Christmas at Home

This year Christmas didn't really go the way we planned.  Between other family being sick and some stuff coming up unexpectedly in our household most of our plans went down the drain and we had to change things up.  We did end up making it to all but one of six family celebrations.  And some had to be changed to a different day.  Despite everything we were going through, we did have a wonderful Christmas and it was just SO much fun with Elsie this year!  I can imagine next year will only be better.

On Sunday Dec 22nd we were supposed to get together with John's immediate family but Emma had been sick off and on for the past few days with a fever so we decided to push it back to Christmas Eve day.  So instead we decided to celebrate Christmas as our little family.  I wasn't sure what we would eat because I had cleaned out our fridge, didn't have anything taken out of the freezer, and we were planning on leaving to go to MN two days later so we didn't have much fresh food.  We invited Dale and Bev over for dinner and Bev offered to bring over the lasagna and fruit pizza she had made when she thought we would all be getting together at her house.  It worked out perfect!

So they came over, Elsie opened up her presents (as well as John and I) and we just relaxed for the evening.  It was wonderful!

Melissa and Doug Reusable Sticker Pad

Water Doodle Pad

I also want to add since we switched from celebrating our Christmas from Monday to Sunday, John and I were frantically trying to finish painting Elsie's dollhouse during nap time since we were going to give it to her that night.

This year we gave her the book "The Mitten" by Jan Brett, Melissa and Doug Reusable stickers (She just loves playing with stickers), a pink MN Twins outfit,  Melissa and Doug Fold and Go Barn, and her dollhouse, doll family, the kitchen and kids room set, and the car.  Dale and Bev also brought over a few things for her to open-the tent and the water doodle pad.  John gave me a tripod for the camera, a wireless remote for the camera, onion goggles, and a salad dressing bottle so I can make my salad dressings from scratch.  Elsie and I gave John a new change jar that counts the money as you put it in, a trunk locker for his golf shoes and accessories, a new golf towel, balls, and tees, and a 3 piece Dremel tool kit.

Sporting my new onion goggles! They are amazing!

John has really enjoyed making things for Elsie over the past year and I though this would be perfect for all our DIY projects around the house and for his projects he makes.

This next series of pictures showcases the wonderful dollhouse John made for Elsie!  It was a big hit!  

We wrapped up the little dollhouse family and when she opened them up we told her they needed a home and that she should go look for a house for them.  It didn't take her long to figure the big object covered up by the sheet in our dining room was their new home :)

And she went right to work putting them right where she wanted them.  

We didn't buy all the furniture sets for each room in the house.  For Christmas we furnished the house with a kitchen and the kid's room.  We also gave her a little family car.  We did ask other family members to help when asking for ideas for Elsie we gave them some rooms that needed furniture such as the living room, bathroom, Master bedroom, and also a little set of pets.  So for now she is set, although there are MANY more sets of furniture and accessories to buy.  This particular brand of toys also carries a swing set, a patio set, a vegetable garden, a flower garden, and a BBQ set.  But for now she has a nice start and we can build upon it as the years go by.  The house has nine rooms in it so we use 6-7 rooms as the dollhouse and the top two outside spaces are used as a bookshelf and it works perfectly since we moved her bookshelf out of her room to make room for the dollhouse.  We also have plans to do some decorating in the house.  We would love to put up some "wallpaper" and add some rugs and figure out a paint color for the trim so I guess you can say it is still as wok in progress.  

After supper we let Elsie play some more and she loved playing inside her new tent which features a light at the top that shines various colored stars all over the tent. 

After playing for but I realized we forgot to give Elsie one of her presents (thats when you realize your probably gave too many).  But she loved it!  Her Melissa and Doug Fold and Go Barn.  (We LOVE Melissa and Doug products)

It was a wonderful night to kick off our many Christmas celebrations! 

Beautiful Weekend

Another relatively quiet weekend here in our home-at least compared to our crazy busy weekends that took place during the summer.  I am really enjoying the slower pace that fall brings to our home.  No packing and unpacking every week to prepare for our next weekend outing.  Don't get me wrong...I just love the busyness of the summer but I also welcome time at home and doing things in our neck of the woods as well.

Of course, having our home on the market and having showings just about every Satruday, our Friday nights tend to be filled with house cleaning and this Friday night was no different.  Which is okay because then our home is clean and enjoyable throughout the weekend.

Saturday morning was just a beautiful morning.  All week I had been looking forward to heading out to the Berry Patch.  I have been there a couple of time.  Once back in 2011 when I was pregnant and once back in June when we picked strawberries.  It isn't a fancy place but they have the best fruit!  I really wanted some honeycrisp apples and at $2.25 a pound I just couldn't pass them up.  So Elsie and headed out to go and pick some.  We went early to avoid the crowds.  Plus we had a house showing so we had to get out of the house anyways.

Elsie loved to pick the apples.  I think if I let her she would have picked all day.  Another great thing about the Honeycrisp apples is that the trees were low to the group-perfect height for Elsie.  Ohh these apples were so good and smells so delicious

Elsie had her own little bag that she filled up and wouldn't let go of until we got home.  She also thought it was a good idea to eat an apple on the way home.  We were driving and all of a sudden I hear a "crunch" and sure enough she is biting into one of her apples.  We ended up walking away with 10.5 pounds of apples. I am looking forward to making some yummy muffins. 

After we got home we had lunch and Elsie just "had" to wear my sunglasses. 

After lunch it was time for nap.  Which meant I had a bit of time to get some stuff done-mainly finish cleaning our screens.  There was bit of discussion with our neighbor Kari over the best way to clean screens so I tried two different ways-one with Dawn dish soap and the other way was hot water and vinegar.  I have to say both did a pretty good job of getting our filthy screens cleaned.  Since I had the hot water and vinegar out I decided to clean a small area on our siding that was starting to get a bit mildewy since it is on the north side.  Well, one thing let to another and the whole addition of our house got clean.  It took us awhile (John ended up helping when he got home from work)

And of course had to sit up at the counter for snack-she loves sitting here-it makes me nervous though.  After her nap she helped me make some apple crisp for dessert after dinner.  She is really into helping me :) "I Do It" is one of her new favorite phrases these days.  So she had to help me stir and "measure"

Also this weekend we had an open house which was scheduled for Sunday so we tidied up/clean again on Saturday night and I hit the hay early because I had a run the next morning.

On Sunday morning I ran in the Flapjack 5k/10k in Des Moines.  I originally signed up for the 10k but with such a hot end of summer and John being so busy I definitely didn't run enough to feel confident in my abilities to comfortably run a 10k so I switched to a 5k which was perfect.  It definitely wasn't my fastest of the year but I am ok with that.  Compared to all my other 5ks (Rosy Cheeks, SCAVMA Scamper, Dam to Dam) I "trained" the least for this one, including my one in February.  And when I say trained I just mean logged some miles.  

It was another beautiful morning!  I wasn't sure how to dress and right before the run started I decided to take off my long sleeve and I was so glad I did.  Hillary and I ran together the entire time and I am just glad I never had to stop and walk.  Going in my goal was to do it under a 10 min/mile pace which I did.  

The race was to benefit Children's Cancer Connection.  This is just an amazing group!  I worked with them quite a bit when I worked out at the camp.  They were my biggest group coming out for two full weeks in the summertime and a couple of retreats throughout the year.  Also, Peyton (JoLene's daughter) was/is involved with this group and has offered support for her through her journey. In fact, they just named a room after her for teens called "Peyton's Place".  

Elsie spend the morning with Bev and they met up with Brandi and the girls at the local Arts Festival.  Sounds like she had a good time and I am glad she got out to hang with her cousins again.  

Sunday afternoon was our open house.  Marc wanted it to be clear to everyone on the street that we were having an open house:) We had two couples come through that afternoon for a total of 13 showings since it went on the market.  But that is where it ends.  No second showings and no offers. John and I have already begun to talk about our projects for our current house in the event that we stay in it for a few more years.  I will try to do a home update soon.   

All in all, it was a great weekend.  The weather was beautiful we spent time with family and friends and we have lots to be thankful for.  

What a Week!

This past 1-2 weeks has been absolutely crazy in our house!  Two weekends ago I spent most of Saturday shopping for new curtain panels for our main level of the house and some new decorative pillows for the family room.  I felt like our home needed a little change.  This happens every now and again.  I get the urge to make some small changes to our house.  I had no idea what the next week would bring.  On Thursday Aug 14th Elsie and I were walking back from the school playground and I decided to take a different route home.  Well this route led me past a home that was for sale-one that I have seen on the listing before.  It was so cute so I checked it out on my phone again and noticed the price had been reduced.  This home which was once out of our price range was now priced much closer to what we would want to spend if we moved.  Now let me also tell up until this point, we have not talked about moving, at least for a few years but I always like to keep an eye on the market in case something pops up.

I love older homes, homes with character.  In the past year we talked about building a house and figured that is what we would do when the time came but there has always been a special place in my heart for older homes.  Well this home I would consider being an older home.  It was built in the 40's.  It was so cute on the outside that I just had to see what it looked like inside.  So I called up our Realtor and we set up a time to view it the next day.  I figured I would look at it first during the day and then if it was worth going back for we would check it out with John in the evening.  So Bev came with me and we looked at it.  I fell in love :) So I went back on Thursday night with John and then went back again on Friday to check it out one more time to be sure.  This time I brought a trusted friend with me-Amber :).  By Saturday night we had an offer in.  After some back and forth by Monday afternoon we had an accepted offer!!

All day on Sunday we began the preparations for putting our house on the market.  There are so many little things that need to be fixed/touched up that we had been putting off.  Nothing too major but enough to keep us both busy.  Thanks to my wonderful In-Laws, Elsie spent the morning and early afternoon with Brandi, Todd and the girls and the late afternoon with Bev.  This helped out so much!  We got so much accomplished.  We worked again on Monday and I put the finishing touches on the house Tuesday morning. Become the purchase of this new house is contingent on the sale of our current home we had to move fast to get our house on the market.  Our house was listed by Tuesday with our first showing on Thursday.  It is crazy to think that in one weeks time we went from not even talking about moving to having our first showing on our home.

Of course I am on pins and needles hoping that we will still get the house and sell our current home fast.  Because it is contingent on our home selling we have the first right of refusal if they get another offer.  We had one showing Thursday and two on Friday but crossing my fingers we will have more soon.  Not sure how long my nerves can take this ;).

So of course I am excited and dreaming about the potential "new to us" home but I know we may not ever be able to move if we can't get our house sold in a timely matter.

So anyways...here is a link to our listing-if you know anyone looking for a home, pass this along :)

Our House Listing

Mother's Day

For the past two years we have stayed in Iowa for Mother's Day.  Last year my parents came down to Iowa the weekend before and we went to Pella Tulip Time.  This year I really wanted to be up there to celebrate with my mom and grandmas this year.  We had a really great weekend up there despite the fact that Elsie was not sleeping well.  We got to see quite a few friends and family while visitng.  

We debated back and forth whether we wanted to stay home or go out for brunch and in the end brunch at home won.  My dad made delicious homemade caramel rolls, egg casserole, biscuits and gravy, and yummy fruit complete with Mimosas.  It was so nice!  Both my grandmas made it to brunch as well as my sister and her sweet family.  It was so much fun to get all the little girls together!  Of course it just wasn't enough time to spend together.  One of these days we will have to do a whole weekend together.  

My sister bought the girls these adorable little cowboy hats. 

Allie wasn't too thrilled with the pictures at first but eventually we got a smile out of her. 

Grandma Bonnie with her girls

Elsie was so ready for nap and she kept running into 

the back bedroom and would climb up on the bed.  

Elsie kept "Blowing Raspberries" while we were trying 

to take pictures, making everyone laugh. 

I am so glad we made it up to celebrate this special day with these special mamas :)

Me and My Mama 

We got home a little after 7:00 PM so we decided to stop by John's parents and say hello to his mom.  She was outside doing yard work so Elsie had fun looking at all the flowers.  

Me and My little girl :)  She makes it so much fun to be a mama! 

Easter 2012

This year we spent our Easter weekend in Minnesota.  It was a great weekend spending time with family.  We had dinner at my parent's house on Sunday with both my Grandmas, my parents and my sister's family.  It was a nice time visiting and for them to be able to spend time with Elsie.  Elsie got an Easter basket from the Easter Bunny, Grandma and Grandpa, Great Grandma June, and my sistser's family!!!  What a lucky girl!! It felt like Christmas.  It was a wonderful, beautiful day!

Elsie's First Easter Basket.  And of course it has to
have two new spring colored diapers :)  How did
the Easter Bunny know that is just what she wanted ;)

Checking out what's in the basket

Time for a little snooze before dinner

Allie on an Easter Egg Hunt.
Next year she will have some competition!!

Allie putting on her shades.  It was really bright outside.  I love this photo
because she looks so much like Tami!

Tami, Derick, Allie and the baby on the way