CHRISTMAS 2008.

We have had a wonderful Christmas vacation so far, and it doesn't end until January 5! It started out on the 23rd when Heidi, Chad and Dan watched ours and Tim & Carissa's children so that we could go on a double date to see The Minnesota Wild (our professional hockey team) play in downtown St. Paul. They even provided the tickets! It was the first time we've ever been able to go out with Tim & Carissa sans kids and it was a great time. Thanks guys!

Joel and I.





Tim & Carissa Meehan (and baby #4 en utero).





A candid shot. Well, no, not really. I had them pretend to be freaking out at the game :-)






Next, we spent Christmas Eve at Joel's grandparents house (Norris and Lorraine Jobe). They're the ones with the 16 kids! Half of their children come on Christmas Eve and the other half on Christmas Day. Joel's mom is in the Christmas Eve group!

Family Photo on Christmas Eve.





The girls with their Great Grandma and Grandpa Jobe.





Marie and Naomi got to dress alike on Christmas Eve. It was pretty cute.






Christmas Day was spent at Joel's parents house. We opened presents in the morning and had a delicious Christmas Day feast. I might've taken more than my fair share of Ralph's famous stuffing.

Dan and his lady friend, Kaylen :-)





A couple of really cool girls.





Indoor sledding on Renee's Christmas present.





Grandpa and Renee





Heidi showing Renee the great outdoors.





Marie and Naomi in their princess dresses from Heidi & Chad.





What a goofball.





On December 26th we headed down and over to Nebraska to see my lovely parental units. First, we celebrated Jesus's birthday at Grammy Cindy's house:

Marie and Grammy made Jesus a birthday cake! It was angel food - how appropriate!





Marie modeling some of her new dress-up clothing.





Joel was pretending to be the Wolf who ate Little Red Riding Hood's grandma.





My cousin, Casey, came over for dinner and a playdate and brought his adorable son, Cole. It was getting close to his bedtime and he obliged us by taking a photo :-)



Grammy and her little grandbaby.





Me and baby Renee, or "Little Gus Gus", as Marie calls her.





Grammy looking groovy.





Great Grandma and Grandpa Wears with all three of their Great Grandchildren (who all have February birthdays!)






And finally...we had our Christmas celebration with my dad and his wife, Carolyn on their Ponderosa (acreage).

My dad and youngest daughter.





Carolyn made these little stuffed doggies for the girls. One is Zsa Zsa (their vizsla mix) and the white one is Missy (the ferocious pit bull).





Isabelle and I with our babies :-)



















P.S. I will try to work on my overuse of smiley faces :-)

I gave Renee a haircut today. I've trimmed the back a couple of times but have never given her, or anyone else for that matter, a haircut. I was pretty nervous, but it turned out alright!

BEFORE:








AFTER:

A wordy post.

I realize that this post is entirely too wordy and probably contains more information than anyone cares to read. But, hey, I'm lonely and want to talk to someone and I figure that now that this blog is private, the only people who read it probably actually care about our family's strange anecdotes and quirks.

We found a church today thanks to an acquaintance (a good friend of our sister-in-law, Carissa) who actually lives in Virginia but has a friend who lives here in the Cities. Long story, but thank you Cindy A.! I just wish that we could go again next weekend and meet a few more people, but we'll be in Nebraska, which we are very excited about. Christmas will be celebrated in Faribault with Joel's family and then we leave on the 26th for a visit with my side.

Marie is becoming a big girl. She's almost potty-trained for naps/bedtime. She has been potty-trained during the day since May, but relies on her diaper during sleep. We made a sticker chart and each time she woke up dry she would get another sticker. Five stickers meant that she would get a reward, which she decided would be My Little Ponies. After she earned her first pony, she woke up wet from her nap. I asked her why she had wet her diaper and she said, "Because I already got my pony and I don't want any more ponies." Stinker! So now we've made her reward movie-watching. We'll print off a photo of a character or scene from a movie of her choice (one that we already own) and make a sticker chart out of it. When she gets four stickers for dry diapers, she gets to watch that movie. We'll see how this goes....

An interesting fact about Joel: He loathes unicorns. Marie's pony is a unicorn and it annoys him terribly :-) He always asks Marie if she is going to burst into song when she's playing with it. Apparently ponies remind him of rainbows and fairy dust and bursting into song while running through a field of flowers - all of which are very uncool. This afternoon Marie gave him the unicorn to play with and he said, "Tomorrow morning, instead of reading my Bible, I think I'll just bask in the beauty of this unicorn and rely on that strength to get me through the day." Yea, he's really sarcastic about the unicorn! It's hilarious, though, and all in good fun.

A few photos. Yes, a couple of them are practically the same photo, but I like them all and I know you do, too. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.


Our Christmas books on display.





Marie being a ham.





She's so big!





Renee is warming up to Marie ... a little. Marie adores her baby sister, but the feeling hasn't always been mutual!





Playing house with a moving box.





Ditto.





Renee's crazy hair. It was always in her eyes until...





I cut her bangs! Her hair is in a ponytail and wet in this photo, so it looks kind of strange, and I've since given her a few more bangs. But it is SO nice to be able to see her pretty little face, and I can tell she's much happier. Bangs are all the range right now, too!

I wrote this on Tuesday and am just posting it today:

No photos (again). My apologies to the three people who occasionally read this blog. I'm having a terrible day and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. This morning I ventured out with the kids, which is a feat in and of itself in -9 degree weather. I checked on the TV before we left and that's what it said. NEGATIVE 9. It's surprisingly bearable, though.

Anyway, last Sunday we visited a new church and really liked it so today the girls and I went to the Moms' Group. I realize that I am emotionally fragile lately and my personality isn't exactly shining through, but seriously NOBODY talked to me other than to tell me when they would be collecting the money for the child care and craft project. I just sat there pleading with my eyes like a sad little puppy dog for somebody to talk to me. Anyway, I awkwardly left an hour early and bawled all the way home. So pitiful.

It's a good lesson learned for me, though. I'm not very good about making the new person feel comfortable and welcome. I'm sure there have been times when I could have prevented another emotionally fragile person from having a complete meltdown, but didn't.

And here's something on a bit of a lighter note:
(I totally stole this from my friend, Jenny's, facebook page) This song definitely reminds me of elementary school. Well, the original does anyway.

Hi. We're alive and well, and healthy for the time being. Not a lot going on in our lonely little winterland. We've hung out with our wonderful family quite a few times, which is always encouraging and refreshing. But we're still working on finding a church and making friends who are not obligated to spend time with us (wink wink). Just kidding. We actually visited a church today that we really enjoyed, and it is overflowing with children.

Renee is starting to understand more of what we say now. She claps, waves, gives kisses and signs "water" and MAYBE "all done". "Water" and "all done" both involve shaking your hands, so it's hard to say.... Today I said, "Renee can you take off Mommy's hat?" And she did!

Here are a few photos from this past week:

Happy Renee. She has been a big grump recently (she's going through a bit of attachment anxiety), but I was able to capture this rare photo right after lunch. I'm sure she'll snap out of her grumpiness soon, but it is really draining right now!





Another happy shot!





Marie posing.





Making Christmas cookies (on Friday night).





Me and Marizzle.





Joel is our resident cookie-making expert.





Joel's three siblings and our neices and nephew all came over on Saturday night for dinner and a little cookie decorating contest. Here are the kids having some fun.





Eating their hard work. Unfortunately, Marie put a few too many spicy cinnamon candies on her cookie, so she didn't enjoy it all that much.





The grown-ups trying their hands at decorating.










Here are the grown-ups' creations. Tim made the liberty bell. That black line is a crack. I thought it was pretty creative, but unfortunately he did not win top honors.





Kaylen's stocking won, and her prize was this "Sugar Deluxe" cookie. It's a Dan/Joel specialty that they used to make (and dreamed of marketing) during their childhood. It's basically two sugar cookies, stuffed with a TON of sugar, and then rolled in additional sugar. Joel will be happy to fill any of your holiday orders. They are SO nasty.





Renee and Kaylen. Kaylen is Dan's friend and we reeeeeally like her. She's really funny and sweet and adores children. Definitely a keeper.