New Year's Eve - Party in Sun Prairie!!!!

While in WI, we were able to connect with our dear best friends, the Martys! It was almost 1 year to the date that we had last seen each other. They moved to Poland for 1 year, but are now back in the States - although they are halfway across the country from us (living in MN), it is still so good to have them "back". The kids had SO much fun together -they had spent 4 years living 1 hour apart and spending countless hours together, and it within 1 minute it was like they'd never been apart for the year!

sweet girlies

our football maniacs! :-)

BFFs

the men (and a sacked-out Anthony!)

We found a great suite right in Sun Prairie, a couple of minutes from Bethany's parents and rented it for New Year's Eve. We had a great time playing Guitar Hero, eating, swimming and just being together!

On a separate note, it was fun to go back to Sun Prairie (where I spent jr. high and highschool) and take the kids by my old house, church, school and drive around the town and see the changes. I hadn't been back in at least 6 years and a lot had changed. I also got to go back to my old place of employment and see some of the people I worked with 17 years ago! And it's always great to go back to Bethany's parents house and see them - they are like another set of parents to me and are always so welcoming to us!

Christmas in Wisconsin

The day after Christmas, we headed to WI - drove straight thru to my brother's house, spent the night there and then headed to Wisconsin Dells the next day. We rented an awesome house/cabin that was so perfect for our family!


It was so much fun to all be under the same roof together for 3 nights/4 days - we played Wii, went sledding, cooked, played games, talked, laughed...such a great time.

This was Sophia, Anthony & Jon's first time to meet Ella!

We celebrated Danny's birthday (12/28)!!!

Cousins!

and my favorite pic from our time together....

there are a lot more but I'm waiting on Darla to send them to me (hint, hint) and since I'm so behind, I just shared some of the highlights! Now on to posting about New Year's Eve.....

oh, and 1 more thing, Jon captured this great video of Anthony playing Wii boxing for the first time...

(pause playlist music first)

Christmas Eve

Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve at Grammy & PopPop's

The boys - Anthony, Wil & Gordy

The girls - Georgia, Sophia & Lily

Sos w/ Baby Wil (doesn't he already look so much older than he did in the Thanksgiving pics?!)

Joel, Shan, Gigi & Gordy

Jer, Erin, Lily & Wil

Sos & Grammy - American Girl!

Anthony with Optimus Prime - gift from G&P

Lizzie!

Grammy & PopPop opening Kindles!

Our Christmas Project

For the last couple of years, Jon and I have been talking about creating a play area in the basement for the kids. Our basement is unfinished w/ a low ceiling and quite ugly, so I think this is why we just talked about it for a couple of years. We finally decided to tackle it as a surprise for the kids for Christmas. Until this morning, they had been locked out of the basement for over a month. Here are some before and after pics, along with a video of "the reveal"

Cookies! and Snow!

For the past 10 years, my friend Kelly and I have been getting together to bake Christmas cookies. It has become a highly anticipated tradition! Several years have brought challenges to getting together due to new babies or schedules, but to my recollection, I believe we have made it work every year one way or another! This year, the morning of our planned day, we were expecting a major snow storm. The kids and I decided to brave it anyway and bring clothes to spend the night. We did just fine getting there until we got to their driveway. Kelly lives up on a very steep hill and the driveway had yet to be plowed and there were several inches on the ground. Here are a couple of pics that might help you appreciate what I was up against (although in the 2nd & 3rd pics, the driveway had been plowed). Anyway, I ended up getting stuck in a ditch, but with Kelly's help via play-by-play on my mobile phone, I got out of the ditch and back on the driveway!

The view from Kelly's front door

We were so glad we made it work! We easily baked over 500 cookies!!! Here are some pics of the fruits of our labor.

Almond-glazed sugar cookies

Ricotta cookies

Cut-outs

The kids had some fun out in the snow - what a great place to be snowed in at!!!







Another year of cookie baking in the books and a great time with some great friends! Love you guys!

Kelly & Dawn - the bakers

little 'Raz and Anthony - the tasters

Sophia & Gracie