We've been busy lately!

Here are a few of the Family Fun Nights that we've had in the last week:

• On Thursday we celebrated Chinese New Year. We had a great Chinese dinner of homemade lemon chicken, crab rangoon, egg roll, and fortune cookies. I made the lemon chicken. It is so delicious, tastes just like Chinese take out and is so much cheaper. Chuck picked the rest of the food up from China Road. The kids had Chinese New Year coloring pages, it is the Year of the Tiger, and we talked about China.
• On Friday we celebrated Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Many years ago we celebrated both Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays separately, but now we lump them together on President's Day. Well since I believe that both of those men are extremely important to the history of our nation and if Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther King, Jr. get their own days, then in my house Lincoln and Washington will have their own days! For Lincoln Day we read a book about Lincoln and then reenacted the Civil War. It was great fun, but unfortunately The South won and we are all in a very different situation!
• Sunday we celebrated Valentine's Day and had a remembrance day for my grandma. For breakfast we had heart shaped waffles with strawberries. The rest of the day was pretty crazy. We had a tea party at my mom's with tea sandwiches, scones, cheese ball, sugar cookies, and brownies, and of course TEA! It was yummy. The kids then went with their aunt and uncle to the Lippanzaner (sp) Horse Show. The kids had so much fun and loved watching the horses. Chuck and I went out for a quick bite to eat and then watch Four Christmases.
• Up next, on Saturday will be George Washington Day, we will definitely be having a cherry pie! We also have been having Olympic Days here and there and I hope that we can wrap it up with one big final Olympic party.

Snow Play

We've had a bit of snow this winter and there have only been a few days that haven't been too frigid to go out and play. One of those days, the kids really wanted to build snow forts. Or should I say, they really wanted me to build them snow forts. So I went out there (not something I really like to do-playing in the snow) and dug out a fort to Skyler's specifications. Once I was done, he decided it wasn't quite good enough for him and he gave it to Lily and came up with a new plan for his. Our picnic table was moved along the back wall of the yard and it was covered with snow. Skyler's new plan was for me to dig out the picnic table. It was kind of hard, but I did the best I could and he really enjoyed playing in it.

Our Musicians

This is what life is like in our house these days.

Something

Well, I guess I did not start the year off with blogging more as well as I had hoped. There were many times I had great posts in my mind, but they never made it out of my head and in to the computer. But, here I go again. I am trying. January was a tougher month for me than I had anticipated. I did not get to run as much as I wanted to or needed to, which always messes up my attitude toward life. Chuck and I began P90X, a very tough home workout. I really like it, but it has been a week since I have been able to work out because I got sick. Last Wednesday Lily was sick with a fever and a cough. She was better the next day, but had so kindly passed whatever it was on to me. By Friday afternoon I had to put myself to bed. I just couldn't go on; I felt terrible! I stayed in bed for over 27 hours! It is the first time in the 15 years that we have been married that I was this sick. We missed a party on Friday night, I missed Skyler's first Pinewood Derby, and we had to cancel our Christmas with my brother! It was terrible. Monday, Skyler went back to school and I thought that I was going to be okay, but I wasn't doing too well, so had to call and have Christy take Skyler on the Cub Scout field trip. I am finally getting better, but still very full of snot and have a bad cough. Hopefully soon, I will be back to full speed. I have a lot of sub jobs in February and am finally making some progress in school. I can't wait to get done with this Pharmacology Unit! More fun posts to come, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Skyler's Star Wars Lego Christmas Vacation

Skyler made out like a bandit in December in terms of his most favorite toys in the world. Having a birthday in December can be quite a good thing when you get an extra load of these toys. He has built approximately 6 Star Wars Lego sets: the AT/TE Walker, the Millenium Falcon, Darth Vader's TIE Fighter, the X wing Fighter, the Corporate Alliance Tank Droid, Ahsoka's Starfighter and the Vulture Droid. That means ove 2,350 pieces have been put together to create these awesome toys! He loves them and the fun that he and his sister have is priceless!

New Year's Celebration

Last night we had a great time ringing in the new year! We had a fantastic meal for dinner, homemade tomato bisque soup and appetizers all around. I made homemade pizza rolls, beer bread, spinach artichoke dip, and shrimp. It was all so good, we stuffed ourselves! We then went to watch the firework downtown. We have a great spot where we watch them from the comfort of our own car. We go to the parking lot of Harrah's in Iowa and have a great view of the fireworks. They explode right over us!

We asked the kids what their favorite thing about 2009 was. Lily did not respond and Skyler said recess was the best thing he could think of that happened to him in 2009. I asked if he meant kindergarten recess or first grade recess and he chose first grade recess because they get to do centers if they have indoor recess. Oh, to see life through the eyes of a child again!

I hope you all have a fantastic 2010 and set some goals and achieve them! It's a new year, anything is possible!

A New Year

2009 was not the year for blogging for me. I lost the heart for it when I blogged about how I was feeling when a friend was mistreating me (I did not use her name in my post). She attacked me for it and couldn't believe that that I would blog about these things because people from church read my blog. Well, it really hurt me and really turned me off to my blog.

But, I have decided that I don't care. This is my blog. If I want to blog about how silly people look in skinny jeans or how depressed I am feeling about the weather; I will.

So, as I look forward to the year 2010, I wanted to document some of my goals and resolutions.

1. Finish reading The Bible. I started late last January with the goal to finish it in a year. I am about 75% finished.
2. Run my first half marathon in April, continue running 1/2 marathons for the rest of the year. (I'd love to run a marathon in 2011).
3. Get back to healthy eating habits. I did a 10 week Farrells Extreme Bodyshaping and it totally killed my healthy eating and running. Need to get it back!
4. Finish my schooling by spring! This might be a stretch, but I REALLY need to get it done and get working!
5. Focus on family fun nights more.
6. Blog more often. As I was writing my Christmas letter, I realized how important my blog is in documenting our memories and the few posts I had this past year really helped me remember the fun things that we did as a family.

I am looking forward to our vacation this summer and all of the other great things that we have planned. I am also looking forward to getting a job in a new career and bringing in some additional income for our family!

I pray all of you have a wonderful and safe start to the new year!