dirty blonde Christmas

Well, we had that brown Christmas they predicted.  Except I don't think brown is really the color of the dead grass we have to look at when there's no snow on it.  But it was nice anyway.  We have great kids and parents and siblings (in-law too) and nieces & nephews to celebrate with.  Blessings galore!

rainy December

Why hasn't the cookie baking bug bit me yet?  Feels like a chore this year.  But I gotta have me some peanut butter Hershey's kiss cookies.  And the weather guy said we have a 60% chance of a brown Christmas.  Last year we had mountains of snow and this year might be drab and dingy.  How about a happy medium? 

Felix has a new favorite nap spot under the tree.  Probably biding his time until he can do his kitty ninja move on Santa. Feed me!  Hi-yah!  I have attacked your leg!

Last night Nicky was Joseph in the little Christmas pageant that the 2nd graders put on during faith enrichment every year.  Kind of cool.  Five years ago Michael was Joseph too.

happy winter celebration?

It's that cozy time of year.  And I have a super special talent - the ability to pick the check-out lane that will take forever.  Even if it looks the most promising at first, somebody will whip out 298 coupons or have a question that requires a manager or it happens to be the cashier dude's first day.  Nate is good at it too.

Michael has a concert tonight, but it's not a holiday concert.  Weird.  C'mon, I wanna hear them play Christmas music.

This is stupid and scary - the U of M is asking it's employees to use the term 'winter celebration' instead of 'holiday party.'  C'mon, we're not all busting our rear ends shopping, wrapping, baking, decorating, attending mass and driving all over to celebrate Winter with our families.
link to this grinchy censorship story

better late than never?

I got braces yesterday.  Just on the top for now.  The bottom ones will go on in late January.  They're annoying but not too painful.  Well, eating is a bit painful and cumbersome and they are constantly chaffing my gums & cheeks.  I hear that subsides.  Oh, and flossing is a gigantic pain in the rear.  I don't like how my upper lip falls over the brackets/teeth.  Like I've been socked in the face, minus the bruising.  I guess I'll stop at nothing to look 20 years younger.

Zach saw me get the camera out and complained that he didn't want to be in a picture.  But then he got jealous and probably confused after I took several weird shots of my teeth.  

twinklyness

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to y'all.  I have no legitimate gripes in life at present, and a bajillion things to be thankful for.  Turkey, stuffing, pie, etc. - all icing on the cake.  Mmm, cake.  And we finally lit up those pretty twinkly lights tonight. 

I 'spose the tree could use some more lights, but it may have to wait.  That's Mary and Joseph glowing all freaky bright in a stable Nate built.

lights all aglow

If it's in the 50's in November, Minnesotans are puttin' Christmas lights up.  It's almost time to enjoy those LED lights we got on mega-clearance last January.  Our maple tree wants to stubbornly hold on to it's leaves for some reason, though.

Also looking forward to the Catholicism series by Fr. Robert Barron of YouTube fame, airing on EWTN this week.  Though many Public Television stations across the country are airing it, several stations (including our local TPT) chickened out.

Trick or Treatin' 2011

Bunch of recycled costumes again for Halloween this year, just how our pocketbook likes it.  Except Adrienne - she was a butterfly with wings that wouldn't cooperate.

Nate wore the werewolf mask while out with the kids.  He carried Zach's fireman axe sometimes.  People were too scared to talk to him.

'Tis the season of gorgeous sunrises & sunsets.

Aaaaww-OOOooo...

a little culture never hurt anybody

wounded vets video

Caught this at the end of the news yesterday and thought it was cool.  Prosthetic limb technology has come a long way. It's amazing what these guys can do.  Go Vets!

blessed braggy mom

Nate and I went to conferences for Michael, Adrienne, and Nicky yesterday.  They're all doing really well.  We walked out feeling pretty proud of our little brood.  Not that we expected to breed numskull troublemakers, given the mousy nerd I was and the smarty Nate was in school.  They're bright and talented and we're blessed.

houseful of sickies

All 6 of us have had to wrangle with a cold and cough bug in the last 2 weeks.  Michael's mostly over it.  Mine's not too bad.  The rest of the people in this house are still a bit gross.  Moms are supposed to be super compassionate and all, but hearing coughing every 5 seconds for weeks and weeks grates on the nerves.  Some less than nurturing things may have been said recently, like Please get your sorry barking carcass out of here and leave me alone.  I would rather deal with colds than a pukefest, though, or full on influenza, so I'll quit whining now.  Here's a fun picture of a squirrel chillin' on our deck.

And cold bugs be darned, we made it to Red Wing on Saturday for our annual fall family leaf looking.  'Cept it's been so windy that what's left wasn't real impressive.  Nice warm weather, though.  This year we rode the Trolley for a tour about the town.  The guide liked to talk about alcohol.  Good family fun.  Oh, and there's a rumor that Al Capone and some other thugs used to hang out at an island by Red Wing.  I've heard the same about Coney Island in Waconia.  Those mobsters really got around.  I think I saw one in Target last week.

Michael acted like a teenager most of the time.  I suppose as each of the kids succumbs to teen-dom in the coming years, they might prefer to skip these family excursions.  Nothing doing, pal.

bad news bearer

Really enjoying these temps in the 80's this week, but it could get pretty ugly in just a couple months.  When I was at the dentist recently, the hygienist told me another patient had said we were in for an even worse winter than last year.  &*%$#.  So to put off doing dishes just now, I looked into it and came up with this website:

OFFICIAL 2011-2012 WINTER FORECAST

There's some speculation involved, of course, so here's hoping things change.

warm October orchard day

Went to a couple orchards yesterday, along with 1/3 of all Minnesotans.  Guess we all had the same idea since it's been gorgeous outside.

The first one we went to charged for every little thing, so we went to another one where the kids could jump off hay bales for free.

Their hay rides were a lot cheaper too...

the Vikes goobered it

Nate and I went to the Vikings game on Sunday.  It was my first time and his second live game.  We fought through light rail crowds and got there early to spend $11 bucks on two 'quarterback dogs' (lame-o name) that had delightful shards of bone or cartilage in them.   We were in the nosebleeds but along the 50-yard line.

 

It started out well.  They were scoring points and stuff.  Guys ran around with flags.

Then they tanked in the 2nd half.  We left with 4 minutes to go to beat the crowds to the light rail station.  The Bucs scored and won after we left.  Ho hum.  My pretzel with cheese was good, and it was fun watching the Bucs fans in the next section fight with Vikes fans.  Could have done without the crazy ecstatic people in front of us who had to stand every 5 seconds.  Then we had to stand to see what the heck was happening.  Up down, up down...it was worse than Mass.

Nicky is recovering from having a somewhat large mole removed from his scalp on Friday.  The dermatologist is not concerned that it was suspicious, but we were tired of paying co-pays to have it checked and having to keep an eye on it.  They had to remove quite a bit of extra skin around it in order to be able to sew it up nice.  They went a bit overboard with the razor beforehand.  He handled it like a champ though.  He didn't whine or move around, or even grimace when the doctor grabbed the skin on his head and jabbed the shot of numbing junk in.

It's zoomed in so it looks a bit worse than it really does.  They asked him if he wanted to see it when it was done.  I wasn't sure if he should look, but he wanted to.  He giggled.  Our little FrankenNicky.  Thankfully the kids haven't been too hard on him at school.

And finally, Zach turned 4 yesterday...

Mmm, cookie cake.

Clothes, yes!!

Firearms, wa-hoo!!

off to speech - 9/14/11

That's some spontaneous happy dancing.  He was excited to go to school and show his teacher his new shoes.  What a cute little bugger, if I do say so myself.

back to the grind

Tuesday was the big day.  Here are the obligatory first day of school pics - Michael 7th grade, Adrienne 5th, & Nicky 2nd:

Zach starts his articulation group next week.  It meets for less than an hour (on Weds. & Fri.) because it's basically speech therapy, but he gets to ride the bus, woo-hoo!  Michael came home from the first day of school with 6 syllabuses for me to read and sign.  Besides the cost of school supplies for all of 'em and $10 each of "party money" for Adrienne and Nicky, A's teacher wanted $15 for an exercise ball and they're going on 3 field trips this month that'll add up to $26 per kid.  Two $13 ones and a free one, oh yay!  On a less sarcastic note, they otherwise had smooth sailing and a positive first week back.  Nicky said his teacher is nice and hardly ever yells.

3rd blogversary

3 years of mostly bragging and ragging on my kids, I 'spose.  Zach wasn't quite one then, and he'll be four soon.  Jinkies.

A turned 10 last week.  Another kid in double digits...

The kids go back to school on Tuesday.  Not looking forward to cracking the homework whip again, but the change will be good for all of us.  With summer winding down, life around here is becoming stagnant.  It's been tough lately to pry the kids' grubby mitts from the TV or Wii remotes or the computer to go do something a teensy bit more brain stimulating. Not to mention busting up disagreements all day.

paintingpalooza

Been a crazy week.  The kids spent this past weekend in Waconia so Nate and I could paint the living room and hallway.  The previous weekend we were back in Iowa to celebrate my mom-in-law's 70th b-day.  Happy birthday Doreen!

The cousins had lots more fun together.  You don't see many of these spinny thingamajigs at parks anymore.  The older cousins got to stay at Nana and Papa's farm for a few days afterward and wear out the go-karts.

The painting project is still not complete.  It was tough covering the dark red walls.  Had to do 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of paint.  We liked the red but were ready for a change.  The other features 'pop' better now that they're not outdone by the shazam! red walls.  There will be 3 different colors when we're done - the hallway is a shade lighter and there'll be an accent wall here and there.  Golly, we've seen too much HGTV.

Yay for Nate!

Yesterday my handsome, smart, hardworking hubby got some news from his manager.  He received a promotion to Lead Software Engineer.  Good job, Nate!  Love you!

to lotto or not to lotto?

A Burnsville couple won the Powerball this week, with a ticket they purchased just a few miles from our home.   The big $228.9 million will become a $123 million cash payout, then 'only' $84 million after taxes.  Seems this couple met with their financial adviser earlier this week and their retirement prospects weren't looking stellar.  Funny how things work out sometimes.

Lots of lotto winners end up going bankrupt.  We like to think we wouldn't be idiots and lose it all, but if you imagine the nitty gritty details of a life with sudden wealth, the pressure must be insane.  When the jackpot gets huge we fantasize how we'd spend it - besides the nicer house and $$ set aside for college, etc., we'd pay off the mortgage at church (so they stop pestering us with capital campaigns), give some to our fav charities, and to family and friends.  But how much?  And would you really become an instant philanthropist anyway?  Whatever you do give away, it's probably never enough.  Putting the shoe on the other foot, what if it's someone close to us that pockets 84 mil?  Say my brother Chris wins, and all he does is give me 2 million?  Chris, you lousy cheapskate.  Alesha, we practically grew up together, how could you only take me on a world cruise?  How messy it would all be.

Well, it's pointless anyway, 'cuz we never play the lotto.  And lightning never strikes twice - a winning ticket already sold in our hometown.

lots more celebrating!

We went to Josilan's baptism in the Des Moines area on July 31.  It was a double baptism/1st Birthday celebration because she turned one on May 28th in Ethiopia, a few weeks before Erik & Kim went to pick her up.  It's crazy how many cute expressions she has!

Then Monday of last week Lily the Yorkie-Poo joined us again while her family vacationed.  We had lots of fun with her just like last year.  We took her to the park in her little dress where she barked her rather fierce bark (for a 4 pounder) at all the other dogs.  She'd tremble & sniff 'em when they came close.

Unfortunately Michael got injured when he tried to pick up the cat during a Felix/Lily showdown.  He had to have a couple stitches under his nose and some glue put in the scratch under his eye.  He toughed it out and is healing well.

Nate had a b-day on Aug. 2, the day we supposedly missed Economic Armageddon by a hair.

And finally, happy 80th birthday to my dad!  Aug. 3 was his big day, then we had an Open House for him on Saturday (the 6th) at my parent's home in Waconia.  We had a great turnout.  It was awesome to see family & friends from near and far, including the 'Southwood Gang", lots of family from northern MN, my mom & dad-in-law from Iowa, and my aunt and some cousins from Omaha that we rarely see.  Also lots of Waconia folks who my dad has known for many years through his involvement in the community.  He is really a go-to guy there.  Doesn't really look 80, does he?