My Favorite Santa

A couple of friends of mine recently made this picture their profile picture on Facebook and it brought a flood of childhood memories and emotions to me.

When I was a little kid I spent quite a bit of time at our babysitters home. They were a wonderful family and they became more than just our babysitters. They were really like a second family to me. We even called them Aunt Kay and Uncle Dave. We did practically everything with them. We ate meals, we went to church, they took us to the park, we did portraits, rode in the car, played with their dog Vulcan, swam in the kiddie pool, cleaned the church, went to the store, etc. The Van Leeuwen's had 6 kids....all teens and above and they were all sooo cool! When you are a little kid and a teenager pays any attention to you, you definitely feel special.

Well every year Uncle Dave had the privilege of being one of Santa's helpers. When I was little I couldn't figure out what my parents did to have such pull with Santa because he had the time to make a special visit to our home every single year. I was a dang lucky kid! I love this Santa. He's the best! When I was 13, I made the choice to be baptized and Uncle Dave was the man for the job. I will never forget that day or the fact that I was baptized my Santa's most amazing helper. I love the Van Leeuwen's and even though I haven't seen most of them in many, many years they hold a very special place in my heart. Especially Santa.

I love this guy!

 

I just figured out that I can easily upload photos from Picasa. Sweet!

I love this picture of me and JJ. It's one of my favorites!

I cannot believe that it's been since June since I posted last. I wonder if anyone is even following this blog. If you are still out there let me know! ;)

Christmas is next weekend! How is that even possible???? I think we are pretty close to being completely ready. I just have to pick up some candy and the stuff for Christmas breakfast. I think that will wait until Thursday. We have the tree up and the inside of the house looks pretty festive but we haven't been able to get the lights on the house yet. Every time we plan to do it we get more snow. Sadly it looks as though the lights will be missing from our little house this year. Next year we will be back bigger and better....the plan is in the works!!!

Today we will be getting the house cleaned up and a couple of last minute gifts wrapped up and then on to some Christmas baking. I'm thinking cinnamon rolls sound deeeelish!

Have a joyous day!

Man...I'm crappy at this

I haven't blogged much lately...or at all!

I wish that I had something exciting or entertaining to tell you but sadly...I don't.

Life is just busy, busy, busy! I'm getting ready for girls camp, which should be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it and so it Sage. She said that she hasn't looked forward to something this much since we went to Disney World. I'm not sure that girls camp is even on the same plane as girls camp but I think she will enjoy it none the less.

I'm taking our tent trailer (minus JJ) and am hoping and praying that I can get it set up okay by myself. If not Sis. Bollschweiller and I might be out of luck and have to sleep in our cars. That would make for a rough camp!

Today is Father's Day! Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful men in my life but especially to my darling JJ. He's a great dad and I'm grateful to share this parenting journey with him. I thought last Sunday was Father's Day so he got his gifts a week early. That's what you get when your brain gets too full!

I have a new obsession and that's all I'm going to say.

The Bathroom is done...well amost!

We still need to choose a paint color for the upper walls so that we can put the chair rail on the top of the bead board and get a tp holder but other than that we're done. It was quite the project but it turned out nicely and is a big improvement of the "old" bathroom. The girls have quite a bit more space and thanks to an awesome score at Hobby Lobby they have places to put all of their little stuff. Milo likes it too!

Sage is a Beehive

Sagie is now a beehive! I cannot believe how quickly she has grown into a young woman. Today is her birthday and we have had a very full, busy day. I was able to take the day off and I think the girls enjoyed having me home. We had to get the house cleaned up so she could have a few friends come over and then we had to do a bit of shopping to pick up some stuff for the party. I took her to lunch and she eagerly awaited 2:37 pm so that she could say that she was officially 12 years old. It was darling.


Doesn't her cake look darling??? I wish I could take the credit but when I was trying to frost it I couldn't figure out how to get the coupler in the bag to put the frosting tip on so I called Kendra and she was so wonderful. She ran right over and frosted that little beauty. She is a wonderful friend!

This is Sage with a few of her best buds (Jeade'en, Maddie, Jenna & Riley)

We sang Happy Birthday to her without party hats. Can you believe that she didn't want me to buy her party hats? What kind of party is complete without a party hat? Lame....

Sister Hainsworth also stopped by to bring Sage a bouquet of balloons in the YW colors and welcome her to Beehives. Sage is very excited to be done with Primary and be a part of YW. She has already dove head-first into her Personal Progress. I'm so happy for her. She is such an amazing young lady and I know that she will love YW.

(I didn't think to take a picture until the next morning...ooops!)

Adventures in home improvement

They always make it look so easy on TV but they don't usually show all the little stuff that you have to deal with. We decided to change the girls bathroom cabinet to a pedestal sink to give them a little more room. Their bathroom is TEENY! Like 25 square feet teeny. This is what we started with:



So we went down to Lowe's and bought a pedestal sink and some new trim wood. We've been wanting to change out the trim in the house for a while now so we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to start. We spent our $78 and we were off. Well after JJ pulled out the old cabinet we realized that there isn't any flooring or even complete subfloor under the cabinet. Rats! This picture is after JJ pulled the sheet rock down to place a brace to hold the sink securely to the wall but you can see the flooring.

So as JJ finished tearing apart the bathroom I was off to Lowe's again to find flooring, sheet rock, bead board, plywood, nails and all the little stuff that we didn't think that we'd need. Lindsay loved the whole process and was such a wonderful helper! This is the hole before JJ put the supports in.



Libby really likes the sink!


We decided to go with laminate flooring but the color I chose was far too dark to carry through the whole house so back we went....trip #3 to Lowe's. It's been a long day, and unfortunately will be a long night too because we have to get the flooring down so that we can at least get the toilet back in. It's currently residing on our front porch and the neighbors have probably thought we've lost our minds. Last but not least here is my favorite picture of the day....the girls eating scrambled eggs in the bathtub because they wanted to watch what their dad was doing. I'm thankful that I'm married to such a handy guy. I love you babe!


I'll post the finished project in a couple of days.

1 week in...

and my resolutions are still holding. I didn't eat in the cafeteria once this whole week. I can't believe it! I am also still taking the stairs. This might be a bit easier than I thought.

It was such a busy week for us. Not really a lot going on but we were all so tired from trying to get back into the swing of things. Lindsay started her vision therapy this week and so far so good. I think we will be able to settle down into a regular routine for her. I just hope that it works. She uses the computer to do her therapy so I seriously need to find the desk top for her. This computer room seems to be the dumping ground for anything that doesn't have a home and for the things that certain people (I won't name name) around here don't know what to do with. I'd love to have a cute, bright, well organized office. Maybe that will be my project for today. I'll keep you posted!

Happy New Year!!!

A little late I know but I didn't quite make it until midnight so it doesn't really feel like a new year yet. I thought that it would sink in the first time I had to write the date down but that didn't do it either. Oh well!

I've made a couple of small resolutions this year! I think they are easy enough to stick to so I'm feeling quite optimistic about the whole goal situation.

#1 I vow to always take the stairs if I am able (meaning if I don't have to take the portable xray machine with me). There are so many times during the day that I take the stairs up one or 2 flights or worse.....take the elevator going down. Horrible I know. Yesterday I had my first big test. I got called in and had to transport my own patient. Wouldn't you just know it...they were on the 4th floor. I did it! I went up all 4 flights of stairs and had to stop outside the patient floor to catch my breath. Pathetic, but I did it. :)

#2 I vow to not spend any money in the St. Luke's cafeteria for 2010. This one will be a bit trickier for me because I eat there a lot. I think I will have a lot more money in the bank if this resolution works. I'm not optimistic but I am going to try my hardest.

#3 The last resolution is to study the Preach My Gospel manual with my family. This was one of the ward goals that the bishop challenged us to. We are going to study 1 chapter each week, and work on completing a small goal as a family. There are only 13 chapters so we'll be done by the first part of April! Easy Peasy...Lemon Sqeezey!