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!!

TGIM?? & Weekend Rewind

Some days, do you ever feel like Thank God It’s Monday?  I mean, by Friday, I will be all about it being Friday, don’t get me wrong.  But, after this weekend, this crazy busy weekend, it’s nice to come to work, where I sit on my booty the majority of the day.  That’s awful isn’t it?  I know it is.  But reality is, is that sometimes, I just need to rest, and I get lots of it at my job.  I sit at a desk and work on a computer all day long.

Speaking of weekends, we had a good one.  It was busy, but good.

Friday night, we had Steph’s birthday dinner at Olive Garden.  We got the family “party” room, so it was just us and it was super nice to have a little privacy where the kids could roam without having to worry about them disturbing other people.  I made Steph a s’mores cake.  Even though it had lots of marshmallows in the frosting, it still didn’t taste much like a s’more.  It was tasty though.

Saturday, we headed down south to visit my side of the family.  We went to an orchard/pumpkin patch for lunch with my mom, Shawn and my grandma, then took some pictures of the kids with the pumpkins.  Then we went to my niece’s birthday party.  It was a nice day.  On our way home, we went to Lucas Oil Stadium to watch our local high school play there, but the game was delayed and the concession people couldn’t get me hot water to warm Kate’s bottle, so we had to head home after only being there a short time.  Glad we got to take Cooper in there though, cause we won’t be taking him to a Colt’s game this season for sure.  He’s just not got the attention span quite yet.

Sunday was spent hanging around the house, not doing too much of anything for me.  I spent most of my day sleeping, feeding Kate and washing bottles.  Our friend Jon who moved to Michigan last year was in town over the weekend and he came for dinner last night.   We grilled out and had a nice time visiting with him.  He used to be at our house a lot when he lived in Indy, so we’ve missed our extra family member.  It was so good to see him, if only for a few hours!

So why did I need to come to work to rest?  Well, Miss Katy girl, doesn’t want to eat.  Each time I fed her yesterday, she ate 2-3 ounces.  That is highly abnormal for her.  She usually eats 5 ounce bottles.  Then during the night I was up a good 2 hours 15 minutes.  The first time from 12:45 to 1:45 – where she ate a total of 2 ounces.  Then from 3:45 – 5, when she ate 2.5 ounces.  She still wasn’t hungry this morning.  I’m hoping she’ll eat at the babysitter today.  We’ll see.  She was still a happy smiling baby all day yesterday and again this morning.  So there’s always that. 

Happy Monday folks!  Let’s make it a good week!

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.

Cooper's 3rd Birthday Party

Prepare for picture overload….

Saturday October 6^th, 2012, we had Cooper’s Circus Birthday Party.    There were many in attendance, and it was a lot of fun.  The kids played with each other, they played on the trampoline, they played with the bean bag toss, they played with Cooper’s toys, they just played.  We ate, we ate some more, and we visited with folks that we haven’t seen in a while and others that we see nearly daily.  I think his party turned out to be pretty successful.

Ryan (RyRy) the juggler.  As the party was winding down, Ryan found enough room to actually perform for the crowd.  Everyone loves watching juggling.

Opening presents.  The pumpkin (From Bill & Mary) was filled with Tim’s not so favorite things, lol.  A Stanford tshirt and a Giants baseball.  Then there was also a Snoopy doll, which Cooper just loves.

Thomas the Train pillow for his big boy bed, from Great Grandma Heil.  J

Cooper’s friend Jackson (my friend Shannon’s son).  He decided to wear a clown nose.  One of the first kids to actually try it on.  Brave soul.

Digging right into the cake.  That boy loves chocolate.

Picture with Mommy and Daddy after blowing out the candles.

Posing with the awesome cake.  (Can you tell he’s already had some M&Ms?)

Julia and Gabby, two of the three neighbor girls and Cooper’s buds.  (Alexis couldn’t make it, boo!)

Party fun.  Layne and Larissa playing with Nana and Pappa Shawn.

More party people.  Mary with Kampbell (Soup) bottom left, Erica and Mel with Addison (Shannon’s daughter) Ryan and Steph, Jill and Jason and Max (Cooper’s best friend) and Layne in the middle of the room.

Janna and Julia, digging into her treat bag.

Grandma Gwen trying on the clown sundglasses.

Larissa going all out in the hat, glasses and nose!!  Oh, and our still open and dirty pool in the background, yuck!

All the kids fighting over the balls.

I couldn’t believe I got them all mid jump!

More trampoline fun.

Max and Jackson checking out the bean bag toss.

Larissa was brave and put her head inside the clown face J

Somebody got sleepy.  Cute Soup!

I just had to share this picture again, aren’t we just the cutest?  Three clowns!

Pappa Smith and Cooper when everyone had left, playing on the iPad.

Finally trying on a nose and a hat!

Nana spoiling Cooper with MORE sugar!

Look at that precious little girl.  She is getting so fun!

Smiley Soup.

Mom, Shawn, Coop and me!  3 generations.  Missing Grandma Heil…

Grandma Gwen, Grandma Kieran, Grandpa Norman, Pappa Smith and Coop and me.  4 generations.

Well, I told you picture overload!  If you made it through all of those, I’m proud of you!  I think everyone had a pretty good time, at least I did.  All of the hard work was definitely worth it! 

I’m so thankful we do not have a crazy full weekend this weekend – visiting the zoo for Zooboo on Saturday, church on Sunday and I think that’s it!  AMAZING!  I hope you have a great Thursday, I can almost taste Friday, it’s almost here!!