Hapy New Year

I have always loved New Years Eve...

Growing up, my family and I would go to a family friends house and go snowmobiling, go on a winter hayride and ring in the New Year with wonderful friends.

2000 was rung in going to see RENT and then I spent the rest of the evening on the bathroom floor with the flu-not the best New Year's Eve but definitely one I remember.

7 years ago tonight, the man of my dreams, bought me a dress, made me dinner and asked me to marry him after we opened our mail!

4 years ago tonight, I peed on a stick and learned that my life would be changing forever.

3 years ago, Joe was in bed writhing with a kidney stone, while I tried to entertain a house full of people and take care of a 3 month old little boy.

Tonight, E and I went and visited agility friends, had dinner with Grandma and Dzia, painted nails, played a little Wii with the cousins and were home by 9pm. Joe has to work tonight, but we got to spend an hour together before he went to dinner.

                                                                                                                                                                          

 

New Year's Eve is still my favorite night, but things are just a little different now.  I guess New Year's Eve isn't the only thing that is different, but if things weren't different, things would be boring!

I hope that you had a memorable New Year's Eve with the ones that you love, I know that I did!

2011 A Year In Review

2011 was another eventful year for us.  Here is a snapshot of what happened with us throughout the year...

January- The year started out with a bang-at least to our HSA account.  A nodule was found on my thyroid, after multiple tests, the nodule was found to be non-cancerous but consistent with thyroiditis.  Nothing a little medication can't fix.

February- Joe and I participated in the Polar Plunge for the third year in a row.  Between the two of us, we raised over $600 for the Special Olympics.  We will be plunging again in February 2012.  You can support us at: https://www.plungemn.org/plunger/heatherhaider or https://www.plungemn.org/plunger/josephhaider
Joe's parents celebrated their 40th Wedding Anniversary this month with many friends and family.

March- My brother and his wife made me an aunt!  Ethan Kyle was born on March 14th.  He is such a wonderful little man!  Ethan and E are already great friends and I LOVE being an aunt. 

April- We had many celebrations this month, my birthday, Joe's birthday, a welcome party for Ethan, Grandma Sophie's birthday, and Easter.

May- After 10 years of waiting, Joe finally had rhinoseptoplasty to repair his broken nose.  His nose is a lot straighter and he can also breathe a lot better.  I really don't know how all those women get nose jobs-the recovery sucks.

June- We benefited from the fruits of our labor, we planted our very first vegetable garden.  We already have plans for a bigger garden next year.

July- We lost a very special woman this month, Joe's Grandma Sophie passed away.  She was such a WONDERFUL woman and we hold onto our memories of her each day.

August- We went on our annual trip to Rainy Lake this month.  Unfortunately, Joe's parents weren't able to join us this year.  E caught his first fish and loved driving the boat.  Factor turned 9 this month.

September- This was a very busy month.  E turned 3 this month!  We celebrated with a MONSTER birthday.  E and I also went to ASCA Nationals in West Bend, WI.  I wrote all about it in a previous post-check it out.  Joe went bear hunting in the Boundary Waters-he didn't come home with a bear, but he came home with some good stories.

October- E was Woody for Halloween this year!

November- We spent our first Thanksgiving together as a family.  Joe usually goes to Montana for the week, but he stayed home this year with a bum knee.  It was great for all of us to be together.  I also worked my last day at St. Joe's hospital.  After almost 10 years, I resigned from my position working 1 weekend a month on the Behavioral Health unit.

December- DISNEY WORLD!!! Need I say more!  We had a MAGICAL time!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out what we have been up to.  We hope that your 2011was as enjoyable as ours.  Stop back often and see what we are up to.

May God bless your 2012!

Heather, Joe and E

"Have a MAGICAL day!"

We spent 9 days in Florida recently and 7 of them were spent at a Disney World park!  My in-laws were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this year and invited their three boys, three daughter in-laws and five grandchildren on a trip of a lifetime! All 13 of us went to Disney World for a week.

The Family at Animal Kingdom

We all stayed in 2 condos about 20 minutes away from the Disney property.  We had a pool to swim and relax in, a kitchen to cook our own food, beds to sleep in and lots of space for the cousins to play together.

Sunday was Animal Kingdom.  We have been talking about this trip for the last year, so E was VERY excited to meet the man himself, Mickey Mouse!

E loved meeting the animal characters!  They were playing the "quiet game" and he thought that was pretty cool.  He wasn't too sure about the characters that could talk to him or look human.

Monday we all went to Magic Kingdom together.  Rita, my mother in law, had a great idea that she wanted everyone to wear shirts like they did on the original Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and we would all get our picture taken together for their Christmas card.  So before we left, we made the shirts and this was the final product.

Magic Kingdom is truly a magical place.  From the time you pull into the parking lot, to the time you leave in the evening, everyone tells you to have a magical day and goes above and beyond to make that happen for everyone.  On multiple occasions, I asked myself, "What if everyone everywhere wished everyone a magical day and tried their best to make that happen?"  The world may actually be a happier place!

The Happy Couple

Joe and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon 6 years ago.  He was a great sport and stood in MANY lines with me, while we waited to get our pictures taken with the characters.  Belle was a very elusive princess.  We stood in lines expecting to see her and right before we would get to the front, she would leave.  We were Belle's stalkers for the week and we weren't very good at it.  This trip we were successful and we all got our picture taken with Belle.

Tuesday was a day at Sea World and then Joe, E and I went back to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  E got to go on a lot of rides that he missed and also ones that he loved that night and also visit with a few more characters.

Wednesday was a day of rest.  The kids got to swim in the pool and enjoy a relaxing morning and well needed nap before we headed to Epcot.

It was a little wet there, but it actually cleared out a lot of the people, which made it nice for us.

Thursday was spent at Hollywood Studios.  This park was a lot of fun.  Not many rides for E to go on, but a cool car show, Indiana Jones stunt show, and an AWESOME Pixar parade.

Everyone had a GREAT time at this park that we actually all went back there another day.

Friday we went back to Epcot for part of the day, but that was the same plan that a whole bunch of school groups had, so there was a LOT of middle schoolers there.  We didn't stay long, as we were getting a little burnt out and needed an evening of rest.

Saturday the other two families went home and Joe and I went back to Hollywood Studios, so E could see everything that he missed while he was sleeping the first time we were there.

This really was a once in a lifetime trip.  The cousins got to spend extended amounts of time just running around together, brothers enjoyed quality time together, sister in laws developed friendships and two very special people had their whole family together in one place for a whole week!

A special thank you to my wonderful mother and father in law for inviting us on this MAGICAL Vacation!

Wordless Wednesday

E drew this picture of his cousin Ethan!



1st Snowfall of the Season

You hear people say that the world is different through the life of a child, or to see the world through a child's eyes...

This was so true on the 1st snowfall of the season!

E was in LOVE with the snow.  He couldn't wait to get outside, he wouldn't even get dressed, he went outside with his jammies on-at least I got him to put a coat and shoes on.



 He went out onto the porch and ran in circles, yelling, "Snow! Snow! Snow!"  He was throwing snow up in the air off of the picnic table and running under the snow.

 He wasn't even aware that I was taking pictures of him, he was so enthralled with the snow.

 Once he saw that I was watching him and taking pictures, he wanted me to take pictures of his "Prints."  He thought that his "paw prints" were the coolest things ever.

It is amazing to see the world through the eyes of a child!

Not Pretty but Really Good

We went to a local Apple Orchard this past Monday, AppleCrest Orchard in Hugo.  I really like to support the small orchards.  It's not a really big place, but the have an orchard walk, everyone gets a free apple from the Picking Tree, they have chickens to feed, pumpkins to pick and a small store to buy all the different kind of apples that they grow, honey and frozen pies.

This year, we bought a bag of HoneyCrisp apples for eating and a bag of Haralson apples for baking.  We wanted to make our very FIRST apple pie.  I have frozen pie crusts in the freezer that I was ready to pull out, but Joe wanted to make the whole pie from scratch.  We were all home together this weekend and decided that today was the day to make the pie.

Joe picked up an apple peeler, corer, slicer from Fleet Farm, which was his best purchase this week. 

 It really made preparing the apples so much easier and E made "strong muscles" while he turned the apples.

My job was to make the crust, I would have rather been preparing the apples.  I am pretty sure that the crust is supposed to look prettier than the one that I made here.  I blame it on the lack of the appropriate crust making tools.  Oh well!

 The apples cover the poor looking pie crust and make it look delicious!

 Here is the pie, right before I pulled it out of the oven.  Again-NOT a pretty sight, but boy did it sure smell good.

The crust was golden brown and flaky and the apples were bubbling under that 'BEAUTIFUL' crust.

It wasn't the prettiest pie ever, but it sure did taste good and put a smile on our faces.  Not too bad for our very first homemade pie ever!

One Proud Mama

We went to ASCA Nationals in West Bend, WI the week of September 17th, 2011.  ASCA (Australian Shepherd Club of America) offers a non-regular pee-wee conformation class for kids 3-5 years old.  This is a great opportunity for young kids to do something fun with their dogs and get to experience the conformation class (pretty dog show).

E was signed up for 3 shows.  2 pre-shows before Nationals and then Nationals.  Adults who show in conformation, get dressed up and look nice and the same goes for juniors.

We brought with 4 different suits for E to wear.  My mom and I made three different ties-the pirate one above was one of them.  Thankfully, E was all about looking "handsome" and getting dressed up to walk his dog Ace.

Ace is a friend's almost 13 year old black tri Aussie.  He is the perfect Pee-Wee dog.  He can't hear very well and he loves treats.  He is very tolerant of E pulling him around as long as he had secure footing.  Ace did GREAT and so did E.

The white suit that E is wearing was the same suit that his dad wore 30 years ago when he was in his uncle's wedding.  Joe's mom made the suit and she was so happy that E was able to wear the suit again.

E was a natural moving Ace around the ring.  He followed the judges directions very well, he kept control of his dog, he demonstrated confidence in telling the judge how old he is, what his dog's name is and how old his dog is.

I am sooooooooooooo proud of my little man.  It gave me goose bumps when I saw him in his suits.  We couldn't walk through the fairgrounds without getting many compliments of how handsome he was.  Random people were taking pictures of him and posting them on their facebook pages.  A little odd for me, but also a very proud moment.

One of my goals as a parent is to raise a confident child.  Through my love of dogs, I am raising a confident child!

Monster Birthday Party

E turned 3 and we celebrated in style...

For months, E had been talking about having a MONSTER themed birthday party, so I went on the hunt for the perfect cake.  I googled "monster cakes" and I got a lot of hits.  Some were do able, some not so much.  Here is the final result...

The cupcakes were some of my favorite.  They were such cute and friendly monsters.

Here comes the birthday boy on his 4-wheeler pulling a wagon and ready to give his cousin's rides.

 

Seeing Uncle Jon for the first time this visit.

A monster pinata.  It took a LONG time

 to break open, you would of thought that it was metal lined.

Opening presents, such a lucky boy.

 

Blowing out the candles. 

E loves to sing himself 'Happy Birthday' and today was no exception. 

His Grandma Rita got him interested in this game.  Last summer, when we picked them up from the airport, there was a big storm and there was no power at their house when we dropped them off.  We ate pizza by candlelight and then Grandma began singing Happy Birthday and letting E blow out the candle.  It kept him entertained in the dark for at least 10 minutes.  Now he can sing Happy Birthday very well and blow out the candles without too much spit on the cake.