ups and downs and lots of links

Wowzers....

It's been quite the couple weeks since my last post. I am not quite sure how to document the ups and downs, but I'll do my best.

The first DOWN, was that we figured out we'd be stranded over Christmas because of the snow storm, while every member of both of our families was home for Christmas in Orange City (minus Will, who will be joining the family in a few months). So we were pretty bummed about that, but headed to the store for some movies, treats, and groceries for a Christmas dinner.

The UP came when we decided that there was a slight lull in the storm, and we just might be able to make it to OC after all. So we frantically tried to pack our stuff (I had given myself an extra couple days to do laundry by then, so of course it wasn't done). I'm not sure how ONE shoe can go missing, and a sweater, and a bunch of other random things we could NOT find for the life of us. And it was "Christmas stuff" so we really needed it. In fact, I'm realizing now as I remember that day of packing, that it probably shouldn't be in an "up" paragraph. Oh well. We made it to OC, that's the up.

We had lots of great times playing games and opening presents and playing games and eating food and playing games. Here are a few pictures of our time. To see more pictures, check here:









making the edible nativities






When we finally made it back to Omaha, it was 11:30m at night, and our streets and driveway were COVERED with snow. That would be a DOWN. I'm not even going to post the picture, because you can't tell how much snow there was. The wind made these crazy drifts all around the house, the driveway, etc, so some areas we could see grass, and on the driveway there were feet of snow. It took us til almost 1 am to just make a spot for our van to park for the night. Then the next day, while Christa was here to watch the kids, we finished the scooping. I had to use Josiah's little scoop, but I realized that actually worked great, besides the back ache. But when I tried to use our big one, it was way too heavy, since all the snow had to be lifted and hauled over to the grass. It was quite the way to get me geared up for my 2010 motto...but that's for another post. :)

It's a good thing we scooped when we did, because another DOWN was that we caught a flu bug, and after we got home, spent the next many days (and counting) recovering. Brielle got it first, and threw up most of the day on Tuesday, Josiah got it Wednesday night, I got it Thursday, and Lillian got it Friday. We're still waiting to see if Steve will come out the champion in this battle, of if it will take DOWN our entire family. For about five days now, we haven't been able to keep anything UP or DOWN. And that's probably way more info than you needed to know.

Thankfully, though, and definitely an UP, is that Steve has had a lot of time off recently. He got to use some PTO, plus the holidays just land on the perfect days this year for long weekends. We've been thankful to have him here more often. And we're SUPER thankful that Christa was here the first few days of the flu. She was a lifesaver, as Steve had lots of extra hours at work this week, from being gone so much, and his company changing over to a different company, or something like that.

Here are a few pictures of Christa with the kids:

a trip to McDonalds:




with sick Brielle:








Now that we're finally on the UP and UP, I grabbed the chance to video tape the kids like we do annually. This is Lillian's third year telling the Christmas story. It's a long one this year, and it's in two parts. :) Josiah has a little version as well, prompted by a few questions from mommy and Lillian. Then, because the kids sang Silent Night for the Christmas program this year at church, they wanted to sing that for the camera as well. Here's the links!

Lillian Christmas story part one
Lillian Christmas story part two
Josiah Christmas story
Josiah Silent Night verse one
Lillian Silent Night verses one and combo of two and three
Lillian Silent Night verse four