Category: Family (Page 24 of 26)

Since it looks like I won’t get a chance to call until I’m done teaching @ 9:00… at which point it will actually be 10:00 your time…so that’s too late to call…

SO.

Instead, I wanted to wish you a very Happy Birthday here!  Also to prove that I didn’t forget.  I DID forget however that it was a holiday today and that your card wouldn’t be getting to you on time.  Whoops!  Please love me anyway!  🙂

And now for my favorite pictures of your most recent trip: (P.S. I’m sorry I didn’t remember to post wonderful Happy Birthday wishes to my two sister-in-law’s who both also have Birthday’s this month… so here’s a SHOUT OUT to KRISTA (Happy late Birthday from February 1st) and KRISTEN (Happy late Birthday from February 7th)!!!!!

Smile!

Hugs from Auntie!!!

I love this picture of Kylene... but Justin looks a little strange. Sorry Justin!

I would bet that you’re pretty sick of hearing about our Christmas gathering by now so this will be my FINAL Christmas post.  But I still had some cute pictures from the past couple of weeks that I wanted to share (did I mention that I took a LOT of pictures?) so I’ll get it all out of my system today.  Then my normal posts about everyday life will resume again.  🙂

The days leading up to our Christmas gathering I started planning out a few activities (many of which we didn’t even end up having time for!) that we could do as a family.  One of those activities was making ginger bread houses.

I had grand visions of everyone sitting around the huge dining room table laughing and being creative.  The houses would be ornate with lots of character and candy gushing off every side.  We would ooh and ahh over all the finished products and then snack on them for the rest of the weekend.

See, doesn’t that sound like fun?

Well, it occurred to me that there was no possible way that I was going to make actual gingerbread for the houses so I opted for the much cheaper and easier graham cracker base.  Then I picked up a few clearance candies (my favorites are the Peep Christmas trees and snowmen) and frosting to hold it all together.  Again, I had grand plans of making homemade frosting, but alas, no time again.

On Saturday we finally tried to collect people and give our gingerbread houses a try.  It was a little different than my vision…

…only a couple people wanted to participate… the frosting wasn’t holding anything together, so it was a slippery mess… Chloe only wanted to eat and not help… my house fell completely in on itself so I had to try again…we could only use 1/2 of the big dining room table b/c the other end was being used for a card game…

But you know what?

I still had a FANTASTIC time.  We still laughed and laughed.  We still snacked.  We were still creative.  And it left a lasting memory from the weekend.  And that was the whole point.

So thank you, Mom, Dad, Amy, Audrey and Chloe for making gingerbread houses with me.  And thank you, Luke & Krista for being our esteemed judges and determining that Mom’s was the best (um, which we all already pretty much knew ;))

Fritz Family Photo 2011!!!

As most of you know, this weekend was my family’s Christmas gathering.  I’ve been looking forward to being together with everyone for months now–counting down the days and organizing and planning… I had even found a house to rent for the weekend so we could all fit and spend time together.  I was nervous about everything working out as wonderfully as I had envisioned it in my mind.

But everything turned out wonderfully.

The house was perfect.  (at least I think so! :D)  It was spacious enough that everyone could spread out and no one felt smothered–plus everyone had their own room to retreat to if they wanted some space or to even just take a nap.  The kitchen was awesome.  It was fully stocked with dishes and pans that made cooking easy.  Plus it had a dishwasher that we used A LOT and a full sized fridge and freezer that we (easily) filled up.

All in all, it was fabulous.  I have oodles of pictures to share, so more info and pictures to come this week!

What do you do if your baby needs to take a nap but there aren’t any more rooms to lay him down?

Put him in the bathtub of course!

All snuggled in and ready for a nap!

He loved it!

We spent Christmas at Jen’s new townhouse yesterday.  We had a delightful day.  I have a few more cute pictures that I’ll post over the next couple of days.  We tried to take a family picture… and after 35 attempts we did manage a cute one in there.  Haha!  We now know to NOT wait until everyone is starting to leave to take the group picture.  🙂  Next year we’ll be taking the picture FIRST in hopes of avoiding the meltdown zone.  It’s hard after the kids are wound up from opening gifts and then have had a lot of sugar and maybe not the best nap… all-together not the best combination.

Today we’ve spent hours and hours putting the house back in order and starting to get ready to deep clean tomorrow before my family starts to come into town on Wednesday.  (SOOOO EXCITED!)  Tim is headed out to Winsted to help Nathan tomorrow and Kristen offered to take Chloe for the day, so Tim will drop her off on his way past.  That means it will just be JD and me–I can really clean to my hearts content!  😀

Chloe, excited & ready to go celebrate Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving!  This year I’ve made a point to talk with Chloe about being thankful and what that means.  It’s been wonderful to take time and think about what we’re truly thankful for.  🙂  I feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, two adorable children and a husband who knows my weird quirks and loves me anyway!

Thanksgiving morning Tim played football with a bunch of church friends then we made our way out to the Bakers for the rest of the day.  We had a delightful time eating and socializing.  It was fun to just hang out with family with nothing pressing to do.  It’s become a Thanksgiving day “tradition” to sit and read through the Black Friday flyers “ooohing” and “ahhing” over the deals,  Plus, it give us “crazies” who want to go shopping, time to map out what stores we want to hit the next day.

The pinecone turkeys were eyeing the meat and cheese platter...

Grandma Patsy reading the kids a book while we wait for Thanksgiving Dinner

Speaking of Black Friday shopping…  Tim & Jen decided to brave the crowds and try going to Walmart.  Apparently they were starting their big sale at 10:00 on Thanksgiving night so instead of having to get up disgustingly early to shop, you could just stay up late.  Sound appealing? If you said “yes” then you were like the rest of the world it would seem.  Or at least Shakopee.  Tim said it was crazier than the state fair–and that he would NEVER do that again.  He said it was wall to wall people  sometimes grabbing handfuls of stuff and all of the items were all set up in the isles making it impossible to move anywhere.  If he hadn’t been with Jen he said he would have turned around and just come home.  But he persevered.  Out of the 5 things he went looking for he was only able to get 2 before they sold out–in the first 10 min.  Yikes!

I, on the other hand, chose to get up early and go.  The crowds were MUCH more manageable and I was able to get a bunch of things.  I think of all the items I went looking for there was only 1 I couldn’t find.  Amusingly, the longest line I stood in was at JoAnn fabric here in town.  I waited for over 40 min. but it was worth it to get fabric and supplies to make a new piano bench cover at a really good discount.  So, after this weekend we have pretty much all of our Christmas shopping done!  Yippie!

Yesterday we were pretty much useless since both Tim and I were dead tired from being up late/early shopping so we didn’t do anything interesting.  I didn’t get back home from shopping until after noon and then I spent another hour or two wrapping presents…  So, today we needed to actually get some things done!  Chloe and I made pancakes to start our morning on the right foot…

My little pancake helper!

After a yummy breakfast we dived into a busy day:  cleaning the house, SIX loads of laundry, another trip to JoAnn fabric, and of course putting up all of our Christmas decorations!  So, now our house is clean and festive!  🙂

Today was a fun date to write on my students’ folders.   Never again will I be able to write 11/11/11.  Well, I suppose unless I live to the year 3011 and I highly doubt that… hehe… 😉

In honor of the day I’ve decided to list 11 random things I enjoy.  I hope something on this list makes you smile!  🙂

1. organizing large items (so the transformation looks more impressive)

2. york mint patties

3. playing a beautiful piano song

4. listening to JD “coo” happily

5. trying out new baking recipes

6. feeling useful

7. a nice smelling house

8. a good hair day

9. wearing my big-falling-apart-comfy sweater

10. getting real mail

11. watching Chloe sing to JD and seeing him smile back at her