Christmas in REWIND - Part 2 Christmas Card Photo Shoot & Christmas Program

Photo Shoot:

I'd like you all to think it's all lollipops and rainbows when we take the Christmas card photo but it's not as such. Not even close! Never is, probably never will be. I thought I could handle doing it by myself, but it wasn't working. No one seemed to want to cooperate with me. So I drug Brian into it. He wasn't much help. I deleted the shots he took of my butt...there were several. After an hour, me crabbing and pitting out we got one acceptable one for the card. (88 shots later...keep in mind the butt shots) Here are a few out takes suitable for the blog. Enjoy. They are actually funny now...looking back on it.

Booger anyone?


December 15th: John Ireland Christmas Program

This years program was excellent! The girls were a little concerned that it wasn't going to be the "same" without their old music teacher. She always made up such cute programs. I do have to say we all thoroughly enjoyed the different format that the new teacher came up with. This year Emily and Caitlin are in the JI Children's Choir-it's new this year and it's 3rd-6th graders. They practice twice a week after school and they sounded spectacular. On one of their songs the 2nd grade and Kindergarten joined them and dressed as toys for the song "Toyland". Rachel was a Lego and was very cute. The choir performed a few of their songs at the beginning of the program. Caitlin was in a Clarinet trio and solo for band and she was one of the three wisemen and had a solo part for that. Both Emily and Caitlin played a piano duet during the evening programs prelude. They all did a great job and we were very proud of each of them. Rachel couldn't stop smiling she was so happy to finally be a part of the JI group!
Clarinet Trio

John Ireland School Kids
5th Grade
JI Children's Choir
Lego Girl
Emily and part of the 3rd Grade class
3 Wisemen

The kindergarten class
Rachel's 6th Grade Buddy-Sophia

Christmas in REWIND- Part 1 The Tree

OK, now that I have my camera back I have to rewind all the way back to the beginning of December. Please bear with me on this. This blog is my way of remembering what we did so when I get to my scrapbooks I have something to write down that is fact rather than making up some sweet story! :)
December 5th: Getting our Christmas tree-and it was a beautiful one in deed. Our best, we think so far. The tree was still drinking water the week after Christmas!! This time getting the tree was a little different. Brian gave the reigns (the saw) over to the girls and let them cut it down all by themselves, having to work together which is sometimes difficult for them. It went well, no one fought and no one lost a finger or arm. Natalie had fun looking for a "baby" tree, one her size and eating snow. Just had to make sure it wasn't yellow snow! Usually after Brian cuts the tree down he then drags it to the car by himself. Oh no, not this year. You cut it, you carry it. So again, teamwork, they drug it to the car. Well, mainly Caitlin and Emily. Rachel kind of ducts out of hard jobs and well, Natalie, she's only two! She gets a free pass! And as tradition goes, after cutting the tree down we head to Whiskey River for a bowl of soup and watch the wildlife roam around the restaurant. This year...no animals-just a couple birds. And the food...not much to be desired.
Brian giving a little "instruction" on tree cutting.

Natalie (project manager) looking on to make sure Emily and Caitlin are doing it correctly. Rachel working hard at "holding" the tree from falling! Ha ha.

Finishing it off. Rachel now Project Manager...

Decorating the tree was fun for me this year too. I didn't have to!!! The girls, again, using teamwork, got the tree decorated all by themselves. I do admit, "fixing" it a bit the next day when they were at school though. All in all though, they did a pretty good job. This year's ornaments they got from us were light up ones. The girls were pretty excited about them! I also have to mention that we were supposed to decorate the tree on Monday, the day after we got the tree, but they lost their privilege to do so after they decided to start fighting. They were not happy with me, but I stayed my ground and this Mama won one!


Too precious! We know exactly where Natalie put her ornaments.

Happy Birthday Dear Emily!

Today Emily turns 9 years old. Can't believe this brown haired beauty is that old already! Where do the years go? Emily and I had a little fun this morning and got pedicures, a treat from the co-op and Culver's to go. She played all afternoon with her friends and this evening we went to her choice restaurant, Olive Garden. I don't have my camera so there are no pictures to capture this day except for the poor quality one on my phone. But, we will be having an actual party this weekend and will have my camera by then!

Emily is such a sweet girl. Kind and compassionate. The one everyone wants to play with. She loves to play Wii rather than do her homework, practice piano or read. :) She does have her moments but is rarely moody, crabby or mean. She's usually the one always smiling, giggling, or being obnoxious. We love her and can't imagine life without a brunette in the family. Can you even imagine if we had all blondes?!?!?! Oh dear. Thanks for balancing us, Em! Wishing you God's blessings on you this year and the years to come. Love you! mom

Thank you God

We have a lot to be thankful for and we thank God for all these little blessings. We were able to go to Fargo to meet our newest perfect little nephew Jackson.
Annie, Matt and Owen hosted my side's Thanksgiving and they didn't disappoint. Annie just gave birth to Jackson 6 days prior to having all of us at her house. Now that's a woman! Mom helped her prepare the delicious spread of food and they did a great job. The kids were able to play with all their cousins, the guys watched a little football and Laura, mom and I got our baby fix by holding that precious little boy. Jackson was born on November 19th at 4:07 a.m. and weighed 6lbs 14oz. He is soooo cute! We met Bob and Laura at the hotel on Wednesday night and the kids all swam together. They had a great time. It was a quick trip to Fargo but we are thankful that we had beautiful weather & good roads.



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On Saturday we traveled to Wabasso for the Salfer Thanksgiving and we are so thankful to have alot of fun cousins to play with, I'm thankful for awesome in-laws and thankful for the delicious food especially Charlene's Pecan Pie. It was nice to be able to visit and catch up with the older nieces and nephews while the younger ones played. We hardly ever see our girls once we arrive at Gpa and Gmas! We played a fun new card game too!

We also stopped by Great Grandmas to say hi, see her new place and wish her a happy Thanksgiving. She looked great and was happy to have the company. I'm always amazed at how upbeat she is and happy despite not being able to remember everything or able to say what she wants. I'm sure she feels frustrated inside but she never shows it on the outside. She is one amazing lady. Again-blessed to have her as my grandma. :)

Brian and I always comment on our ride home from these family events how blessed we truely are. And we know that God gave us these blessings and are thankful to him for them.

Happy Birthday Brian

Happy Birthday to YOU, Daddy! We love you soooooo much! -Caitlin, Emily, Rachel & Natalie

I love you honey -Mandy

We enjoyed a nice evening celebrating Brian's b-day. Natalie and I baked the cake and decorated the table in the afternoon and Caitlin, Emily and Rachel decorated the cake, wrapped the present and blew up a balloon. The theme was "Orange B-day", Brian's favorite color. :) We found some Elmo hats though and threw them in-at least his nose is orange! Brian chose Patrick's here in town to go to for his b-day dinner. It was really tasty! As Caitlin lit the candles and walked away Natalie, in b-day spirit, blew them out! She thought it was so funny, especially since Caitlin walked away and didn't notice her do it. So Caitlin relit the candles and Natalie "helped" Brian the second time. It was pretty funny.

Happy Halloween

"Scooby-Dooby-Doo" Where are you?!

We had alot of fun being the gang from Scooby-Doo. Caitlin however was standing her ground and she wanted to be Wonder-Woman. And a fine Linda Carter she was-without the black hair! It's hard to see Brian as a blonde and myself with chest hair but we tried to pull it off the best we could. I thought that Emily looked most like her character, but it was Natalie who stole the show at each house we went. She does make a pretty cute scooby. And she was so good about saying "trick-or-treat"-she knew what her reward would be!!!! Rachel is the bomb in her red hair! She was sooooooo cute! The girls got quite the stash of candy and aren't too hopped up on sugar at this point.


Rachel with her teacher Miss Eichler and classmate Jared.
Our friends-Miss Katie the cowgirl and Abby as Twister