TIGF

Today is a busy day with friends and for that I'm grateful! Riley and I are going to lunch with my friend Jenny and her little guy Nolan today and then to the Holidazzle with Jim, Erica and Ashley tonight. I don't get to see a lot of my friends as a group much anymore so the one-on-one time is becoming very important to me! Also sometime soon I need to go visit the newest little buddy of Riley's...Liam Michael Barkley was born on Monday and we are excited to meet him! Liam is Owen's little brother...And if that doesn't help, they are the children of my college roomie, Maureen! And college roomie Sarah is due any minute!

P.S. Don't forget to pray for the adoption proceedings for my friend Fred. They have hit some bumps that might delay the finalizing of their adoption soon...they were hoping to be done by Christmas and they are still hoping, but it is becoming less likely. Please pray for the best Christmas ever for them!!!

NOTE: This pic is Riley and Nolan from our lunch today. Again, I should remember...always take pictures at the beginning NOT at the end...this was the best of a lot of not great shots:) Nolan was very good...Riley, not so much!

Falling Behind...

I'm getting yelled at by my family for not posting enough...geez, I still post at least twice a week, but it's not enough?!?! Ok, so here's a short version and I'll post more with pics soon.

Riley is singing along with Christmas "muse-kick" now and LOVES her Shelf Elf who's name is Olf (ask me to explain). She calls Rudolph..."Rudolph with your nose so bright" and loves the lights on her own neighborhood...She thinks each house is a neighborhood because we took her looking at lights and kept asking if she wanted to see one more neighborhood...She says "Oh My!" or "They're cute!" at every house with lights and especially loves Frosty. (No!!! That does not mean we need to have a million Frosty lights or stuffed snowmen PLEASE!)

Quinkie has returned from the North Pole and is the WEIRDEST fish ever! Apparently he/she was returned a bit psycho. The darn thing literally plays dead. It lies on the side of the bowl most of the day and barely breathes but shoots around like a cannon when I shake the bowl to check if it's really dead. I'm starting to wonder if the original was really gone?!?! But swimming sideways is generally a good indicator, right?

We went to see the 8th floor Daytons (no it's not Macy's or Marshall Field's, it's Daytons!!!) show with my parents and Meg and Adrienne today and Riley loved the whole thing. Honestly I've never seen my mom so antsy as she was waiting for Meg to get there!!! (She already saw it once and she knew Riley would love it!) Katie and the crew didn't come because they went with Darin's parents who were in town for a little bit this past week.

Anyway, Riley didn't want to leave any part of it. Each new window was the best one. And just like her mommy she enjoyed the cookie at the end the best! I learned my lesson from last year though and she had a WHITE cookie and not a RED one...she puked from the red frosting last year and that stained bad!!! Tomorrow night we are going to Holidazzle again downtown. I love downtown at Christmas! So thus you will get pics from that stuff after tomorrow so I can download all at once. We're also getting our Christmas tree this weekend, so it may be Saturday night before pics surface.

Ahhhh....see why I haven't posted, I haven't been home much! Gotta run, bedtime!

P.S. Lowlight of my day. I sprayed gas all over my jacket when I filled up today and I can't get the smell out. I've washed it 4 times! Any tips? I'm going to try Febreeze next and I already tried soaking in baking soda per my mom-in-laws suggestion. Next step is airing in freezing cold garage, but I need a jacket!!!

Christmas with DuRoche's

I'm sure I've posted pics of the DuRoche family before, but this weekend was our holiday get-together with them and we had a great time. We had a cookie decorating "contest" and the house was just beautiful (check out the tree that Riley is sitting by)! Food was great...the kids were mostly well behaved, mine being the worst of the bunch I think. The food was really good and most of all it is always fun to see the DuRoche's and this time Brien was home too! We have known them most of my life (I think I was in first or second grade?) so it's fun to see how we all grew up and now our kids are growing up buddies too!

P.S. Sharis, that's a Santa Bear that riley is playing with:)

Sha-bul, Two-Year-Old Style

Riley has her very own sha-bul (shovel) to help Daddy. Sometimes it's a "rake" too...here's a few shots from this Saturday's shovel fest...just barely enough to shovel, but enough to get a huge response from Miss Roo...she's now begging to "sha-bul" all the time!

Green Energy

A friend of mine told me about a renewable energy option that Xcel Energy provides customers. You have the option to request some of your energy come from a wind source power grid. I don't know a whole lot about it and she's going to keep me posted on the details, but if you are an Xcel customer, it's an option to think about. She says it's anywhere from $.04 to $1.24 a month, but if you want to save the earth, why not check it out...the more people invest in that technology, the cheaper it will get!

TIGF

I am super thankful for my early Christmas present from Josh. We went to see Wicked last night and it was AMAZING! And we went to dinner at Rock Bottom with my parents before and that was a ton of fun and my in-laws babysat Riley and actually got her to bed a little before 9:00 (I know that sounds late, but I was glad because she didn't take a nap so I was afraid she would sleep at 7:00 and I'd be up this morning at 5:00 a.m. I know, selfish of me, but we were out late so I'm grateful!! Plus, Riley's normal bedtime is 8:30-9:00 anyway...she's kinda night owl.) I'm not sure what time Auntie Jessie fell asleep on the couch (she comes from a long line of nappers!), but it was fun that she came to babysit too last night! What a great night all around! Guess that made up for the fish funeral earlier that day...Incidently, if you see Riley before Sunday...Santa is still trying to help Quinkie feel better and he/she will be home soon...I'm going to replace the fish on Sunday I think...She cried when I told her the elf too Quinkie to see Santa because he wasn't feeling very well...can't imagine what she would have done if I said Quinkie croaked!

R.I.P Quinkie

Today the smallest member of our family went to the pearly toilet bowl in the sky: R.I.P Quinkie:(