The Big Show!

Emily, Louie and I were supposed to have a play date over at Brandt's house this morning, but Louie work up with an even worse cold than he had yesterday. We opted to stay home and get better, rather than spread that around to the boys the week before Chrismtas.
It's been snowing since 6am and we've already got about 5 inches on the ground. I have shoveled the snow twice since Dan's been gone. I hate shoveling. I decided to fire up the snow blower this afternoon. It won't work very well if the snow gets too deep . . . I opted to do it even thought it is still snowing out.
Well, Dan and his crew made it to Salem late last night and were there to do the big game this morning. I have only seen the first half and a few minutes of the second half. But the kids were VERY excited to see their Daddy on TV! We got a good look at him just a minute or two into the second half. He very energetically threw a penalty flag when some players were doing a little pushing and shoving.
We'll watch the rest of the second half after naps. (of course Emily's not napping because she slept until 10:15 this morning! following in the footsteps of her Auntie M!)
Ugh, it's snowing even harder now! I think we'll just order a pizza and then have popcorn and a movie. The kids think it is so special to have popcorn! Of course, the love of popcorn reminds me of my Dad. The man LOVED popcorn and we made popcorn all the time!

This is NASCAR country!

Well, I talked to Dan a little while ago. He and the rest of the guys rented cars in Atlanta and are driving to Salem. It's about a 7 hour drive, they were later than they hoped getting out of Atlanta because they were trying to retrieve their luggage from Delta. After about 3.5 hours of getting nowhere, they left only to be told that their luggage should alread be at the Salem airport?? how, you might ask since all flights were cancelled? no clue.
Thankfully, they were all smart enough to NOT check their refereeing uniforms so they at least have that for the game tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon, they are supposed to leave Salem immediately after the game and drive to Greensboro for their return flight on Sunday morning. Hopefully, they can find their luggage and not have to spend the whole evening at the airport looking for it.
Anyhow, keep watching tomorrow at 10am, as of now, they'll be there . . .
Funny, Dan did call me to give them directions to get to Salem??? thank goodness for googlemaps.com!

Update: Dan's travels to Salem, Virginia

Well, I just talked to Dan. He and his crew left Minneapolis enroute to Salem, Virigina (via Atlanta) this morning at 5am. He just called me from Atlanta and they are stuck there. All flights to Roanoke, Virginia have been cancelled due to excessive fog. All flights to airports in the general vicinity of Roanoke have been overbooked and are delayed.
They were supposed to be in Salem for a meeting with the NCAA at 6pm tonight. Right now, they are trying to get their luggage back from Delta so they can rent cars and drive the 8 hours to Salem.
There are severe weather conditions out on the eastern seaboard and being the Friday before Christmas, everything is BOOKED!
Hopefully, they will make it to Salem in time for the game tomorrow and hopefully, the NCAA doesn't assign another crew to do the game!

Let's keep our fingers crossed for the Florida Jansen's travels today too! They are heading to Greenville, SC for Stacy's cousin David's wedding tomorrow. I'd hate for them to be re-routed or delayed with the three little kids in tow!
Also, let's hope that they make it here on Sunday! They're flying here from Greenville via Memphis on Sunday morning. . . . I'm so glad that we only have to drive to White Bear Lake and to West St. Paul to celebrate Christmas this year!

Dan's Big Dance . . .

SORRY, didn't mention that the game is Saturday, December 20.

Dan and his MIAC football crew are heading off to Salem, Virginia for the Stagg Bowl . . . The Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl is the NCAA Division 3 National Championship game.
Mount Union of Ohio will play UW Whitewater at 10am CST on ESPN2.
He and his crewmates are unbelievably excited about being selected to officiate this game. It will, undoubtably be the highlight of all their referee careers!
Tune in on Saturday to watch the big game and see if Dan gets any TV time . . .
if you don't have cable or satellite, stop over, we'll be watching at our house!

My Fairy Princesses . . .

Emily got a trunk of dress-ups from Auntie M. It is one of her favorite things and she and Louie are having a ball playing with them.
Louie will hate us later for these pictures . . . but they were too good to not share with everyone . . .














We have our tree lights controlled by the remote control outlet and every morning we tell Louie to say "abbra, cadabra!" and they will turn on . . . he says, "Abby Cadabby" and thinks it's the coolest thing that they actually are magic lights and turn on when he tells them . . .

A visit with Santa Plause (part II)

On Wednesday, we went to Macy's to visit the annual Christmas display and see Santa Claus(see previous post for details). These are the pictures from that day.

Oh Christmas Tree. . .

We don't go out into the woods and cut down a Christmas tree like my family did when we were kids. We don't even go to the tree lot and pick out a Christmas tree, like we did the first two years in our house . . . There are people (who shall remain nameless) who have issues with the tree lights and perfection. The issue being that they never look "right." Which amazed me, is there really a right way to have lights on the tree? Much to my surprise, there is. I digress . . . the second year we had a real tree, there were very few needles left on the tree because the lights were never "right" and were taken off and put back on the tree FOUR, yes FOUR times. I refused to go through that again and went straight to my local Menards and bought a lovely pre-lit tree that comes out of the box each year. . . it may not look "right" but we have it up and decorated in 24 hours, rather than 24 days . . .
On Saturday after decorating cookies, we celebrated Emily's birthday by having homemade tortellini alfredo for dinner and watching the Polar Express with popcorn. We also put up the Christmas tree. Emily and Louie LOVED helping put their own special ornaments on the tree. Each of them already have their own box full of ornaments. Here's a few pix from that:











Even Ted loves the Christmas tree.

Long post today . . .

I had big plans today to get all updated with everything that went on in the last week, but Blogger isn't allowing posts with photos right now.
Sorry.

Blogger finally is cooperating with me . . .
Emily's birthday was Saturday, December 6 and she had a great birthday weekend. On Friday, she brought cupcakes to school and celebrated with her friends. She wore her fun birthday hat and got a button and a book from school.
Saturday, we decorated cookies with Bailey at Carol's house. The kids had to much decorating and playing. We had a great time with them, but Emmy and Louie really missed Carol's husband George.
On Sunday, she had her birthday party and she was all about the party! It was really fun and she received so many awesome presents. She is really being a great big sister and sharing them with Louie too.

The Holidazzle that wasn't

We planned to go to the Holidazzle Parade last night, Elmo and Grover were the Grand Marshall's. On Wednesday, when we went to visit with Santa Clause, Emily started complaining that her ear hurt and everything was too loud. Uh oh, she's getting an ear infection. Well, I put the magic drops in her ear to ease the pain and gave her some Tylenol. She said that she felt fine.
On Thursday, she woke up with a bad cough that was so bad, she threw up from coughing. So, she stayed home from school and rested yesterday. Bottom line, no Holidazzle last night. She's going to the doctor today to get checked out. Clearly she's got an upper respitory infection. Emily is so susceptible to upper respitory infections, I'm sure that is due to lung development when she was born. They assured us that she was fully developed when she was born (6 weeks early), but something tells me that she might have another side effect of that. . . .
anyhow, the FAO Schwarz catalog came in the mail today and Louie was in heaven! he sat in the chair studying the catalog trying to figure out what he wanted for Christmas. The kids watched "The Polar Express" again today, new favorite (what's not to like about that movie, I love it!)and when Santa was on, he asked him again to bring some Thomas socks. There was a page in the catalog that has a picture of Santa on it and he pointed and said, "Santa, please please bring some new Thomas socks!" (if anyone knows where I can find some Thomas socks, please let me know!!!)

A visit with Santa Plause

I took the day off yesterday and we made out annual trip down to Marshall Field's (I hate that it is now Macy's!) to see the Christmas display and visit with Santa.
Emily and Louie both have an understanding of the Santa Clause thing this year. However, they call him Santa Plause, instead of Santa Clause.
What a great time! We got there at 9:30am (FYI, that is the time to get there, NO ONE there) and met Sara and Charlotte. We walked through "A Day in the Life of an Elf" and then went right in to visit with Santa. We have been talking to the kids about what they would like Santa to bring for them . . . Louie wants new "Thomas the Tank Engine" socks (his old ones are too small and we told him that we gave them to Baby Lorenzo) and Emily would like a doll house with furniture and a family in it. So, we got in to see Santa and Louie asked him for the socks, etc. Well, there was a misunderstanding because he thought that Santa would be giving him the socks right then and there. Needless to say, he had a complete meltdown when he didn't leave with socks!
Emily loved seeing Santa and gave him a huge hug and kiss when we left.
After our turn, Charlotte had her turn on Santa's lap. She wanted no part of sitting on Santa's lap. She didn't scream or cry, but she kept shaking her head NO! whenever Santa held out his hands to hold her. So, Sara sat next to him with Charlotte in her lap.
We're 4-0 in the freaking out with Santa department. No pictures of crying babies with Santa.
After, we went up to the 12th floor to the Skyroom and had lunch. Louie was in HEAVEN, there was watermelon on the salad bar.
I'll post pictures later. I was too tired last night to upload them.

We were going to head down to the Holidazzle Parade because Elmo and Grover are the Grand Marshall's tonight, but Emily is home sick from school today. She "spilled" this morning before she got dressed. Maybe Louie and I will come down by ourselves, we'll see . . .