Tis the Season......

Where do I even begin....what a crazy week it's been. Here's my summary of my past 7 days:

1. Night before I'm leaving to go up north - car makes weird noises. Bring car in - needs new back breaks - can't fix tonight as they close in 30 minutes. Crap. Make appointment for early morning - attempt to entertain kids for 1 hour in a car repair shop. I think I should get a trophy. Thank goodness there were no other customers in there.

2. Make it up north. Play in snow. Brett doesn't like it - at all. Colton wants to make snow fort. Talk him into a snowman. Snowman falls over the next day due to the rain.

3. Have first of 3 Christmases. Lots of nice gifts. Boys love it.

4. Class reunion (see previous post for details)

5. Get snowed in and have to stay up north one extra day.

6. Head out nice and early and fly home (just kidding mom, I drove the speed limit or less the whole way). Only have to stop to clean my windshield and adjust my wipers twice. Listen to 17 month old scream for 3 1/2 hours. Man that was a fun trip home.

7. Get home in time to shower and get ready for Christmas #2. Ate way too much. More nice gifts. Boys love it.

8. Rise and shine to see what Santa brought the boys. Open every present - remove those dang twist ties - seriously why does a Power Ranger need 36 of those things to keep it intact to it's box? Play play play. Get ready to go to Christmas #3.

9. Drive to Dad's. Eat lots more. Pants getting tight. MORE nice gifts. Boys still love it. Brett hacking up a lung. Colton stays up until midnight. Get up and drive home at 6:40am due to child still hacking up a lung and afraid he'll wake everybody up. Come home - take short nap. Get ready to go spend some time with great grandpa and grandma while their in town. Go grocery shopping. Stop at Target to buy meds for little one. Go home, put boys to bed and groceries away. Crash. Hard. Wake up to alarm at 5a.m. Back to reality.

This holiday season was great. Spending quality time with all my families is priceless. Seeing Christmas through the eyes of my children is indescribable. I am blessed to have a wonderful life and wonderful people in it. I'm looking forward to see what 2008 has in store for us!

In the meantime, here are a few random pictures from the past 7 days:

10 years and counting......

The big 10 year class reunion was this past weekend. When you come from a small town you pretty much hear where everybody lives,who married who, who has kids, etc. So, the graduating class of 1997 met again after 10 years. Well, at least 23 out of 37 of us. Yes, you read that correctly. After 10 years, most people look the same, just a little older....some of us a little wider and some look better than they did at 18. When you live in a small Midwestern town, most want to get out of town after they graduate...as far out of town as possible. We have classmates living in New York, Montana, Arizona, many in California....some are still in college, some never went, one has his own company (surprise, surprise) some have kids, and so on and so on. So here are some snap shots of the evening.
Clearly, we weren't all looking at the same camera in this picture....I think we were all looking forward to our next cocktail.

Some classmates and their significant others (for those that brought them)
Leah, Leah and Leah. Can you believe in a class of 37 that there would be 3 of us?
More classmates....
More classmates and their significant others....
Class of '97 - it was a good time.....I'll see most of you in 10 more years!

Happy Holidays!

I think I'm finally ready for the 'big' day. All the gifts are purchased and wrapped...let the celebrations begin. The boys and I are heading up north tomorrow morning. Mike isn't able to join us as it's his turn to work the holidays at the hospital. So, the boys and I will have an early Christmas on Saturday with my mom's side of the family.
I also have my class reunion.....I'll be sure to fill you in on that.
We'll be back on Sunday and then will be spending Christmas Eve with Mike's side of the family and Christmas Day with my dad's side of the family. Yes, my children think that having 3-4 Christmas's is what everybody does.
Oh, and did I mention that I have a week off from work?! LOVE IT!
With that, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

Busy Weekend

We had a wonderful, busy weekend:

1. I got to see the new baby Bree and

2. the almost new baby Lucy with whom I share a birthday with.

3. The Auxiliary at work put on a children's holiday party on Saturday. We took the kids and they had a great time. They made reindeer food, a snowman necklace, got tattoos and Colton transformed himself into Rudolph:

Brett wasn't into the crafts as he preferred the sugar cookies and a quick visit to see The Grinch and CindyLou Who: (Colton wouldn't go anywhere near the green guy - can't say I blame him - he does look quite creepy)

4. Sunday was Colton's Sunday School Christmas program. He did a fabulous job signing. He just looks so handsome if I do say so myself

Christmas Letter Part 2

For those that have been patiently waiting by your mailbox to receive the highly anticipated Christmas letter from us (ok, so I know none of you are doing this, but it was a nice intro to my story) - it's not gonna happen. I made the executive decision on Monday night. No Christmas letter from us this year. I'm not even half way done with my Christmas shopping, didn't have my letter written, didn't have paper to print it on, my to do list isn't getting any shorter, so I just decided that somethings gotta give and the letter is it. Whew. I feel so much better.

My Sweet Boys

Last night I received an early Christmas present from my boys. A one hour full body massage! Let me just tell you that it was FABULOUS! Once I got over the awkwardness of somebody I didn't know rubbing my limbs (and the fact that I hadn't shaved my legs that morning), I did just fine. He worked out some knots in my back from lugging around a 24 pound child and when it was all said and done, I walked out of there with a smile on my face and another appointment!
If you live around me and want location info, shoot me an email. I highly recommend him.

White Elephant

For the past 6 years, a group of us, most from SCSU, have been getting together for Christmas and have done White Elephant gifts. After we stuff ourselves with delicious food and wine and conversation, the gift tradition begins. The dice come out, the gifts are grabbed and then we laugh till our stomachs hurt at what we came up with. There are a few gifts that have been passed around for about 4 years and you always hope you don't end up with those. Sorry Jayme that you ended up with the fiber optic bunny, but it does make a lovely Easter decoration! Here's Amanda with her new reading material.....
And Kristen with her new game. How convenient that she just so happened to leave it at my house. Don't worry, I'll bring it to you.

Cookies

Typically, I get together with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law every year and make a bunch of Christmas cookies. Our schedules didn't match up this year so we just did our own and then we'll share. Anyhow, one of the many kinds I made were sugar cookies per Colton's request. So, on Friday evening, we spent an hour frosting and decorating. I was the froster and he handled all the decorations. He took his job very seriously making comments along the way such as "a dash of this, a nab of that...." Absolutely hilarious.

The Christmas Letter

I've started to panic. Christmas photos have already started arriving in my mailbox! By December 1, I usually have my family photo (that was cropped and displayed in one of those pre-designed photo cards from one of the many online stores) addressed and waiting for me to go and buy stamps at the post office. This year, well this year it's been different. I had my neighbor come over today to snap a few poses of us in front of our decorated by a 5 year old tree. I think we got one where all four of us have our eyes open and looking towards the same direction! ;)
But my question to all of you out there.....do you write a Christmas letter to go with your photos? I started this tradition about 5 years ago after Colton was born. I try to avoid the whole brag letter, but sometimes that's harder than you think.
I love love love when I get letters from others (hint hint). I started the 2007 letter, but am stuck. I can't really even remember what happened this year. I think it's time to bring in my husband's creativity. I'd love to something a little more creative than just a paragraph of what each of us have done over the year, so any of you with fabulous ideas; do share. Please. Seriously, I need some help.