Another Christmas gone

Here's a few pictures from Christmas. Except for the one of Cordelia laying down. I had put her down for a moment and she fell asleep. You can see how chubby her cheeks are in the picture. It was a fun Christmas. It was good to see everyone and eat really good food. Have a Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas

Home Sweet Home!!!

Brian and I made it to Jamestown before the storm. The roads were just fine and it was a nice drive.

We just finished with the rehearsel dinner tonight for brian's cousin, Austin, who is getting married tommorow. Soooo, if you thought our wedding was crazy.......they had at least 450 people RSVP to the dinner and dance!! Also, they have the same band we did. Backstage Pass will be there!! Exciting!! This is going to be one long night. Brian is currently drinking with Austin at the hotel in a party room with some more family members and I am taking this chance of a nice quiet rest of the evening of relaxation. Brian wanted me to go and, yes I would love to visit but I finally have a moment of, doing nothing. I love it, for the meantime.

Brian and I knew we were getting close to home, when we suddenly realized the temp outside was dropping and there's frost everywhere and, I can't forget, less trees. Ha ha. We heard on the radio that the temp for tonight with the wind chill is going to feel like -25. Brrrrrr. I called my friend Megan in Wisconsin and told her the temp and she couldn't believe it. Megan and I talked for at least an hour or more today and I already miss her so much. I said all my goodbye's to everyone at work and it was hard. I love everyone there. Oh and Laurie......Kristine says "You're more than welcome for the room." She said it's the least she can do. What a sweetheart. Oh and Laurie, do you remember what I got for Kristine with the Office Space flare? Guess What? She gave me her Red Swingline Stapler from her office as a going away reminder. I told her I will keep it in my new office at the Hilton (that is if I have one) and it will always remind me of our crazy "Office Space" moments at work.

Well, don't want to talk to much otherwise we will have nothing to talk about! Tommorow we have pictures with all the family members starting at 1pm and then the wedding starts at 4:30pm. I thought about the show "Fawlty Towers" today and thought about, the Major on the show. From the episode "Basil the Rat," I remembered a line from The Major when brian and I were talking about the wedding "The Germans, their everywhere." Ha ha!!! I thought you you would like that dad.

Anyway, we will be having the Gross Christmas on sunday here at the hotel and then Christmas Eve we are doing Meredith's side of the family. Busy, busy. We will be home Sunday evening sometime. I hope to get home asap. I can't wait to see everyone. See you soon!

Merry Christmas

Love, Kelly & Brian

Ho Ho Ho!

Today we saw Santa. I had Cordelia all bundled up and moved her around and she still didn't wake up. Of course we had to get pictures taken. They said all the proceeds from Santa pictures went to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Anyone else find this ironic?

Later we went to Grandpa and Grandma's for sledding. Laurie is home now too and got to see Cordelia for the first time.

Why are pirates so scary?

Because they arrrrrrr!

Warm

It's been pretty cold so every time we go out, Cordelia gets bundled up. I also bought a cute hat with ear flaps, but haven't taken pics yet. I'll post when I do. It's so cute.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday mom! Hope you like the next picture. Ha ha!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!

Sorry, I love this picture! Hope dad takes you out for a drink but maybe not quite this size. Ha Ha! See you soon. Love you! Kelly & Brian

No title

Not much happening, just basically wanted to say hi. Mom and I went thrift store shopping yesterday. It was a really good time. We both found some things. I got somethings for projects that I will start after Christmas. I'm so excited though, I want to start now. When you two come home we have to go thrift store shopping some afternoon.

I was going to start making some Christmas cookies, but Cordelia's been kind of fussy lately. I haven't gotten much done the past few days. Tomorrow I am meeting a bunch of people from work for lunch. The kids are going with. I'm not too sure how that will go. I wish we were going to Pizza Ranch so I could leave when the kids had too much, but we are meeting at Dakota Farms. I hope they have fast service.

Not much else going on. Talk to ya later.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Happy Birthday Kelly. I hope Brian is spoiling you on your day. Enjoy the day.

Brian and I will be leaving tommorow morning. I hope the weather is calming down a little. And yes we will call as soon as we land in Madison. I will probably call when we are in Minneapolis also. Well, I have a job at the hilton and I will start training Jan. 1st. I will talk more about it over the phone some more and we also found a townhome that is wonderful! We are really excited about it. It's a great location and off of a quiet road. The townhome is brand new and in a new subdivision. I thought the last photo above was cute in regards to what we are doing. Kindof a dumb joke really. I thought we are getting our ducks in a row, 'er geese in this case. ha ha. If you click on it, it looks even funnier. These geese where lined up almost along the entire falls that we could see. Weird.

views in Idaho Falls

I thought I would share some pictures of Idaho falls. My favorite picture is the last one. It was snowing that day I think it has a nice winter christmas scene in it. Most of the pictures are of the Snake River and all the evergreen trees that you see are lit-up with christmas lights at night. It's really pretty. These pictures are mainly taken right out side of our hotel. I have an interview with the hilton tommorow morning and it's only about two blocks from where we are staying! We have a few more places to look at tommorow for a place to live. We have a townhome in mind that we are excited about and we can't see it until tommorow afternoon. Well, that's about it from here. We will be flying out of Idaho on Tuesday and we should be back in madison sometime in the afternoon. I'll talk to everyone later. Take care and I hope everyone is enjoying the snow! Hopefully we will have a nice full snow white christmas this year!

Let it snow, let it snow!

We made it to Idaho falls and we will be here for a few days to look around. Right now it's snowing here and we have a nice view from the hotel of the snake river falls and part of it is frozen over. It's a pretty area. Sounds like we just lucked out from the snow in Minnesota to fly out and it sounds like Wisconsin is going to get hit hard. Laurie- it's coming your way! Well, we gotta go and get some things done. I just wanted to say hi to everyone and drive safe with the snow coming.

Oatmeal Pecan Pie

I made this today and it is so good. It's also super easy. It probably would have been a little better, but I had a mom moment and left the melted butter in the microwave. I found it later when I was heating something up for lunch.

1/2 (15 ounce) package refrigerated pie dough
Cooking Spray
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
2/3 cup regular oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs lightly beaten
2 large egg whites lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough into an 11 inch circle. Fit into a 9 inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Fold edges under, flute. Combine brown sugar and remaining ingredients, stirring well with a whisk. Pour into prepared crust. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Hat store

Here are some pictures of Kelly and I at a hat store in Madison. The furry hats were nice and warm since it was cold outside. Oh and Stacy- last week on Project Runway the contestants had to design a two-peice outfit for Sarah Jessica Parker's line Bitten. The winner of the challenge had the opportunity to have their design sold at Steve and Barry's. If you are interested in seeing it, Project Runway airs every wednesday on Bravo and they usually rerun the previous episodes before the new one.

Brrrrr

Today the temperature got to 12 degrees. Torii and I went out quick to get some film developed and he had to pick out his ornament for this year. He picked Nemo. When we got home we were putting up the ornaments we bought and Torii kept kind of shivering. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I'm getting the cold out of me."

Spring Break info

I found out the other day that I will be spending my spring break at a wildlife refuge in the panhandle of Florida! I am pretty excited! I don't know too much right now. We won't know what exactly we will be doing until we get down there, but I am sure it will be a lot of manual labor. lol. We will be taking two mini vans down there driving the straight 20 hours. I believe we will be staying in a cabin with two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living area, and two bathrooms.
I am quite excited. I met most of the people in our group and they are all really nice. There are 12 of us going. I am so happy that I will get to go somewhere warm! :) Lesley is going to Virginia to help with rural culture. I think that should be different for her. lol. Below are some links to learn more about what I will be doing. The first link is to the alternative breaks home page and the second link is to the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, which is where I will be.

http://www.gvsualternativebreaks.com/Default.aspx?PageId=9
http://www.fws.gov/saintmarks/

Here is the wildlife refuge description from the site:

"This trip works with a wildlife refuge performing various tasks that are needed to improve the area. Trips in the past have build platforms for birds to nest on, removed trash from the refuge, cleared a trail through palm plants, and pulled up fencing near trees. The forest rangers that the students work with are really friendly and enjoy educating the students about the different environmental issues. It’s been said that students are able to take a swamp tour to learn more about the culture, and that they will see tons of alligators throughout the week!"

Laurie & I goofing around at the mall.

You can click on the image to enlarge the pick. I don't think it will come over to large, otherwise it's going to take up to much room. Enjoy! And, yes I had to lean over at times because the photo lens is only so tall. Bah. My favorite is the last one.

Naptime privileges

This afternoon Torii wanted to watch a cartoon so I let him. I sat down next to him and he said he needed a blanket. Ten minutes later he was asleep. Tonight the boys got ready for bed like normal, but when Fred Rion fell asleep I went in and got Torii. He was tossing and turning because I know he wasn't tired. I told him he could stay up longer since he took a nap. He asked about Fred Rion and when he realized he got to stay up and Fred Rion couldn't, his eyes lit up and he had the cutest smile on his face. So now we are hanging out a little before we both go to bed.

Going once, Going twice, SOLD! We finally sold the old car. Amazingly in two days after we posted it! Crazy.
Stacy- When laurie and I were in Pop Deluxe when she was here, I saw some bibs again that were sooooo cute. I was actually thinking of picking some up for you. How many would you like me to pick up? There a lot of nice ones...., he he. I have also keep looking at Steve & Berry's for your jacket and I can't find it. I don't know if they will get it in. Eeeeee. You might have to order it. Bummer.
Laurie- I still can't remember what we were talking about when you were in the kitchen! It's bugging me!

Take care everyone- See you soon. We will be in Idaho this friday for a few days. How exciting.

Washclothes

Kelly- If you are in Pop Deluxe anytime soon can you pick up some more of these washclothes for me? I'll pay you back. I bought two when I was there (I have the one pictured), but I should have bought more. They are so cute. And I know I won't be in Madison anytime soon and pretty soon neither will you. I could use four more or so. Which ever ones you think are cute. I use them all the time so I have to wash them all the time too. So I could use some more. Thanks a millon!

Chubby baby

Cordelia is becoming a bit of a chunker. You should see the rolls on her thighs.
This is from Thanksgiving. Cordelia dressed up. Isn't she cute?

Sounded like you had a good Thanksgiving. We did too. Mom and I went shopping on Friday. We didn't leave my house until about 9:30 and we still found deals. I got what I wanted so I was happy. It seemed that the stores we went to still had a lot left. Kohls was nuts, but we had a good time. Cordelia went with and she was so good. If I didn't have to carry her carrier around I wouldn't have known she was with.

Today we put up the Christmas tree. A lot of the ornaments are on the bottom half of the tree because the boys helped. The boys want to wrap presents to put under the tree. If they would fall asleep I would wrap some of their's tonight to put under there.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone enjoys the day. Eat a lot and then relax in front of the tv. Laurie- if you are going to Kelly's I hope you have a safe trip. We are going to mom and dad's. I'm going to make a couple of snacks, which I should get going on. Right now we are watching the parade. Rion is hunting with daddy, which is a tradition of his. Torii is driving me crazy right now so I'll cut it short. He keeps asking if I need a certain letter on the keyboard and then he pushes it. Such a brat. Have a good day!

Cheap artwork

Here's the napkins I found at the thrift store. I really like the one on the left. It's hard to tell what the one on the left is, but it has pictures of a village and mountains and trees. I got a pack of napkins for $2 each and the frames were $4 each. I have to get the wrinkles out a little better and then I am going to hang them in my bedroom. I think they turned out cute. I'm glad I picked them up. I've been thrift store crazy lately. I spend too much time at home now and I have a tons of things I want to find at the thrift store. I would love to have a house filled with redone stuff from thrift stores and rummage sales. I love the shabby chic look.

Another fun site for kids

Here is another fun site stacy if you would like to check it out. Lots of fun stuff for kids. My boss gets this magazine at work and I like to find things that we did when we were in Elementary school! Fun stuff. I found some fun things from the website you gave too. Fun stuff! Later.
www.orientaltrading.com

Awesome website

I don't know if I've ever told you about this website but you have to check it out when you have some time. It's http://www.craftster.org I'm currently addicted to it. I've been feeling crafty lately. It's partly because of the website and partly because of the holidays. There are tons of holiday craft ideas. My other favorite category is under home sweet home. It has things people have picked up at thrift stores or rummage sales and redid them in some cool way. There's stuff about sewing, cooking, clothing, and lots more. Watch out it's addictive.

One thing about being home fulltime now, I find lots of projects I want to do around the house. And since Cordelia is such a good baby I've actually done some of them. I made a curtain the other day. I've almost gotten rid of all the mini blinds in our house. I hate those things. Then I was cleaning downstairs and found some curtains I bought and never put up, they're up now. I also found some material that I bought for other projects, so I have those on my list now too.

Hunting widow

I'm offically a hunting widow for a few days. Fred took his annual trip to the farm so it's just me and the kids. So far the boys have been good. I can't believe it because they are usually terrors. But I still have a couple of days to go, so I shouldn't jinx it.

It's been really nice out so I've been trying to get Christmas lights up. I got some up today, but may have to go to Walmart and get some more. Some of my lights didn't work and I can't find anymore. I thought I bought some last year, but apparantly not. And even though I don't want to yet I might start decorating inside. I won't put the tree up until after Thanksgiving though. If I start on the rest now, I probably won't get done until Thanksgiving anyway.

Also I need ideas for everyone for Christmas. It's weird this year. I have ideas for the most difficult people (dad) and no idea for pretty much everyone else. And I will warn you again this year. No presents for Fred and I! Presents for the kids only!

Well I hear Cordelia stirring and I also need to start thinking about supper. Bye.

Hockey Game

Of course there's always a fight. (red flash against the glass)

So the hockey game wasn't that great. Well, I guess for Badger fans anyway. UND played much better than Wisconsin. Brian and I were debating on if we should go and sit by the UND fans! Everyone says that Badger fans are so great and dedicated to support their badgers, so why do they always get kicked out? I do enjoy the occasional taunting of the opposite team, for example, this game the fans were chanting "Sioux's a girl's name", "Racist Mascot."(the last one we didn't take part of). There were some funny chants we took part of, but I can't remember them all. But, when sitting in the sudent section, the fans and people are the rudest people around. Nothing, but getting pushed around. There's always a few bagder fans that get tossed out for some dumb reason. Alot of weird fans here. Brian even had some choice "words" with a guy whose friends were in our seats. They moved, a little bit. The chancellor of UW also put out an ad into the school paper saying to the fans, to cool it down during games because he's embaressed to bring people he knows to watch the games from the skyboxes. Pretty much people who are willing to donate money to the school and then they hear the crowd chanting.....Well, not the best picked words. I'm sure you get the point and could imagine what they say. So, the potential donaters that the Chancellor brings in, think twice about helping this kind of school. He doesn't sound happy.

So, I think we had the last straw with the fans around here and how dumb they can be. I guess that's what you get with a BIG 10 school. Oh well. Brian decided to wear his Red wisconsin polo and I had on my Red Bucky shirt. We thought about walking up to the UND hockey guys, shake their hands and saying "Thank you, we can't wait to come home." But.....we decided instead to just leave the game early.

UND vs. UW

Looking forward to the hockey game this weekend. What a great game this will be. The game starts at 7pm and Brian and I have tickets. Yaaaaaay. We will be in the student section right by the glass. Nice. I'm sure he will wear his UND polo and then I will wear my Bucky shirt. What a fun couple we will be. Anyone know someone on the UND hockey team this year? Well, I better get going. I need to get some things done. I'll send some pics through when I have some.

The white stuff

Winter is on the way. We had flurries the other day and this morning there was snow on the ground. Of course it all melted though. I brought my jacket in to the dry cleaners the other day, just in time.

Today Torii and I went to a thrift store. I think I want to go back and pick up a table. Now that I think about it, I know what I would do with it. There's some other things there too that I've been thinking about and am inspired now. I was kind of in a hurry to get back to Cordelia so I didn't buy much. I did buy something cool. I guess they're napkins, but they have asian scenes on them. One is a scenic picture and the other has a girl in a kimino on it. I don't do asian things, but they were so cool I picked them up. I am going to frame them and hang them in my bedroom. There were four of them in each of the packs so if you want one you can have one too. I can take pics too if you're interested. I don't know what to do with the extras. I will probably become like mom and dad and pick up something I like and then find lots more to add to the collection like their candy boxes.

I've started watching the British version of The Office. It's pretty good. I had heard that the characters and story lines are similar to our version and it's true. Except the boss on the British one is much more annoying. At the beginning of the show they have a "warning" (I think it's Eric Idle reading the warning) that the following show has British accents so you might want to turn on the closed captioning. I think that's so funny.

Big Brother

Torii kept asking to hold Cordelia so I finally let him. He did such a good job. He was really proud of himself too.

Rock and roll

Torii was playing his guitar. He was really rocking with it and then I tried to video him. He kind of mellowed out when I was recording him. Still it's fun to watch.

Pictures

Cordelia's first Halloween
I bought some cheap masks for the boys because they like to try on all the Halloween stuff at the stores.
A big yawn.
Fred Rion was teaching Torii how to use the computer.
Cordelia after a trip to Walmart. I just layed her on the floor because I thought she was going to wake up, but she fell right back to sleep. She likes to put her arms over her head. That's how I know she is sleeping really good. It's hard to tell from this picture but I didn't want to take her jacket off and wake her up.

Pictures

Fred Rion went hunting with daddy and brought home a grouse. He was carrying it through the house to show me. I was freaking out because he kept asking where he should set it down at. Fred said he carried it all around while they were hunting and he was really excited to show me.
This picture is when Cordelia was only a few days old.
A cute pictures with Cordelia while she is actually awake.
Rion and daddy talking to Cordelia.
Torii cut his eye a few days after Cordelia came home. How did he do this? Long story short, he fell off the toilet.

Also...

I changed a few minor things on the blog. I put the authors part at the top of the page and I also added a link section at the bottom of the archive. Please let me know if you guys have any ideas/suggestions, I'd be happy to do it :) And if you have any pictures of us three girls (particularly old ones) send them to me! I would like to put up a few more pictures by the current one.

Jack

I carved a jack-o-lantern this Halloween. I wasn't going to, but Lesley bought me a pumpkin. haha. I carved it pretty traditionally, but Lesley didn't really like the flare I added. lol.

Some Furball Fun

Halloween in Cheeseland was same old thing. We didn't go to state street this year because of the crazieness in town. It was the badger homecoming game along with the halloween on state street weekend. So the game helped to bring in more crazy drivers and crazy drunks. Halloween on state street went pretty well this year and I think it's because the city now charges everyone to get onto state street. Tickets this year were $7.00 a piece and Mountain Dew was sponsering the event so, they also brought in Lifehouse and twista, and some other bands I don't remember. I wanted to go see Lifehouse because they sing our first dance song at our wedding "You & Me," but I also like their other music. Brian wanted to go too but then we heard that the bands don't start playing until 12:30am! No way, are we going downtown at that hour when everyone is already liqoured up and going nuts. It was hard not too though because tickets were only $7.00. Oh well. We went to a friends house to watch movies, and have some food. We had a nice fun night. It was relaxing to just watch movies and do nothing else.

Halloween

Now I have some time to write. I could only get the pics on yesterday.

We had a good Halloween. We did our block and then went to Grandpa and Grandma's. It was really nice so we could have done more trick or treating, but they got enough candy. We took Cordelia out too. Everyone in the neighborhood was so excited to see her.

Yesterday we went to MOPS. I didn't have to hold Cordelia much because everyone else was taking her. I did have to nurse her once, but other than that she slept. Cordelia and I also went shopping the other day. We ran into Grandma so we stayed out for about three hours. She did so good. Torii was mad I didn't take him, but he is such a handful. I did find some new clothes. I found some really nice things so I'm excited to wear everything. It's so nice to have more of a selection of clothes again.

I have a ton of pictures to post, but don't know when I'll get to them. Maybe this weekend, but don't count on it.

Halloween

Batman and Baby Jaguar.
Halloween decorations at mom's house.