Christmas Eye Candy...

Okay, first I'll pick up where I left off whining about the weather...it got so bad that we borrowed a snow blower on Christmas Eve morning and this was the sight I enjoyed from inside my warm bedroom...put everybody to work, right?!! I think Jared liked the snow blower, because he even did the neighbors' walks and driveways--it was nice to watch him do that. Anyway, he may not have spent all the time if he had known that only two days later...It rained a ton and was in the 50s so most everything melted anyway. I'm not going to complain again, but it was weird for sure. The kids think it's Spring now, and John was worried that we hadn't made a snowman yet. I assured him we'll get more chances. Don't worry--those 50s didn't last long. It's cold again already, but we don't have more snow yet, and we actually had wanted to take them sledding. Sheesh, we just can't seem to plan right.So Christmas Eve we went up to Jake and Nicki's and had a feast Mexican style-yum! Tamales, guacamole, etc. and fried ice cream. We also had the kids try to do the Christmas story. This first picture is from our Joy School rehearsal of it, and then the other ones are from the Wisconsin Mortons' valant attempt. I'm sure we have future stars here...First I must say that I love Gabe's interpretation of the wise man.Here we have Brooklyn as the angel and Sara as Mary... And the angel appearing to the shepherd (who is caring so tenderly for his sheep)

And the three wise men, who did not really want to give those shiny red boxes to the baby Jesus until they had put presents in them! It was pretty cute all in all.And then we put everybody in their new jammies and headed home so Santa could come!

We had a good Christmas, nice and simple. We had fun playing with them showing them the new things and just hanging out.

Sara especially loved her princess blanket from Gma Morton, which matches her princess pillowcase from Gma Whiting, so she's happy. Now every day when John is asking me what animal he should be that day Sara is asking me which princess she should be. Such important decisions!




Then we decided to have dinner Kung Fu Panda style and order Chinese. I think that may become an annual tradition, although I do love ham and creamed potatoes, which I still haven't done yet. Maybe for New Years. Anyway, the kids LOVED the chopsticks and it really was fun to watch them try to eat. John was quite persistent and did pretty well, and Sara just went straight for the Skittles. Oh, well. It was really nice to have some low key time, although we would have loved to have been able to party with more family and friends. We hope all of you had a nice Christmas, too!



Merry Christmas!

When did I move to Antarctica?

I don't even know where to start. Although, I do know I'm ready to start walking south! It has been so snowy and cold, it's just been crazy. We took these pictures on Friday before the cold and wind came. I think the whole world around here was cancelled on Friday--they even closed the freeway from the IL/WI border to the Milwaukee airport exit!! Mutual has been cancelled the last two weeks, and church was even cancelled yesterday! Anyway, so Friday it was "just" snow. Then the temp started dropping and dropping, and the wind started going berserk (sp?). With the windchill it was -36 yesterday, and I think it is only warming up a few degrees today. It's supposed to warm up a little tomorrow.

I guess I shouldn't complain, and I should just be grateful that we have warm shelter, food, etc., but it is just too cold to not complain right now! I should have taken a picture this morning, but there was so much snow drifted and plowed back over the bottom of our driveway that I helped Jared shovel so he could get off to work. I think it was easily four feet tall for the bottom ten feet of the driveway. Yeah, that was fun. Trying to breathe over frozen nose hair and trying to lift snow chunks bigger than me without losing the feeling in my frozen fingers. Awesome.

On top of this crazy weather, of course the city has cut back on plowing this year to save money. Love it. Now I know they'll stop delivering mail, because they do that when they can't easily reach the box from the comfort of the truck. Well, then the city needs to plow those six feet in front of it, right?! Is that really my job?

So, put all this together and you can imagine the stir craziness and frustration I'm feeling.

Hey, at least the kids have stopped throwing up. They both happened to throw up at our friends' house last week, one Tuesday night and the other on Friday. Yeah, we're the really fun people to invite over now!! Oops.

So, here are the kids posing to show how deep the snow is...
Check out the drifts--you can see the grass poking through and then the "wave" It looks a little weird, but I'm so jealous of this neighbor with the snow blower with its own room!

Go, Jared!! If only someone paid us for the time we spend shoveling...

You know it's bad when this is INSIDE your garage...

So, there you have it. I'm not one to play "top that" too often, but go ahead. I dare you!

Sara Kate turns Three!

After the slight drama yesterday and a full weekend otherwise, I didn't get a chance to post pix from Sara's birthday on Friday, and I definitely wanted to. So, here's some eye candy... :o)

Sara turned three last Friday, and it's going to take her a while to adjust to saying three instead of "two and a half." She had that down pat, even up to Thursday! I had a fun week shopping around trying to find fun things to do for her princess party, and of course went a little nuts trying to make a castle cake. No laughing at that, please--it wasn't as easy as you might think, at least for the cake impaired! Anyway, she loved it, so that was good. As usual, all my grand ideas didn't quite turn out. For example, the mascara wasn't such a good idea, because Sara was in tears over something like two seconds after she was all done up, so the rest of the party she looked, well, rough! When will I learn? The girls did seem to like the nail painting and lip gloss, though. I had balloons for them to play with and toy swords for the boys, who immediately put them to use, so things got quite chaotic, but I honestly had fun. I hope everybody else did, too.

Here's the cake that I worked on till 3:30 am...

Here are some of the princesses...
And two seconds later...
Pin the crown on Sleeping Beauty...

I had bead bracelets for the kids to string, which they actually sat quietly and did. I couldn't believe it. Anyway, I thought they turned out cute, so that was fun.

By the time for the presents, I think Sara was just too overwhelmed. She just sat there until the other kids finally started doing it for her--it was funny.

Happy birthday to you...

Here she is, the happiest girl in the world!

She had so much fun Friday playing with all her gifts from friends that we saved her gift from us till Saturday morning--we had to top off the princess theme with a castle, right?

And this is why I wanted to have everything perfect for her--she is such a sweety and was just so happy!

Sara has always been a joy. She is always happy and helpful, with a touch of fire sometimes, too. We love you, Sara!

When Kids Say Funny Things - Are You At Risk?

Hello, this is Jared. Kate asked me to make this post myself. This story has two parts.

Part 1:

Katelin is always telling me that she wants to make blog posts about the funny things that our kids say, but that she can never remember them while she is blogging. Well John said something today that is definitely memorable. He and Sara have developed the (to them) hilarious habit of locking me and Kate out of the car. John did this today as we left church, and I told him when he got home he was going to get a time out. Kate and I had driven separate cars to church., so on the way home she was with the kids and I was following. She said that John was pretty concerned about his impending time out. She told him to ask me when we got home if there was anything he could do to not get a time out. After she said this, taking inspiration from Kung-fu Panda, John said: "If that doesn't work, maybe I can just defeat him."

Part 2:

When we got home, as I was getting the kids out of the car, John made a heartfelt appeal to not get a time out, and I mercifully pardoned him. Then, standing in a dark garage, Katelin told me about his plan to defeat me if I had not done things his way. I thought it was so funny, I doubled over laughing, forgetting that I was standing directly over the poorly built and awkwardly placed antenna on a 1992 Accord. The antenna went between my eye and my lower eyelid, far and hard. After performing the requisite Dance of Pain with my hands covering my face, I went in the bathroom and to put it simply, my eyeball was bleeding. I went to the ER and they said I had a corneal abrasion and a subconjuctival hemorrhage. They prescribed antibiotics, Vicodin, and a tetanus shot. (Luckily I was able to pass on the tetanus shot. They are required within 5 years of each stupid injury, and as I have never gone 5 years without a stupid injury, I am always current. Recall, if you will, the episode from last season involving a missing fish, a gallant attempt to retrieve it, and the unfortunate encounter with the Underwater Rock Embedded With Glass). Anyway, when I got home, I attempted to make an adjustment to the antenna so this wouldn't happen again. I guess I was applying too much pressure, because it broke off in my hand. The garage is safe for laughter again.

The Moral of the Story:

In an odd sort of way, even though I pardoned him, I can't shake the feeling that John somehow really did defeat me.

Thanksgiving!

We had an awesome Thanksgiving at my brother Justin's house. My parents were there, too, and Megan and my mom did all the work before we got there, so I got off easy!! I had planned to prepare more things to contribute to the feast, but we were all totally sick for the several days before, so I laid around and felt sorry for myself, while Sara was destroying her room... (see previous post) Seriously, on Sunday morning instead of getting ready for church we took the whole family to the walk-in clinic. Now, that's a party!! We were all totally coughing and had a variety of other things, too, but I also had an ear infection (which is still bugging me, by the way, and yes, I'd like some sympathy) :o).

Anyway, the antibiotics had us all ready to party for Thanksgiving, which we did. We had fun at their pool, went to their "Wonderlab," which was really cool, went for a nice hike, and a Holiday fair, which was cool, too. The kids totally had a ball playing with Maggie, and Sara cried the whole time she was awake on the way home wanting to go back to Maggie's house. It was so sad, but sweet that she loves her little cousin so much. Oh, and I better make sure to mention that I beat Jared boxing on the Wii--ha! They also got to have Christmas early from Grandma, who had tons of presents and new clothes, and they were so excited!! We wish we could have stayed longer and we hope we didn't get everybody else sick! Enjoy the pix...there are so many, I should have done a slide show--sorry!

My angel

My little Sara is an angel, but she does need to figure out her style. This is how she dressed the other day, complete with angel wings and necklace. Oh, and in case you can't tell, that's 7 shirts she's wearing. Yeah, 7. I think this same day she pulled everything out of her dresser and mixed up several piles that I had going--some that she had grown out of and lots of new hand-me-downs, that I was sorting into sizes. Oh, and she discovered that the rubbermaid in her closet was full of clothes, too--other things that have been given to us or things I've bought for next year. Needless to say, her room was a crazy mess. Of course I immediately cleaned, sorted, and organized it all back to perfect order. Not. You'd think I'd learn, but I started and got interrupted and then left her pretty much the same piles for her to mess up all over again, which of course she did. Sometimes a few minutes of quiet is worth whatever they are getting into, right? Now if I can just get this little angel interested in potty training...