Christmas with the Hansons...

Saturday night was our second Christmas celebration of 2007. The Hanson Xmas was moved up to November this year because the Swan family will be on a family cruise over Christmas, so we tried to get everyone together earlier. I was only able to attend for a couple hours as I had to work. Everyone is doing well and looking good, it was nice to see everyone even if it was only for a short time. Ed left for bowling for a bit but returned afterwards to celebrate a bit more. Another late night!

Thanksgiving!!

So Ed's Thanksgiving started off wonderful as he bowled a 605 on Wednesday night, and started celebrating the holiday early with the men and not arriving home until 2am. I was at work while he was playing, the downfall of being a nurse in a hospital :(

Thursday morning, Ed headed to his parents to help prepare the holiday meal while I slept a bit. We enjoyed our turkey dinner during half time of the Packer/Lions game. (Which the Packers won of course) There was quite the rivalry with Ed II and Blayne being Lions fans, Ed III and Sue being Packer fans. The rest of us could really care less, but since the Packers are winning this year, I guess I am a fan too. Gizmo got to go to Ed and Sue's too since Peaches was home, Ed wouldn't let him go without his Packer jersey on, and he kept it on all day long surprisingly. Other than eating and relaxing, the real highlight of the day for me was Kieran. He is a whole new little boy compared to two months ago when we saw him last. He hardly sleeps anymore and he is smiley, quiet and content all the time. He loves playing on his tummy time mats, and actually plays with toys a bit now, he drools like no other, has a tooth, he loves to stand, he blows bubbles and talks, he is so much fun. And boy can he poop! He went through a couple of outfits on Thursday. Just can't seem to keep it in the diaper. You wouldn't know by my pictures that all he does is smile because I just haven't mastered getting the picture at the right time. I tried really hard though.

Molly and I took Kieran outside to enjoy his first snowfall. Wasn't much, but it stuck for the day and was white and cold. He got to touch it, Molly and Blayne didn't have any snowpants for him yet so we couldn't sit him in it. I think he would have loved that. Molly and Blayne were heading home to MI to several inches of snow it sounded like, so he will see plenty of white stuff.

Ed had to work at 530am on friday morning for all the crazy shoppers, and I happened to be one of them. I think this was the first year I went early, I was out of the house just before 6am. I managed to go to Menards, Sears, and Kohls where I was successful, Best Buy and Sports Authority I didn't find anything I had to have. I was home by 8am.

We had lunch at Ed and Sue's Friday (turkey, imagine that) so we could see Blayne, Molly and Kieran before they headed back home. Kieran had on the cutest onesie for Christmas, can't wait to see what he wears on Christmas. And I finally got a picture of him smiling. I'm learning fast.

Ambitious Sunday...

Well we got a lot done on Sunday. After football watching and shopping of course. While Ed watching his weekly sunday football I headed to the store to search for some tree trimming necessities. At least that is what I like to call them.

Since we invested in a pre-lit christmas tree this year, I decided I would like our tree to look more elegant and 'grown-up' for lack of a better term. I also changed from all silver to red and gold this year. So I needed new ornaments, trimmings, tree top and skirt. So it was mission christmas tree yesterday. I had made a trip to my Dad and Julies to analyze their tree because I wanted it to look similar to theirs (yes Julie has the tree up, the Hanson xmas is this saturday that is why it's up so early) So after much needed help and guidance from Julie I was on my way. Well almost 4 hours later I had most of what I needed. Ed has been asking when I was going to put the tree up since the box has been sitting in our living room for 2 weeks now, but I was trying to wait until the friday after Thanksgiving.

Also Ed wanted to clean the carpet before we put it up. So I borrowed the carpet cleaning vacuum from Dad and Julie, Ed cleaned the carpets last night in the living/dining room and up the tree went shortly afterwards. It is definitely a work in progress. I over bought in some areas and under bought in others, so I have a few things to return and a few more to buy, still missing a tree top also.

Here is Ed cleaning the carpet in the living/dining room.

This is all the stuff we had to move out of the living/dining room in order to clean the carpet.

While I was our shopping yesterday I finally got my long awaited flannel sheets from Target that were on sale like 3 weeks ago and I have been patiently waiting with my rain check for the kings to arrive. So we put those on the bed last night too, they are wonderful and cute too.


The other revelation we have stumbled upon this weekend is, we are now teaching Gizmo that he can't go on the furniture and our bed. We are trying to change something we have allowed for 2 years now, could be interesting. But someday we will have new furniture that we won't want the dog on and dog hair is just getting to us. So it is time for a change. Stay posted for how that is going.
Here is Gizmo illegally laying on our bed while Ed was cleaning carpets, we now need to keep our door closed so he stays off. He isn't a fan of noisy things though, so he was 'hiding'.

Game Night...

Last night we finally had a chance to get together with some friends and family for dinner and a few games. We went to dinner at Bravo at Brookfield Square with Aaron, Andrea, Chris and Jessie. After dinner we came back to our house and played a few games. We started out with LCR (left, center, right, dice game), but no one had any money, so playing with our quarters wasn't as much fun since no one really won. So after a few rounds of that we pulled out Catch Phrase, I think it was the first time it was opened since last Christmas (shows how much time we have for games) Catch Phrase was fun for all of us, boys against girls of course, I am pretty sure us girls won. Wasn't a late night as Ed had to work this morning, and I was only going on a few hours of sleep myself, but it was a fun night. Long overdue.

Playing Catch Phrase...

The Ladies aka 'Champions'

Cousin Jessie and Fiance Chris, engaged, Wedding date June 7, 2008

Andrea and Aaron, expecting Baby #1 May 2008!

My new hobby...

Make a slide show, scrapbook or ecard

So I stumbled upon this fun free scrapbooking site, I didn't have any new good pictures to use, so I went back in time to last Christmas. If only i could get it to work on the newer computer. But anyway, just a preview of what is to come with the holidays quickly approaching.

Our First Xmas of 2007...

So the Christmas season has officially kicked off for us this year. We celebrated our first holiday with the Bremberger family yesterday. And believe it or not we had a tree too.

Sort of looks like a Charlie Brown tree, but it is better than no tree!

Elaine and Ed, poor Elaine didn't even know she was getting her picture taken.

Ed opening his first gift of 2007, just the beginning!

Baby Ayden seemed to be the center of attention, well at least my attention. Good thing the family is small, I didn't have a lot of baby hog competition.

Today Ayden was baptized, my camera battery was dead so I didn't get any pictures.

Derek and Thayer are his Godparents. I am sorry to say, it was my first time in a church since Andi and Aaron's Wedding, over a year ago now.

Shoes, Shoes, and More Shoes...

Today Ed's project was to fix our closet full of shoes problem. As a wedding gift we received a shoe rack that we had registered for that held about 50 pairs of shoes. Well, I appear to have a shoe fettish, therefore within a year the shoe rack collapsed and for the last couple months our shoes have been piled in the bottom of the closet. So today Ed took care of the issue and put up a few more shelves to store our shoes. He also made me get rid of some too, so I made him go through his closet too then. It was a very productive afternoon, clean closets, a few empty hangers ready for new things! That is the best part.

Wausau, WI

We made a last minute trip on Friday November 2 up to Wausau, WI. My grandpa ended up having to have last minute open heart surgery on Wednesday. He had gone to Wausau on Tuesday to have a cardiac catheterization to find what was causing some previous stomach/chest pain. Turns out the blockages they found couldn't just be repaired with a couple of stents, so surgery was the next step. He could either take a cancellation that was open the next morning, or schedule a day the following week. Since they had already made the hour trip from Pickerel, they decided to take the opening the next day and get it over with.

We weren't going to make the trip because of us both having to work, but Friday morning about 10am Ed brought up the idea of going for the night, and he was willing to miss work friday and saturday for us to go. As you can imagine, I really had to twist Ed's arm to miss work, yeah right. So we were in the car by 11am friday and arrived in Wausau just before 2pm. Met my mom, Grandma, Karen and Steve at the hotel and checked in, ran some errands and then to the hospital to visit Grandpa. Made for a long day, in and out of the ICU visiting, but I am very glad we made the trip. Grandpa was doing pretty good even when we got there and was getting better every day.

He was discharged to home today around 2pm. Got a phone call from Grandma around 4pm saying they made it home and Grandpa was already pacing the house. Grandpa can't drive for a month so Grandma has to take to his followup appointments. So less than a week in the hospital and his heart is all fixed.

This is the plant we took him. They will keep it alive forever!