The company is gone

Mom, dad, Loren, and Kelly left about 1:30 this afternoon. We did have a great time with them despite mom and Loren getting sick. Mom got sick early Saturday morning and Loren got sick last night. We hope they feel better soon and we hope we do not get what they had. I certainly treasured another Christmas with mom. Every holiday and birthday we celebrate with her is truly blessed. Both Loren and I told her we're just so glad you're still here with us!!

Friday we opened Christmas gifts and after we ate I opened my birthday gifts. The kids each got me something-that was sweet! Bruce took them out shopping. Aleah so wanted to get me the Pirates of Carribbean trilogy but they don't have them boxed together and would have had to get them seperately plus that would have cost too much.

Saturday the kids and Kelly went swimming at the Ramkota (that's where Loren and Kelly stayed) and then we ate our Christmas dinner. Loren and Kelly took Gerrit, Aleah, Donovan, and me to "Alvin and the Chipmunks" later in the afternoon. After we ate supper that night we played Mexican Train Dominoes (I think I may have to use some Christmas money to buy that game) and Pass the Pigs and of course some Nintendo Wii.

Today we had planned to go to church but since mom and Loren were sick (Loren and Kelly didn't get to the house until just after noon) we didn't. I went and got some 7-Up for mom and Loren at the grocery store and made them chicken noodle soup and the rest of us had scalloped potatoes and ham.

After they left I disinfected the bathroom and started washing clothes. We'll just hang out the rest of the day and maybe we can actually watch a movie on our new TV downstairs later tonight. Tomorrow we'll be getting ready to have the Weavers over for our New Year's Eve get together. Hopefully we'll all feel okay.

Happy Birthday Nancy!

Happy Birthday to my wife, Nancy! We went out for lunch at Paradiso's here in Bismarck. You get a free meal on your birthday. Nancy's parents got here yesterday and Nancy's brother, Loren, and his wife, Kelly, arrived in Bismarck at about 4:00 today. We almost immediately commenced with the opening of gifts and now are waiting for pizza to arrive. Nancy didn't want to cook on her birthday, and I agree.

The photo above was taken at the big snow angel event in February of this year.

Pizza is here! Gotta go.

Enjoying the gifts

The kids kept busy today with their new gifts. They played a lot of games on the Wii. Gerrit is enjoying the Big Game Hunter game he got and Aleah likes the Hannah Montana game-you can learn dance moves or shop with Hannah. Donovan likes the golf game the best-he hasn't tried his Spiderman one yet. Samantha spent the morning dressed like Princess Dora.

Bruce worked in Gackle today-Gackle is about 80 miles east and 20 miles south of Bismarck. Now Bruce will be home until January 2nd. He'll be working in the basement though.

I did a few things around the house and started watching a movie with the kids after my trip to Wal-Mart tonight. I had to bring something back and get a few things for the company. Mom and dad will arrive tomorrow! I'll spending the morning cleaning and baking dad a pumpkin pie and making more Chex Party mix-Loren requested a barrel of it-too bad I don't have something that looks like a barrel to put it in for him.

I've got a cold so I'm not going to donate plasma the rest of the week. It's not a bad one-I probably just got it since I haven't gotten nearly enough sleep lately. I was up past two the last few days before Christmas.

I forgot to mention on Christmas Eve Aleah just could not get to sleep. She kept coming out every 10-20 minutes saying she couldn't fall asleep and her tummy hurt and she was coughing a lot too. She finally settled down at 2:30! We thought for sure she'd be a basket case on Christmas but she did okay. She did fall asleep right after we put her to bed last night though.

Charlie Brown Christmas

In the video below Linus gives the Christmas story. I got the idea to look that up on YouTube from a post on Bismarck-Mandan Blog. In the post Clint talks about the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack and segues into the real reason for the Christmas season and what the birth of Jesus is ultimately about.

Christmas Eve

I can't believe Christmas Eve is almost over. We let the kids open a present this morning-we did manage to find a Nintendo Wii so they were excited to say the least and they pretty much played it all day until we went to church at five. Bruce also played it. I have yet to try it out but it does look like fun. I was just busy doing things around the house. I did try to donate plasma this morning. The person that stuck me had never done it before (I'm very hard to get and she had never tried me before-I didn't see any of the usual workers there that can get me) and didn't do a good job and I almost didn't get my red blood cells back. Normally that's not a big deal but it did happen to me about a month ago and if it happens twice in an eight week period you are deferred from donating plasma for eight weeks. It's a little stressful donating until the eight weeks are past-I think I figured that would be around January 24th. If I'm lucky enough not to have a cell loss anytime soon I probably won't donate too often in January.

After church we came home and opened gifts. The kids loved their gifts. Samantha especially loved hers. She got some Dora the Explorer dress-up clothes (Bruce should post a picture of her in some of them later) and a Princess cash register. Donovan loved his giraffe tent. We did set it up in his room for awhile so he could enjoy it.

At the church service tonight Pastor Shaner said something about if someone asks you what's the best gift you got this Christmas you should say, "A baby- Jesus." I asked the kids at bedtime tonight what their best gift was hoping they would remember to say that but they didn't. I told them that Pastor Shaner said we should say, "A baby- Jesus." Gerrit remembered that Pastor Shaner had said that could be a challenge for us to say to others so at least he was listening.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the Strasburg-Hull area for the Slagh get together. Bruce is going to work the day after Christmas but will then be off until January 2nd. My family is arriving on Friday. Loren and Kelly were driving to Wisconsin tonight to be with her family and mom and dad were having a friend over after church tonight and are going to mom's aunt and cousin's tomorrow. Merry Christmas to all!!!

The boys are moved in!!

The boys are officially moved in their room. It looks so nice and they both must have been tired from all the moving since they seemed to have settled down right away. Aleah on the other hand had trouble falling asleep in a room by herself. She hasn't had her own room since she was two! It was six years ago this month she and Gerrit started sharing a room-about a month before Donovan was born. There are still some things we have to move around or put away but it's good for now. I'll paint Aleah's room in January and we'll move up a different dresser from the storage room-her current one is falling apart-I purchased it at a garage sale for $10 shortly after she was born so it's served it's purpose

The kids and I also made and decorated sugar cookies today so no wonder they're all tired!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. I guess I'm pretty much ready. We plan to go to the candlelight service at church and then come home and eat pizza and open presents.

Mmmm, Bacon (updated)

My brother let me know some time ago the YouTube video with Jim Gaffigan's bacon comedy routine was gone. I finally got around to checking it out and found another one of the same routine. I originally posted this video on October 20, 2007. Here is the link to the updated post. Check it out, my peeps.

Thank you and have a good day.

Jonny Lang - Only A Man

This is a song from Jonny Lang that I enjoy a lot. It is from his 2006 album Turn Around. I've read it called a "gospel influenced album." While true, I think the bigger story throughout is his personal story of coming back to God. Overall, I think Turn Around is a good album.

Jonny was born in Fargo but I'm not sure how long he lived in that area before moving to Minneapolis. He had several fairly successful albums. This is the first one for which he has won a Grammy. He is married now and lives in California.

Hair, Coincendences, Holiday Travel, and Baking

All Lawrence Welk, all the time.

I cut my hair tonight. Yes, I cut my own hair with a clippers. If I mention that to someone he or she usually can't resist taking a look at my head. I'm sure they are amazed at how nice it looks. At least that's what I imagine they are thinking. In reality it is probably the opposite.

We purchased a clipper in 2001 and it has paid for itself many, many times over just with my haircuts. I also cut the boy's hair. It had been a long time since my last cut, about six weeks. It was long and I couldn't stand it anymore, plus it was showing all the gray. I'll estimate that I should be almost entirely gray within five years. Hereditary, I think, although I tell the kids it is because of them. So, one benefit of my short hair is that it hides the gray. Besides the cost savings, another benefit of cutting my own hair is that so far we have five pillows. No, just kidding - I don't really save my hair to make pillows. That's disgusting.

My dad was thirty when I was born. That makes it easy to remember his age. My first son, Gerrit was born when I was thirty. Very interesting. My high school classmate, Mark, was born exactly three months before me and his first son was born exactly three months before Gerrit. Coincidence? I think not. I don't know what that means.

On the (Strasburg) home front, my brother Doug drove from Parkston, SD last night and my brother Harvey drove from Eagan, MN today. One of Lisa's daughters threw up this morning so they are waiting until tomorrow morning to see how things pan out before they leave from the Sioux Falls area. Hopefully the weather is good for them.

Nancy baked cookies for Christmas from about 4:00 to 9:30 tonight. That is quite a while. Early estimates are that there are fourteen dozen cookies in the freezer.

Lawrence Welk - '81 Christmas Show

The opening song from the 1981 Lawrence Welk Christmas show.

Lawrence Welk - '63 Christmas Show

Since I grew up near Strasburg, I thought it might be good idea to feature some Christmas music from Lawrence Welk shows. This is a clip from the 1963 Christmas Show. That guy is so silly.

Bruce Trivia, #1

Time for a bit of what I guess I'll call "Bruce Trivia." I once worked with a young man and he was (and still is) Ali Landry's cousin. He was originally from Louisiana and so is most of his family, including Ali's family. I was reminded of this because I just saw her on Conan - a rerun, of course.

Don't know who she is? She was Miss Louisiana and Miss USA in 1996, but was probably most famous for her Doritos commercials in the late 90's. Remember a Doritos commercial in a laundromat? That was her. That is the only one I can remember. She has done a fair amount of TV work and some movie work as well. This is her Wikipedia entry and this is her Internet Movie Database link.

Here is a picture. It appears to be fairly recent.

I hope you've enjoyed this first installation of Bruce Trivia.

Nancy, we stay up way too late!

It took me past midnight but it's done!

I said I would finish cleaning our room if it took me until midnight-it actually took a little longer but it's as good as it can get until the basement is completely done and we can move the computer down there and put some other things in storage. I did accomplish everything I set out to do today-but it is after midnight so maybe that doesn't count?? Anyway I still have so much to do.

I have the MOMS Club Christmas party tomorrow (today) and Donovan has speech after that so I won't get anything done until after lunch. Bruce will be back home tomorrow. We don't have small group study at church but the kids do have Adventure Club so one of us will have to drive them there. I'd be tempted to try to get Santa gifts then if Bruce is home to watch Samantha because she's pretty smart and might wonder why I'm buying candy, etc. and then looking in her stocking on Christmas morning and it's the stuff mommy bought. I'm off to bed now!!

The list is getting longer and the countdown is getting shorter!

That about sums up things around here. The more I get done the more things I find to do. My goal for the day was to wash down the walls in the hallway and clean our room (it's like a disaster area since everything gets thrown in here) and I didn't get them done. I did clean the kids bedrooms and wash six loads of laundry plus get more gifts ready to give to teachers and friends. I also drove Donovan to speech and Aleah to dance so that broke up the day some. I also had the boys move a few more things to their bedroom downstairs. I didn't have time to get groceries so I ordered them online and Dan's delivered.

I guess tomorrow I'll get our bedroom clean (even if I have to stay up until midnight to get it done), get a few more gifts ready, let the kids decorate some gift bags for their teacher gifts and get a little more shopping done in between Moms In Touch and my yearly doctor checkup. I need to wrap gifts while the kids are at school too.

I'd like to clean the bathroom and kitchen Wednesday so I can bake Thursday and Friday and finish up any shopping I have to do. Christmas Eve is in one week! At least whatever I don't get done I can do the 26th and 27th since my family isn't coming until the 28th but I'd like everything done before then.

Dan Fogelberg, 1951-2007

Dan Fogelberg passed away today. He was 56 and had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2004. His music was varied, but was most often of the easy listening or folk music type. Some well known songs are Same Old Lang Syne, Longer, Hard to Say, Run for the Roses, Heart Hotels, and Make Love Stay.

My favorite song of his is this one - Leader of the Band. The song was written about his father.

Our Fourth Little One (Butterfly)

Are you all sick of hearing about our butterflies yet? Well, we had our fourth butterfly emerge from its chrysalis this morning. As I mentioned in a previous post about the third butterfly, I could tell it was going to be some time today. My wish came true this time and we got to see it come out.

This I took last night to illustrate how I could tell it was about time. The one that emerged today is on the left. When compared to the chrysalis on the right, this one is much darker and the bottom part (abdomen) is curved.

The chrysalis skin becomes extremely thin and you can see the wings through the skin. When inside the butterfly is pretty much wrapped by the wings.

The process is very quick. I took a look at it and it looked the same as last night. I stepped away, walked by a minute later, and here it was crawling out.

It was less than a minute before it was completely out of the chrysalis. It was exciting to watch. Nancy tried to get it on the video camera but wasn't able to get it ready in time.

Here it had just crawled around from the bottom side of the branch. Notice how small the wings are and how large the abdomen seems. This is another male. We've now had two females and two males. There are two more chrysalises left.

It crawled up to the top of the branch and scratched around on the glass (back of the fish tank). They don't have "suction" feet and cannot climb on surfaces such as glass or painted walls. In fact, they have a hard time even just walking on a table or other solid horizontal surface. Finally it settled down on the side of the branch and started to pump up its wings. It uses fluid from the abdomen to do that. Here it was in the middle of the process.

A blurry picture of the completed process. I'd guess it was about fifteen minutes from the start of the emergence. Without the pretty wings, it would just be an ugly bug.

This was our post about the first butterfly. It includes a link to a post about the caterpillars turning into chrysalises.

The plural form of chrysalis is either chrysalises or chrysalides. I looked it up.

Little Drummer Boy

Growing up, the Little Drummer Boy was one of my favorite Christmas shows. I remember I was always sad when the lamb was run over but happy when it jumped in his arms. This video is the ending - the last five minutes or so.

Weekend happenings

Last night I went out by myself (very nice) and got some shopping done. I had a lot of stuff to get done and I had to get some candy and apples for the church for the goodies bags they pass out after the program. The youth group and I will get the bags ready tomorrow morning. I decorated a Christmas tree cake for a friend's daughter's birthday when I got home. She and I had the first babies after MOMS Club started in 2001. Now Emma is six and Donovan will be six a month from tomorrow-talk about time flying by!!

Today I got up and started working in the kitchen. I made a pizza hotdish for us that we just ate and one for Barb and Jason as well. I also made brownies-some for after the program tomorrow night a few for Barb, Jason, and family although I'm pretty sure Barb won't share with her family. Another butterfly hatched this morning and we saw it happen. It happened at 10:01 a.m. and it's a boy!! Bruce got some pictures.

I picked the kids up from program practice at noon (they got pizza there) and came home and did some more stuff. Aleah had to perform at a dance competition this afternoon. Her group was basically the entertainment between the high school students competing. They were from all over the state. I wish I could have stayed for more of it but there's too much to do around here.

Tomorrow we'll go to Sunday School and church and come home and do more stuff. I'm making beef pinwheels for supper tomorrow night since Bruce's parents and grandma will be here for the program. I usually make them for Bruce's birthday but we went out for his birthday this year. They take awhile to make. The kids and I also have to get the gifts ready for their teachers. The day will be busy and fly by!

I almost forgot. The curtains for the living room came in and I picked them up last night. Bruce got them hung up and they look great! Of course anything would have been an improvement over the blue sheet that was hanging there!

Grandma's Kuchen - Westfield, ND

Just this morning Grandma's Kuchen of Westfield, ND was on New Morning with Kimberly Whitfield, on the Hallmark Channel. She (Lois) makes the best kuchen I've ever had! Many are a lot of crust with a little filling but hers are the opposite. Goodness. Makes me crave some of her kuchen.

I grew up five miles from Westfield. We went to church there and spent a lot of time doing things within the little unincorporated town. Man, I could go on and on - church events, vacation bible school, riding motorcycle with friends, roller skating, exploring the trees and old houses/buildings, shooting fireworks on Independence Day.

I even lived there for some years while I worked at the cheese plant in Pollock, SD. In fact, I rented the house that is now home to Grandma's Kuchen.

The hall owned by the church, the parish hall, is mentioned as having been used for roller skating. This was a big event after Catechism every Wednesday night.

Here is a video of the segment of the show featuring Grandma's Kuchen. It is very good. You'll likely have to turn the volume up. I forgot to check that before uploading and it did end up low.

Note to Russ

About two years ago I bought an old pickup, a 1973 Dodge crew cab 2WD. In looking through the materials in the glove compartment I found a note. I wouldn't call it a love note - it appears to be more of a "like" note.

The original owner of the pickup was Twin City Roofing. I don't know if the note was to someone who worked for the company or whether it was for an owner of the vehicle after Twin City Roofing sold it. There is no date, so there is no way to know the time frame. Who doesn't put a date on a note? Tracy, apparently.

Below is a photo of the note. I typed it out, along with any spelling or grammatical errors, for your easy viewing. The phone number Tracy gives is in Elgin, ND.

Russ,

I was hoping to say good-bie to you today, but I had to go fishing with my mother and her relatives. I really hope that you aren't up-set with me because of the other night! I want you to know that I really want to still be good friends even after what happend! (Excepially after what happend!!) But if you don't want anything to do with me I'll understand. Well, have a good weekend. If you would like to see me when you get back on Monday give me a call, O.K. My phone number is: 584-xxxx. I know that I would like to see you again! Take care of yourself!

As Always,
Tracy

Anyway, it was interesting to me to find this note in that old pickup - so I thought I would share it here. Gerrit read it and said, "It sounds kind of like they were boyfriend/girlfriend and one of them did something to make the other one mad."

So many losses

A few days ago I wrote about how Silas the little boy with cancer from my parent's church died. There's also a co-worker of Bruce who just lost his 15 year old daughter to leukemia a few days ago. Also our friend Jason lost his stepmom Shirley on Saturday very suddenly due to a stroke. It's the same way his mother-in-law died almost nine months ago. I've been praying more lately for Jason, Barb, Jason's dad and Shirley's kids. Jason's dad has been widowed twice. It's always hard to lose someone. I imagine it's even harder this time of the year (Christmas) when it's suppose to be such a happy season. I can't imagine losing a child either. The parents must feel such a void. I can't begin to imagine how one would ever cope with it unless they had some kind of faith to cling to.

Samantha and I met Bruce for lunch today and ordered a curtain for the patio door in the living room. It should be here in a week. It will be hard to say goodbye to the sheet that's been hanging there for a couple months-not really.

We had our Girl Scout troop meeting/Christmas party yesterday after school. It went well. We went caroling at a nursing home and then to Trish's house for the party. It had been awhile since I had been in a nursing home. I just got done reading a book a couple weeks ago that referred to a nursing home as "Heaven's waiting room." I really liked that. I suppose some people don't but I guess most of the time people in the nursing home are elderly and hopefully they are getting ready to go to heaven. I always enjoyed visiting my grandpa and grandma in the nursing home. It was a nice small nursing home and they were wonderfully cared for there.

Billy Gilman - O Holy Night

I figure it's about time we start to get into the Christmas spirit here at The Dutch Scandies. Enjoy!

Another Belated Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday to my brother-in-law, Bleau. His birthday was Friday, December 7. Bleau and my sister live near Sioux Falls. Lisa was recently featured here for her November birthday.

I found the time tonight to dig through some old photos to look for one of Bleau. I found a few and this was the oldest one, taken in 1991. Unfortunately, Lisa is also in the picture. Just kidding, Lisa.

Bleau is not wearing a stained t-shirt. Those are either on the print or were on the negative when developed. I used to use Clark Photo because they were so cheap.

Anyway, hope you had a good birthday, Bleau. See you at Christmas.

Happy Birthday Bruce!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband Bruce! I would post a picture but I don't know how. Bruce did want to show me awhile back but I was too tired to learn something new that night and I'm kind of slow at learning new computer things so maybe next year. I hope the next year brings some free time so you can relax and do some fun things-you've worked so hard this year and I do appreciate it-I love you!

We kind of made a last minute decision tonight. We had a babysitter lined up for Bruce's work Christmas party but we decided it would be more fun to go out by ourselves (something we rarely get to do) so we went to Johnny Carino's. It was okay but Bruce wished we would have went to Texas Roadhouse instead-I let him pick. We did some Christmas shopping afterwards. I don't have too much shopping left so this week I think I'll concentrate on getting the Christmas letter sent out and a few other things and do baking and cleaning the week after.

Wendy and I had a good time visiting while she was here-I briefly got to visit with Sonja too when she dropped Wendy off on Friday night. I'd really like to get up to Minot sometime this winter for a college friends getaway weekend. I did have to take Gerrit to the walk-in clinic this morning too since his ears were draining. The doctor gave him antibiotic drops that were $40-that's with insurance otherwise it would have been $150!

Brrr

When I got up this morning it was -9 degrees Fahrenheit in Bismarck. That's fairly cold but not so bad. What really can make this cold weather more dangerous is the wind. We have a slight breeze right now and the wind chill showed -20 deg. F.

Today will involve more work in the basement. I plan to work more on doors and on trim in the boy's bedroom. I'd like to get their room done so we can proceed with moving them down there. I'm hoping to have all the work done before Christmas, but if not I have some time off between then and New Year's Day and then should be able to finish everything.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to me. Another year older, another year deeper in debt, right? Another year wiser sounds better to me. I was born the same year as a famous March blizzard, just about nine months later.

Have a good one, everyone.

Another Transformation Is Complete

At some point today our third black swallowtail butterfly came out of its chrysalis. I had noticed yesterday that the chrysalis was starting to look different and when Nancy came home from doing her stuff this morning she found our newest butterfly.

This one the kids named Oscar. I used to have a dog named Oscar. Best dog ever. Still think about him and miss him once in a while. He was part wiener dog.

We are fairly sure this one is a male because we read that males have a lot more yellow and this one certainly does. The other two were females and, sadly, they are no longer with us. We've had trouble finding something for them to feed on. I'm considering getting some cheap flowers like carnations from a grocery store or something just to try.

This is my current project in the basement. I have four of these doors to sand, apply wood conditioner, and apply two coats of wood finish. Believe me, if I had a choice I would not have solid wood six-panel doors. Because the current framing (door rough opening) that was in place for the doors was 2" shorter than the standard door size, I have to cut about that same amount from each of these doors. You can't cut that much from a flat hollow-core door without all the work of re-blocking the bottom. I guess staining these isn't that hard, just time consuming. The harder work is getting to all of the surfaces to sand. By the way, I had to get pine doors instead of oak because pine is actually a solid piece of wood while oak is veneer with a different solid wood in the middle. Would have had issues with chipping out when cutting the oak door.

Our artificial tree had clear lights with it, and tonight I put on the red and green LED lights we bought new for this year. After supper was cleaned up Nancy and the kids decorated the tree. This is the end result. You get to see our beautiful curtain (bed sheet) for the sliding door.

Tomorrow night we will have a guest in the house. One of Nancy's college friends from Kenmare plans to stay to attend a wedding in Bismarck on Saturday night. Our first guest in the newly (almost) finished basement! That is truly special. The smell of the wood finish should add a nice touch. Ha.

Sad News

There's a three-year-old boy from my parents church (he's the pastor's nephew) that passed away today from cancer. It's so sad. Silas had been diagnosed with stomach cancer last December and had pretty much been in Rochester since late October. He was his parents only child. I feel so sad for them. I hope their faith gets them through this hard time and that they can picture that Silas is safe in Jesus' arms now and he'll never be sick or in pain again.

Three weeks until Christmas

The days are flying by and it's just three weeks until Christmas. Bruce and I sometimes joke around in June (or earlier) and say Christmas is almost here-because time seems to just fly by so fast.

The Christmas tree is up now. We got a new artificial one this year-pre-lit! We had never bought one before-we had inherited ones before and the last two years had real trees. We plan on decorating it tomorrow or Thursday. Bruce wants to put more lights on it first. The other decorating is coming along too. I think I will focus on cleaning tomorrow and I have to do some baking as I have two gatherings to go to on Thursday that I need to bring something too and I'm having some friends over Friday morning as well. Donovan has speech at 11:30 and we have small group Bible study at church at night and the kids have practice for their program. I'll get an early start since I'm donating plasma at 6:30 a.m. I better get to bed soon.

Drive carefully

We are now in winter driving season - time to change our driving habits. Here is a photo I took last year. The car ahead of me was going only about 5 mph so I had plenty of time to grab my camera and snap a shot. This particular incident happened exactly one year ago to the day, and was after snow or ice on the road had melted earlier but froze again later in the day. This location is right after a curve and the person obviously came around the curve too fast.

The carpet is installed

The basement is looking more finished now. The carpet installers were here for about five hours and it looks great! The family room furniture is coming on Wednesday afternoon and we'll have our first guest try out the sleeper sofa this weekend. My roommate from college is coming this weekend for a wedding. Mom and dad plan to come the weekend after that for the kids Sunday School Christmas program and then we'll have company after Christmas too-VERY BUSY TIMES!

I need a plan of action to get all the Christmas preparations done in time! Decorating and cleaning will consume the next few days and there's the Christmas letter to get out, gifts to buy and wrap, and all the baking and everything else. I can't believe Christmas is just three weeks from tomorrow! We also have to get the boys moved downstairs too and that will take some time. Bruce and I are really hoping for some relaxtion over the Christmas break. He especially deserves it! He worked so hard this weekend (and more weekends then I can count lately) to get things ready for the carpet installers. I wish I could say his work is done but there's still more finishing work to do-at least he enjoys the little detail work though.

Tomorrow I have Moms In Touch in the morning and then I think Samantha and I need to go look for different window coverings for the living room-Bruce and I decided that what I got wouldn't work so well. The color is okay but I need to look for a different type of fabric. I hope it won't take too long since I need to get cleaning and decorating.

December 1st-a nice day for a swim

Gerrit, Aleah, Donovan and I went swimming at the YMCA this afternoon and we had a blast. I felt I needed to do something fun with them since we've been so busy working on the basement and they've been good about entertaining themselves while we've been busy. I was able to leave Samantha at home since Bruce's mom was here to watch her. She did nap most of the time we were gone-Samantha that is not Joann. Bruce and his dad were busy working downstairs.

They got the casing on the doors and some of the trim along the floor. It's looking really nice and I can't imagine what carpet will do to make it look even better. Bruce and I will be busy downstairs tomorrow getting ready for the carpet installers to come on Monday. I do have to bring Aleah to the Civic Center around 1:00. She has a dance performance there since the Pride of Dakota showcase is here this weekend and they must be the entertainment. I'm anxious to see how they do. They've been practicing since September.

We also have church in the morning and Gerrit will be working most of the afternoon on his homework. I imagine Donovan will be watching Bruce and I work and asking questions and watching for any mistakes he's sees-he spots any little imperfection and points it out to us.