Christmas pictures

 In an effort to not put a thousand pictures on my site, I thought I'd try the slideshow. This first on is pictures from our Christmas in Iowa. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pics:( I'm kind of bad at that. But here's what I have. The matching outfits are gifts from great grandma Peg. Aren't they cute?!?

While we were in Iowa, I found out that my brother was not going to be able to make it home from Christmas. Seattle got their biggest snow storm/blizzard in 40 years, and all flights were cancelled. That made me really sad, as this would be our first Christmas without him. I think my mom took it the hardest, though! Fortunately, he was able to get a flight into Chicago on the 26th, so we did get to see him.

We got home from Iowa on Tuesday, then Wednesday (C'mas Eve) we headed down to my folk's. But check this out (you can't make this stuff up): on our way down there, Derek goes to turn on the headlights and the entire knob pulls out of the dash (the Jeep). So around 6pm on Christmas Eve, somewhere around Indianapolis, we have no headlights. We stop at a rest stop and hang out there for about an hour, while Derek tried to fix it (and ended up ripping the entire dash out! Yikes!) Not exactly the way I would have liked to spend Christmas Eve, but we certainly met some interesting people at the rest area! Haha. My dad was fixin' to come get us, when we decided that we could venture the rest of the way with the caution lights on (no tail lights, mind you) and manually holding the brights on. So that's what we did, and amazingly we didn't get a ticket.

We spent Christmas Eve at my cousins Bonnie and Boyd's, which is our Christmas Eve tradition, and opened presents with them, then went home to wait for Santa. Here are the pictures from our Christmas morning.

Yes, my mom and dad got each other the same GPS system. It was funny, because we all knew about it beforehand. Two years ago, they got each other the same Walther P22 pistol, and both had me wrap it. I guess when you're married that long you just start to think alike:) Actually, I think my dad just gets my mom what he wants. Haha. After eating my mom's traditional Christmas breakfast and playing with our toys, we headed over to my grandma and grandpa's (dad's parents) for a late lunch. My grandma makes an awesome prime rib every year, but this year she surprised us with a tenderloin (filet) stuffed with a mushroom stuffing. Holy cow. We have been so spoiled this year, having filet mignon 3 times since Thanksgiving! We all missed having Gareth there (at least I did) but it was fun nonetheless.

The day after Christmas, we headed north for my mom and dad's Christmas present to us kids: a ski vacation in Wisconsin. We picked Gareth up on our way, though his flight still ended up being delayed a little over 2 hours. Chicago was having an ice storm!

Saturday, the weather was not as expected. Apparently it was 70* in Indiana?! In Wisconsin it was warm and rainy. Not great ski conditions. So, we were disappointed but made the best of it. We went to this hotel called the Kalahari, which had an indoor water park, theme park, movie theatre, bowling alley and wild animals! We only made it to the theme park, which had a ferris wheel, carousel, laser tag, a HUGE ropes course, putt putt, a climbing wall and go- karts. Oh, and tons of arcade games. Gareth, Derek and I played laser tag about a thousand times, I was so worn out. My dad played this one arcade game all day, and won enough tickets to buy Annabel a stuffed animal:) It was a really fun day. 

That night we got about 5-7 inches of fresh snow, so we headed to the slopes. It was cold and wonderful, but I pooped out around 3:30. My pants weren't waterproof and with the ice on the lifts I got soaked through. The boys skied until 5. Unfortunately, my camera died halfway through the day so I didn't get any pictures:( That day my mom and dad took Annabel back to the Kalahari to see the wild animals and play. She got to pet a baby kangaroo and a a baby lion!

Derek and I were going to leave to come home on Tuesday, but my brother begged us to stay until after New Years. So, okay. It's not like we have jobs to come back to! Haha. Tuesday he and I went to visit our old friend Sarah Blair. She has a Wii and a Wii Fit, so we stayed pretty busy!:) That night we went out to eat with my grandma and grandpa.

The Year of the Homemade Gift

This year was really cool because it seemed like everyone got crafty and made gifts. I made her and Morganne play food out of felt, as well as lavender-vanilla soap for my female relatives. Aunt Holly made her an awesome name plaque to hang on the wall, and Grandma Sue made her a flannel quilt. My grandpa made her a carved wooden doll named Ivan and her cousin Boyd bought her a homemade wooden cricket thats legs move when you pull it. My cousin Bonnie also made me beaded earrings. Also, Beth, my SIL Holly's mom, made her a sock monkey and my brother commissioned one of his friends to make her this green monster. Here are some pictures of her Christmas gifts, because I know grandparents like to see this sort of thing:)

Happy New Year!

Our New Years Eve was pretty lame this year. Well, not totally lame, because we went out to Red Lobster with our friends Heather and John, who used to live in Marion with us but now live in Montana. So that was fun. But then we came back to my grandparents and watched CSI:NY with my parents and I fell asleep on the couch. Didn't even see the ball drop- wild!. Hopefully one of these days we'll have friends again and someone will invite us to a party. Until then, there's always the tv.

Did everyone make New Year's resolutions? I certainly did. I always make them and rarely keep them. Some of mine this year are:

1. Learn how to knit in the round

2. Do more crafts with Annabel

3. Eat more salad

4. Make laundry soap

5. Redecorate the living room

6. Write my brother more letters

7. Lose 5-10 lbs by going to the gym on my lunch break

8. Stop biting my fingernails

9. Stay on a routine for keeping the house clean

10. Walk the dog at least twice a week

Wish me luck!

I'll leave you with this picture. Derek snapped it of us before Christmas. Although its admittedly not an attractive picture of me, I think it goes a long way to show our plight as mothers!