My Early Christmas Present

I got my Christmas present from Brent tonight. He took me to see Tonic Sol Fa in concert. We went to see them last year because I had requested it for my Christmas gift, but this year he thought of it all on his own to bring me. What a nice guy. These guys are very entertaining, well worth it to go see their show.



Here someone set their Chrismas lights to one of their songs. Pretty cool.

Official Pace Car of Minnesota

The official Pace Car of Minnesota made it's debut last weekend. (and they've been out almost every day since to spread the dirty salt, gotta love Minnesota) They sure hyped up the storm we were to get, but as you can see from the pictures we got snow but not nearly as much as they predicted. The kids have been enjoying it, though. They don't even care that it's been in the teens or lower every day. (Elizabeth tipped me off that they go out just so they can have hot chocolate when they come in.) I also enjoy the freshly fallen snow, but I can't stand the cold. I don't think I've ever told anyone that before. lol. I'd hibernate under a cozy heated blanket all winter long if I could.
Kids made a snowmanish looking thing in the front yard. It is hard to see though when the sun won't come out, everything is grey and just blends together.










Had to put the pictures of Anna up just because she's so darn cute.

Priceless

Our little Bag Lady

Little Tikes shopping cart from a garage sale.........25 cents

Wheels and axles to fix the shopping cart...............$6

Dora backpack from Good Will..................................$2
Being able to carry your treasures around all day............. Priceless

(Btw, Emma picked out the cute outfit all by herself. If it's pink and "busy" she will wear it.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizabeth had her very first spelling test yesterday and spelled all the words correctly.

Way to go Elizabeth!

(we need to work on those numbers though lol, #'s 2, 3, 4 and 5 are all backwards)

Sunset

This is the beautiful sunset we had on Tuesday night right out the front of our house. Matthew took the pictures. He did a good job. Then he asked me if I was going to put them up on the blog, so here they are for you to enjoy.

U of M appointment

Today I had my yearly (supposed to be yearly, but it's been about two and a half years) follow up visit with the neurologist at the U of M. I must say, Brent and I are in agreement that we do not want to ever live in the twin cities. There are way to many one way streets and streets that just take you in a big circle or lead you to a dead end or to another city. You'd think we would get it, we've been down there enough. They must change the streets around between times that we go just to make it fresh and interesting. Anyway, the appointment was fine. Same appointment, different year. The doctor said, (about a cure) "We are getting smarter, but not that smart yet" He did say they are doing clinical trials on patients with Duchenne MD and Beckers MD, and if they work for them then they will try it on people with Limb Girdle. Probably a long way off though.
If nothing else, it was nice to just get out for a day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On our way home we saw a couple of people that must have forgot to put on their brains this morning. They were out walking on the thin film of ice on one of the lakes. Most lakes we saw had no ice at all. Who knows, maybe the air by that lake has been colder than all the rest, or maybe I'm just too overly cautious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kitchen update?? Parts of the cabinets are painted, parts are only primed. Little by little Brents plugging away at it. I am ready for it to just be done though.

Brent earns Husband of the Year Award!

Brent is finally getting around to doing something to our kitchen. Since we can't afford a real kitchen makeover, we're doing the lots of effort, little money kind. We'll see how it turns out. On Sunday, Brent started to sand all the cabinets so they could be painted. Um, someone should have told us it would be a lot easier to clean up after the sanding if we would have boxed up everything in the cabinets before hand. But no, we spent last night and ALL of today wiping out cabinets and washing everything that was in every one of them. That was not fun! The bright side is, (since I am the optimist) everything is clean, we got rid of really old food, and things we never use, and the stuff is somewhat organized now. Now, this would be the 4th night of working on it and Brent and Alex have started priming. Looks like that part will be done tonight. Now I'm off to bed while Brent finishes up. lol Real nice of me huh?!?










This is what it looked like with the dust flying.

Circle of Love

We may struggle at times (ok, lots of times), but our faith in God and His Divine Providence keeps us going. It is at the times when we think we are struggling the most, when God most noticeably bestows His Blessings upon us. He has Blessed us with 6 beautiful children to raise up to know, love and serve Him. We always seem to get clothes passed on to us at just the right times, we have never gone hungry, we've always been able to pay our bills on time (even when I think we are going to be short).
Well, today we received a piece of mail that was addressed to the whole family. Joseph was the one to go get the mail and asked if he could open it. I could see through the envelope that the card said thank you, and there was no return address, so I let Joseph open it. When he opened it there was $$ in it and he started jumping and yelling something. I asked him what the card said, of course he didn't even read it. It said, "Thank you, for being my inspiration and letting me see the beauty in your family. You've got an amazing family." and it was signed "Circle of Love" I never thought of us as being able to inspire others, but I guess different things inspire different people. In any case, a great big THANK YOU goes out to our angel, "Circle of Love" and may God Bless them many times over for their generousity. This is not the first time this has happened to us, btw. God is good!
I must confess, I am able to trust in God and accept his Will in most things. But, I am human and I do struggle with a big one. That being my condition. I am consciously working on it though, and am sloooowly accepting that I can't do everything that I would like to be able to do.With lots of prayers, though, I'm sure someday I will be able to fully accept His Will in all things.

You know it's windy when....

...a brick is thrown through a window!
On Wednesday, Alex and Grandma were out in the new development with Grandpa's Jeep and trailer picking up the pink styrofoam insulation that had blown all over the neighborhood. They were using bricks to hold the styrofoam down while they ran and gathered the scattered pieces. During one of their stops a huge gust of wind picked up some of the styrofoam with a brick and threw the brick right by Grandma's head and through the back window of the Jeep.
Thankful nobody got hurt!

The wind's accomplice!

8 Random Things About Me

Ok, I've been double tagged. No getting out of this one. I was tagged by Kathy:I am who I am and "Lucille".

There are a few rules one must follow to play the game. When tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list eight random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to eight other people.

My 8 random things:

1. I have NO patience for computers. If I absolutly have to I can figure out how to fix things that aren't working. (but I would rather play dumb and let someone else fix it LOL this could get me into trouble) It just takes too long to mess with it when it's not working. AND waiting for pictures to upload for this blog. UUUGGGGGHHHH.
2. I really wish we lived somewhere warmer.
3. I really really wish we lived somewhere warmer.
4. My kids hate it when I have a headache. lol It's not pretty.
5. I like to drink Diet Sunkist, in my house it is aka: rat poison. The kids keep asking why I can drink rat poison (phenylalanine ) and I won't let them. Still trying to come up with a good answer that can not back fire on my.
6. I "like to buy and sell on ebay". lol this is what one of the kids told his class when they had all the moms for mothers day.
7. I love "Grandma and Grandpa Day" (used to be called "June and Marge Day" until they went and left us for sunny and warm Florida. We're sad they moved but, I guess that just makes visits with June and Marge more special) Today and most Wed. is when my kids get a break from me. Bonus is , I get to regroup also. lol
8. My favorite channels to watch are.... TLC, Discovery Channel, HGTV, and EWTN. That right there probably says more about me than the other 7 items. ;-)

Now for the poor souls that I am tagging..
http://notmotherteresa.blogspot.com/
http://1newbaby.blogspot.com/
http://therockingpony.blogspot.com/
http://annettes-stuff.blogspot.com/

Ok I'm going to have to break the rules, for now this is all I could find that didn't already post 8 random things. If I find more I will add them.

Report Cards!!!

Report cards were sent home yesterday. We only got Joseph and Matthew's though. Not sure why Elizabeth didn't get her's yet. And I'm still working on Alex's. The boys did well.

June and Marge, I will be sending a copy to you soon. I'm hoping to get Alex's done by the weekend. The kids are using the church for school right now because the old church building is being taken down. I think the kids go back to the school the week after Thanksgiving but I'm not really sure. They told the kids it was for safety reasons, plus it would have been too much of a distraction. On Monday they had a whole school field trip to the Y here in Willmar. While all the kids were away they had people moving desks over to the church. They also get Friday off this week. Not sure what that is for. Then they get Wed., Thurs., and Fri. off for Thanksgiving. And on Tuesday next week Grandma and Grandpa are taking Joseph's class to the Pavek Museum down in the cities. I'm sure they well have a great time there.
We are glad you made your trip back home safely, and hope you had a good time with the kids. They sure enjoyed playing games with you over at grandma and grandpa's house.
Hope your both feeling well and enjoying the blog!