Christmas 2013 - MN

Despite just having surgery, I had a wonderful Christmas. My sister and her family were here from CA, and my brother and his family were here from ND. It was a crowded house...8 adults, 5 kids, and 3 dogs! But it really wasn't bad; everyone stayed healthy which was so awesome, and it was nice enough the first few days that we got to do outside stuff. I was a little bummed I couldn't hold the babies or go sledding, but I was thankful I was still able to go.

Abel and Ella were so patient and waited until Saturday morning to open presents. All the kids made quite a haul!

 

Sister Katie and Elias

Abel

Sister in law Katie and Ty

Ella and Jocey trying on their matching shirts...Ella wasn't too happy about it!

Brian and the girls "helping" Ty open his presents

Jonathan and Abel

Abel got an "iPad" for Christmas - it was some kind of electronic tablet type kid toy - but to him it was an iPad!  He carried that thing around the entire week.

It was great to start the week off with some warm weather - the kids had fun in the snow.  Abel wasn't too sure about it, but I think had fun just being outside.

 

Grandpa giving those new knees a workout

 Poor Bruno...he broke his foot.  They don't know how he did it, but had to have it in a cast for a few days. 

 The Californians having fun in the snow

 Ellie loves to jump for snow and water, and Jocelyn loves playing with her

 We did some sledding too...we took the 3 big kids and went to our old elementary school where there's a great hill for kids their ages.  Not too steep and no trees to run into!  Ella only took one trip down and she was done, and Abel would have happily taken zero trips down.  I think he went a few times though.  Jocelyn could have stayed all day! What a difference a few years makes.

 Who needs a sled?

 It was way more fun playing on the playground equipment than sledding!

The adults don't exchange presents anymore, but Mom and Dad were so thoughtful and got us all a gift certificate to a restaurant so we could have a night out!  They watched all the kids, fed them ice cream and popcorn, and let them stay up late.  What are grandparents for?

 We had a great time out together.  I'm so very thankful to have such wonderful siblings who married such wonderful people!  I just wish we all lived closer and could do this more than once a year.

 They got the kids matching pj's and wanted a cute grandkids picture.  That was quite a feat...it's hard to get everyone happy and awake and the same time!

 Pretty good looking bunch, huh?!

One of the days we went to the Children's Museum...always a favorite! 

Jocey delivering mail

 Ty and Ella planting flowers

 Abel fighting fires, delivering mail, and driving a bus

 Ella could have stayed in the water area all day long

 I love the look on her face...the kid across from her was doing something naughty!

The day before everyone left, we had an early birthday party for Elias.  Isn't he just the cutest, most smiley kid?! 

 He wasn't too impressed with our singing

 But once he got some of the cake, he was good

 

Our New Year's Eve celebration...not a one of us made it until midnight!

And now the photo dump of other random pictures from the week

 Ella helping Uncle Cal package some Smart Stops

 With the "iPad" again!

 Silly Uncle Jim!

 Jonathan's brother and his wife came over for a visit - they live in the Cities too

 And they got Abel a harmonica!  Wow - thanks guys - what a very loud present! But he just loved it, and was so darn excited I couldn't get too annoyed.

 Decorating a gingerbread house, aka eating all the candy

What a great week we had all together...can't wait to do it again soon!

Christmas 2013

So, since I was totally out of it for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I have only a few pictures.  Sad. 

 

For our advent calendar, we do different activities (most days).  Her favorite is sleep under the Christmas tree.  I really like that one too - there's just something so cozy about sleeping with the tree lights on.

 Thankfully they did take some pictures of all the grandkids - aren't they so cute in their matching jammies?!

 Ama & Bumpa with all their precious littles

 And what would a kid photo shoot be without the ending silly picture?

 Christmas morning - Santa brought her a flip hat!

 Showing off her new zebra shirt and hair dye (it's just chalk - don't worry)

Is anyone there?

Wow has it been a long time! There's probably no one even reading anymore! That's okay...this is kind of my form of scrap booking since I don't do that anymore either. :)

I'm on vacation this week - had some time to use up so it's a "getting things done" vacation. Which I do enjoy every once in a while. But I've come down with a cold and am not feeling the greatest, so today I'm sitting on the couch while Jocelyn is at Ama's. And I can blog on the iPad! Didn't think I could get to the pictures from here, but I can. So I am getting one thing crossed off my list while still relaxing. Awesome!

So, December. I think that's where I left off last year. Had a pretty uneventful month; just getting ready for Christmas and all that. And then December 22nd came. And I had an unexpected appendectomy. Surprise! I had been having weird, random very painful stomach problems (well, for many years) for the past year. I had been to the doctor, they had done testing, but couldn't figure out what it was. Since I knew it wasn't anything too serious I was just prepared to deal with it.

But then that weekend it was hurting again, same symptoms, but after two days and after throwing up it wasn't getting better (which it normally did). The only thing my doctor suggested was going to the ER when it was happening so they could do a CT scan. So, since I felt pretty awful, I decided to go in. The pain was also a little more on my right side (before it was always in the upper middle) and was a bit sore to the touch. Good thing I did...after I finally got the scan it showed appendicitis. So, the surgeon was called in, and about midnight I went in to surgery! Everything went great, went home the next day, and proceeded to have the next 2 weeks off of work! It was a bummer that it was at Christmas, but it was also a blessing. Calvin wasn't traveling, his parents were home and able to take Jocelyn and there was enough excitement for her that she didn't really care we were gone. We spent two nights at his parent's house which was wonderful and so fun...living in town we don't do that very often and it was so nice. The only big bummer was that I didn't get to see the boys very much. They all left Christmas Day morning, and I was still pretty out of it on Christmas Eve. Then Friday we headed over to the Cities to my parent's house where both my brother and sister and their families were.

Pre CT scan

 

Post surgery

I've been feeling so much better post surgery! It was so hard before to know what would set off my stomach aches; often greasy food would do it, or if I didn't have a chance to eat at work and then would eat dinner it would often happen as well. Now I can eat whatever I want! Well, for the most part. I'll always have a sensitive stomach, but that's fine. However, a combination of eating whatever I want, having to wear leggings for a while post surgery due to the incisions, turning 35, and being the coldest longest winter ever have led to a few extra pounds that need to come off! Good thing it's starting to get nice out so we can do fun things outside again.

So here are a bunch of pics from the last 4 months!