Funny

I can't get the video to post on here (any suggestions? I tried embedding it, but blogger gave me an error message). Anyway, here's the link--it made Anna & laugh! :) Have a happy day...

Mom

I just realized that I never updated again about Mom's Mayo appointment. They didn't really find anything. Actually, the ENT doc said he didn't think it was swollen. He thought it could have been from the meds she'd been taking for pneumonia. The oncologist wants to see her again in 6 weeks (more like 5 now). She caught another head cold while we were up there and it turned into pneumonia again. Hopefully they caught it soon enough that she can stay out of the hospital. Please keep praying--for wisdom and patience and healing in the Lord's time. I love you Mama! :)

Christmas in Iowa

Well, we're finally home! And we all slept like babies last night (that's really not a very good analogy...). I finally went and checked on Jacob at 10:45am and he was just starting to stir! We got home late last night, but as always the kids were ready to play for a while. Which works out pretty good, really, because then I have time to unpack the suitcases (otherwise they usually end up sitting in the hallway for days!).
We had a lot of fun in Iowa with both of my brothers' families. Aside from a few having nasty colds, that is! We played games, the boys watched a LOT of football, the kids played and played, and we even had guys'/girls' nights out! I didn't get any pictures of opening presents (I'm sure my stupid camera batteries were dead), but here are a few others.

I think the favorite (and loudest!) game was CatchPhrase. The guys didn't win very often! And more than once we had to remind ourselves (or be reminded!) to quiet down since babies were sleeping!! Jeremy making sure Mom doesn't cheat...
Yeah, you gotta watch him...he definitely tries to cheat! ;)

Alisha making sure Dad doesn't cheat (are you noticing a theme here???)

Dad is trying really hard to give clues...Jeremy is puzzled and since Cassie isn't on his team, she can laugh! :)

Yes, she really is sound asleep. Playing with all her cousins really wore her out!

Four of the 6 grandkids--Bryce, Jacob, Kaedyn, and Anna. They all enjoyed playing the piano together (for a bit anyway!)

Jacob and Bryce had a grand time taking a bath together! They are 8 months apart, but wear the same size and I'm pretty sure Jacob weighs more than Bryce (he might be as tall too). Jacob's head is certainly bigger! ha (he's got a big head)

For gifts this year, the girls exchanged with each other and the boys exchanged with each other. Cassie gave these to the girls--very cool! It was a project her sister had for a class. Can you see what it is? (I know, it seems really obvious, but the men didn't see it to begin with!) Aaron had the beautiful frames made for them. Stinemetz was a lot longer! Maybe when I get all the Christmas things put away I'll have Aaron hang that up. Very cool idea.



And we're finally on our way home!! Jacob was watching.....can you guess? Of course, Dora! He doesn't leave the headphones on very long, but then he doesn't really seem to mind if he can't hear the movie.

Anna stayed busy playing her new Dora game on my computer. I still can't believe how good she is at them! It's teaching her letters, colors, and numbers even if she doesn't realize it. :)

It's good to be home in our own beds, but we really enjoyed getting to see all of our families!

Portraits

We took the kids to Portrait Innovations today. Considering there were 6 kids, ages 8 months to 8 years, I think we did good to get ONE good picture!!! It was tiring, I might have sweat a little, but I'm really glad we did it.

Mia decided to do the open-mouthed thing in quite a few pictures. Bryce thought the assistant was a little crazy. This is one of about 3 pictures that Hudson wasn't crying (he got a little overwhelmed with all the adults trying to get him to smile--and the assistant was pretty loud). I don't know why Anna was leaning forward.

Mia, again with the wide mouth. Hudson is about to lose it. Bryce still isn't sure. And Jacob is about to let loose a big ol' sneeze.

Hudson's had enough. Bryce & Jacob are waiting for the ball she was using to keep them still and hopefully smiling.

One of Jacob's get-away attempts. Alisha is trying to bribe him with food (very rarely does that fail!). Kaedyn is cheesin' it up. Anna is looking at me. Whew! Are you tired yet??

Ahhhh....finally! That's good enough!

Now for my kids. Good grief.

Jacob would rather play with the football (big surprise!).

Perfect picture of Jacob! But Anna decided to do the "are you serious?!" look.

Again, way to go Jacob! Now Anna is scratching her head, thinking what do they want from me?!

Ohhh, duh!! They want me to still here and smile pretty!


That's as good as it gets...Jacob's not surprised, he's just waiting for the football to be given back! I told the lady it's too bad you can't transpose one of Jacob's good pictures into this one. Oh well. They're still pretty stinkin' cute :D

Christmas

I'm a slacker (actually, I was playing the piano), so if you go to my sister-in-law's blog, you can see some videos of our little Christmas program we did up here with all the kids. It was fun and considering I had to threaten Anna with taking away her presents (I know, I'm mean!), she did okay :) Go check them out! I'll post again with some pictures later. The women are going to have a ladies' day out this afternoon/evening. They guys went bowling last night. I think we're going to a movie. I don't really care what we do--I'm looking forward to no kids for a bit! :)

Christmas Parts 2, 3, and 4...seriously.

We really have had 4 Christmas celebrations already...and we're not done! Our first one was here at home, of course. Then we went to Colorado for Aaron's side. Then we came back to Kansas and celebrated with my Dad's side and my Mom's side. Tomorrow we'll head up to Iowa to celebrate with my immediate family! Wow, I'm tired. The pictures (and there's lots of them!) are backward in order b/c I always forget that stupid blogger puts them in backward. That really irritates me. Oh well.

So lastly, but first, here are some pics from Mom's side at Aunt Cara's house...

Anna (3 1/2 yrs.), Hudson peeking in (7 mo.), Kaedyn (4 yrs.), Mia (8 yrs.)

Uncle Terry & Aunt Cara got the 3 great nieces matching sweaters. They are so cute! This is the best picture anybody got. Anna didn't want to go up there (I don't know what Binga bribed her with!), and then Hudson thought he needed to be in on the action! :) Kaedyn was serious about smiling though--what a pose (whose daugher is that?!? haha)!

Bryce was taking pictures with Aunt Dona's camera. It'll be interesting to see what kind of pictures come out--I think he held it backward most of the time! He is such a cutie pie! And does he ever have a sweet tooth! I don't know how many times I caught him at the dessert table trying to grab something!!

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Now for my Dad's side, which was at Uncle Alan & Aunt Donna's house this year. There were 45 of us there!!!! That's not even everybody. I think there were 13 missing! But Grandma said that was the most that has ever been at one time, so we set a record! :) Grandpa and Grandma had 6 children (one daughter passed away almost 20 yrs. ago), 17 grandchildren (only 6 of whom are not married), and 14 great grandchildren!!! I wish I'd taken a picture of everyone at the dinner tables. It stretched across the entire length of their basement (it's a big house, too!). It was so much fun to see everybody and to be together. Some of my greatest memories are these times when so many of us are together. It's great. We also had a photographer come out and take pictures. She was amazing! She was so patient to let everyone else snap pictures!! So she took pictures of Gpa & Gma with their kids/spouses, grandkids/spouses, and great-grandkids! What a great memory that will be for all of us to have. We even did a shot of the entire group, but we had to go outside for that one! Also, a little explanation for the 3 people outside my family that read this...we have a "program" every year. The 2nd generation (my dad and siblings) take turns every year being in charge. So they decide what the program will entail. It's usually just singing songs, reading the Christmas story, and each family sharing something--either just what God has been doing in their lives or reading poems/stories, or singing specials. It's awesome.

I don't have a clue who took this picture (judging from the height, I would guess a kid, probaby Anna!), but I think it's pretty neat. That's a real tree, too. That screen to the right side was all the grandkids' gift to Grandpa & Grandma. Ange had the great idea for the gift. We put a picture up of each grandchild/family and then filled the empty spots with Scriptures and notes to them. We also included a group picture of them with all the grandkids and spouses that we quickly printed off (to be replaced with the "real" pic when we get it). They loved it :) All the siblings (Grandpa & Grandma's kids) got them a digital photo frame. That will be fun for them to have, too and add pictures to.


For gifts, we had a grab bag. The men bought tools and the women bought books (great idea Phil--or was it Warene?!). The kids (great-grandkids) exchanged names. Jacob LOVES his big ol' truck :) It has wheels! (He also really likes the books) Anna got a dress up set (Kaedyn got a matching set), so she's had a blast playing with that.

This is about 1/4 of the people there. All grandkids and great-grandkids.

Every year, for as long as I can remember, the men sing "We Three Kings" and the women sing "Silent Night". Philip said he wasn't going to break tradition! :) This year, the great grandkids (with the exception of my daughter and the babies--she's so stubborn!) sang "Away in the Manger". So precious! Good idea Teresa! And the guy on the far left is my amazing cousin Scott (and his adorable go-getter son Daniel!)...you should really check out his website. (not that all of my cousins aren't amazing!!)

Let's just say that the combination of not getting enough sleep and playing hard with all of her cousins wore Anna out. Big time! I don't know what Dad's excuse was! ;) And of course, since it was like 5pm when she fell asleep, she was up until 1:30am!!!!!

Both of my kids love to play the piano (makes my heart happy!). And neither one of them has ever pounded...even Jacob! This is at Grandma's house...I think this is the same piano she tried to teach my Dad on (he kept hiding the books until she finally gave up...right Dad?).

He's growing too fast! :(

Playing with balloons at Uncle Alan's house...kept the little ones busy for a long time!

Here we have my cousin's baby Addison (in the rocking chair), my niece Kaedyn next to her, my same cousin's oldest Parker (in the green shirt), my niece Mia (in the brown shirt), Anna in the pink sweatshirt, and my nephew Bryce in the gray shirt. (again for the 3 people beside family that read this thing!)

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Now for the 2nd celebration in Colorado. My camera got left in the van, so I don't have as many pictures as I wish I did :( But here are a couple. I already blogged about the first day/night we spent out there. (FYI-Jacob didn't sleep any better the rest of the trip!) We went to the Christmas eve service with Grandma then had YUMMY brisket for supper. The next night we had all of my mother-in-law's side over (all that were home anyway) for the traditional Christmas day soup supper. There were 24, I believe! Delicious food (especially the cookies Grandma made!!) and fun conversations. I think there were only 4 kids this time. And my kids fell asleep right before or right after supper! :( But they both woke up in time for everyone to get to see them a little.

Our first day out there, Jacob chipped his tooth!!!!! You can see it in this picture (might have to click on it?). He was standing in Aaron's lap while we were sitting at their glass-top table in the sunroom. Aaron was watching Anna & was just holding him aroung his legs. For some reason, he fell forward and since Aaron was looking to the side, didn't see him falling. Jacob didn't catch himself and knocked his head (and evidently tooth!) right on the edge of the table. Luckily it's a round table, so the edge wasn't sharp!

We found Great Grandma's wagon in the basement! They had a lot of fun playing. He was content to just sit in there and play with the cars (or reach down and play with the wheels...shocking I know!)

He also really liked being pulled, but Anna got tired of that pretty quickly!

She decided to play peek-a-boo in the closet instead!

Every year for the past few years, Aaron folks have gotten me a grouping of the Willow Tree nativity set. (I love Willow Tree). Since we don't have a fireplace/mantle, I put it up in this little display case thing. It fits great...until now! I got the final grouping this year, so when I opened it I told Aaron it was great, but now I have to have a mantle to put it on next year! haha ;) The top one is the Christmas angel...I think a student gave that one to me--it doesn't come with the Nativity set. I have a nice little collection going (other than the Nativity)...4 or 5 pieces I think. They're very interesting pieces, the way they're made (from wood).

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My kids LOVE the Dora games we got Anna. Jacob just thinks they're movies and is surprisingly good about not touching the buttons while Anna plays. They sat on our bed and played/watched for at least 30 min. one day. Anna is really good at them. She's also starting to use the Spanish she's picked up from Dora! The other day she said "be careful" in Spanish (I won't attempt the spelling!) when I almost stepped on something. Then today she said "where is it" in Spanish when she was looking for something! Crazy.

Okay, I'm done. And if you've read this far...wow! That was a really long post and probably pretty boring. Oh well!! :) It was so much fun seeing so much family!

Mom

Mom had her first appointment at Mayo this morning. She basically had a lot of blood work done and a CT scan, and saw the oncologist. Tomorrow afternoon, she will see the ENT doctor. He'll do a scope down her throat and possibly another biopsy. Then she'll see the oncologist again. Dad said the bad thing is a lot of the doctors are gone (b/c of Christmas time) and the good thing is there aren't a lot of patients there (b/c of Christmas time). Be praying that they will be able to figure things out. Also pray that Mom's head cold doesn't turn into pneumonia again. We're all so glad that she came down for Christmas, but she was exposed to a lot of germs! And a lot of our immediate family is sick with a stomach bug, so pray that she doesn't get that either (or the rest of us who have avoided it so far--esp. the kids).
We're home for now :) Jacob slept all night last night, for the first time since we've been gone! The little man just wanted to be in his own bed, I guess. He usually sleeps fine at my parents' house, so hopefully he will again.
Back to work...thanks for praying.