kids both got a pillow pet and Kenna got some Barbie clothes and Luke got a floor puzzle of the USA.

The rest of the day was family time. We kicked back, relaxed, played with the new gifts and watched one of their new movies.

Sunday brought a quiet day. I spent a lot of time helping Luke build with his LEGOS. We worked with their new art kits tracing fairies and cars and decorating them. We played some games and watched a little football. We event found time to fit in another movie. It was a good day.

Now Christmas is over and the tree must come down in the next day or so and we have to get back in the swing of laundry and getting all the toys (old and new) put in their places. Oh yeah, and the kids are chomping at the bit to go spend the gift cards they received so we have to do that too. SO...HERE...WE...GO

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas Love

Anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely LOVE Christmas! Growing up preparing for Christmas was a BIG deal on our house. All the Christmas prep had music involved. Whether it was Mom playing the piano and us girls singing Christmas songs or having music blaring from the stereo, there was always Christmas music playing in our house. Putting up the tree was always a family affair. I love to turn off the lights in the house and just have in the Christmas lights. (I actually love it so much that I put up Christmas lights in my dorm room and they were pretty much on all the time unless my roommate and I were both gone.) We would spend a whole day making cookies and treats. One of my favorite memories combines said treats and Mom playing the piano. (If my family reads this, they will know exactly know exactly what I'm referring to.) I love to give gifts. So much that for years I would buys gifts for everyone. As I have gotten older, my love of gift giving hasn't diminished but it has been harder to find something special for everyone I would like to give gifts to. I know. I know. I could always make gifts, but that takes time and involves planning not to mention some creativity. Two on those things I am not so good at. I could find/make the time to make things if I wasn't such a procrastinator. That's where the planning comes in. I cannot plan for Christmas months in advance. (Procrastinator remember?)

This year I am more in the Christmas mood than I have been in years. It could be that we had our fist major snow fall over a months ago and have had more than 30" of snow already this month. As tired as I get of our 5 months of winter, for me, it wouldn't be winter with out the white stuff. I think the thing that is making it feel like Christmas is the fact that the kids are at an age where they truly understand Christmas. McKenna is my spiritual child. Over the years, she has made comments that have shown me that she (at a young age) believes in God and has a relationship with him that many people strive to have. I have even overheard her explaining to a classmate that presents aren't really what Christmas is about.

As always, our Christmas tree went up the weekend after Thanksgiving. A local radio station starts playing only Christmas music about that same time and my car radio has been tuned to that station for the past four weeks. With the kids being in school now, we were able to get all of our Christmas shopping for them done just after Thanksgiving. Last weeks the kids and I bought Mike his gift from them. Today we will be taking them to purchase their gifts for one another. We intentionally put that off so they don't tell each other what they picked out.

The big area where I have fallen short since that kids where born was in the baking department. Up until this year we have NEVER made Christmas cookies. We have always relied on the box of cookies and candy that my Mom sends after she and my sister have their all days baking marathon. we have also never left cookies and milk out for Santa. This year the kids started asking why. So, on Sunday we baked. We made sugar cookies, one other type of cookies and chocolate blobs. They kids had a blast. They enjoyed adding all the ingredients for the chocolate blobs than dropping them to the parchment paper to cool. They did a good job cutting out the cookies. They LOVED frosting and decorating the sugar cookies. I was so proud of them and how they cooperated with no arguments. And they managed to keep things fairly clean in the process.





MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Already Tired of Winter

Since my last post we have had not one, not two, but THREE more storms. The most reason one is ranked the 5th worst in state history. The snow started coming down between 9pm and 11pm Friday night and ended sometime Saturday afternoon. We ended up with somewhere in the area of 17 - 18 inches of snow. Not only did we have get a lot of snow, but we had winds up to 50 mph and temps well below zero.

Luckily some of my patients were smart enough to cancel and I was able to stay home instead of trying to make it work. After finding out, Friday afternoon, that I would not have to work I decided to make a list and brave the grocery store. It was a mad house there with everyone trying to stock up before the weekend. If we wouldn't have been out of a number of things I probably would have just skipped it. Then it was home to hang with the family and ride out the storm.

Due to the storm most of the state was shut down. That's saying something because anyone that lives in a state that gets lots of snow knows it take A LOT to stop people from going out when it snows. Not that it stopped everyone. There were plenty of people who braved the streets. Many of which ended up stuck. We were supposed to have Christmas program practice at church, but shortly after I had decided that we were going to skip, it was canceled with practice reschedule to Sunday school hour the next day.

Sunday we did manage to make it out of the garage. Thank goodness we have an SUV with AWD. I think if I would have tried to make it in my car we would have been stuck somewhere along the way. Because the snow did not stop until late Saturday eve and due to the sheer amount of snow many on the roads and intersections had yet to be cleared. When we did get to church, we were told that practice was canceled and the program along with yet. The reschedule date is yet TBD.

Yesterday I shoveled off part of the balcony. We had had a 2 1/2 - 3 foot drift on it and we wanted to get some of the weight off. It's amazing how much that snow weighs even if it isn't the
wet stuff that come with warmer temps. The snow that covered the roof of the Metrodome is estimated to have weighed about 1300 tons and actually caused the roof to collapse.

I'm so glad we were able to get out of our garage because we couldn't open our front door until this afternoon due to the 2 1/2 foot drift against our door. Our snow removal company was finally able to come in and to a more thorough cleaning job. We now have a snow pile next to our house that is well over 10 feet tall. We have tree more months of winter and I have NO IDEA where they are going to put more snow.

Needless to say, I am already tired of winter. I know I grew up with snow and choose to live in a State where it snows, but this is kind of crazy. The one positive is that it has truly gotten me in the Christmas spirit. Tree has been up for weeks, presents are wrapped and stockings are hung.