A Very Canadian Christmas

A few weeks ago we squeezed into our green truck, and headed towards The Great White North. Our trip to Canada was for two reasons. One, to deliver a beautiful vanity Jim built for Ross and Judy, and two, to hang out with family and have a Canadian Christmas.

Our adventure began early Wednesday morning almost two weeks ago. We debated which car to drive, and I'm glad we decided to take the truck since it has four-wheel-drive and newer tires. Lucy (our vehicle sans 4WD and in need of new tires) probably wouldn't have made it through some of the roads we traveled. Most of the roads were good, but the closer we got to Canada, the rougher the conditions were. The good news is, with Jim's wonderful driving expertise we made it to Mountain View, Canada alive and well. However, I don't think I've ever been happier to get out of a vehicle in all my life. Our travels took longer than expected since the weather was a bit naughty. Being cooped up in a truck with little leg room, and two impatient children for fifteen hours wasn't my idea of fun. But we made it safely, and I'm grateful for that.

Night one we hung out for a bit and went to bed.

Our first full day we hung out, and watched Jim build the vanity. He did all the cutting and staining at his shop, and then assembled it up in Canada. It's always fun to watch him in his element. Tralee had fun playing in Grandpa Ross and Grandma Judy's garage. Hunter fell asleep while Grandpa Ross was holding him. As you can see from the photo below, Corky came along too.

Here are a few pictures of the finished product. Beautiful if I do say so myself.

Jim's sisters, Nikki, Cammi, and Channing (or as Tralee calls her, Auntie Tranny) all showed up on Friday. We played games, ate food, worked on puzzles, watched movies, and had a grand ol' time together. Jim's sisters are a lot of fun.
I love the picture below. Tralee REALLY loves Grandma Judy or as she calls her Mama Return. Return is Judy's nickname from Ross, and since Tralee can't say Judy too well, she calls her Grandma (Mama) Return. Tralee crawled up by Grandma Return, handed her a book, and they read for a while together.

Hunter and Auntie Cammi

Nikki has a black cat that lives with Ross and Judy. Her name is Misty, or as some affectionately call her, Fleabag. Tralee LOVES Misty. We waited as long as we could to show Misty to Tralee, because we knew as soon as we did Tralee would be obsessed. It took about a day before the cat was out of the bag (pun intended). After that all Tralee wanted to do was find the "titty." This was a bit problematic since Misty sleeps in Ross and Judy's room, and Tralee gets up around 6am. Every morning, as soon as she woke up, she wanted to go see Titty. We held her off as long as we could.
Grandma Judy found a whole bunch of toys for Tralee to play with while we were there. Tralee's favorite was a Beauty and the Beast tea set. Mrs. Potts made bubbly sounds and talked to you when you pushed on her lid. Tralee had to push the lid every time she poured us a drink into one of the Chip cups. Tralee really loved playing tea party with Grandma Return. She would pour a drink, wait for Grandma to take a sip, and then say, "It's too hot!" Then Judy would pretend to spit the hot drink out. Tralee got a big kick out of it. She really loved that tea set. She loved it so much, one night she fell asleep holding onto Mrs. Potts. Even more incredible is HOW Tralee fell asleep. Look below.

She wedged herself between the ottoman and the couch. Silly girl. Daddy came to the rescue and carried her to bed.
Saturday morning was our Christmas in Canada. We were all super excited. I was just happy Tralee was feeling better, because she had a rough night the night before. She woke up coughing, crying, tugging on her ear, and saying "ow!" Poor thing had an earache and a virus. She passed it onto Hunter who cried almost the whole way home from Canada. As soon as we were home I took them both to the doctor and got them on antibiotics. I'm glad I did. Hunter ended up having a double ear infection. Both kids are on the mend now. Ok. . . back to Christmas.

We had THE BEST Christmas morning up in Canada. We were SOOOO spoiled by our family up there. I'm so grateful for their generosity! Judy, Ross, Nikki, and Channing made sure our kids had lots of fun presents to open and full stockings. Jim and I also had stockings and presents as well. I wasn't really expecting anything, so it was a big surprise to see all the gifts for us. We all love our presents, so THANK YOU Ross, Judy, Nikki, and Channing!!!

Here we are waiting for the madness to begin

Grandpa Ross was the presents hander-outer.
Tralee had to be reminded on how to open gifts. She figured it out, and became an expert before all was said and done.

Hunter was just happy to be there
Tralee made sure that everyone had bows on their heads.
It might be really "fat girl" of me, but I was SUPER excited to see that one of my gifts was Hawkins Cheezies. I LOVE these things. You can only get them in Canada, and I crave them all the time. It might have only been eight am, but I broke into those babies right away. I just couldn't seem to help myself.
Below are a few pictures of Tralee and Hunter playing with one of Tralee's cool Christmas presents. Sadly, this gift was dropped and it broke the next day. Too bad. We'll have to find another one, because it was a big hit.

Jim built Judy a crown molding shelf for Christmas. He and Ross wrapped it, can you tell?
The most fun thing to do after all the presents are unwrapped is play with your new toys.
Saturday night we ate a delicious dinner that Judy and the girls prepared for us. Grammy Jacobs came over, and of course we played cribbage that night. It's so fun to play crib with Grammy.

We stayed inside the whole time enjoying each other's company. We would have gone outside, but it was always -15 to -30 degrees. That's some CRAZY weather. We had a lot of fun inside though.

I just want to thank Ross and Judy again for being such great hosts. The food was delish, the gifts were perfect, your hospitality was wonderful. Thanks to Nikki and Channing to for all the yummy food you put together, and for the gifts! Maybe next year Jim will have to build something for you again so we can make the trip up there. :)

So, that was our Canadian Christmas. Just a few more days and we'll be celebrating Christmas in the US!

Thanksgiving in St. George

We celebrated Thanksgiving in St. George with some of Jim's family. The trip was quite the experience. The thought of documenting everything that happened is a little overwhelming, not to mention trying to pick my favorite photos from the hundreds that were taken. So, I'm just going to touch on the highlights of our trip.

The highlights are:

- Picking our niece, Cassi, up from school. We all went, dog included. As soon as we saw Cassi we started screaming, "Cassi! Cassi! Hi!" As soon as she saw us she smacked her head in embarrassment. Her face was bright red, but you could tell she loved the attention! It was awesome.

- Being with family. All eleven nieces and nephews were in the same place at the same time. That's the first time that's happened! Tralee had the best time running around with her cousins.

- Hearing funny stories about Jim, and the rest of the Jacobs kids while sitting around the table

- All the yummy food -- need I say more.

- Going to the spinning park. So fun!

- Playing kick-the-can and soccer out on the golf course at night

- Lip syncing night.

-Decorating Cookies

-Going to Mesquite for crablegs

- Decorating Adrienne's Christmas tree while listening to Christmas music

- Watching everyone mug on Hunter. He's just one of those babies you gotta squeeze.

- Going out for Frozen Yogurt

- Tralee going to her FIRST REAL movie. We've taken her before when she was a baby, but she just tagged along with us 'rents. Jim actually took her to a kids movie with his nieces Tandra and Cassi. She loved it, and then fell asleep.

- Seeing my friend Lauren. Her parents just built a home in St. George and she flew out from Wisconsin to be there for Thanksgiving. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to get together while we were both in town. We had a lot of fun talking late into the night on Saturday.

-Tralee's first haircut. Aunt Cassi cut it. Thanks Aunt Cassi! I still need to get the pictures from that. They're on Adrienne's camera. Jim had ours with him, so I used the first camera I saw to document the cut. Once I get the photos, I'll post them.

Our little family had a lot of fun.

Now for the REST of the pictures:

Cousins Cassi, Katie, and Tandra

I like Hunter's little pose on this horse. His little heine is pushed out.

Tralee loved this little horse as well. Always petting and "feeding" it.

We call Tralee and Colleen "the twins." They look similar, and are only a few months apart in age.

Henry and Hunter -- The oldest and youngest of the cousins

Tandy and Hunter

Jim and Kelly

Cassi, Katie, and Hunter

Uncle Dan taking the twins on a walk

Henry and Tandra, the oldest cousins

I love the above picture. Hunter just pulled Colleen's hair! Haha! It starts already.

Jim and Cas

Keaton and his girlfriend (me). When Keaton was around four-years-old he told his mom that he had a girlfriend. When she asked who, he answered, "Aunt Leslie." Since then, whenever I see him I ask, "Am I still your girlfriend?" The answer this Thanksgiving was still, "Yup." I know someday the answer will change, but until then I'm happy about our little relationship.

The older cousins: Henry, Tandra, Cassi, Keaton, Katie

Aunt Adrienne and Hunter

Tralee, Brody, and Lexi rolling down the hill

It looks like Tralee is saying, "Don't take my picture!" She probably was.

Jim, Hunter, and Tralee -- in the middle of a jump.

The twins

Our sad attempt at a family shot

Tralee and Hunter . . . don't worry you won't be getting these as our Christmas cards. We tried.

Aunt Cassi and Hunter

Uncle John pretending to be 12-year-old Jim playing nintendo. Jim used to sit like this, and get mesmerized in whatever game he was playing. We have a picture of him around here looking just like this. Funny!

Katie and me

The little cousins (minus Kelly and Hunter) watching a movie. Brody, Tralee, Colleen, and Lexi

That's all folks. Stay tuned for Christmas in Canada!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Lovin' Our New Computer

We picked up our new computer from Fed Ex when we got home from Canada (yes, we were in Canada for almost a week). We LOVE it!!!! We're still trying to figure everything out, but so far we couldn't be happier with our early Christmas gift from the Labiszak clan (my side of the family). Big surprise, our mac moniter is something like 24" . . . HUGE! I also didn't realize that macs don't require a huge boxy computer station. Loving that. So anyways. . . a BIG thanks to my folks. Thanks for our new computer. Look what we managed to do so far:
Now that we have our new computer I have a lot of blog catching up to do. Sadly, I'm not sure I'll be able to get right on it because we're in the midst of moving. More on that topic later.

In fact, so I don't forget, here's a little teaser of what I still need to blog about:

1. Thanksgiving in St. George -- So fun! We saw most of Jim's siblings, and all 11 cousins were together for the first time -- EVER! We got some great photos of them all together.

2. Trip to Canada -- Also fun! We were spoiled by our family up there with an early Christmas, we at yummy food, played crib, worked on puzzles, watched movies, and didn't go outside in the -40 degree weather once! Thank you to Ross and Judy for being amazing hosts and wonderful Grandparents to our littles.

3. Moving -- We're changing it up once again. We've been married for seven years, and this will be our seventh move. We just can't seem to stay in one place.

I think that's it. Three topics. Three blog posts that have lots of pictures to go with them. It'll take some time to get the photos organized on the new computer, and as of right now, I'm a little short on time. But, I promise I'll get to posting as soon as I can. I know there are some antsy grandmas waiting for new photos and videos. :)

Stay tuned.

Going...going. . .

. . . almost gone.

Our computer is on its last leg. When we got back from our Thanksgiving holiday in St. George it started acting weird. Odd pop-ups, things weren't running well, etc. Then two days ago it was full-blown attacked by some sort of horrid virus. It hardly works, and we keep getting annoying pop-ups every few seconds that say our computer has spyware, and we need to pay money to get it fixed. Turns out, those "helpful" pop ups are actually the virus. Good thing we weren't suckered in to actually pay the trojan beasts that are trying to hose us from somewhere in Russia.

Anywho. . . upon hearing about our peril, my folks came to the rescue. They're getting us a new computer for Christmas! My brother (a computer geek -- I say that in the most loving respect) helped pick it out from the Apple (or is it Mac?) store. He says it's a good one, and since he's the family's computer guy, I trust him. We're super excited!! We can't wait to get it!

Thanks Mom and Dad, you're the coolest! Thanks for your help too big bro!

As soon as we get the new computer all set up and acclimated to it (I'm not used to Macs, but hear you never go back to PCs once you've owned a Mac) I'll have a lot of blog catching up to do.

Until then. . . Happy Holidays!!

Prayer Time

When we pray as a family, this is usually how it goes down:

Mommy or Daddy: Tralee, it's time to pray.

Tralee folds her arms and starts saying a prayer

Tralee: "Heavenly Father (or how Tralee says it, Heeny Hoho), tank a day. Mommy. Daddy. Baby. Goggy. Amen"

Tralee's prayers vary. For instance, yesterday before we prayed Tralee stubbed her toe, and Daddy kissed it better. This is what Tralee's prayer sounded like yesterday:

Tralee: "Heavenly Father, tank a day. Got an owie, Daddy tiss it beh-ha. Amen."

Jim and I were cracking it up.

Sometimes Tralee's prayers are understandable, and sometimes she says things we can't make out. After she's done praying she points to one of us and says "Mommy's turn," or "Daddy's turn."

Whoever's turn it is says the prayer for the day. Sometimes Tralee will point at Corky and say "Doggy's turn." Sometimes it's even "Baby's turn." When it's our canine friend's turn, or Hunter's turn Jim and I step in and say the prayer for them in their voice. Woofing for Corky, and talking like a baby for Hunter. Before all is said and done, every member of our family says a prayer for the day. Eventually we'll teach Tralee that just one prayer needs to be said at each occasion, but for now we don't mind each taking a turn.