Happy New Year!

Well, not the greatest New Year's Eve ever. I was reminded today of last New Year's Eve when we, at 12:15 went to turn off our gas fireplace and go to bed and the knob broke, leaving us with a fire going and no way to turn it off - it took us about an hour to figure out how to turn off the gas to the fireplace without turning it off to the entire house and we had to get it fixed to the tune of a few hundred dollars. Anyway, this year was not alot better. I got Christopher up from his nap around 3:30 and he proceeded to throw up on me, followed by 3 more times over the next 2 hours. After getting him to bed around 6:00, the rest of the evening was fun and he slept great. However, at 10:00, Elizabeth threw up in her bed. She proceeded with 4 more times over the next 3 hours until finally at 2:00 I went to sleep in the couch with her on the floor beside me and the washer going with the 3rd or 4th load of laundry (sheets, clothes, towels, etc.). Fun, huh??? The are both feeling better today, but not 100%. We all slept until 8:00 this morning and then hung out and watched the Rose Parade. Elizabeth and Christopher took LONG naps this afternoon, so hopefully a good night sleep tonight will do everyone good and we will be back to normal tomorrow - am I too hopeful? School starts back on Thursday, so we will soon be back into the normal routine and figuring out if the closure of Highway 40 will affect my drive taking Katherine to school (for those who aren't in St. Louis, a 5 mile stretch of a main interstate in town is closing for a year and Katherine's school is very near it). Here's to 2008 and hoping for a great year!

Christmas Fun Part II

Christmas morning was chilly, but green - no snow. It's ok. It makes traveling easier for everyone. After Christmas Eve church, we came home, set out treats for Santa and his reindeer (peppermint bark and milk for Santa and goldfish and apple juice for the reindeer) and the kiddos went to bed. We awoke to this beautiful tree and lots of presents (there were no presents under the tree until Christmas morning). We made sausage bread for breakfast (see picture below) and for the first time I had help!

After we ate breakfast and got dressed, we set out to see what Santa left us... a Covenant Christian School shirt and dress up clothes - among other things.

Grandma and Grandpa Bauer and Grandma Dana and Grandpa Ken came over soon after and we had an enjoyable day with lots of fun, food, and family.

Katherine learned how to play "grown-up" dominos - and she even won a couple of games! She had fun playing with the grandparents while Elizabeth and Christopher were taking naps. We hope that everyone had a joyous Christmas - on to 2008!!!

Christmas Fun Part 1

The Saturday before Christmas, we went to my brother's house with my parents for the Emery Christmas festivities. For those who don't know, Kevin (my brother), John, and I went to the University of Illinois and my mom and dad went to USC. It just so happens that Illinois and USC are in the Rose Bowl this year, so Kevin got, for John and my Dad, Rose Bowl t-shirts (see below the 3 of them modeling them a bit) and also appropriate attire for watching the Rose Bowl next week. Thanks, Kevin - FUN!

We had a fun day of family time - it's always fun to get the kids together..

We got a pretty good picture of the grandkids with my parents - Kaiser, my nephew, wanted no part of it.

Here's the boy cousins - I think their first picture together!

Kim and Kaiser

Oh, yeah, and there were presents, too!

Daddy-Daughter Time

We had a full weekend of Christmas activities, and they started last Friday nite with some "Daddy Daughter Time" for Katherine & I. We went to a Dierberg's Cooking School Gingerbread House Class. Julie had done the honors of preparing the house pieces ahead of time, and Katherine and I had the fun of decorating the class. Katherine was very creative, working in the mediums of M&M's, jellybeans and wheat chex - just to name a few. It was a fun experience to create something special together and we had fun showing it off to everyone over the holidays!!

Thanks Katherine for a great Daddy-Daughter Date!

Santa Hats and First Snow

It's kind of become a tradition to take pictures of the kids in Santa hats every year - it's fun to see the progression from year to year as they grow up. Here's this year's group of festive Santas!

We woke this morning to our first now of the year - about 2-3 inches. The girls were anxious to get out and play - Katherine especially wanted to have a snowball fight. So, while Christopher was napping (he's not to into the snow this year), the girls and John went out and played and shoveled the driveway. FUN!!

O Christmas Tree

We visited my parent's house last weekend when my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came down for a visit (no picture of the kids together - UGH) and my mom gave the girls a "foamie" gingerbread house to put together. While they required quite a bit of help, they had a great time and it turned out really cute! We finally (after talking about it the past 2 or 3 Christmases, probably) broke down and purchase an artificial tree. It was a major decision, both because of the expense and because both John and I grew up basically with real Christmas trees. It just got too difficult with 3 young kids to get out to the lot to get the tree (weather factors into that quite often), trying to keep it alive (we like to put our tree up early and it always seems to dry out so quickly), cleaning up the mess of dropped needles almost daily let along the mess when it's brought into and out of the house, and the cost - we paid $80 for our tree last year that barely lasted 3 weeks (there's another story behind our tree last year - basically the straw that broke the camel's back - ask us sometime. Anyway, we love the tree and it will pay for itself very quickly. We got it up in one night and decorated in another night instead of the week long affair with a real tree (John is VERY particular about or tree, so it would take one day to get it and get it into the house and usually a separate night to put on the 1000 lights, then another to put on the ornaments). At least we've gotten rid of one Christmas season stress in our lives. The girls were really into decorating this year and kept asking me over and over again all day when we were going to put the ornaments on the tree - we had to wait until Daddy got home - it was a LONG afternoon!!

The tree is up and pretty much decorated - now we have to find the time to decorate the rest of the house - maybe this weekend?? We are looking forward to a fun Christmas season.

Thanksgiving rest....

It's been a good few days to be home and have some "down time". Our celebration began with Katherine's school play. It was fun for us all to be there and see her shine on stage. She enjoyed saying her line as a pilgrim and did a wonderful job reciting Psalm 100 by memory with her class. What a joy to see her learning so much!

Our celebration continued on Thursday, spending the morning at the annual Covenant church service, and then coming home for a relaxing day with grandpas and grandmas. Katherine specifically enjoyed watching "Mary Poppins" for the first time and trying pumpkin pie!

The rest of the week has been busy, yet restful. John got a good start on our shopping (he was in line at Kohl's at 3:30 a.m.!!) He made the round to a few other places as well, and was home at 9:30 a.m., and exhausted from standing in line at Kohl's, Target, Wal-mart and Toys R Us - quite a haul was accomplished!!!

Saturday, Mom and kids spent some time raking leaves as John made the first (of what may end up being a couple) of attempts at the outdoor lights. The first round didn't go well, so we'll see where things go in the next week or so. In the mean time, leaves were raked, and piles were quickly destroyed as the kids found the joy of jumping and flopping in the leaves. Although Christopher didn't jump or flop, he certianly seemed to enjoy his time in the leaves as well.