Resolutions

Before the stroke of midnight I should definitely post my goals for 2009. 2008 has been filled with blessing upon blessing. We are so grateful for all God has provided for us and all he has entrusted us with. Here are a few goals I am setting for our family for 2009 (in no particular order):

- plant a garden
-foster and role model kindess, self lessness, curiousity, and adventure for the kids
- sieze the moments....all of them
-laugh often throughout the day
-give the kids jobs so they develop responsibility and team work around the house
-CONQUER clutter...try as I might, I cannot ignore it and it's killing me
-take loads of pictures to capture the perfectness of these stages
-enjoy these times rather than be frustrated at all that I can not accomplish
-actually read from front to back one book that is not self-help, professional or kid oriented
-dance with the kids, be Carter's "princess" and Ella's "fairy god-mother" before I know it they won't have a thing to do with my dancing!
-go on more dates with my hot, sexy, and intriguing husband

Celebrating in Wisconsin

This year we tried something new. We rented a condo at Chula Vista resort in Wisconsin. It was mom and dad's idea, thinking it was only a 6 hour drive for each of us rather than 12 to MN. The trip couldn't have been more fun...or better planned out, thank you very much Sandy! She thought of everything from meals, snacks,crafts, and decorations. It was such a riot. The kids were never bored....more thrilled than anything! It was fun to spend time with family in a new environment. The picts below are the only ones we have of the water park. You know, new expensive camera, too much water and not enough arms to juggle it all! But the kids were thrill seekers. They rode many of the slides I found to be exciting as an adult. This was a perfect vacation because Scott and I got to act like kids as well. Ella and Carter are already planning all the fun they will have when we go back! It was fabulous! I was checking out my friends blogs and discovered there was a qu

icker, easier, less frustrating way to get all the pics put together. Here goes:

Frustrated

As I sit here and try to recall the memories with these pictures. I am losing my patience with the blog template. I get the pictures and captions all lined up perfect and then when I publish nothing matches up! No time to fix, sorry they aren't perfect! Technology argg!

Over the hills and through the snow

Well I surely got my wish for a white Christmas this year! We ventured out and drove to mom and dads to celebrate our Christmas Eve with them since Evan was home and we'd be out of state for Christmas. We are feeling in the holiday spirit that is for sure!

The pictures tell the best story and I will only add words here and there to explain: Ella enjoying the tree and ALL the beautifully wrapped gifts!



Making reindeer food and spreading it in the driveway!

Tucked into the big bed all three together

A few gifts had to be opened the night before

Carter was so tickled with the gift Ella so thoughtfully picked out for him! She was overwhelmed with all his loving affection.

Equally excited about the remote control Cars car Uncle Evan gave him! I think this Christmas was Carter's most animated! He was more than over the moon with the socks in his stocking!

Elle & Carter picked out this special musical aquarium for Christan's crib

Carter discovered a new perspective

to playing with his new cars

Elle writing Santa

Ella and Grandma sharing The Night Before Christmas




Opening stockings is always a favorite

"Oh my d-oodness sakes! I willy wike my new John Deere Tractor"

Elle with her American Girl doll. This was the only gift she asked Santa for! She has named her Ainsley....Moorlag (of course)







Tired and thrilled all at once

Ella with Dad, Ainsley, and her new beautiful rocking chair from Grandma and Grandpa

Ella went shopping at school this year and picked out the following gifts for our family:

this Mickey mouse clock for Carter He loves it! and she is so proud!






A beautiful 'pink diamond' bracelet for mom.

Ainsley in her winter outfit

Scott did such a great job catching this picture of Carter with his snow globe. He shakes it watching the snow fall and comparing it to the gorgeous snow fall outside.

*If you notice there aren't any pictures of Christian on Christmas morning its because the little darling is sound asleep in his pack n play. You see, Ella and Christian have this tradition of memorable Christmas Eve's at my parents. Ella's second Christmas at 18 months she was sick for the very first time. She threw up for three straight hours and we had to take her to the emergency room. This year, Christian cried until 2:50 when Scott braved the blizzardous conditions and drove what should have been a quick 10 minutes to the 24 hour gas station for pain reliever. Since the roads were so treacherous it took FOREVER! Christian finally went down around 4:00. Of course, mom and Evan, our early risers were up anxiously awaiting the kids awakening (having completely missed all the drama in the wee hours of the morning). The kids were up after 6. Scott and I scored yet another beautiful Christmas memory and probably 2 1/2 hours worth of sleep. Hey it beats the memories from last Christmas when the tree fell on our house ripping off the power source and Scott being stranded by himself for almost 5 days cuddled up next to the generator making sure our basement didn't flood! SHEEZE what is with our family and Christmas memories??

A little naughty and lots of nice!

Gus and Christian up to their mischievous ways!

Unfortunately it is almost New Year's and here I am posting mid December pics. Life is a whirlwind and no less hectic during the holiday season. This has been an absolutely wonderful holiday season. The kids are at perfect ages. They are filled with the magic, wonder, and generosity of the season. As I went through the excitement of the daily fun, trying to fit in traditions, crafts, and baking, I was blessed to overhear many darling conversations between Ella and Carter. I was so happy to watch them thoughtfully pick out and wrap gifts for each other(albeit if they went through 3 rolls of tape to wrap the gifts), retell the Christmas story with their Little People nativity set and daily redecorate the lower portion of our Christmas tree. I've always thought Christmastime was great but now as a parent I find it even BETTER!

We've had lots of snow! Carter our outdoors man is caught here enjoying the white powdery stuff! I have so many fun pictures to post that I will let the pictures tell the story. Oh and by the way, yes that is Gus in the top of our 9 foot tree. Gus and Christian had this perfect game they played together. Gus would climb the tree making it sway back and forth, and on the way up he would reach out his paw and bat the glass balls off onto the floor. Christian sat at the bottom waiting for the beautiful glittery bulbs to plop on the floor. It was this great game they played until I grew so tired of policing the area and chasing Gus down that I took all the garland and balls off. It is a more barren and safer tree for the time being!

Just in time

Thankfully, our family is a very healthy family! Not to brag or jinx us but Ella has never been on an antibiotic, Carter has only had one ear infection on his first birthday, and everything else has been sniffles or the once in a great while stomach flu. However, On Thursday Carter woke up at 4:00 am needing me to snuggle. Which I thought to be a bit odd, but he is a hard core snuggler (just not usually at that hour). When he woke up crying and hot I knew he was coming down with something. I was all dressed and ready to head out the door for a busy day of work, however my son needed me. So I changed clothes and crawled into my bed with him so we could snuggle to his heart's content. Turns out, he had a serious case of strep throat. We headed to our pediatrician's office on Friday afternoon to confirm it. I was worried because he wasn't eating anything, had broken out in a sandpaper rash, and his eyes were red and swollen. He missed two days of daycare but after being on the antibiotic is seeming to rally back to his normal busy self. I am praying that Ella sails through this along with Christian. The doc said we should know by Sunday night if someone else was going to get it. Here I sit with my legs and fingers crossed that we have dodged the bullet of sickness. So I won't be posting any pictures from the weekend...since not much happened. The kids stayed in their pjs today until it was time for their bath. I can honestly say my hands are raw from all the disinfecting, cleaning, and washing of hands I've been obsessive about. It took me over a week to post a 'few' pics from last weekend. So that should keep the grandma's happy!

News from the weekend: since we stayed in, Christian decided to come up with a few new tricks:
1. waving to everyone. We make such a fuss about it that he must think we are ridiculous!
2. Walking behind his push toy
3. turbo crawler....can't take your eyes off him for a mere second
4. some new funny faces-one that looks bashful, one where he closes his eyes and tilts to the side, and one where he sticks his tongue against his new two bottom teeth
5. he sounds exactly like Gus Gus from Cinderella and says,"da, da, da, da, da" in the deepest raspiest voice. It is simply precious, and I don't see any reason to encourage him to say anything new for a good long while.


This week should be busy at work. Wrapping up things with the school kiddos. I am doing a little project on Wednesday with Ella's class. She and I are both excited! I am looking forward to some time off from work. I am a bit frustrated with a few things there and honestly..the kids have gone right off the deep end. The anticipation of the festivities has them thinking of everything other than academics! YIKES!

AMAZING fun

On Sunday morning we woke up and took a nice walk to the Shedd Aquarium. The walk was just right, not windy, and not too cold! Carter loved all the buildings.

I knew that this time around the aquarium would be a completely different experience for Ella. We had visited when she was little when Mike lived in Chicago. Carter was enthralled with everything there. By the end, he was exhausted from running back and forth to all the different tanks.

Dessert before dinner

Scott and I have wonderful memories of the Hancock Tower. Many moons ago, we had our first 'real date' there. Yep, this is where it all started. We dropped a friend off at O'Hare airport and decided to see the city while we were in town. After going to the top of the Hancock Tower to check out the view, we ate dinner at the bottom of the building in this wonderful restaurant called The Cheesecake Factory. We were hooked at first bite. The food is fabulous, atmosphere fun, dessert... to die for ..... but it all changes when you have 9 people you are trying to sit with three of them being our very young children. Unfortunately, this time around we waited way too long (2 hours) and we didn't even go during the dinner rush. So we had a little time to kill, which worked out perfectly since the Hancock Tower is kitty corner to the American Girl Store. Ella received her first AGDoll catalog well before Christmas and had every single accessory circled in a multitude of colors (categorizing them by order of importance of course.) So when I told her Chicago had a store (huge, albeit) she was rearing to go. We went and toured the store which looked more like a museum than retail for about an hour. The guys rode the escalator (a popular activity on this trip) and also checked out the fantastic Christmas village with trains and every other gadget imaginable. Carter was thrilled and when he grew tired of the same thing, Uncle Evan was on hand to shake him around.

All of us minus Scott (taking the photo) in front of the Hancock Christmas tree.

One of the dolls she wanted her picture taken with

Elle and Grandma at the front of the store