I love Christmas break!

It has been the best Christmas beak! The weather has been nice and we've been having lots of fun getting some r&r. I'm still a little bit in denial about still working 4 days in January, but I keep reminding myself it is just for one more month and a little extra cash never hurt anyone!

We had the most beautiful morning earlier this week. I dropped Michael off at childcare, and then I spent a few minutes driving around and enjoying the scenery.

Scott took a few hours to clear off our pond and made a little ice rink! I'm surprised he skated so well out there with the ice being so rough. It is supposed to rain maybe today or tomorrow and then freeze so he is thinking that will help smooth things out.

Michael and I did a little sledding in the yard and watching Scott clear off the pond.

Other than that, we've just been doing lots of lounging around in our jammies!

Christmas Recap

Christmas was pretty great this year! It was a wonderful couple of days with our family! We had Christmas Eve to ourselves so we went to the church service and had a nice relaxing time enjoying the message while Michael was in the nursery. We had gotten there plenty early to get seats and enjoyed coffee and cookies while we waited. It was awesome! Afterward, we came home and Scott cooked me a nice Italian dinner. Impressed? I sure was!

The next morning we all slept in and then opened our stockings and ate breakfast.



Michael got some new tadoodle crayons, sippy cups, and a new pair of tennis shoes!



I made my special overnight baked french toast and Michael loved it! He was a little wound up after he ate it- it is a little high in sugar!



For Christmas dinner, we headed into West Des Moines to my aunt and uncle's house. They have a beautiful home and it is always decorated so nicely for the holidays. Practically the whole family was there and it was so nice to see everyone!



Isn't my aunt's tree so beautiful? She always gets a nice big real one every year! I'm jealous!



Michael had so much fun being the center of attention. He was running around everywhere!




After dinner, the whole group headed out to our house for dessert. We had a crowd of about 20 people! It was nice, people were hanging out upstairs and downstairs so it didn't feel too crowded.

Mom and Denise made the most beautiful sugar cookies just like Pioneer Woman did. I was really jealous...I wish I had more free time! Mom promised next year she would help me make some so I am holding her to her word! The Santa cookies are a tradition in our family and mom makes them every year.

Michael and his great-grandma. She gave him lots of great gifts for Christmas- including some nice vintage Dr. Seuss books!

This was the extent of my holiday baking: two dozen peanut butter cookies. I made them quick while Scott was out snowblowing. I figured the less I made, the less I would eat!

I should have taken more photos of our whole spread, but you know how terrible I am with actually getting my camera out during things. I had gotten this big red velvet cake from Costco, a cheesecake and an apple pie. I made homemade whipped cream and it was all really good! The red velvet cake is totally gone- I had no idea it would be such a hit. The desserts were all really delicious and there was no work involved for me except braving Costco before the holidays. Which was quite the feat, actually. :o)

Even Scampy had a great time, he got lots of attention from my aunts who love cats. It was a merry Christmas had by all!

Illumination

Dear Michael, please always let your little light shine!

Merry Christmas, everyone! :o)

Christmas Cards!

I love mailing and getting Christmas cards! I wish everyone sent cards to each other all year long instead of just a few weeks in December. It's so fun to see everyone's photos and read their letters about the news in their life. Even if I already know what is going on in their lives, it is still nice to read a letter from them!

Our Christmas card journey started out the way it does every year....trying to update our address database and then print address labels. I don't know why this is so hard for me, but every year it seems like it takes me a whole day and by the time its done, it would have been faster to hand write all the addresses!

Our cards are ones (plus some extras) I won for doing a shutterfly.com promotion. Thanks, shutterfly! They turned out really well and I can't wait to use them again in the future.

I got them mailed out on Monday (a day off of work for me) so hopefully they will be in mailboxes before Christmas!

Michael did great at daycare on Monday, but on Tuesday he came down with a rash so he was home again with dad for a little bit until I came home. He was playing in his chair and I took this photo of him and Scampy.

Doesn't Scampy look sooo happy? He's giving Michael his extra special death stare look.



My tree has also mysteriously lost all the decorations from child-level down. Hmm...

3 days until Christmas!

Happy 70th Birthday, Grandpa Dave!

A couple of weekends ago, we all got together to celebrate Grandpa Dave's 70th birthday. 70...wow, huh? I think that is a good reason to celebrate! I hope I am still doing as well as Dave (minus hauling the millions of gallons of manure-he is a retired radiologist turned farmer) when I am 70!



Dave and all his grandchildren.

When we asked Dave what the highlights of his life so far were he said that when he was a boy he wanted to go to medical school and become a doctor. Actually what is really amazing is that all the men in his family became doctors and all the women became teachers/college professors with doctorates. I think that is really amazing, especially since they grew up right after the depression and were very poor. There is this funny photo from their hometown paper that my mother in law has saved that has Dave and three of his siblings in their car heading to college an hour away. The article said they would all go in the morning and then stay and study until everyone was done with class and then drive back home. I think that is pretty cool!

Dave said when he was practicing he wanted to own a farm, and he purchased about 800 acres in southwest Iowa where they now live. He has been retired for a few years and I feel like he is the happiest and most relaxed I have ever seen him. Driving around in a tractor all day must be some sort of therapy, huh? :o) They have some hog buildings which produces lots of manure- hence the reference earlier.

Dave has also built many homes in his life and they are now working on finishing an addition onto their 150 year old farmhouse.

Margie made his favorite Joy of Cooking cake and the next day Susan made his other favorite cake- pineapple upside down cake. It was so cool and old school with the cherries in the middle of the pineapple rings. I've never made it, I'll have to try it sometime!

Michael had a good time snuggling with his aunts and playing with his cousins. He always thinks he is such a big boy when he is around the bigger kids! We had great weather for the weekend, but unfortunately our family from St. Paul had to hunker down for an extra night because of all the snow up north!

It was a great weekend and we loved seeing the whole family!

Sick Days

Michael has been a sick boy the last three days. Luckily it happened to fall on a weekend so we were both able to be home with him for the majority of it.

He woke up Friday morning with a fever and was very sleepy. I ran up to Ames quick and did rehearsal with the kiddos and then I canceled all lessons so I could come home and be with Michael. We did a lot of this:



Hanging out in our itty bitty sweatpants.

Watching PBS kids and snuggling in the big chair.

Being really cranky and crabby.

Watching more TV and snuggling with our favorite blanket.

Playing with noodles to try and get distracted from being so crabby.

We also did lots of snuggling and napping in bed together. Michael never ever wants to snuggle in bed with us so this was a treat! Yesterday when I was at church, Scott said Michael napped in our bed on and off for five hours! He pretty much slept all day yesterday. We tried to take him to the nursery at church last night to see if he wanted to play but he wanted nothing to do with it. Luckily he had a good night's sleep and today he seems to be doing much better, even eating most of his breakfast! Hopefully our little guy is back to his happy self in time for Christmas! We are thankful we are getting this now instead of on Christmas morning!

Updates on life

We made a big mistake and left out a ball of twine that I was using to decorate. I would love to see what that cat does all day when we are all out of the house.

Believe it or not, this is actually the second time this has happened. The first time we left a ball of string out on the table and when I came home it was around every single chair leg in my upper level. It looked like the place was booby-trapped! I wish I would have taken a picture- I thought things like that only happened in movies!

We've been trying to get Michael to get used to eating with a spoon and judging by the photos our efforts have been....marginal, to say the least. He usually just abandons the spoon and scoops up whatever we give him with his fingers. He loves great-grandma's (organic!) applesauce!

We finally have snow! Our pond looks so pretty all iced over. Scott really wants to groom it so he can play hockey on it, but I think it sounds like a lot of work. We've already had a couple of people out there ice fishing so I think the ice is pretty solid.

Michael has really enjoyed playing with his Little People Nativity set. Mostly he just likes scattering all the pieces all around the house and waiting for mom to set them all up again so he can do it all over.

That's it for this week- I'm just buying time until I am on break for Christmas! Wahoo!