Thankful in November - Day Twenty

Day Twenty - My Brother Craig and his lovely family - Casey, Larissa and Layne! My brother is one of the craziest people I've ever known.  He's sarcastic and always mister personality.  He can make me laugh hysterically and make me fiercely angry like no one else.  I treasure all of the childhood memories I have with him.  He's a great dad, husband, brother and son.  I love you brother! Now, the rest of the family ain't so shabby either.  Casey is amazing.  Girlfriend has been apart of our family"since she and Craig were in high school.  She's so fun to be around and to poke fun at, lol.  Casey has worked her booty off to lose a ton of weight over the past year - she runs races and she's a training fool.  She is my real life fitness inspiration.  My niece Larissa and nephew Layne are such blessings!  I love being their aunt.  We had them over for a sleepover this summer and had such a good time!  I only wish we could spend more time with them.  They are full of life, absolute sweethearts and I love them dearly.
I'm so thankful for Craig, Casey, Rissa-Roo and Layne!!

Happy New Year

Well, after a looooong break, I’m blogging!  Happy New Year everyone!

We’ve had an eventful 12 days.  I was off work from 1pm December 21 to today.  I cannot explain to you how wonderful and much needed that break was.  I was burnt out, and I really wanted some time to rest, relax and unwind.  I’ve got about 5 months of nonstop work without a day off coming up and I really wanted to enjoy this last Christmas with Cooper before his brother or sister comes.

Speaking of brother or sister….. My anatomy scan is scheduled for January 14 so we are hoping to find out the baby’s gender that day.  Yippee!  Only 12 days away.  Back to our break….

We got to visit lots of family, the weekend before Christmas we visited Tim’s family in Ohio….

All of the cousins

The Johnson Siblings

Then, on Christmas day, we open presents at our house, then we visited with my dad at his house, then my mom at her house.  My brother and his family visit with us at dad’s then mom’s also.

Christmas morning at our house

At Dad’s house Christmas day

At Mom’s house Christmas evening

Our Christmas was wonderful, we are truly blessed.  Time with family was the most precious, and Santa went above and beyond, as usual.

After Christmas, we spent the rest of the week hanging out around the house.  We had about 7-8” of snow on Christmas night, so Tim and Andrew spent the majority of the day after Christmas snow blowing the driveways of our neighbors and our house.  Cooper and I spent the day inside enjoying new toys and watching too much television.

We finally left our house on Friday, only because Tim and I both had dentist appointments.  We were home by 1 and Cooper and I did our normal daily nap from 1-3.  Boy am I going to miss those naps.  Saturday and Sunday we spent at home, not leaving for anything. 

On Monday, New Year’s Eve, Tim went to work for 1/2 day, and while he was gone, Cooper and I cleaned some and ran some errands.  Then Tim picked up Kampbell and we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the Coop and the Soup.  That night, we had some friends/family over.  Erica and Mel, Andrew’s friend Garrett and girlfriend Hannah, and Stephanie and Ryan of course.  We played a euchre tournament and had lots of good food.  We also let Cooper stay up until after midnight, it was almost 1am before I put him to bed.  It was the first time he has stayed up that late and he did great.

Yesterday was spent catching up on sleep, laundry, cooking breakfast for all of the overnight guests and getting the house back in order. 

All in all, it was a wonderful break.  I’m so glad I was able to start the New Year fresh and relaxed!  I’m glad to be back in the blogging world too!!  I’ve been reading blogs so I hope to get back into the groove of writing! 

Happy Wednesday ladies and Tim :)

Weekend Wrap-up

This weekend was my Dad’s birthday.  Tim, Cooper and I headed south on Saturday morning for the festivities. 

First we stopped at my grandma’s house.  I love to visit her and she loves to see her great-grandchild.  Cooper sure makes her laugh.  And he loves her too.  I was dumb and left the camera in the car, so I have no pictures, we were there for a couple of hours –  Love my grandma!

Then we went bowling with Dad, Gwen, Craig, Casey, Larissa and Layne.  Cooper and Layne had never been bowling before, so that was quite an experience.  They don’t quite have the attention span necessary yet, but I still think they had fun.

Cooper and Tim rolling his ball down the lane.  The kids had bumper  bowling.  Thank Goodness.

Craig	Gwen
Dad	Larissa
Craig helping Layne	Me

Then there was the goofing off of the boys when they got bored.

Scores

Dad and his grandkids.  So hard to get a good shot, this was the best one.

Then we headed back to Dad and Gwen’s for pizza, cake and ice cream.

56

Dad opening cards.

The boys tackling Larissa.

Caught grandpa sleeping while Cooper and Kieran are watching Dora.

That was a fun day.  Sunday we had breakfast with Dad and Gwen, then went to my mom’s to visit and have lunch.  It was a wonderful weekend – especially celebrating Dad’s birthday.  I love my dad so much!  How was your weekend?  Happy Monday, ladies.

Vacation: Leg #1 Camping

There will be three legs to this vacation.  And some legs may be broken up into different parts.  That I haven’t decided yet.  I’ll have to go through pictures before I can say for sure. 

We first went camping with my mom, her husband Shawn, and my brother and his family.  It was a good time.  It was very hot, so I was glad we got to go on the boat, because the water gave us much needed relief from the heat. 

The first day my brother’s fam wasn’t there except for my nephew Layne.  I was glad he was there so he and Cooper could play together.  The boys don’t get to do that nearly as often as we would like. 

But first, there was baseball playing with Nana.  Cooper is OBSESSED  with baseball.  From the moment he wakes up in the morning until he goes to bed at night, it’s baseball this, baseball that, so as soon as we got there, he decided it was time to play baseball with his Nana.  Layne sat back and watched the fun.

Once we got camp setup, we took the boys for a walk.  We didn’t quite know where we were headed we just wanted to walk, so off we went, and stumbled upon a beach.  The boys played in the water, splashed their Nana and had a good time.

The next two days after my brother arrived, we went boating and played and ate way too much.  It was a good time.  I haven’t been in a lake or an inner tube in a long time.  Great fun!  Cooper had a great time driving the boat.  One downside, when Mom, Larissa, Casey and I were out in the inner tube, we flipped it over and my Mom lost her glasses.  She got stuck wearing mine the rest of the trip.  On the bright side, she had just ordered those, and she didn’t really like them much, so she got to order new ones.  I guess the glass is half full.

Cornhole, beer, food, motorized cars, and Charlie Brown on the iPad.  What else could we all ask for?!? 

It was a great long weekend to start our vacation.  We headed home Saturday evening and had to get packed for vacation #2: STL.  I’ll start working on that post soon.  Have a lovely day!

Weekend Review

Happy Tuesday folks!  I’m wrapping up our weekend today, because it was such a good one, it took me a day to recover and get back to the blogging world.

Friday night we didn’t do a whole lot, which was nice.  Played with Cooper and hung around with Andrew some. 

Saturday morning we slept in a bit, then Cooper and I got ready to head south to visit with family.  The little man and me were going to a picnic with Dad, his ladyfriend Gwen and dad’s side of the family and Gwen’s family.  We got to see my grandpa and my Kieran (my step-grandma who is the only grandma I’ve ever known on my dad’s side of the family).  They are a hoot and I just treasure time with them.   It was a lot of fun.  Cooper and Layne played a lot – those boys are just too cute together.  We had lots of good food, fun and chasing after two little boys.  Here are several pictures.



Look at those cheeks,  he was pretty hot!




Layne loves his sunglasses!





My pretty niece, Larissa.




Cute Boys!





My Dad helping to balance out the teeter totter.



After the picnic, I took Layne, Larissa and Cooper to my Mom’s house.  We were all spending the night there – the kids had a great time playing together as usual.  They were really sweaty by the end of the night, so Layne and Cooper got in the bathtub together.  Nana always spoils them rotten.

Now these next couple of pictures crack me up.  Larissa and Layne sleep in the same bed while at Nana's and check them out.....  Notice anything???

My first question is.... Where Larissa?  Then.... why is Layne laying against the wall like that???  Well, we'll never know, but when we had decided to head to bed a couple of hours after the kids, we were checking in on these two and this is what we found.  I took the pictures with my phone, so they are crappy iphone flash quality, but goodness, these silly kids.

Sunday morning was Week 1: Day 3 of my couch to 5k.  I tried doing it on my mom’s treadmill, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t make it work well, so I hit the pavement.  The gravel pavement out in the boonies….  Did I mention the HILLY gravel pavement???  No, well it was, hilly.  But…. I made it, I survived and I was darn proud of myself.

After that, I was texting back and forth with Tim, so Cooper and I decided to send him a picture of us.  I curled my hair with my mom's skinny flat iron.  I got the idea from Mama Laughlin and had wanted to try it, but not spend the money on a smaller flat iron until I knew I would like it.....  Well, now I have something else to go buy, cause I loved it!

Sunday was my brother’s birthday, so we had a luncheon to celebrate.  My SIL’s birthday is the 24^th, so we celebrated her birthday too.  They shared one cake though, because they are both doing weight watchers and really wanted to not over-indulge.  We had a lot of fun.  Eating, kids playing, and then Craig and Shawn got their remote controlled trucks out.  It was pretty cool to see how much these trucks can handle; they were flipping them and crashing them like crazy.  They go superfast too.  Made me want one, lol…..  My grandma made it over for cake and ice cream too.  It was so good to see her.  I just love my grandparents so much.  I am so lucky to have them.

Here are more pictures of playing on Sunday, the birthdays and some poses... 

Me, Grandma and Mom

Craig with his car remote.

Shawn, Mom and Coop

Hope you enjoyed my weekend photos.  It was a good one, that is until I had to return home to laundry, cleaning and the dreaded work on Monday.... UGH.

It's almost humpday!  Yippie!!