New Years Eve

We had a good time celebrating the arrival of 2008. You saw a snippet of the celebration in the video earlier. Joe, Quinn, and I went to Lima to rock out with Joe's 7:11 club (those are his Swiss friends, who really aren't Swiss at all, but midwestern Americans, but I call them Swiss because he met them in Geneva.)
Robert and his wife, (and his 2 cutie-pie girls) were nice enough to share their house with us overnight. The rest of them went skiing during the day- where Joe's super-awesome ski jump took place- and then Quinn and I met them back at Robert and Heather's for dinner, drinks, cookies, and a full evening of Rock Band, featuring the Skype Outs-- who apparantly originated in Green Gables.

I assumed my position of drummer for a few songs, and yes, closed out the night with a riveting version of Black Hole Sun, then we watched the New Years Rockin' Eve in Times Square and counted down to 2008.

New Years Day, Heather made pancakes for us, Robert supplied Tim Horton's coffee and was nice enough to let us be bums for the first half of the day and take our sweet time leaving his house to come back home....

We should have stayed at the party, because we came home to a frozen/ burst pipe under the kitchen sink, so we had to call the plumber to come fix that on Wednesday. Then Thursday I went to work, and we had no heat, so the heat guy had to come fix the furnace (apparantly we were supposed to have been periodically cleaning out the furnace filter for the past 3 years?! Who knew????) And then this Saturday, we had a minor issue with a lack of hot water at the salon- but super dad/handyman came to the rescue and fixed it ASAP.

Quinn turned 2 months old yesterday- he is doing great at the babysitter's (and of course at grandma's!). i'm back to my regular schedule at work and BUSY! It's good to be back.

Today, Joe caught up on his grades, while Quinn and I slept. We both took naps from noon to 3, then we had lunch/dinner from our favorite sub places (Subway for me, Our Hero for Joe.....Similac for Quinn.) And now I'm blogging and having some toffee coffee.

That should catch us up on 2008 so far. Congrats to both Nicole Ritchie and Christina Aguilara on their new babies. Thank goodness for E! News Weekend for keeping me updated.

ha ha.

G, B-flat, and D walk into a bar.
The bartender looks at the group and says "Sorry, you'll have to leave. We don't serve minors here!"

Christmas in Michigan

Here they are: the rest of the Christmas 2007 pictures. We spent Christmas eve, day, and day after in Michigan. We got to visit Joe's parents, where Quinn got lots of quality snuggle time with his Grandma LaValley, we saw 'grandma Featherstone, Dick & Joann, and we got to meet our new nephew, Trey.
Quinn and Trey were cute together; they weren't quite sure what to think of each other. Or maybe they just weren't quite sure why we stuffed them into a ginormous Christmas stocking....either way, it was fun and I can't wait to hang out with Trey again!
Quinn also had his first college visit, when we made a quick side trip to buy textbooks for Joe.

responses to the comments of the post below:

jh- sounds like you need me to come up and drum for the skype outs! oh- and the orange bar at the top of my blog links to the awesome layouts.

nancy- 'black hole sun' is in my top 10 all time fav songs- it'sa 90's grunge-rock song. (And as for dad and i with the hats-- the drummers always get the coolest hats!)

trish- the hat is joe's, but i like to wear it.

jill- rock band is always better with hats. wait until you see the new year's pics!

Back to Christmas

The Thursday before Christmas we finally got a chance to take Quinn to see his Great-Grandma Lehman- she got to hold him for hours, we got to eat Grandma's caramels, butterscotch cookies, sour cream cookies, Boston fudge cake, and cheeseball. Good stuff. When we got home that night I had some quality time on the bird couch with my two babies.

The rest of these pictures are from Christmas day, at mom and dad's house. We had a lot of fun- breakfast was great, everyone got lots of nice presents, (lots of new hats!), and then we played Rock Band for a few hours. We're definitely not up to Partridge family status yet, but we sure did rock it out. Let me tell you, mom can sing a mean "Black Hole Sun!" I'm hoping for another rock band night in Columbus soon.

My very first video blog

I am not a 'type A' kind of person (that's my sister, for those of you who know us!), but there are two things I get totally anal about organizing and those are the color tubes at work, and photos. The first doesn't affect anyone here, so I'll skip that, but the photo thing....I MUST have photos organized in chronological order or it just drives me nuts.
I've been known to disassemble entire photo albums to insert ONE photo in the beginning of a book, so it views as it happens in real life. And my blog photos are always listed in order of how they occured (in case anyone was wondering), same with order of posts.

Having said that....at Joe's request, I will post a video of New Year's Eve countdown, even though I am still in Christmas posting mode, (see post below) and it will drive me nuts to do so...but I'll do it. Because Joe doesn't give a rat's hind end about blogging, so the fact that he actually asked me to put this on here means something.

He was inspired by our friend Jennie's blog video of Joe's super-awesome ski jump- which you all should definitely check out on her blog, Tivo Changed My Life. (See link to the right). It's well worth the blog-walk over there to see it.

After thoroughly enjoying her video MANY times, he suggested I put my video of the countdown to midnight on here.

Anyway, all this build up for nothing...kind of like the video.

"Christmas at the Lake"

Our beachfront Christmas was great, as usual. It was extra nice, because Jessica was home from Poland, John is back from Kosovo, and we had Quinn added to our family. And the cheese potatoes were pretty fantastic too!
This year, I had the 'fun' idea of taking a group family picture, via self-timers....which was such a laugh, I think we should do it every year!!! It turned out fairly well- my batteries died at the most inopportune time, but I am pretty sure Amy got the good shots on her camera. I especially enjoy this one, where Amy and I obviously didn't make it back to the group in time.


Kyle, Jessica, and Chuck Norris. What are the odds we can get Chuck to join us for dinner next year?

Nancy, the supermodel....

...apparantly on the same runway as Quinn and I.

Joe, showing off his mad juggling skills

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Happy 2008! I have many Christmas pictures to share, and hopefully I'll get around to putting some of them on here soon. We're headed to Lima overnight to celebrate the new year with Joe's 7:11 group, then I have tomorrow and Wednesday to rest.....then it's back to work. It's been a great 8 weeks or so off work, but I'm ready to go back. I think.

So everyone, enjoy your New Years Eve, have fun, be safe, watch the ball drop, etc etc. Did you make a resolution?? Last year I resolved to learn to like shrimp, and I think I've done well at it. I still can't eat shrimp coctail, but I do enjoy a nice seasoned grilled shrimp now and then... I know, not a very exciting resolution, but a very attainable one.

This year? Not sure yet, I have 7.5 hours to think of one. I'll let y'all know what I decide on.

I really hope that the Hollywood writers resolve to eh....resolve the writers' strike. I'm really missing my friends at Seattle Grace, on Wisteria Lane, and all the rest, too many to mention. I'm going to have to stoop to watching reality TV, which I'm really not happy about, but I'll do it. If I must. :)

Happy New Year!

I am now going to go enjoy my Cadbury Ornamet, courtesy of Aunt Jenni. =) THANKS!!!

Merry Christmas, Bloggerville!

Holiday Quiz

I love Christmas music a little too much, if that's possible. I know a lot of people complain of constant Christmas music on the radio and in stores this time of year, but I LOVE it. Can't get enough of it. (Our iTunes has 1444 songs in the "holiday" category.) So I was proud of myself for only missing one of the questions in this holiday Christmas Carol Quiz. Apparently there's more to the song 'Jingle Bells' than I realized.
Here's the website:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/carolquiz,0,4932856.triviaquiz

And here's some more photos of our little guy.

Nephew

Trish and Jer named their baby Trey James Lewis LaValley. He was born early Sunday morning, weighs 6 lbs, 8 oz, and is 21 inches long. Trish and Trey are both doing well and will hopefully get to go home soon. We can't wait for Quinn to meet his cousin over Christmas!

More Baby news

My nephew was born today! My sister-in-law, Trish, had her baby boy early this morning. I don't have details on him yet, but for now I'm just glad he's here and everyone is doing well. Trish and I have gone through our pregnancies together and I've been so excited for this little guy to get here- I can't wait to meet him when we go up to Michigan for Christmas!!

Congratulations, Jer and Trish!!!!




p.s...i came back to add to this post:

I just got done reading everyone else's blogs this morning and now I'm sitting here thinking about what a great family I have. Everyone's postings and responses this weekend were so awesome, loving, insightful, faithful, inspiring, and supportive and I'm just glad that I am part of such an amazing family!!!

One Month

Quinn was one month old yesterday. I can't believe it's been a month already! He's really growing... this picture was taken Monday- it's one of my favorite 'newborn' outfits, and it was pretty big on him when we put him in it at the hospital...he;s pretty much outgrown it now, so I had to take a picture of him wearing it one last time. Notice his new trick: he holds his pacifier in his mouth while he sleeps.


















I am going to try to take a picture of him with this same bear every month to show his growth. This is when he was one week old:


















And this was yesterday:

My Big Adventure- almost as exciting as Pee Wee's.

I got to go out in the real world today.

I drove my car for the first time in over a month, which was kind of strange at first...although, I'm still not fully self-sufficient yet; I had to wait for Joe to get home from work so he could put Quinn's carseat in the car (it's still over my lifting limit for another couple of weeks). I drove him (Quinn, not Joe- Joe was at basketball practice) out to mom and dad's and dropped him off (well, mom had to get the carseat out of the car for me!) and off I went.

First stop: salon. Actually, I take that back. My first stop was McDonalds for a coffee. Then I hit the salon. I caught up on the past week's accounting and made a shopping list. Next, beauty supply: I loaded up the cart...and then the sales girl had to load it into my trunk for me. Again, bags of shampoo and developers too heavy to lift.
Then I had free time, so I went to Kohls...I went with the intention of doing some Christmas shopping; instead, I left with 5 new shirts for me and a roll of wrapping paper. So what if I have no gifts to wrap in it! :)
After that, I went to a friend's jewelry party. Again, supposedly to Christmas shop. I did buy one gift, but I walked away with new earrings, watch, and bracelet for ME.

There you have it- my first day out on the town in over a month. It was pretty nice to have a little bit of free time to do some aimless shopping. Thanks, mom and dad, for babysitting! :)

I think this qualifies as a holiday crisis.

I just found out (thanks Jill!) that there is a Christmas version of the Cadbury Egg-- and I'm stuck at home with no way to go get one! No unnecessary driving for me for a while yet (although, I think this qualifies as very necessary)...and even if I could, I can't put Quinn in the Solstice, and the jeep has a flat tire...and the carseat is over my weight lifting restriction anyway.

Joe's got my car; and he's at a basketball game in Toledo, Mom and Dad are in Cincinatti, Lisa and John are too far away to come buy me chocolate, my friends are at work, and it's just too cold to ask Kara to take Rylee out of the house for a $.60 piece of candy.

So here I am, knowing that less than a block from my house is a supply of one of my all-time favorite seasonal candies and I can't get any. Definitely a crisis.

The only thing keeping me from sending my dog with a coin purse and a note pinned to her pumpkin sweater is the fact that there's a new bag of holiday hershey kisses in the kitchen. They're no Cadbury egg, but they'll do in a pinch.....

Snow Day

Well, the snow is here. I was kind of hoping that the super-hot summer meant we'd have a warm-ish winter, but it's not looking so good. This photo is the view out our back window. Notice the large tree branches on the ground, from the wind storm we had 2 days ago...

Joe enjoyed his day off work and finished up some work for his college classes, and now is at a basketball game. Quinn's here, helping me blog and do some online Christmas shopping, then we'll most likely head back to the couch to watch more holiday Lifetime movies.

My gaping flesh wound is pretty much healed up and I feel a lot more alive now. I even went to Target and did some Christmas shopping the other night. I think I may tackle the mall next week.

And now, some photos.



Quinn likes the bird couch as much as I do!
















Just lounging around in his baseball onesie
















Looking around...


































He's sad because we dressed him in this silly shirt.