Christmas Tree 2010

Instead of chopping our tree down ourselves this we took advantage of good old Home Depot. We had a gift card to use there and after looking at our December Calendar we didn't think we had time to go to a tree farm. Perhaps next year! Linnea will enjoy that more when she is older anyways. So here we are...bundled up on a weeknight at Home Depot picking out our perfect tree!

We found it! or more so, daddy did!

It took us maybe 5 minutes and then we headed to home to set up it!

It is the perfect fit for our little corner in the living room! Linnea loves to sit by it...especially now since it has lights and ornaments on it!

ooooh...hanging up the lights!

Linnea thinks over there would be a good spot...

and she also thought it looked like fun to climb the ladder and help daddio.

Tada! we have pretty lights!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Florida for Melilssa and Joe's Wedding

Congratulations to Melissa Potts and Joe Long!!!!

On Friday, November 26th one of my best friends from High School had her dream wedding on a beach in Florida and married her best friend Joe Long. I helped Melissa move down to Florida two years ago.

One day down there, Melissa met Joe and she is the happiest I have ever seen her!

Yay for your marriage and new chapter in your life!

I am so excited for you guys and so happy I could be a part of your special day.

Here is the bride taking a breather after many busy days and before she says "I do."

I stayed with my friends Aliya and Andy who were just married in September. Before the ceremony we stopped for a drink at Gators where the reception would be. The ceremony was just a short walk along the beach from here.

Sunset on the beach. Just about time for the wedding! so beautiful!

Melissa.

Father and daughter having a nice walk down the aisle.

Cupcakes!!

Decorative napkin.

Sharing the cupcakes.

Dancing! The dance was in the sand under the event tent at Gators. How fun to have a barefoot dance!

The girls!

Friends since junior high!!!

Here is the inside of our condo...

and this was our view!!! It was a perfect place to stay and much needed break after going back to work.

We did a little shopping while down there. Here is a Christmas tree in Florida. Looks funny to me with no snow!

I even found a candy shop with the name of Meyers...guess I own a candy shop I didnt know about :)

Crabby Bills has been one of the Potts' family traditions since they discovered it about 20 or more years ago. I went there twice when I moved Melissa down to Florida and once this time.

Melissa even made time come to dinner with us before she packed for her honeymoon.

Mel went home, but Aliya, Andy and I went mini golfing where I got a hole in one! wahoo! That hasnt happened in years!

And then we found the Candy Kitchen where we bought some old fashioned candy and a big sundae! yum!

Here is the boardwalk where went shopping.

We also got to go on a dolphin cruise!

If you look close you can see some fins! We did see them close up jumping but I couldnt get a picture fast enough and my videos didnt work either...

Hooray for the ocean but when Monday came I was ready to come home and see my lil girl and hubby! Next time hopefully the two of them can come to Florida too! It is a very cute and fun area that Melissa found to live.

Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving!!! It seems so long ago! But we have just been so busy that I havent been able to post about turkey day!

We had a great Thanksgiving and have so much to be thankful for...our health, our daughter, our family, our marriage, our house, cars and jobs and I could go on and on!

The day started for me with a cold but fun Turkey Day 5k around Como Lake. Chris had to work and the weather was too cold for Linnea to be in her stroller with me pushing her so my dad came over to have a morning with his grand daughter. I think they both loved it. I was able to run to the race from our house since the start was only about a mile away but after the event dad and Linnea picked me up. I got a nice shirt out of the deal, hot cider and coffee and some granola bars and crackers. I love doing fun runs and wish I could do more. It was different being available Thanksgiving morning since I have almost always worked at Caribou turkey day morning for the last almost 5 years so Im glad I took advantage of it bundled up and went on a run.

After the run Linnea and I headed over to my parents house for the feast. Some of us even got a short walk in after the meal and played at the park in the snow. After that Linnea was ready for a nap...she slept for almost 3 hours! Chris met us at my parents after work for warmed up feast and pie.

Here is the littles turkey in the family celebrating his first Thanksgiving!

We made it over to visit great grandma before heading home. It was a short visit but I think she liked seeing us and plus we brought her some apple pie!

We left her with Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving on. And I had to get home to finish packing since I went to Florida the day after Thanksgiving for a dear friends wedding!

Jacob's Baptism

The weekend before Thanksgiving we celebrated our nephew Jacob's baptism. Lisa's brother Pete and I are lucky enough to be this cute kid's godparents.

I sadly missed the actual baptism due to extremely icy roads. We made it to the church just as the baptism part of the service ended. I felt and still do feel terrible about this but was happy to at least make it to church for part of it, get some pictures and spend time with the family back at Erik and Lisa's house for Jake's special day.

I am honored to be his Godmom and am excited to see him grow and be a part of his life.

Here are the parents and Godparents of lil Jake.

Dylan and Linnea "sharing" some Kix. As you can see D-Man changed into his Packer jersey...it was a big game...Packers against the Vikings. Maybe if Linnea would have changed into her Vikings outfit the outcome would have been different :)

And I just had to post this cute picture of our lil girl that we took when we got home.

She had a great time playing with all of Dylan's toys and enjoyed most of the church service too. And here she is quite excited about her granola bar...or maybe about Jake's baptism. It's hard to say.

Woodbury Lakes Holiday Open House!

Saturday we did our first Christmas event of the season! We finally all felt good so we headed out to Woodbury Lakes for their Holiday Open House. The tree below is not the big one they lit up because that happened too late and too cold for us! But when we walked by this sparkly tree Linnea kept saying pretty pretty so I thought I'd snap a picture.

We will visit Woodbury Lakes again and see the bigger one and get a picture.

We also hope to see Santa the next visit...

We missed Santa but we did see Rudolph and the band the Okee Dokee Brothers were also performing! A quite chilly outdoor concert but we danced and sang with them for a lil while! A few of my friends and their kids were there too so that was great to see them.

Then we found the real reindeer! Linnea is in the yellow petting it!

Looking at it with grandma.

And we even got a picture with Rudolph! Frosty was there too and my mom got a great family picture with us and Frosty and that will hopefully be posted soon!

Here are the reindeer that took us on...

our first sleigh ride together! We just went a small circle at the end of the parking lot but it was very fun and holidayish!

After the ride we headed over to Chili's for dinner with my parents and Chris's mom and sister Allison. Linnea suprisingly made it in her high chair for all of dinner! If we could get her to do that at home that would be great!

It was a great night and hopefully next year it will be tad warmer and we can make it to the lighting of the tree, Santa's entrance(apparently on a fire truck!?) and the fireworks set to Christmas music! I just love the holiday season!

The Plague Hit Us All!

Sooooo we had quite the week! Chris and I only went to work 2 days...no the remaining 3 days were not spent on a vacation or just laying around relaxing. They were however spent laying around, running to the bathroom and cleaning up Linnea and her crib. Yep. We can now say we have experienced a puking toddler. And it is terrible. The worst. Sunday night we went to bed after making lefse feeling fine. Linnea still had what we thought was a three week cold, but other than that we thought we were okay. Around midnight Linnea cried and we were just going to let her cry for a few minutes because that is usually what happens between 11 and 12 every night. She cries for a few minutes and then gets over it without needing help. Well the cries turned into screams and then coughing and then we heard her puking. Poor thing! So we got her changed, bathed and let her curl up with us and we made it until morning without anymore episodes.

But when she awoke she had another one. So we changed her and cleaned her up again. We headed downstairs to relax on the couch with a movie. Chris and I both took the day off thinking that would be easiest on all of us. After some water and saltines Linnea threw up again. We decided to head into the doctor. We went to a different one than our usual since they dont take walk ins and Chris had just been there on Wed and they thought she was fine.

We were happy with where we went because the doctor confirmed what we thought all along. Linnea has another sinus infection. She had one Memorial Day Weekend and was prescribed Amoxicillan which helped very quickly! And the same thing happened this time. We gave her her dosage and then she slept for three hours! She wasnt 100% when she woke up but she was getting better.

So Monday night came, and I finally got to take a shower and as I was getting out I thought, hmmmm, I'm not feeling quite right so I quickly got into to bed thinking I was just overtired. Well about an hour later that was not the case. I definitely was sick. Stomach flu! Then about an hour or so later Chris got sick. Same thing. Thank goodness my mom has Tuesdays off and she was able to come help with Linnea. We didnt want to send her back to daycare quite yet so she got to cuddle with grandma.

We made it through Tuesday (barely) and Linnea went to daycare Wed and I went to work. Chris was still on his deathbed so he stayed home Wed. Wednesday night Linnea puked in the night again so Thursday I was home but Chris made it to work. By the evening she was back to her happy self so Friday everyone was back to work and daycare.

As much as I enjoy cuddling with Linnea and watching all her kid shows and movies, Id rather have her feeling well and playing! Let's hope we dont have a repeat of this week anytime soon or ever at all would be nice, but I doubt that will happen! And thank you Amoxicillan and second opinion doctor for curing Linnea! She seems to be recovered and so do we! hooray!

Lefse Making

Every year for the past maybe 3 years or so we have been making massive amounts of homemade lefse just before the holidays together as a family.

Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, everyone.

It is amazing to think that at one time just my grandparents made the lefse. Just the two of them. It must have taken all day.

With all of us working it still takes 2-3 hours and thats not including the preparation that happens the night before.

We all take turns doing the different tasks, rolling the balls, flattening them and flipping the lefse on the super hot burner.

Good job Erik and Dwight!

Most of the gang.

We had kids around this year so they had to be entertained by someone...

Who better than Brian! Well actually he entertained them during the cleanup. He and his family could only make it for dinner. Linnea slept through most of lefse making so she didnt need to be entertained. Jake was happy in his exersaucer and Dylan did a great job of entertaining himself and playing with grandpa and uncle Chris. It was a great day and I can't wait to eat more lefse on Thanksgiving!