Once upon a Time in a Land Called Minnesota...

Every person in my family took turns having the worst cold of our lives.  It was awful, and I was so incredibly sick for an entire month.  No exaggeration.  I felt really sorry for myself.  I felt pretty bad for Matt too, who had to continue going to school and had to take some major tests, while feeling like the walking dead.  The girls all took turns getting it, though Lily was only sick for about a week, the rest of us all had it for at least 3 full weeks.  I had it the longest, but I think it was mostly because I was snuggling sick babies all day and through the night, which was exhausting, so it took me a LONG time to get over it.  However, I did try to suck it up and do a few things with the kids here and there during their healthy bouts.  Mostly I just laid around and tried to do as little as possible, which is also why no blogging has happened in a while.  One great parenting accomplishment is that Katie can now sing all the words to Go Diego Go.  So there's that.

 

I've actually heard from several families who have also said that they spent a good portion of their first winter here sick as well.  No sure if that makes me feel worse or better, but its good to know that our family's adjustment isn't abnormal.

 

After my first week of being sick, while the girls were all healthy and going crazy from being cooped up with a sick mommy for a week, we went on a fall walk.  I gave the girls ziplock bags to collect signs of fall.  They loved it, and it helped to ease my lazy mommy guilt.

 

We tried to play outside and enjoy the warmer weather as long as we could.  Anytime it hit 50 or higher, we'd play in the yard for 1/2 an hour or so.

As Halloween approached, the girls began asking when we were going to paint pumpkins.  At this point I was extremely sick.  But I managed to get to the store one day to get groceries and pumpkins.  Then I took a day and a half to recover from that.  Then I washed & sketched out every one's pumpkins for them (except Kate's, I painted hers, then just let her color on it with markers.  She's still a year away from getting to wield a paint brush!).  Took a day to recover from that effort.  (Are you sensing a theme here?)  Finally we had our painting party a few days before Halloween.

 

I've been told that I don't include very many pics of myself on here.  So here is one.  It might traumatize you, so be warned!  You might not be prepared for all my sweat pants, greasy hair, fever/perspiration glory, but there it is.  You're welcome.

The Saturday before Halloween our Church had a party and Trunk-or-Treat.  Matt took Lily, and the rest of us stayed home sick.  Here's a collage of all the fun Lily had!

Here's a few pics of the fun the rest of us girls had while they were gone:

 

On Halloween Matt was able to make it home just before the girls needed to go trick-or-treating, which I was SO grateful for.  Izzie was OK to go out briefly, but Kate and I were both still incredibly sick.  Daddy needed to come home and study, but I was able to leave Katie home (to go to bed early) with him while I took the girls out.  I was miserable so we only went to 6 houses, but the girls had fun, and they stayed up and helped me pass out all our candy to trick or treaters.  Which was great, 'cause all the getting up and down would've killed me without their help.  I sat on the bottom step just inside our entry and let the girls take handfuls of candy out of the bowl on my lap and pass them out.

 



 

Here's a shot of them coming home, this is what our yard looked like as Matt had to spend lots of time studying and I was way too sick to do yard work.  Lots of leaves.

 

The first weekend in November, after Matt finished a killer Mid-Term on Friday, he celebrated by cleaning up leaves.  He still wasn't feeling 100%, but he let the big girls out to help him and they LOVED it.  Luckily we have a leaf blower/vacuum, so that was helpful.

 

For the last few minutes I came out with Katie, who still wasn't feeling well, but who was feeling very left out.  So she and I briefly braved the cold so that she could enjoy the leaves as well.

Halfway through she switched hats with Izzie

 

The next picture is a random shot, but Katie's face is so classic in it that I had to share.  There is never a dull moment with this kid.  She entertains me all day long!

 

I guess having a sick mom for what seems like an eternity, makes even small adventures become big ones.  I ordered a snow shovel online and it came with extra packaging.  The girls danced around with it for over a week, enjoying the crinkling noises it made while they performed ribbon dancing.  It was a big hit and only got thrown away after it was completely worn out.

 As I was sick and we were eating lots of frozen meals, cereal, and granola bars, Matt found a renewed interest in cooking on the weekends.  He gave my pizza dough recipe his first ever try and did a GREAT job!  He's made homemade pizza dough several weekends now and let the girls "decorate" their own pizzas.  I am so grateful that I have such a great husband, and my girl's have such a great Dad.  And he is a good cook too!  I love that he enjoys learning how to make new things!

 

We've gotten little flurries of snow here and there, but never more than a light dusting (though its certainly been cold enough!  Darn you drought!)  The girls are anxiously awaiting the first real snow, and talk a lot about making snow angels and snowmen.  If its going to be below freezing anyway, we might as well have snow, right?  In the pic below you can see the little circle in my glass door where the frost is wiped away.  The girls LOVE to "clean" the window by wiping it clear so that they can watch for Daddy to come home from school.

 Kate also loves to "clean" the window, but she prefers to lick it clean.  I guess she likes how cold it feels.

 

Kate's hair is FINALLY long enough for big girl pig tails!  A much anticipated mile stone for my bald baby!

 

Alligant Air opened up a non-stop flight between Mesa AZ and Rochester in Nov.  Some of their introductory flights were $60 each way!  How could my mom NOT take advantage of such an offer?!  Especially knowing what a hard month of exhaustion I'd been having.  She swooped in and stayed for 2 weeks.  It was amazing.  Since the girls and I were still in varying stages of getting well, we just stayed home in our jammies, but oh what fun we had!

 

Another, "I'm so happy that you are documenting my existence while I am sick and exhausted (and enjoying my FHE ice cream cone!" picture of me.  Fantastic!

However I think that Kate appreciated her ice cream cone even more than I did!

 

Grandma's stay happened to include Thanksgiving, which my brother Charlie had already been planning on spending with us (decided even before we moved).  She made some fun crafts with the girls while she was here, including "graditurkeys".  She really is such a fun Grandma, and great mom.  I don't think I ever would've started feeling better without her here.  Now that she is gone, we sure do miss her.

Even with Grandma here we were anxiously awaiting Uncle Charlie's arrival the night before Thanksgiving! 

 And he did not disappoint!  He brought his much beloved ipad and iphone for the girls to play with endlessly, and had lots of snuggle time!

Finally Thanksgiving was upon us.  I was able to briefly tear the girls away from Uncle Charlie long enough to have them help me with the fruit salad.

Originally since there was so few of us, I planned on just cooking a turkey breast, but Matt insisted we get a full turkey.  Seeing my "I'm a sick, grumpy wife" look in reaction to this request, he immediately volunteered to take on the turkey and the gravy solo!  Since I was doing everything else by myself (ham, spiced chilled apple cider, fresh green beans, apple cobbler, pumpkin crumble, fruit salad, rolls, stuffing, veggie tray & dip, mashed potatoes, & sweet potatoes) I was MORE than happy to let him do it on his own!  And honestly it turned out AWESOME!  So did his homemade gravy.  He was a little proud. 

 But little does he know, he is now going to be stuck doing it every year. MMUUAAAHAHAHAHAH!

 

Here's our little group getting ready to feast!

 Uncle Charlie bravely forged the cold weather to spend some play time with the girls outside.  Thanksgiving was a beautifully warm day (I think we even hit 50) filled with playing "peter pan" and having stick sword fights.  Charlie is such a fun Uncle.

 

After Matt's huge success with the Turkey and recently mastering pizza dough, he asked me to teach him how to make homemade bread over his thanksgiving break.  Here are his first 2 loaves, which turned out great!  I am a proud mama!

Also over Thanksgiving weekend I received my best friend Cindy's book!  She's previously been emailing me chapters as she finished them, but she recently finished her first complete draft of the book and printed it out, so that I could make my notes on the hard copy and send it back.  I am so proud of her, and it was so exciting to receive the binder, with her handwritten title page!  I love being her beta reader and it is so much fun to be a part of the creative process with her.  It killed me having to wait out the weekend with family to start reading.  I was so happy to have them here, but so eager to dig in!  I ended up staying up super late nights reading!

 

While Charlie & mom were here we put up the Christmas stuff!  So fun to put on the Christmas tunes and feel the magic of Christmas!

 

What's my favorite non-Christ centered holiday tradition?  This. 

 If you are drinking any other kind of egg nog, you are living a second rate existence. Don't worry folks, its non-alcoholic. And so, so delicious.

 

After 3 days, I had to take Charlie back to the Minneapolis airport.  It was sad to see him go.  I miss him already, and hope that he ends up moving closer this next year as he finishes his Doctorate and takes a job! 

Matt and I got a chance to go to the Temple in St Paul after we dropped off Charlie. We hadn't been to that temple before and it was a great to get to do some family names!

 

The week before Thanksgiving Matt had 3 finals, the week after he had 1 (chemistry, his long time nemesis).  These 4 classes were his shortest (8weeks).  He is also taking other classes simultaneously that continue longer (some 12 weeks, some 15).  As you can imagine ending this first "semester" (there's really no clearly defined "semesters" with the classes ranging in length, but I don't know what else to call it), was super stressful for Matt.  But I am proud to announce that he received straight A's!!  Woohoo!  Congrats, smartypants!

 

 

Kate continues to be my nudist Houdini.  Not even the snap top jammies can contain her exhibitionist ways anymore and so I have now resorted to putting them on backwards and started the potty training!  Never a dull moment with that one!

Also much to my extreme rejoicing, today, Dec 1st, marks the end of "Mo-vember".  Matt participated in the men's health awareness campaign of not shaving in November, and growing a moustache.  I wasn't a big fan of the Chester-vibe.  I kept expecting him to start riding around in a white, windowless van with the windows down, offering candy to the neighborhood kids.  It was a little creepster for my taste.  I mean he looks good no matter what, but I sure was happy to plant a big facial hair-free kiss on the man this morning!

And now you're all caught up. 15,000 cool points to anyone who actually read this and didn't just browse the pictures! You get 7,500 cool points if you actually browsed all the pictures and occasionally glanced at a caption (that's the way I usually roll!).  2,500 cool points just for coming to see the blog at all.  And 20,000 bonus points if you leave us some love in the comments :)