The Christmas story

Where do I even begin? Christmas was a blur of sledding/family/great food/ and of course PRESENTS!!

Christmas Eve was great fun! The neighbors came over mid-morning to start the festivities. We played, decorated our yearly Christmas ornament, and then once the little guy woke up from his morning nap, we got everyone bundled up to go outside. What a great time for a storm! I LOVED IT! It was so pretty outside and really set the mood for a wonderful Christmas. We took full advantage by having a sledding party. I could not believe how much fun the kids had. They were taking turns really well sliding down our small hill by our house. (for pictures, view the neighbors blog... I didn't bring out my camera.) Emma and her cousins would jump on a sled or tube and slide right on down. Emma was pretty sure she should go skiing or snowboarding, but alas, we didn't have the equipment :-) Maybe next year. Even Evan had a great time and when put down on the ground, would waddle over to the tube or sled and want to go down. Eventually, we did let him go down by himself, but I was holding my breath the whole time :-)

Here are a few pics of our sliding party last week... not Christmas Eve, but a week earlier I think. I have been meaning to post them for awhile.

The Kiddos jammed on the sled:


Me and my little ones:


AFter the sledding party on Christmas Eve, we enjoyed some KFC with Nana & Papa who came up for the holiday and the littles enjoyed a much needed nap. After that was more sledding, opening up little presents from the kids and then another group of people came over to celebrate Christmas Eve! The Heuers dined on grilled steak (yes, Tim braved the elements to grill)/bread/wine/bread pudding and basically ate until we could eat no more! It was great :-) We got the little kids to bed pretty easily and then waited for Santa to come!

Here is a pic of the whole Heuer clan:




I wasn't quite sure what to expect on Christmas morning. Evan woke up first, around 6:45ish, and came into our room to watch a little Mickey Mouse Club. Emma rose around 7 and lazily came into our room, watched a little TV for about 10 minutes and says "Well Mom, should we go open presents now?" I laugh a bit to myself as this was not what I was expecting from my rambunctious 3 year old. "Well, Emma - what presents are you talking about?" She kind of rolls her eyes and says "MOM! Santa came last night!" I wasn't quite sure if she remembered that it was Christmas or not! After that, she ran downstairs to open presents. I was able to get there first to videotape the whole thing. Emma instantly looked through the presents trying to find her name. Evan started taking off bows and opening random presents. I think Emma was pretty amazed what Santa brought. Here are the pics:

The tree:


Opening presents:


More opening:


The two kids together on their extreme cycle that Santa brought:


Santa was also kind to me this year. He brought me a Sony Reader (yea! cannot WAIT to start downloading books!) and a nice pair of earrings.

After presents, we had a quick breakfast and headed up to the cabin. We had Christmas with Tim's family, ate a TON more, and then relaxed the next few days at the cabin. It was great. We brought up some presents for the kids, some movies, and we relaxed and fished. It was a wonderful Christmas.

Emma is a bit disappionted that it is all over. She really does not want us to take down the tree or any decorations. Luckily for her, we are celebrating Christmas this weekend with my family, so she does have a little more to look forward too.

Have a great New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I wanted to post something short and quick to wish you all a Happy Holidays and to let you know that we are all doing well and had a wonderful holiday!

The kids had a great time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It was filled with sledding, presents, great food, and family. It doesn't get any better than that.

We were lucky to be able to spend the weekend at the cabin to unwind and relax. It was a much needed break after another person in our house got the flu (me, unfortunately), Christmas shopping, wrapping, cleaning, and all the other excitment that comes with the holidays.

I have been horrible with pictures lately, but will post some soon, along with a better description of our holiday!

Have a great New Year!

Too much to do, too little time

I think that is going to be my rolling theme. Maybe I should change my blog name to that instead of "Just Another Day". I know I haven't posted for awhile, our lives have been crazy.

Last week was a trip to the water park. Great Wolf in WI Dells. Overall, we had a great time. If you ask Emma, she will chatter your ears off about the trip. Since it was non-peak time and they had many, many rooms un-booked, we were upgraded. We were upgraded to a loft suite, so we had two double beds, a pull-out couch, and a loft upstairs with a bed & TV. Well, the loft quickly became "Emma's room" and she was SO excited for that! She settled in and pulled everything out of her suitcase and proceeded to put clothes in the drawers and dolls on the bed and put her bathing suit on. It was pretty cute.

The water park was fun. It took awhile actually for Emma to get used to some of the rides. It kind of bums me out that kids cannot go down the slides with the parents anymore. It is hard to talk her into going on a big twisty-turvy slide by herself by watching Mama, who goes first and waits for her. She did go down a few, but it took a little convincing. Once she did it, she loved it, but it took a few tries. But, she is only 3, right??

Evan did pretty good. He liked the little baby section and was pretty proud to climb up the baby slide all by himself and slide down. He also thought it was pretty cool that we had a staircase in our room and was constantly going up and down, following his beloved sister. We are discovering his love of sports already as there was a pool that had 2 basketball nets and many balls floating around. He could have spent all day in there with one of us, hanging on to the balls and trying to make some baskets.

Tim and I decided to cut our trip a night short though. We checked in Thursday afternoon and were scheduled to check out Saturday. Due to absolutely no sleep Thursday night (because of colds, kids, etc) we left the dells Friday night so the kids could sleep on the way and we would all be in our own beds. It was wonderful. All-in-all it was a good time. I enjoyed the Shopping outlets next door and Tim enjoyed a nap, along with the rides of course.

Last weekend was jam-packed with Christmas tree buying, decorating, Christmas shopping, Sunday School, Birthday party, colds, and catching up on sleep. The Christmas tree is fun. I couldn't believe how excited Emma was to decorate it. Evan was too, but that usually was more trouble than anything. His favorite thing right now are the bulb ornaments on the tree. Everynight he takes at least two of them off the tree and throws them in the air - "BA! BA!"

This week was a long week with colds and a tummy bug of some sort. Evan has been suffering from a cold for about 2 weeks. It is not a horrible cold, just long lasting. His nose has been running and he has been coughing. I went out and bought a humidifier last night for him to ease the cough a bit. Emma also had a cold last weekend, plus a nice visit from a stomach bug. Now, I am here to tell you that there is nothing worse than waking up to a screaming kid at midnight "MOMMMY!!" and going into the room to find that they are having stomach problems. Enough said, I am sure. That is when the real parenting kicks in I think. Both Tim and I go into super drive to clean and calm her down. It is not something that I want to experience again for a long time. Hopefully whatever she had is not contagious and we do not get it.

This weekend we are around here with no huge plans. Finalize shopping, wrapping, plus a date night out. A much needed date night. For Christmas, the neighbor and I are swapping baby-sitting, which is great. I am thinking we should do that once a month :-)

That's all. I am tired and feeling really behind.

For anyone that wants to feel a little lift right now or wants to feel as though they are doing some good, think of donating to St. Jude's Research Hospital. One of the radio stations I listen to up here (K102) is doing their radio-a-thon for St. Jude's Children hospital. What a wonderful time to do it, in my mind. As I am running around, stressing about what to buy, what to cook, etc, it is great to be reminded of how LUCKY I am. They are trying to get people to become Partners-in-Hope, which is a $30/month commitment for a year, but honestly just want anything that someone can spare. $5, $10 whatever. There is nothing worse than hearing stories of 1 or 3 year old suffering from a horrible cancer/disease and really not having any hope. They go to St. Jude's and maybe their life is extended for a few months, or a few years, whatever. But all donations go to research and helping those families. Sometimes I feel as though I am in a rut and not doing any good, wish I was doing more, etc. I donated money on Wednesday and I instantly felt better. I was recently surprised with a raise at work and feel very happy that some of that raise money will be going to helping out some families that need a little lift themselves.

Anyway, I probably spent too much time on that, but I know I get so wrapped up in all the trivial things of the holiday.. the cards.. the cookies.. all the presents, that I needed to remember how fortunate I have it and that the important thing is family and health.

Bah Humbug

It is too bad when the innocence of a three year old is taken advantage of. So, I think I mentioned in my last post that the kids, my Mother, and I celebrated Dazzle Days (or some other catchy title) in Durand last weekend. It was full of holiday spirit... exotic petting zoo (reindeer, camel).... Christmas music... and carriage rides. So, kids and I are in line for the carriage ride. Behind us is a white trash family. Sad, I know, but true. Talking trash, talking loud, being obnoxious.. I am sorry, but stereotypes happen for a reason... Anyway, we are almost to the front when WTF (white trash family) start talking about Santa and have the AUDACITY to say something about how Santa is not real. WTF!! Emma, bright blue eyes wide, looks up at me and says slowly, "Mama... Santa is real, right?" SERIOUSLY!! WE ARE AT A HOLIDAY FUNCTION!! I look at her, almost feel like crying, and say, "Yes, Emma, of course Santa is real. You just sat on his lap, remember?" (which she did earlier at the Dazzle Day bake sale.) I shoot the family the worst possible look, kind of a "I would totally cardio-kick-box your ass if my two little kids were not here right now" and turn back around to reassure Emma. The mother of the WTF said some lame-ass thing like "okay kids, stop talking about Santa like that, you know he is real." Whatever.. damage done lady.

Emma hears everything. Even when I think she is not listening, she always is. She is so impressionable now and to have some punk-ass kids ruining Christmas fun for her makes me so mad. That night on the way home she brought it up again. We were driving home and she was watching some movie when out of the blue she says, "Mama, Santa is real, right?" Of course, pleading blue eyes searing into my soul. So, I try to think of some way to reassure her again. "Yes, Emma, Santa is real. You sat on his lap, saw Mrs Claus, and saw the reindeer. He is real. Those kids were just always on the naughty list and he never came to visit them." Damn punk-ass kids.

So, now I am on damage control. We wrote Santa a letter with Christmas lists this week and I have a feeling that the kids will be getting a letter back soon. Everything possible I can think of, I will do. Kids grow up too fast and to have something fun like this taken from her already just doesn't sit well with me.

Bah Humbug...