Christmas

Here is a video of Lil Brother at his Christmas program. I started laughing when he did his little trick and that's why the camera is so shaky. Sorry about that. :D




Christmas this year was excellent, with the exception of my grandma being in the hospital. She had a medication issue that caused a series of problems so she spent 3 days in there. I feel so bad for her. She got out today finally. We went to see her tonight. She seemed pretty good in spirit...she has some bruising from the monkeying around they were doing with her blood thinner I guess...and she is bone skinny. If you are so inclined, do say a prayer that she will get some sort of an appetite back. She is far underweight and it scares me...it's not healthy at all and she keeps loosing more.

I had Friday and Monday off of work so that was awesome. Friday my aunt and mom came over and we made cookies....the kind my grandma used to make. Norwegian Krumkake is a very delicate cookie that is best when filled with whipped cream.

Almond ginger snaps are another family favorite:

I'm pretty sure I gained about 5 pounds in the last 4 days. So much good food. We had Christmas Eve at my aunt's house with my mom's side of the family and Christmas day was at my house with my dad's side of the family.

Here are a few pictures:

Christmas 2011, a set on Flickr.

On Friday a pair of Bald Eagles showed up right behind my house. I took this picture from my bedroom window. I just love to see them. When I was a kid there were not any around - it was a very rare sight to see them here. Now they are making a good come-back and I'm so glad.

I got three main gifts for Christmas - we draw names in my family....but everyone buys for the kids under 18. I asked for and received a blender...a quite awesome blender, an Ninja Professional - like this one:

You can't make it out clearly, but there are 3 rows of VERY sharp blades. While taking it out of the box on Sunday I managed to cut my finger. Deep. Like it opened up over and over on Sunday, bleeding. And once today as well. So I'm guessing it is way better than the one that I had before - my old one used to stink like something burning while it ran, it was way too loud, and it would vibrate off the counter if you didn't hang on tight to it.

I also got a heater for my living room from my dad and he always gets something cool too - this year it was a Soda Stream pop maker. You make your own soda pop at home. I heard about it on the radio and wanted to try it, until I found out the price. Now we have it, without the initial investment. The kids LOVE it. It's so simple. No electricity or batteries needed. Just the CO2 tank. So far we've tried cola and orange flavored. They are good. The cola tastes like Pepsi to me...and I'm a coke drinker but the orange is yummy!

The kids made out like bandits of course. They really loved all their presents. The girls are at that age where they are pretty fun to buy for. My aunt M. got them both clothes that they have already worn and love. MK got a lot of fun earrings too. Peanut loves the watch my dad got her. It lights up in bright changing colored lights around the outside. MK got the movies she asked for so she's watching one now. Little brother...hard to say which is his favorite...but he's now sleeping with 2 Angry birds (the red and the blue), he played his Leap Frog Explorer for a few hours already, and he's wearing his Angry Bird T-shirt I got him tomorrow to daycare. He also loves his cars - the hot wheels are all the rage right now with him....and he asked to wear his new clothes both yesterday and today. Happy, happy kids. Happy, happy mom.

I have the best extended family ever. My uncle surprised us all with 100 dollar bills too. I asked him if he won the lottery...he said no. :) That was awesome (and much needed and appreciated).

Today the girls and I met up with my aunt M., my cousins, and my sister for a movie - the Sherlock Holmes one. I have not seen the first one, but this one was great! Little Bro couldn't go since it's not a kids movie, so he got to spend some time at my brother's house. He really likes seeing my brother and his family, so I'm so glad that he could go over there. He doesn't get to very often. I hope as my niece is getting bigger, she'll get to come over to our house more often too. She's so darn cute! Here's a picture I took of her at Christmas:

Tomorrow it's back to work. Sad face. But happy to have a job to go to.

Zooey Mama!* Longer post...lots going on!

What a weekend! It started early Friday with Hollywood getting braces put on. Unfortunately they hurt her quite a bit and she had a hard time all weekend. They have 2 brackets on the inside of her last molars on top which rubbed a hole in her tongue on each side. :(

Friday evening Little Brother had a Christmas program. It was really cute. He didn't sing at all. He was so funny to watch though. I was worried he would cry, but he didn't. He was too interested in watching everyone else to remember to sing. He also found a couple coins in his pocket and tried to show me and the kids around him. I don't know where they came from. I only took a couple pictures and the rest is on video. Here's one though.

And here we are having cookies and juice afterwards in the fellowship hall.

I may post a video later...too tired right now.

Saturday I got up early, cooked, cleaned and got ready for MK's birthday party. That started at noon. She had family and several friends over for pizza, pop, and a DQ ice cream cake.

She took her friends on a tour...showing them our little barn with her chickens...they were pretty impressed with the egg that one of them laid. She took them on a walk to our pond behind the house...and showed them her gecko and hermit crabs. Then most of us (9 kids & 9 adults) went snow tubing in the afternoon. That was AWESOME! We got a picture before we left, but 3 of our group had left a little early to go to another engagement so they are not in here.

I'm the one in the red jacket...the same height as some of the shorter kids. :D My cousins, brother, sister-in-law, sister, aunt, 5 of MK's friends, MK, Hollywood and her best friend are all here (my SIL is taking the picture - thank goodness she had her camera phone with). Everyone said it was really fun and I think they all had a good time.

Let me tell you about it from my perspective...first off, I'm over-weight. Like the most over-weight I have ever been in my entire life. We're talking 25 pounds more than I weighed when I was 9 months pregnant with my last child. Ya, lard ass type of over weight. I stood looking down at the hill wondering if I had the strength to be able to pull my ass back up the hill. It took a while for me to get the courage to go down the first time.

They have a type of pulley system with a rope to get from the bottom to the top. It's pretty basic. I mean like....there's a tractor that runs the pulley system with it's PTO...hooked up to a tire that spins the rope and I'm pretty sure some of the pulley wheels were rims. Like from tires. The tubes as you can see in the picture are from tires. Not the fancy blow up kind you buy at a sporting goods store. Nope...these were watch-out-for-the-metal-valve-stem kind of tires. Not all of them, just one of the ones I got stuck with for a bit. The others had plastic valve stems.

The rope lays on the ground on the way up the hill...you throw your tube down, grab the rope and then jump on your tube and hang onto that rope for dear life. God forbid you start losing your grip and the icy rope starts slipping through your hands. You're screwed then. You better roll off the side and get the hell out of the way of the person coming up behind you. There's no one to direct you as to when you should get on after the last person. You just wing it. There is a woman standing in a booth at the top watching so she can stop it if anything too terrible happens.

I made it up the hill every time. Do you know why? Because looking up at that hill while you're on the way up and realizing that if you slip, you'll have to WALK all the way up gives you a really good reason to hang on for the whole trip. There was one time when I over-shot my tube so it was basically under just my waist and legs...I had to hold my whole body up and hang on to the rope to get up there. I thought for sure my muscles were going to rip away from the bone. I made it though. I can barely move today...but I did it! It was a really fun time with family and MK's friends. I love her friends. They are all sweet and nice like she is.

We got back to my house around 7:15 pm. I heated up the sloppy joe's I had made that morning and got out the chicken salad I had made too. The girls all had some supper and then most of them went home. A few stayed over night. They all had left by noon today (Sunday).

I went Christmas shopping for a bit with MK's dad after the kids left. He called me and asked me to since he was clueless what to get her. I met him in the town where I live and guided him in his choices for a teen girl. :) It was actually pretty enjoyable. I'm glad he and I can be friends. It's much easier for all involved.

I was home in time to give the kids supper and I brought home some meds for Hollywood's sore mouth. I got more wax for her brackets, some numbing gel that the pharmacist recommended for her tongue and some soft foods & ice cream for her to eat. She was finally then able to eat a whole meal for the first time since Friday. It was a chicken pot pie. I hope her mouth adjusts soon. I feel so bad for her. It's hard for her to see the value in it right now, but I know in the long run it is worth it (from experience). I was thankful we were so busy this weekend to keep her mind off of it.

*Zooey mama is what Hollywood and MK always say from the movie Diary of a Whimpy Kid (I don't know how to spell it). :)

Whirlwind

Things are going really fast this week. I took some Christmas pictures of the kids...the group shots did NOT go well. Little Brother was uncooperative most of the time...sometimes being silly (like pinching noses and laughing maniacally)and sometimes just being...three. When he was cooperating some one else either wasn't looking, had just two teeth showing, or was holding a limb in an odd position. I spent most of the time being irritated at how is wasn't going. LOL. I did it two different days with him, so the first day with just him went pretty well. Here's a few that didn't make the Christmas card this year but are cute/funny anyway.

On the list for tomorrow:

Work half the day...leave to go get Hollywood and take her to get her braces on! Exciting for her! Pick up MK from school and Lil Bro from daycare, head home to eat supper and then Lil' Bro has his very first Christmas program that he is participating in tomorrow evening. I'm excited about it! Then it's back home to clean the house because....

Saturday:
MK's birthday party! The celebrating starts at noon....we're all going snow tubing in the afternoon (except Lil Bro - he's too little for this one - he'll be at Grandma's) and then back home for hot chocolate and snacks until their parents come get them. I can't wait!

Fun Friday Night

Hollywood has been baking again. :)  She made this cupcake for a friend from school. She does such a nice job! She told me she wanted to go to a culinary arts school when she's out of high school. I told her she can do anything she sets her mind to. We think it would be fun to open a bakery/coffee shop together someday.  



May is the name of kitten we are keeping from the litter that Natalie (the injured stray that we nursed back to health last summer) brought up on our front steps. She's almost 9 weeks old now. She loves to sit up on your shoulder...she tucks her head in and sleeps sometimes.

I took her to the vet yesterday for a check up and to start her vaccinations and also because she had a really yucky looking eye. I thought she had gotten something in it...the lid was so swollen and red. Hollywood was so worried about her...I couldn't just wait it out...it looked really bad. I used my birthday money to pay for the visit. Vets charge a lot for an office visit. It would have been $55 just to have the vet look at her eye...but for $95 I was able to have her look at the eye, do a complete evaluation, and get her whole first year of shots. It cost a little extra since she needed medicine for her eye. She has conjunctivitis so they gave her an antibiotic drop with a steroid in it. It helped overnight, but she has to be on it for a week. She's in the clear with everything else though - no worms, no mites, no fleas, clear lungs - she looks good.

My cousin just got back from a trip to New York City. It's the first time he's been out there. My mom was actually born in Brooklyn, NY. I've never been there yet either. He visited FAO Shwarz while he was there and got the ultimate Lego set for Lil Bro. My cousin just got back on Wednesday but he called tonight to see if I minded if he gave it to him early. Too cute! Of course I said to come on over. We all had supper together (I made a hot dish) and Lil Bro was so excited to open it he didn't want to eat. I used it as a bribe to get him to eat instead. After supper the kids all sat down with my cousin and put all of it together. That was a perfect gift for him - he LOVES it...he wanted to sleep with it tonight. :)

Tomorrow evening a local church is having a live nativity scene outdoors. Live animals, angels, Mary, Joseph, Wise men, etc. I hope to bring the kids out there. It would be nice to see and come away with the true story of Jesus instead of all the commercial stuff the kids see too much of.