Happy New Year!

So long ago I gave up making resolutions, but last year maybe around March or so I committed myself to making our lifestyle a little greener. I fully admit that I used to think people who were eco-nuts were, well, nuts. But I decided to make baby steps in the right direction and see what one year could do. So I'm now proud to announce the things we have changed this year...small steps added up to a lot of things overall and we didn't even notice the change!

• Switched to environmentally friendly cleaning products. I have even made some of them! Most of them I like, still working on something that cuts kitchen grease though.

• Started recycling plastic bags at Cub. Did you know you can also recycle plastic wrap from your paper towel and stuff like that too?

• Started walking or biking to do small grocery trips in the summer. (This was mostly because of the high cost of gas, but Josh and I enjoyed it so we will probably continue even if gas stays low by next summer!)

• Also started trying to combine more trips into one so I don't take the car out as much. And I know this is silly, but I try to plan my route with right hand turns because apparently that's more fuel efficient:)

• Started recycling cardboard more, didn't really do much of that before.

• Started bringing home bottles or cans to recycle if I was out and bought a water or a pop. (Did you know that recycling 1 can can save enough energy to power at TV for 3 hours?)

• I found a reuseable coffee cup sleeve so when I go to Caribou, I can use my own and that saves cardboard sleeves! Ok, I know that's pretty small and if I was REALLY green, I would bring my own mug, but c'mon, baby steps remember!

• Started bringing my own bags to the grocery store. I'm particularly proud of this one cuz we actually remember MOST of the time now!

• Started reusing Christmas cards and scratch paper for Riley's art projects. She loves them! I even give my old desk calendars to her to play with and she thinks it's pretty cool!

• Switched to LED lights on our tree this year! I'm really excited about this one too and next year I think we might even switch the house lights. I found a house in the neighborhood that has my LED C9s and it's not THAT BAD! It's not as bright as the lights I have always used, but I think I can sacrifice! Baby steps!

• And my new favorite, got Bamboo sheets and towels for Christmas and I LOVE THEM! They are sooo soft! Bamboo is a more renewable material than cotton and requires less (or no?) pesticide to produce. Plus it's naturally anti-bacterial.

See, little things add up and we didn't even notice it! Yikes! What should we try next year? Any thoughts?

What a Way to End the Year!

We have had a great New Year's Eve and it isn't even evening yet! Auntie Meg bought the older kiddos Build-A-Bear gift certificates for Christmas this year and today we went to build our animals. Riley and I started our morning with hot chocolate at Caribou, where the nice lady gave me the mall discount so I could get Riley her own kid-size cocoa and mommy could get a larger white cocoa (I had $5 and I didn't want to put it on a card). We sat by the fountain at Ridgedale and drank our hot chocolate. Riley, with her chocolate mustache, looked up at me and said "I'm happy!" and wrinkled her nose up all cute. Then when Meg and Adee arrived we went in to explore the store before Zack, Kiley and Katie met us. We decided on a Penguin who's name is "just Penguin"...Her birth certificate says "Penguin, I left the "just" part out:)

If you've never been to Build-A-Bear, it's great! They have all kinds of animals at all kinds of price points, then you pick a heart for your bear and you can pick a sound box too if you want. Riley's penguin says "I love you" and Roo giggles every time Penguin says it! Then the nice person at the store helps you stuff your own animal...

First, there is a huge exercise in giving the animal it's little satin heart. The kids have to warm it up between their hands, give it a kiss on both sides so it's filled with love, close their eyes tight and make a wish...and hop two times...then the kids get to step on the pedal that feeds the stuffing and they decide if they want it "squishy or hard". After all the stuffing the animal is stitched up and they can take their creation to the "bath" and blow-dry and brush them. Then it's off to pick an outfit. This took Riley FOREVER...We decided on a rainbow tank top for Penguin and white sparkly tennis shoes with butterflies on them. Zack named his bear Lightning and picked a Vikings outfit. He didn't have nearly as much trouble picking his outfit! (Funny, Meg likes rainbows and Vikings, but the kids picked their stuff without her help!) Zacky did skip the noise box part because he was so excited to stuff the animal he didn't want to sit and listen to all his choices...Zack likes things that make noise and the stuffing machine is NOISY! Each animal gets a birth certificate and there is an id tag inside each one so if they ever get lost the animal can be sent back home.

After all that, we went to Applebees for lunch with my sisters and the kids and all the kids crashed when they got home...EVEN ZACK! What a day! And tonight we're going to a party for a little while with my friends Shannon and Breann, then we'll come home a bit early to celebrate the New Year safe in our own living room! Ahhhhh....Happy New Year!

Schuster Christmas

Here are the Schuster Christmas festivities. Santa came to see Riley and brought her a Barbie Big Wheel and a Barney video, which I happily left at Grandma Linda's house (Barney isn't allowed in my house, I strongly dislike purple dinosaurs! But GL wanted it at her house for when Riley comes anyway! Works out great that way!) Also, I remember one of my favorite things about the Schuster Christmas...Pammy's cookies;) Josh's aunt makes hundreds of cookies every year and even though Linda always has a million desserts too, we always go home with cookies! And Pammy even made the dipped pretzels just for me...my faves:) This year, Linda had a pecan pie which was also pretty special cuz I think Mark and I are the only people who like pecan, so it was really nice of her!!! Thanks Linda!! We had so many desserts that she didn't even take out the cup cakes that are another of my favorites. I think I'm a bit spoiled!!!

Happy B-Day Old Man!

Ok, I have just a few hours left, but I can't be the only sib who doesn't publicly wish Darin a Happy Birthday! Hope it was a good one! And I want to wish Maureen. my college roomie a happy b-day too:)

Cooley Christmas

Ok, now that the silly pics are done, here are some actual pics form Christmas Eve at my parents house.

Silly Cooley Family!

Here's a few silly shots of my side of the family...My cousin Timmer likes to mess with Zack...this year he wrapped him in gift wrap and THEN tickled him instead of the usual tickle torture. Then there's my Uncle and Jack:) (The irony here is that I don't think I have ever even seen my uncle drink!) And my grandma hugging her huggable hangers:)

Christmas 2008

Ok, I'm getting to the pictures, I have them downloaded, but I need to do some stuff before I get them all posted, but here's one picture from Christmas...this is what I mean when I say we have TONS of appetizers instead of a dinner. This isn't even all of them...there's a side table with a least 3 more on them and in the kitchen was all the desserts including a chocolate fountain!

TIGF

Things I'm Grateful For??? Yikes, where do I start? We are spoiled rotten! Santa was very good to us this year like every year and I am thankful that we are lucky enough in this economy to have that. The food was great, there are WAY too many gifts to count...Honestly, I wish everyone could experience Christmas on a grand scale (I think a lot about the homeless and the kids who's parents are unable to give them much at Christmas), but really it's not about the gifts and the food, I'm most thankful to have my family at this time of year. Riley has very special grandparents and great grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles...And so do we! Thank you for making Christmas special.

Annie, I hope you're feeling better!!!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas! (All Through the house?)

Happy Christmas To All....

Ok, I will admit something...the past 6 or 7 posts have all been scheduled posts that I wrote over a week ago. This one is no exception, but I figured this season gets busy and I didn't want to forget to post (and no one can blame me fore not posting enough this way!). Today is Christmas Eve, and even though I write this on Dec. 15th, I know what I'm like on Christmas and I can't WAIT to get the party started...

Christmas Eve is at my parents place as always and our tradition is to have nothing but appetizers (I think there's like 15-25 of them!). When I was young it was aps. and soup, but that got phased out because there were just too many leftovers! Part of the reason I blog early is because today will be a busy one of making bacon wraps, pizza bubble and Josh's silly mini-weiners...Each of us kids is responsible for bringing something, so I'm prepping stuff...Then there's Dad's famous chicken wings(probably the only appetizer that hasn't come and gone and come back again over the years), Katie is probably bringing her spinach bread that I love and Meg promises to do something Rachel Ray style...and my mom is super creative with presentation and changes her long list of contributions a little bit every year. And the Cooley cousin side of the fam brings stuff too, so you see, there's no need for Turkey or Ham or Prime Rib, there's no room!!

I'm also anxiously waiting for Riley to hurry up and take her nap and wake up so we can get to my parents house early like I always do:) I have always accepted the "baby of the family" role (I'm 20 minutes younger than Meg, but it counts!), along with my cousin Kerry who truly is the baby of her family, and it's normally Bear and I who start asking when it's time to open presents. If we get to Mom and Dad's early enough and all the appetizers are prepped and ready to go, we get to open one gift before the company gets there...YEAH!!!! and since the kids are here now, sometimes we open even more before people come so we don't have to stay until midnight to finish!

Tomorrow, we will go to Church where the choir will end with "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and we will rock to the contemporary jazzy beat...or as the kids say...get down! Then off to Schusters for dinner...Not sure what we're having there yet, Linda usually makes a few options and Riley will probably come home with lots of noisy toys:) And I'm not sure if nap time will happen either...gonna have to play it by ear, but Riley doesn't sleep at Grandma's house...it's almost a rule! I'll post more on Christmas Day later in the week with pictures!

Anyway, this is long and rambling, but Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good night!

Silly Ornament that Has a Place...

Yes, this ornament has a place up front too...and it's really not even ours. I think it's Jim's, if not, it belongs to Tom or Bean...Our house, which we like to call The MoSchu Palace, was kinda like a hang-out for all of our friends (Dad always called it a "clubhouse" in all his Christmas letters) and in fact, a few of them lived with us for a while.

This ornament belonged to one of the boys, like I said, I really think it was Jimmy, and it was put on our tree one year because he said they spent more time at our house than they did at their own and so it was his way of contributing to our "family" tree...which all of my friends are very much a part of, whether there is an ornament there or not! I love that ornament because it reminds me of all the crazy fun we have had with our friends! We hope you all have a holiday that is filled with fun memories and happiness...Drive safely to all your holiday gatherings and Huge Hugs from the MoSchu!

Success!

Day two - Nap in a big girl bed a success...only took 2 hours of trying! And about 6 times putting her back in bed:) After the new year, we'll tackle the pluggie issue!

Two Cute Stories

Ok, so nap time yesterday wasn't very successful, but bedtime went a little smoother. But I have a funny story from our nap adventure. In her typical stall tactic fashion, she poked her head out of the bedroom door and said "Mommy, c'mon in! C'mon in! I'll give you a treat!" So I went half way up the stairs and she said "I've got a special treat for you, come in!" I went into her room cuz she was so determined to give me a treat and she says "It's still cooking." Then she picks something out of the carpet some imaginary "treat" of some sort and hands it to me. "It's kinda messy," she says:) "Eat it!"

So that's my funny from yesterday, this morning when I got out of the shower, Riley peeked her head into the bathroom and said "I wish you a Merry Christmas!" with the cutest smile on her face. She LOVES Christmas music and she's starting to mimic songs. This one is one of her favorites. So is Santa Claus is Coming to Town. She likes to say "You better not pout" over and over:) And if you finish the verse for her she will end with "Santa Claus is coming to tooooown..." And she will often tell me "It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

More Childhood Ornaments

Here are a few more of my favorite ornaments from 100 years ago...or, say, 30-ish...The Snow Baby playing baseball came from my dad. Each one of us girls got one...it was maybe 10 years ago or so...Dad was our coach playing softball growing up and I have always called him Coach just about as often as I call him Dad:) This was his special gift to us one year and it is always pretty close to the front of my tree. (You must be thinking, do ANY ornaments go in the back? A few, but I have fond memories of a lot of them! And yes, even Josh's ornaments and Riley's find space up front too...remember we have a FAT tree!)

And the Glass Bulb ornament with my name on it I think is a replacement. We had a tragic ornament accident one year and our tree fell over and broke a lot of the glass bulbs. I know for sure Katie's was replaced, but I can't remember if it was mine or Meg's that also had to be replaced.

I have so many special ornaments that I won't bore you with the rest, but I can tell you have ornaments from both sets of grandparents both that were given to me as a child (bulbs that say Special Grand-daughter) and ornaments from their trees that don't make it up anymore. I have a special purple bulb and a pink one from my Munn grandparents and some wooden and straw ornaments from my Cooley grandparents. (At this point my mom is either saying...enough already...or she's crying a lot!) So tomorrow will be the last of the ornament memories, but it's a silly one, don't worry!

Milestone Day

Today is one of those days I've been dreading for two years. We switched Riley into a big girl bed today. Her crib converts so it was an easy switch physically, but mentally and emotionally, not so much. Right now I'm blogging while it sounds like my kid is moving her mattress across the room:) Nope, I just checked, no damage yet. We're working on having her ask to get out of bed. She just asked:) So I guess we'll try later when she's actually tired. I think she wanted to try napping right after lunch because it was new and exciting, but I don't think she was tired enough yet. She has been taking later afternoon naps, so we'll try in an hour or so. Wish us luck! (I'll get pics when she's sleeping!)

Ornaments from Vacation

We often picked up ornaments while we were on vacation or we would get an ornament from Mom and Dad to remember a vacation...I think the ornament of the mice from Cinderella came after we went to Disney World one year and it, like my Melbourn ornament ALWAYS goes front and center on the tree:) I am a huge fan of Gus-Gus!

The Ireland shamrock ornament became a front-and-center ornament four years ago when Josh and I went to Ireland. One of my favorite holiday songs (and, yes, I have MANY faves!) is "Christmas in Kilarney" and I bought this ornament in Kilarney while we were over there. It would have been a big deal to my Grandpa Munn that we made it to Ireland because that is where his family was from, of course my Grandma was very proud of her English heritage so I better get there someday too! (I'm not so sure about Poland and Germany, sorry, G&G Cooley...but in my defense, they don't speak English!)

Riley's 1st Christmas

Ok, let's take a break from my memory lane and visit some of Riley's first Christmas ornaments. There are many more than this, but here's a sample of how the tradition continues.

Stall Tactic Failed!

Riley's new thing is to stall when it's time for bed, both at nap time and bed time. I also think we're getting close to a big girl bed because she keeps asking to sleep on the floor for nap time. But I usually give in and let her read in her crib because this is what happens:)

TIGF

Fleece lined jeans...that's all I have to say really! Thank you, Linda, for my cozy warm jeans, especially now that the temps are barely climbing into positive numbers!

Also, a very special HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my parents (Please don't ask me how many years...it's 35+, I think!). Josh and I have great role-models to follow on both sides of the family and we are very lucky to have such special grandparents for our kiddo!

Oh, and I can't forget to wish my friend Cheri a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY too!!!

Smile for the Camera!

We had a busy day today. I took Riley for a haircut (she even held still for them to put a little braid in her hair!), and then we went to watch cousins Zack and Kiley so Katie could do some Christmas shopping. Everyone was all smiles for the camera today, including Coko, my sister's dog:)

Check out Zacky's hair. He announced as soon as I walked in, "My hair is still crazy, Auntie Mo!"

Memories from my Grandparent's house

Christmas Eve has always been at my parents house, but when I was younger, Christmas Day meant "Over the river and through the woods..." literally to Grandmother's house we'd go. They lived in Rockford, MN and we had to cross the Crow River and then they lived on a heavily wooded lot on a lake. Every day after Thanksgiving my family would go out and decorate G&Gs place for Christmas and every year that meant taping these stained glass decorations to the sliding glass door in the basement where we had our Christmas celebration. These stained glass little guys are extra special to me because me and my sisters made them for my grandparents when we were pretty little. This year, I have inherited the stained glass because Grandma and Grandpa don't put up as many decorations anymore, and Riley helped me tape them to our sliding glass door! My grandma always joked that we always had to work when we came to the lake, but some of my best memories are of decorating their place for Christmas and chopping wood and raking leaves in the fall!

Memories...

Here begins the Christmas posts and a flashback to the days when I was Riley's age...Well, ok, I don't know if I remember back that far, but here's why I love holidays so much. We have a lot of family traditions that make them so much fun:) When I was a kid my parents started buying us ornaments every year so we would have them to decorate our tree when we got married. (When they got married, all they had was bows from their wedding gifts to decorate.) Here are some of my favorites over the years. I have to start with Melbourn and Perth (The Koala is Mel and the bird is Perth). I went through a phase when I was a kid of LOVING koalas and for some reason this little guy was a huge hit with me. I always put him right in the middle of the tree...and that is where he is to this day!

Tree Shopping 2008

Saturday we picked out our Christmas Tree and I decorated while Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Martina McBride sang Christmas music and Josh and Riley napped. Apparently they were so tired from driving all the way to the ONE place less than a mile from our house where we found the perfect tree. After a bit of a delay because we didn't have enough lights, I'm happy to say, Riley has deemed it "beautiful" and "cute" so we're all good! From now until Christmas I will be blogging some of my favorite Christmas memories, starting with the ornaments. But for now...here is shopping for and the finished product...The Schuster Christmas Tree 2008.

P.S. I should add that the tree this year is a Scotch Pine...my dad's tree of choice and now mine! But it has to be nice and FAT! I like my trees round like Santa!

More from Adee's b-day

Here's a few more pics of the party. Sara is the one holding the birthday girl...she's a friend from high school, one of Meg's best friends:) Zack and Riley had lots of fun with Adrienne's toys...they pretty much had a party all by themselves!

Happy Birthday Miss A!

Today, Miss Adrienne turns one big year! We're braving the weather to drive to East Bethel for the big party this afternoon. Happy Birthday Big Girl!

NOTE: Meg made the pumpkin dessert thing, isn't it pretty? Adee didn't like the cake much but the ice cream worked! I'll try to post more pics and video tomorrow.

Downtown Dayton's

No, not Macy's....I'm in denial, I think I mentioned that...here's the pics from our trip downtown on Thursday. Meg has some good pics on her blog too. (Trackin the Treds). The one where Riley has her tongue out is her trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue. The snowflakes were video projected on the walls but she thought they were real:)