Fun with the kids and then...

It has been great to have both Wayne and Sally around this past week. Even though they are busy and have been in and out, we have been able to spend lots of great quality time together. Love it.
Wayne went to Cleveland for a couple of days to see Julie (his girlfriend) and her family. Julie then returned the favor and came here. She arrived last evening and so we had a fun dinner here with Wayne, Julie, Sally and Matt (Sally's bf, for those who don't know). Jack made a special cheeseball snowman. He saw it on his friend's facebook page and thought he would give it a try. It turned out so cute! And it was good, too.


Julie, me and Sally



Wayne and Julie, with Wayne's preschool art project in the background



Matt, Sally, Julie and Wayne


It was a fun night...including a brief round of Apples to Apples, which they played to humor me because I was not to be messed with. A great time was had by all, and since the weather was blustery and the hour was late, we suggested that Matt just spend the night here. Jack called in to report that we would have two cars in the street all night and that was that...until 6:30 this morning when a policeman rang our doorbell to let us know that a snowplow had hit Matt's car. I mean, it really got hit, as in not able to drive it. The policeman was very apologetic and said the snowplow driver felt terrible. And I was so impressed how well Matt handled it. My goodness, what a great guy. Of course, we already knew that, but to watch him handle the whole situation so maturely and calmly was just so impressive.
Now the kids are off again to celebrate New Year's Eve. Wayne and Julie went downtown and Matt and Sally went to Champaign. Jack and I are going to have a bite to eat and probably head to bed early. That is our NYE tradition and we love it.
See you next year :)

Ruthanne passed court!

Great news! Ruthanne, my friend and coworker (also the same person who taught the technology class that I took that I had to create this blog for!) has been in the process of adopting a little boy nicknamed "Bear" from Ethiopia. Ruthanne's first son, Andrew, was adopted from Guatemala a little over two years ago and he is a doll, let me tell you. Anyway, the adoption process is long and complicated and one of the major hurdles to clear is the court date in Ethiopia (Ruthanne did not have to go there for that). There are lots of details that have to come together in order to pass court and so I am thrilled to report that Ruthanne passed today! Click here to go to her blog-you will get to meet Ruthanne, Andrew and her new son, Daniel.
What a wonderful way to close out the year! Such an answer to prayer.

Christmas 09, part one

Christmas was good, as always. We started out the festivities with 2:15 mass at St. Cletus and then came back home to get a few other things done before we headed out to Jenny and Jay's. They had a delicious dinner of Portillo's beef and pasta. It was a low key night. The weather was icy and windy, it was past Marmar's bedtime and Pawp was in San Francisco, Dane was in Iowa and Tom was in Houston so they were not there (Note: That is a little coping mechanism called denial; that is what we say to ourselves, so we will not think about their absences and how much we miss them. It works for me). We had a good time being together, but it seemed like everything we said turned into a Debbie Downer kind of thing, no matter how hard

we tried. After a while it was funny! Here are our Debbie Downer pictures:

When we got back to our house, Wayne and Sally exchanged gifts and gave us our gifts and then we went to bed.
On Christmas morning, the kids opened presents and then we took off for Jack's parents' house. We exchanged presents with them and then had our late breakfast. We always enjoy that time together with Bucky and Grandma, Downtown Sue and Uncle Paul.Bucky got a shirt from Grandma that was exactly like the one Jack had on. Good taste runs in the family!


Above is a picture of Paul and Grandma with one of the presents that Jack gave Paul. It is an Air Force One Airport Playset that Jack got at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. Yep. Below is a picture of Bucky, Sally and Wayne, having some sort of intellectual discussion.

This is Downtown Sue in her traditional present-opening spot.

After breakfast, Wayne and Grandma went looking for all of the Kraft products in the house. Grandma has a stockpile of Strawberry Newtons. Wayne was pleased with that support of Kraft products :).

We came back to Grandma and Bucky's that evening. In the evening, everyone is there, including Mike (Jack's brother), Sue (his wife) and their kids Lauren and Brendan. This year, Mike was back in the hospital due to a postsurgical infection and so he wasn't there. We did get to talk to him on the phone and he came home the next day, but still it wasn't the same without him. I am sorry to report that I do not have many pictures from the evening visit to Jack's folks' house because 1) my camera broke during dinnner!!! bummer! It kept saying "lens error. restart camera" but alas, I think my camera is gone for good. I was able to use Sally's for a couple of cousin shots. 2) that is when we do family pictures, but we just didn't want to do any without Mike.

Lauren, Sally, Brendan and Wayne in a creative Brady Bunch pose

Grandma and Bucky and their grandchildren
Here are two cute video clips from the morning. The first is a brief clip from the annual singing of "Shortening Bread" by the men. Mike phoned in from his hospital bed to participate. What a trooper. The second video is from breakfast. Sally played a song on her ipod that Grandma introduced to us a couple of years ago. It is a very catchy tune and we always have fun with it. Aren't we so musical??? This post is getting a little bit long and complicated for me, what with all the pictures and TWO videos, so I am going to end here and continue with part two in a separate post.

Christmas 09, part two

After we left Grandma and Bucky's (see previous post, Christmas 09 part one), we went directly to Jenny and Jay's. We celebrated with the rest of my side of the family. Arne (my sister Jenny's oldest son) and Beth (Arne's wife) were there with Abbie and Nina and of course, that just made the afternoon. Abbie is 3 1/2 and is the perfect age for Christmas. Nina will be one in a month and she was definitely getting in on all of the fun.

Above: Marmar gave Abbie a cute doll. Marmar loves dolls. Nina got one, too.

Susie gave Abbie a Barbie guitar. How fun!

Nina was checking out the lights on the Christmas tree with some help from Lola.


Marmar and her favorite daughter (I can say that because this is my blog!)

sisters with sisters: Susie, Abbie, Nina and Jenny

Abbie and Sally

Abbie and Wayne

Wayne and Sue doing their Robert DeNiro impressions

Arne and Beth react to their first gift in the swap

Jack loves his gift! But what is it?

Jay, Murphy and Abbie. Jay especially loves the way we do the gift swap :)

Sally, Wayne, Marie and Kjell, after the gift swap.

I know our Christmas seems a bit hectic with traveling back and forth to places, but we don't mind a bit. We really love to be with our families and it's worth the effort for us. We know that traditions will change a bit, as they have already, with kids growing up and others leaving us and that's okay. In the meantime, we will appreciate this Christmas and remember what it is all about, the birth of Christ and His gift to us.

Can't close out this post without showing you this darling video clip of Abbie. Jenny, Jay and Kjell gave Abbie a Barbie Jammin' Jeep. I love her sweet reaction.
Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas Eve Eve

Every year, we have a tradition of celebrating Christmas with our friends, Chuck and Teri, and their 5 kids. Jack and I met Chuck and Teri through our mutual friends, Pat and Rick. To make a long story short, it just so happened that Teri and I were expecting our first children on the same day (Feb 14), the same hospital and the same doctor. We ran into them in the doctor's office when we were both about 5 months pregnant and our friendship grew from there. We were invited to their Christmas party that year when we were both very pregnant and we have celebrated with them every Christmas since then. For many years, the four adults would go out for a nice lunch at some fabulous restaurant, then go back to one of our houses and exchange gifts with the kids. In the early years, it was just Caylen and Wayne. As time went on, we added Sally and they added Brittany, Chas, Keegan and Grace and we have had some memorable Christmas celebrations with the two families. It is always a highlight of the season for our family. A few years ago, we tweaked the tradition and changed it to dinner at home with everyone. We all really enjoy being together. The kids all have great senses of humor and are so respectful and just a pleasure to be around. Last year (the year Wayne got stranded in Remington Indiana due to an ice storm and didn't make it) we changed from gifts for everyone to an exchange/grab bag/white elephant (whatever you want to call it) where everyone brings a gift under $20 to exchange. Very fun. This year we hosted it at our house. There was another ice storm (Wayne did not want to take the chance of missing it again and so came in the night before) and it was so crazy slippery, but they risked life and limb and made it here. Here are some of the pictures from our night.

Wayne presenting the very traditional baby hot dogs

Sally and Brittany, not wearing their matching Minnie Mouse dresses.

Jack, me, Teri and Chuck


Grace made the most incredible three layer red velvet cake. It was beautiful and delicious.

The gift swap. Check out Caylen in the cool hat that she got. It looked so cute on her!


More presents


Chas, Britt and Keegan



Teri and Santa.

One of the best parts of the night was sharing with our friends an imovie that Sally made, celebrating our 25 years of friendship. She did a fantastic job with it. Here is a video clip I made of us watching it. The clip is dark and you can't really see anything, but I love the sound of everyone laughing and remembering. It was a wonderful night.

Blogging instead of Christmas shopping

It seems like forever since I have blogged and I really miss it. I am officially on Winter Break now and it is great to be able to concentrate on getting ready for Christmas. Sally got home on Thursday night and Wayne is due h0me tomorrow night. We are making good progress on our Christmas preparations and I am getting in the holiday spirit.

One of the big happenings from last week was my goddaughter Grace's 18th birthday. I really want to do a whole post about this big day and so I will leave it at that...for now, that is. Just wait!

Another big event from last week was our holiday celebration at school. How cute are kids around this time of year? SO cute and so earnest. I wish there were not confidentiality issues because otherwise I would share with you some of the most adorable videos ever! Santa called our classroom and talked over the speakerphone with the kids. It was amazing, all the details he knew...everyone's names, everything the kids wanted! And he sounded just like Jack! Imagine that.

Another highlight from last week was the Mad Men Christmas party that Jack and I were invited to. Oh my gosh! I have some very creative friends. We were supposed to dress up as if we were in the Mad Men era/show. Jack came as Father Gill and I was Peggy Olson-ish. It turned out to be a progressive dinner, with cocktails at one house, dinner at another and then dessert at the last house. It was so much fun!! Below are some pictures from the night. I have to mention that Jack brought Camels, L&Ms, Parliaments, and Pall Malls as props since we were in the early 60's genre, before the Surgeon General's warning. We were all saying that it would have been hard to imagine everyone really smoking the cigarettes in the house. So when you look at these pictures, know that no one was really smoking. Well, until we got to the last house, Eileen and Scott's where they just happened to have the most incredible outdoor heated area that was perfect for a little cigar smoking.

The first picture is of me and Don Draper and Bert Cooper. As you can tell from picture after that, someone was a bit jealous of me. Hussy :) Her, not me of course.





Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Sitting outside with Joan, the office manager.

The whole night was so creative and fun. Our hosts hired a young woman who was an actress/helper who functioned as our receptionist, chauffer (to drive us in shifts from house to house) and cigarette girl, complete with the costumes. Do you want to know how fun it was? We did not get home until 2 am!

Happy birthday, Bucky!

Today is Jack's dad's birthday. I love his nickname, Bucky, which was coined by Wayne. When Wayne was just learning to talk, he started calling Bill "Bucky" (why, we don't know for sure) and it stuck like glue! Bill has always been a good sport about it and it seems funny to me to refer to him as anything other than Bucky. Hope you have a good day, Bucky!

It's the holiday season (no exclamation point)

I think that I have been putting too many exclamation points in the titles of my posts, so I refrained from using one for this post. In case you were wondering.



I am beginning to get into the holiday spirit. I have not started Christmas shopping yet, but the house is decorated (or as decorated as it is going to get) and there is snow on the ground and it is the third Sunday (or Saturday night) of Advent and we are working on our Christmas cards and only one more week of work and...well, you get the idea.


I think it does help that the weather has been wintry. We had a few days of snow and really cold, as in 20 below wind chill. Lucky Jack was in Houston and Austin for most of it. My next door neighbor (the one who moved here from Arizona) has been asking questions about winter preparedness ever since she and her husband and kids moved in in August. It only took two days of snow (less than 3 inches altogether) for them to buy a snowblower. The picture above is Maddie doing her first run with her snowblower. She is adorable. I did have to chastise her for not wearing a hat or at least covering her ears. I am an expert on keeping warm.



Jack and I went to mass tonight. Our parish is doing something neat for Advent. They made paper ornaments with a family's name on each one. We were all asked to take an ornament and put it on our tree at home and pray for that family throughout the Christmas season. I like that. How interesting that the one we chose was the Kraft family.



Good news! Sally passed her content test!!! This is a test administered by the state board of education that one must pass in order to be certified. And it has to be passed before student teaching, so we were thankful that Sally passed on the first try. Especially since it was a five hour test that she had to take on Saturday of Dad's weekend. Way to go, Sallygirl!



In other news, please keep Jack's brother Mike in your thoughts and prayers. He had surgery on Thursday and has a tough recovery ahead.



Please also pray for my friend Sheila whose sister Linda died very suddenly last week at the age of 58. Also please pray for one of my very favorite ECE (early childhood education) teachers, Brigid, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery last week. Brigid was my next door neighbor for a year at the LLC and she is an awesome person and teacher. Love her.



Good night. Heading to bed....

First snow of the season

This is what I woke up to this morning:

There was about 1/2 inch of snow dusting the ground. It was a nice surprise. We have had such a mild November and (so far)December that I have been lulled into a false sense of warm :). Our new next door neighbors moved here from Arizona and lived in Houston before that, so they have been anxiously awaiting the first snow. The kids were so thrilled and were trying to make a snowman this evening, though the snow was too powdery and there wasn't enough of it. It was fun to see the snow through their eyes.

Jack and I saw two movies this past weekend. On Friday night, Jack, Christy and I went to see "Everybody's Fine" with Robert DeNiro. It was good and meaty. It provided lots of food for thought. Then late Saturday afternoon, Jack and I went to see "Up in the Air", the new George Clooney movie. It was only playing downtown so we made the trip. It was worth it as it was another movie that made an impact. After the movie we stopped for dinner and guess who sat down right next to us? Former Gov Jim Thompson and his wife Jane. We were like the stalkerazzi and I took this picture of them eating dinner. I am sure they appreciated that.

In other news, Sally sprained her ankle yesterday. She was able to walk on it but it was quite swollen and painful, so she got it x-rayed this morning at the student health center. It is not broken, thank goodness.

I can't believe that Christmas is so soon and that I only have nine more days of school before Winter Break. I have lots to do before break, including 5 annual reviews & one three year re-eval. I am not even worrying too much about Christmas shoppping yet. It'll all get done. Always does.

You can't take a video during Mass!

Jack was so pleased to have us all together in Mass and decided to take a video. Check out the reactions from Sally and me. Priceless.

Thanksgiving Break 09

It was such a great Thanksgiving break. Some of the highlights included:

having all four of us, Jack , Wayne, Sally and I, all under one roof for 5 nights in a row!

the impromptu visit from Jenny, Kjell, Abbie and Nina on Wednesday (see pictures from the previous post)

hosting Thanksgiving dinner for Jack's mom and dad, sister Sue, and brother Paul and my mom, Sue, Jenny, Jay and Kjell and the four of us; also, Matt joined us for a couple of hours and it was fun to introduce him to the rest family (also some pictures from this are on the last post)

the delicious pulled pork sandwiches that Sally made for us for dinner on Tuesday. She got the recipe from her roommate Sarah and her mom and boy, those sandwiches were good!


Jack's burst of energy on the day after Thanksgiving. He put up the outside decorations and then insisted we go get our Christmas tree. The best part was listening to him trying to get the tree to stand up straight while I was napping in the other room :)


Jordan's Christmas party! Jordan knows how to throw a party, let me tell you. Fun people (there were lots of JD and Eliot's friends and also he includes MY kids and Matt!), tremendous food, fantastic drinks and beautiful music. It was an absolute blast. I might have to do an entire post just on the party, that's how good it was. Here are just a couple of pictures from the night:

Mark, Sally and Matt

Tej, Cathy, Don and Susan



Our host, Jordan and his cousin, Bobby


Wayne and Jack
Jean, me and Christy

another highlight was attending Mass as a family on Sunday.

For sure the part of Thanksgiving break that I liked the least was watching the kids pull out of the driveway on Sunday evening. Thank God they both got home safely and we have Christmas break just a few weeks away.

A picture post

Above is a follow up picture from a previous post..Sally and Matt at the Bears game, courtesy of Susie. Thanks, Susie!!!
Happy day after Thanksgiving! I will write a proper post soon, but in the meantime, here are a few pictures from the day before Thanksgiving and also from Thanksgiving itself.
Abbie, Nina, Jenny and Kjell came to our house for a little while on Wednesday since the girls were spending Thanksgiving with Beth's side of the family this year. They are growing up so fast. Our favorite line of the day was Abbie saying "I love you, kitties...sooo much!" It was so sweet.




Thanksgiving Day: