No One Likes Being Replaced

It's time. We finally replaced our 1990 Geo Prizm that we've had since we got married 10 years ago. "Little Whitie" had over 200,000 miles when we bought her and she now has about 236,000. Jarren was concerned this morning when he woke up that "Little Whitie" might me gone; he was very relieved to see that she was sitting out in the road. She'll still be hanging around out in the road until we can either sell her or donate her to the Kidney Foundation. This car has truly been a blessing, we bought it for $1,000 and have spent maybe $400 in repairs. She was our only car for 3 years, she's been to South Dakota and back, and has taken Jason to TRAX and back for about 7 years. Thanks "Little Whitie" for being such a great car! And thanks dad for helping us find her!

Mini Cheerleaders

Maya and Karli were mini cheerleaders yesterday for our local high school. They went to a practice for 2 hours on Thursday to learn their cheer and dance and then they got to perform during half time last night. They were so excited! We had a great time watching them and the basketball game until Maya drank too much rootbeer and threw up in the hall. Yuck!

Maya is the 4th one from the left.

Karli is the last one on the right side.

Christmas Blankets

I just have to say that my favorite Christmas presents this year were the blankets that Jason's grandma made for each of my kids and all the other great-grandkids. She picked out the fabric for each blanket with a particular child in mind. My kids sleep with them every night, they absolutely love them. Thank you grandma and grandpa for helping my kids feel special every night snuggling up with their blankets!!!

January Birthdays

January is a big birthday month at our house. Karli turned 5 and then 10 days later Maya turned 7. Karli was very excited to have family come over for her party, especially her cousin, Riley.

This make-up was probably one of Karli's favorite presents.

Maya was super excited about her bike and luckily for us, their was no snow on the sidewalk, so she got to try it out on her birthday. She was so funny at the end of the day, she said she was so lucky, I think because she had had such a fun day.

Maya has chosen this carousel cake for her birthday a few times, I think it's cute that she likes it so much.

Maya got a haircut a few weeks ago. I love it on her! I think she looks so cute, although I think it made her look older (and sometimes I wish my "babies" could stay little forever).

Nice Mess, Kate!

I help count the Box Tops for our school. I have worked on getting them cut and organized for a couple of hours these past few weeks. I keep all the Box Tops in a bag in my room. I came upstairs a few days ago to find this mess.

My sweet little Kate decided to dump everything out of the Ziploc bags they were divided into. Box Tops, Campbells labels, milk $.05 lids that were once all separated, were no longer separated. It took me 40 minutes to get them put into categories.

Gingerbread Houses

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses. My mom actually let me help bake 4 of the houses this year (only because she broke her shoulder 3 months ago and had to have surgery on it). Usually she makes them all by herself, she's awesome! She's been baking our gingerbread houses since I was about 2, so she knows all the tricks about getting the dough rolled thin enough, how to get the dough onto the baking sheets, and how to get the finished pieces off the baking sheets without them breaking. This comes in handy when you are baking 8 of them.

It's always fun to watch how the kids decorate their houses. Poor Halle had to watch from the Pack and Play; she was a good sport.

All of the kids spent a lot of time decorating. And I was actually surprised that Jarren didn't use that much candy (you get to eat the candy on your house after Christmas).

Here's the crew, after all the decorating was done.

Kenadee (niece), Cameron (nephew), Jordan (brother), Esther (girlfriend), Maya, Karli, Jarren, mom, Kate, Jessica (sister)

Siblings are great!!

The Sisters

The Brothers (Jordan just had surgery on his wrist a week ago)

Out of the Mouth of Kate

Somebody rang our doorbell tonight and after they left Kate said, "Was that Satan?"