Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! We had a great year in 2008 and are really looking forward to 2009! Only down-side is that another year means the kids get another year older! I like them little just the way they are. Oh well...

So here I am on New Years Eve. The kids are at daycare, John is at work, I have the day off. I am supposed to be cleaning the house. But I know that I haven't updated the blog in a really, really long time, so I figured I would finally download the pic's from the camera and do a quick update. Of course I didn't realize how many pictures I had on the camera. I've selected a few of the 100 or so and posted them here. Hope you enjoy them. I guess one of my resolutions this year is to update the blog more frequently. I know, I know... I keep saying that!

FINALLY - Here are the pictures from Thanksgiving...

This is really a work of genius here. John is deep-frying a Turkey and needed to create some type of pulley system to check the Turkey and then take it out. Deep fryer - check. Ladder - check. Rope - check. Old broom handle - check!

Here it is ----- The BIG Reveal!!!

Umm... wait... Is the Turkey supposed to look like that? Unfortunately our timing was a little off and the poor Turkey didn't quite make it. Thanks to Mom & Dad though, they rushed right down to the local store and was able to find a thawed Turkey Breast and....

...this can of SPAM Oven Roasted Turkey for John as punishment!

Asa and Lexi both really enjoyed Thanksgiving and having everyone over. Asa especially liked it when Ms. Jackie let him wear all of her jewelry!

Asa and Lexi beating at the back door... Is the Turkey done yet????

Alas - we have Turkey. Fried to perfection this time! It was yummy. Thanks honey for all your hard work!

Last Christmas Mom & Dad bought Asa and Lexi some tunnels, a tent and a "house" to play with in their playroom. I decided it had been awhile since they played with them and got them out to keep them busy while I was decorating the house for Christmas.

Here they are sitting in the "house".

Lexi playing "peekaboo" with me...

Shopping for our Christmas Tree!!!

Asa walking (sometimes running) in search of the perfect tree.

Lexi was more interested in the chain-link fence than the trees.

Mr. Christmas Tree Lot Man tying the tree to the "Big One".

This is probably the shortest tree we have bought in a really long time, but there was something special about it that made me want it. No it wasn't tall, but it was full and green and perfectly shaped.

Christmas Eve.... Baking Chocolate Cookies for Santa Claus...

Lexi liked watching through the oven door.

There's my pretty girl!

Christmas Day! Okay, I know some of you are going to be disappointed, but I didn't get hardly any pictures of Christmas Day. Instead we decided to capture the moments on the camcorder. I decided that I really wanted to focus on the kids and opening presents and playing and I didn't want to be distracted by making sure I was taking pictures at the "perfect" moment and running the risk of missing out on such a special moment with Asa and Lexi. They had a great morning and they loved all of their presents. They played and played and played. It was a struggle to get them to take a nap that afternoon. Thank you to everyone who got the us and the kids presents! They were all great and we love all of you!

Here is one picture of Asa playing with his new train table.

Christmas Lights & High Speed Police Pursuits

One of my husbands favorite things to do this time of year is to load up the fam in the Big One and go for a drive around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas decorations and Lights. Last night after dinner and the kids baths we did just that. We stopped by a house that was advertised in the local paper to check it out. It was awesome and Santa Claus was even there. We drove by the house a few times, but didn't get out. Asa loved it and then he saw Santa Claus. He seemed really into the whole thing so we promised him that we would go see it again and he could talk to Santa Claus. We did however roll down the window for him and he waved to Santa Claus and said 'Hi". We drove through another few neighborhoods and decided to head back home. On the way home I noticed a police car with it's lights on and traveling towards the direction we were going. I mentioned it to John in case he didn't see it. By the time we were at the intersection by our house, we noticed that he was following someone (chasing would be a more accurate description). At this point, John decided to just stop and wait to see what they were going to do. The person they were chasing didn't stop and the pursuit continued in the direction toward our development. This is where the fun started. John and I decided we wanted to see was going to happen so we decided we were going to "follow" the pursuit, at a safe distance of course. Soon we could see a few more police cars joining in the pursuit. Once they got to the entrance of our development, you could see the car they were chasing make a slight turn into our neighborhood, but then quickly decided against that decision. We live in a gated community so getting away from the police that way would not have been his best option. He continued the direction he was originally going and then we could see a few more police cars at the next intersection blocking it to stop the guy. He got ran the red light and got past them and took off. They followed and of course so did we, but we got stuck at the light. Not a problem though because we saw where he turned into another neighborhood up ahead. At this point, the adrenaline is pumping for both of us. It was really exciting. We don't see much excitement like this, so give us a break, okay? We turn down the road John thinks they went. This is the moment that got me concerned, because my husband then asked me, "If they haven't stopped him yet and we see him, do you want me to ram him?" I cannot tell you what went through my head because it wouldn't be appropriate to say here, but regardless, my answer was something like, "&*%$#, NO!!!" Of course, he was kinda laughing when he said it, so I knew he was joking. Turns out they were able to stop the vehicle not to far away from where he turned off the main road into the residential neighborhood. We could see a bunch of homeowners, etc standing out in front of thier houses, so we stopped and just watched what was going on, which from where we were was a whole lot of nothing. After a few minutes of just sitting there, we decided to go back home, but of course I insisted that John drive by where they were stopped so we could get a better look at what was going on. As we drove by slowly, all I was able to see a Police SUV and a cruiser had the car they were chasing sandwiched between them and in the driver seat of this vehicle was the BIGGEST dog I had ever seen. Mean looking too! That was it. Didn't see anyone in the back of a police car, nothing. As we pulled out onto the main road heading back to our house, we saw about another 5 police cars and several officers walking across the street and on the side of the road with their flashlights. Looked like the guy might have gotten away and/or tried to run and threw something on the ground that they were searching for. Anyway, that was our excitement for the night. Thanks for listening.

Toe Update:
I know I have been a HUGE Blog-slacker lately and I apologize. There are a lot of pic's from Turkey Day that I need to get on here, but just haven't had the time, but I will, just be patient.

My toe surgery went well. The Dr is really impressed with the rate that I am healing. He seemed pleased. Still a little swelling and quite a bit of bruising. Below is a picture of the x-ray they took last week at my post-op appt. If you look at it you will pretty much know the BAD news... Apparently during surgery they already had a screw picked out, unfortunately, the screw they had was much to small to fix my particular break, soooo they had to put in a much bigger screw. As you can see by the pic, the head of the screw is sticking out from the bone quite a bit. This will most likely cause me some discomfort down the road and be irritated by shoes, etc. Eventually, this screw will need to come out once my bone is healed. Probably in a few months. This will also be out-patient, but they will put me to sleep for this too. So for right now, he wants me to continue to use the crutches for at least one more week, however I can walk w/o them for short distances (around the house, etc) and only as long as the boot is on. When they took the bandage off I was also really surprised to see a very small incision area with only one stitch! For some reason in my mind I thought it was going to be this inch long incision! So that made me pretty happy. I go back next Thursday to have the stitch removed.