Holiday House Warming/Open House

First of all I would like to dedicate this blog to my friend Emilie who slaved away with me baking for six hours on Friday! You are awesome, girl! The open house was absolutely wonderful! We had 55 people come! It was a fun way to show our new home to our friends and celebrate the Holiday as well. The food was fun to make (tiring, but fun) We had little mice made of cherries, almond bark, hershey kisses and almonds (for ears), it was march of the penguins made of olives, cream cheese, and carrots (for feet and the beak), butter pecan bundt cake, red velvet cake (mini-muffins), oatmeal raisin spice cookies (with home made icing made with powdered sugar, vanilla, and butter), peanut butter cookies with M&M's, a vegetable tray, chips, candy, cheese cubes, and Christmas punch (made of sprite, cranberry juice, and red raspberry sherbet). I really enjoyed opening my home to everyone and even though I have always said when taking spiritual gifts tests that I am very sure God didn't gift me the gift of hospitality, tonight was exceptional! I think I could enjoy doing this many years from now. Thanks to all of you who came and celebrated this precious time in our lives. It was a memorable evening for our family. Enjoy the pics for all of you who could not attend and Merry Christmas (and thank you to one of my bestest Christy, for all of the bakeware-you are the BEST-I have a pic to give you props!)

PS Emilie the only thing we ran out of was punch at the end!

Tayler's birthday party with friends and $20,000!

For Tayler's party with friends, we went to see the movie Eragon. It is sort of like Chronicles of Narnia mixed with some Star Wars ideas. The book was written by a 15 year old (bet his parents are proud!) After the movie, we came home for pizza, cookie cake (Tayler doesn't like cake-weird, huh?), and gifts. The boys also played flash light tag and football.........what would a get together with Tayler be without football? The highlight of the day was when Tayler received a lottery ticket for a gift from a friend. While we thought this was odd, we let him go ahead and scratch it off and see what he won. If you scratched off three $20,000, you won. So, as Brian is watching Tayler scratch off the pieces (there is a pic of this below), the excitement grew as Tayler scratched off two, then three $20,000 pieces. Tayler began screaming and jumping up and down. Brian was smiling pretty big and thoughts were racing my mind...(like college fund, here we come:) Then, we hear from the friend (over Tayler's screams) IT IS FAKE, IT IS FAKE! Ah, pretty funny, right? That would've been one nice gift!

Tayler's 12th Birthday

Thursday was Tayler's birthday....He is 12! To celebrate, we did the traditional decorating the house at midnight on Wednesday, then waking up Tayler on his birthday at his birth time (which is 5:40 am) with his favorite breakfast and gifts from us. Then later that night, we had his favorite dinner and went bowling. We had a lot of fun and Brian beat us every game as he says bowling is the only sport he is good at! (as you can see from the pic of me bowling, it is one of the many sports I am not so great at:) We also had a party today for friends and I will post pics of that later on. Happy Birthday Tayler! Thanks to all of our family and friends who sent cards to wish Tayler a Happy Birthday!

My little man!

Tomorrow is Tayler's 12th birthday. I can't believe it. He is growing up so fast. As I reflect on this past year in his life, I can relate this time to the toddler years. Every day is like a new discovery of him growing, learning, achieving. Friday night, we were riding in the car, and he randomly looks at Brian and says, "Dad, I really feel like our relationship has grown this past week." Brian and I were waiting for the joke as we looked at one another in shock. But, he was serious. So, we asked him how he felt the relationship had grown. It was hard for him to put it into words but he said, "He has just made me laugh all week....telling funny jokes and we've hung out a lot." Well, Brian tells the same jokes and the amount of time they spent together had not increased. Last week was actually stressful for Brian as you can see in the previous post. But, all the same, Tayler felt a strong connection with his father. I am so grateful for Brian and Tayler and the bond that they share. I am thankful that Brian has been such a wonderful, faithful, selfless father. He is demonstrating for Tayler the love of THE Father. It will be easier for Tayler to understand God's character and the love He has for Tayler because of Brian's character and the love he has given Tayler. It also made me so proud as a mother to hear my eleven year old son communicate his feelings with his parents. He matures every day and I think he is hitting a developmental milestone where he can look to his dad and appreciate his characteristics and yes, even his corny jokes. I look foward to this next year to continue to see this little boy become a man.............a man like His Father.

The long awaited 'FRIDGE!

We had some major 'Fridge drama the last few weeks, but finally, we do have a fridge! Basically, we ordered one before the move. It was to be delivered December 5. To make a long story short, they had miscommunication with the contracted company who would deliver the fridge. When they finally did deliver it, days after they were supposed to, and hours of Brian waiting for it, they delivered the wrong one. But, Brian didn't realize this until later. The guys who delivered it told him my dream fridge (which was a side by side with Tayler's favorite feature....an ice and water dispenser) was not going to fit in the space. Thinking this was odd, but not realizing the fridge was different he went to get a refund from the store. When he got to the store, and after he got a refund, he went to measure the fridge we originally purchased. He then discovered that they had delivered the wrong fridge! Taking it all in stride, we decided to go to a different store and look for a similar fridge. But, we had to wait about four days for the money to post in our account. Yesterday, Brian was able to go to a new store, as he has vowed he will not go back to the previous store, and get us a fridge. My dreams of having a side by side were lost along with Tayler's dream of an ice/water dispenser, but it is a nice fridge all the same. We are just glad to have one!

Blogs I enjoy reading

There is a way to have these as links on my page, but I can't seem to figure that out. So, I am just going to post it here. Some blogs I enjoy reading are www.my-crazy-wonderful-life.blogspot.com, (this is a dear friend who knew me when I was very young and is Rachel's bestest), www.inthemidstofit.blogspot.com, (this is a close friend/roomate of Brian's from college-this is his wife's blog), www.kajok-vanderwoude.blogspot.com, (co-worker's blog) and www.cheeseinchina.blogspot.com, (a random stranger that I enjoy reading about) and last but not least, my bestest Rebekah. Her blog however is on her myspace. www.myspace.com/illcarpediem Read her one of her most recent entries widow-itis. It is raw and real.

Enjoy the reading!

Abbey Road....and yes, you can wear shoes

Yes, Abbey road.....not only is this a Beatles song (or album title?) it is also our new road where we reside. A few people have asked for our address for Christmas cards, etc so feel free to e-mail us or leave a comment and we will get that to you. We have also had a few people ask if we would wear shoes on Abbey road, and before understanding what they were referring to, I thought, well of course we do:) Yes, I am ashamed to admit it (since I grew up listening to Beatles records) that I did not know of this famous road until recently. One of my co-workers told me I should definitely be ashamed of myself and since she owns the record, is going to bring it in to show to me. So, we live on a famous road............I guess that is why we can't seem to keep a street sign?:) Regardless, drop in and say hello............shoeless or not-whichever you prefer.

The Big Day with Pics!

Here are some pics of Tayler's room. He and his friend, Jake, organized it all in about an hour and a half.

My cookies that I had visions of making:)

Unpacking and getting ready for Christmas

Unpacking the formal living room

The boys resting after a long day.

Some of my "making the house a home" Brian referred to.

My first cup of Starbucks coffee in the new house (oh it is the simple things:)

Here is a pic of our first meal in the house....home made lasagna (and yes, I-Karin, made it:) and no, no one got sick!

Here is Tayler unloading some of his things excited to get his room organized!

Here is us "signing our life away" Don't we look so serious? (of course the diet coke couldn't miss out on the big day:) Here we are with our mortgage broker as well. He reminded us of Brian's dad so much!

We still have unpacking to do, but we are both able to park in the garage (an achievement Brian is quite proud of) And of course, we still want to paint, change out light fixtures, door knobs, etc. But, all in due time. Thanks so much for following along. Feel free to continue to stop by the blog and check out what is going on in our lives.