Happy New Year 2009!

I did not get to Christmas cards this year due to a combination of laze, multiple demands on my time, and a deep loathing of putting paper products into envelopes. Those of you who are on Facebook or who speak to me regularly know that in the last few months I have sent out approximately 1500 letters to families of high school students in the name of dissertation (an evil being which I plan to purge from my life this year). This is a lot of folding and stuffing and labeling and stamping (thank you to my "people" for your help!). Needless to say, another mass mailing, no matter how small, was not happening for me this year.

We had a wonderful holiday this year with lots of time off work for spending with family and friends. Lilah really got into the Santa thing this year and even wrote him several letters professing her love and her lengthy list of stuffed animals she wished to see under the tree on Christmas morning. She also wrote him a letter asking how old he is and left it with the cookies and water (we didn't have any milk in the house and figured he could use some water after all that milk). Santa came through and told her he was 832 - she figured the only way a person could be that old was through magic.



The new year was celebrated in style with Nate and I in Milwaukee with his brother and wife at a comedy show and Lilah with my parents. They took her to a fancy dinner at the country club and watched the ball drop (east cost time). She loved it! Our trip was Nate's birthday present - tickets to Jim Gaffigan. It was a great trip and great show - well worth the drive. If you have more time to kill after reading this, visit youtube and look up Jim's work - it will give a good laugh! Hot Pocket!

Now it is mid-January and we are full into the craziness of the wrestling season, snow delays and cancellations, and dissertation work. We hope that this year will be one of great celebration for us, and wish the same to you. We are looking forward to a successful end to another wrestling season, graduation from University of Minnesota, and maybe we will be lucky enough that by the end of 2009 we will have added another member to our family (nothing happening yet, but we are hopeful). Happy 2009 to you all!

P.S. Lilah's new favorite pass time is dress up - every day she comes home from school and changes into an interesting outfit and puts on the bright blue eyeshadow. Why are little girls (and some big girls - yikes) so intrigued by bright blue eye shadow?

Lilah with Lexi after school one day. I guess I got to the camera before they got to the make-up.

Lilah with Ashton the weekend before Christmas - here you can clearly see her affinity for the bright blue shadow!

Big Girl Milestone

Not only did our girl turn 6 this year and start 1st grade, she has now lost her first tooth. We started this journey 6 months ago when the dentist told us that it was slightly loose. We couldn't even tell at that time that it had started to wiggle its way out of her mouth. Sunday night she was having a bed snack and bumped it so much that it hurt. She ate yogurt for breakfast because it still hurt. When I picked Lilah up from school that day she was less one tooth and it was ticked safely in her backpack in a small tooth treasure chest she received from the school nurse. Lilah recounted a story of eating a nugget at lunch and it just simply popping out into her mouth. She was very proud and excited for the tooth fairly to come. However, she did have one concern. She did not want the tooth fairy to take her tooth. We told her that she could write the tooth fairy a note and that she would allow Lilah to keep her tooth and still leave a reward for her bravery. So far no other teeth feel as though they are attempting to escape, but their time will come soon enough.

Labor Day Camping

Over Labor Day weekend we went camping at Beed's Lake with Brian, Barbara, and Micayla McGraw. Brian is one of Nate's assistant coaches and they have become good friends over the last year. Micayla is in 2nd grade so the girls really enjoy playing together. The weather was great so we were able to get out on the water in rented paddle boats and the girls had fun swimming with their dads.

The men took the two girls fishing for an hour one morning - they tried hard, but their were no fish in sight.

We had some nice family time while we were out there. We played bocce ball and had several contests of "the shoot game". This is a game Nate made up (surprise, surprise) based on a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George shoot ones or twos to see who has to partake in some unfavorable deed. In this game we all sit around - 4 adults and 2 kids - and choose one of two options. The odd persons are out and the majority wins and continues the game. We started out "shooting" either one finger or two fingers, but it quickly got silly with alligators and sharks or covered eyes and covered ears. The last two people left did rock, paper, scissors and the best 2 of 3 won the game. Lilah was very good at this game and soon it became a contest between our two families. It was great fun! Another fun moment was when Nate helped the girls build a stick house. It started out as a way to get the girls out of our hair and turned into the masterpiece you see above. Nate and the girls were very proud! We had the best weekend - it was a great way to end our summer!

Dress up time!

One of the first nights in our new house, Ellie stayed over night. We spent some time in Lowe's and Target and the girls were so well behaved that they got to pick out a toy. They picked out dress-up clothes and had fun playing for hours when we got home. They love to pose!

Lilah painting

Lilah wanted to help paint my bedroom. She started painting the wall nicely, but then quickly became bored and started painting pictures on the wall. I eventually had to paint over her beautiful pictures. She didn't understand why I needed to paint over her pictures at first, but then I think she realized that all the walls needed to match.

Into the new house!

Here are a few shots of the new house. We are so thankful to be out of the apartment and into our own space again. We feel like the fire will soon be behind us and we can really begin to move forward. It was a long process to get here - as many of you are aware, the mortgage industry is really tight right now. We are blessed to have supportive family, friends and community. We have not has any water in the basement (while our neighbors across the street are not as fortunate), but we figure we are not due for a home disaster again for some time. We hope to see many of you here this summer!

Back of the house - view of the deck and some of the back yard. Behind us is the city park and two softball fields. There are games every night throughout the summer. We really enjoy sitting on the deck or in the 3 season porch watching the girls play and teaching Lilah about the game. She will start t-ball in July so we are trying to give her a little bit of a head start - you know us and our competative spirit :).




This is the family room (you will see many boxes and stuff that still needs to find a place) and a small view of the porch. We will enjoy fires this winter.

This is the kitchen. Since the house is multilevel, this view is from the family room. You have to go up 4 steps to get from the family room to the kitchen.


This is Lilah's room. It was painted like this when we moved in. She really loves it! She also has a play room which helps keep the mess a little contained - we can at least shut the door!

This is our bedroom. I painted this when we moved in. I do enjoy painting. I also did the family room, half bathroom, and entry way. There wasn't too much painting to do, but it was nice to put our color preferences in a few key places in the house.

Midnight & Sydney

Midnight, the cat, has decided that he wants to live in Barbieland. Lilah has a little Barbie house and whenever it is on the floor, he is lounging in it. Lilah gets annoyed that her Barbies have to walk around the cat.




The picture below is a rare shot of Sydney and Midnight relaxing together. Could it be possible that Sydney has finally calmed down in her old age?