The Golden Weekend

Test week finally came to an end on Friday, and we had to celebrate to the best of our ability. We started off by attending Eliza Odell's birthday party. She was dressed up as Cinderella, and had a Cinderella theme. It was so cute, and Marissa had some cute activities for the kids. The first picture shows the activity where they waved a wand at Cinderella, said "Bippety-Boppety-Boo" and they would get some candy and bracelets. They also fed us dinner, which was awesome. Thanks for a good party Dan and Marissa.

Poor Drey, who is in the orange shirt. He's the only boy in our group of friends and children. He doesn't seem to mind too much, though. We won't tell him when he's older that he actually attended a Cinderella birthday party.

Jaycee's putting the crown on Cinderella's head in this picture. We spun them around, but they didn't get very dizzy.

On Saturday we went with our upstairs neighbors and other friends to Cedarburg to celebrate Brad's birthday. We packed a lunch to eat on the way, and Jaycee asked me for some chips. I handed her some, and looked back ten seconds later and this is what I found. She had zonked out and not even eaten a chip. Cedarburg, which is a town just North of us, was having a winter festival that we went to. A lot of the fun events were over by the time we started looking for them.
Lance put Jaycee in a tree, and she didn't want to get down.

Camels in Wisconsin? It's true. Jaycee really wanted a ride, but she probably would have chickened out after we forked out the money to pay for it.

She got to feed a goat. She wasn't scared a bit.

One of the cool things was all the ice sculptures. This was the best one we found because most of them were all melted from the heat wave we've been having. It has been so nice to have warm weather after the cold spells. Our snow is almost all the way melted.

Test week...ugh!!!

The dreaded test week is here, and we have made it through 3 of the 5 days of rigorous studying/testing. Well, I really haven't done much as far as studying or testing, but I'm definitely there for moral support. I cheer when Lance gets home and tells me he's done with one more test. Us wives have actually figured out that if we get together a lot during the week, it helps us survive much better. This is one of our get-togethers that happened on Saturday to welcome test week (thanks, Kaitlin). The girls chased each other around and around, then decided to hide under the table. From left to right are: Jaycee, Natalie, Myleigh, and Katelyn.

Jaycee's large head totally hides Natalie in this picture, but this shows Katelyn's face.

We also had an ice cream party on Tuesday night (thanks, Byrdie), and of course I couldn't pass up ice cream. I just didn't get any pictures. This next one is just of Jaycee being silly. I was getting her ready for bed and she ran off. It was really funny because it smashed her eyes and she looked like a puppy dog, but this picture doesn't show it very good.

One night Jaycee went into my room and decided to take her clothes off and try my pants on. She takes her clothes off frequently, and it is so exasperating finding her in her birthday suit at any time of day. She has to take her clothes off to get warm in her blanket. I try to explain that leaving her clothes on would only help her get warmer, but reasoning is of no use to a two-year-old. As you can see, the pants are rather large. It kind of looks like a strapless shirt (or whatever), and she gave a weird smile for the picture.

Just FYI--On Feb. 9th I will find out if I'm having a girl or boy and will post the results as soon as possible. I guess I carry my babies very compact because everyone tells me I'm not showing. I can tell a difference, but can hide my belly pretty easily also. When I get a baby bump (and don't just look "thick" as Lance has put it so dearly) I might post a picture of my belly, but don't count on it.

Snow!

Even though it's been really cold lately, there was a spell where we kept getting a ton of snow. When we would get snow in Idaho, there were celebrations. When we get snow in Wisconsin it means Lance will get home even later from school, and there's a very high chance that many wrecks will occur. I sometimes try to get the shoveling done, but it doesn't always happen. Jaycee loves when we get to go shovel because she gets to play outside. This particular night I left the shoveling for Lance and Jaycee was his little helper. Obviously, she enjoyed herself thoroughly. She did get really cold after being buried in a snow bank, though. I just wish we could get snow again so it will warm up.

Good ol' Wisconsin!

Well, we really love being in Wisconsin, and we have tried to explore new foods (I am not very exploratory when it comes to food). One food item we have tried is a bratwurst. They are actually very good. The picture above is a model of how Lance eats his brat. He starts with mashed up avocado (and possibly some mayo), then diced tomatoes. Those are covered with tons of mustard and ketchup and finally the brat. It was funny watching him eat it because it was so big. I am more of a ketchup and mustard girl myself. I actually just started liking mustard in the 24th year of my life, so it will be quite a while before I dare try Lance's version.




> Another thing about Wisconsin worth blogging about is the current cold spell we are experiencing. It's cold, but not unbearable when there's no wind present. I have tried to stay inside as much as possible anyway. The thing that's unbearable is the cold that seeps through the windows constantly. It's freezing. Jaycee decided that she wasn't going to freeze during the night, so she layered on three different pairs of pajamas. That's how you survive. She obviously didn't get cold in the night.


Here is a picture of the damages from Jaycee's haircutting experience. Like I said, we lucked out. She just barely started getting hair on the sides anyway, but cutting off what little she had didn't help it any.

Basketball game!

We decided to splurge and spend money for some nosebleed tickets to a Marquette vs. West Virginia basketball game on Saturday (Jan. 10). It was good to be able to do something. Below are some pictures of all the fun we had.
Austin, Drey, and Devenee went with us.

So did Brad and Meghan. Brad actually found the tickets for us. Good work, Brad. By the way, Andy, a first-year medical student friend, was also there with us. He probably felt a little out of place since he was going stag, so he avoided the pictures. We were glad he went, though. I did get one picture of him, but Devenee would kill me if I posted it, so I won't.
This is the actual tip-off to start the game, but we were so far away that it might be hard to tell.

Marquette started off pretty crappy, but ended up finding their momentum and giving WV a sound whipping.

Jaycee and Drey had to sit up above us on their own row (toddlers, of course) and no one was up there anyway.

Lance will never actually smile for these kind of pictures.

Drey was very cute with Jaycee, but she wanted to be girly and pretend like she wasn't interested. He is actually giving her a kiss on the cheek. So cute!

It's funner to take pictures of the kids than of the actual game.

This is Jaycee in a Dora sweater she got for Christmas. It's just a cute picture.
Just a little story:

A casualty of the flooded toilet upstairs is the only outlet in my bathroom. It just doesn't work, so I have to blow-dry and style my hair in the dining room. While blow-drying my hair Jaycee brought me a comb for me and then hurried and ran off into the bathroom. I didn't think anything of it, so kept on drying my hair. When I did go into the bathroom she was sitting on the counter and had a gob of hair on her shoulder and scissors in her hand. She hurried and said, "I cut my hair." I couldn't tell exactly where it had come from, but I did start freaking out. I asked her what she was doing, why she did it, and then asked if she wanted to look like a boy. She immediately said, "Yeah." Be careful what you ask with a toddler. Well, her haircut isn't bad. She cut the hair right above her ear up to her scalp, but luckily, the hair on top didn't get cut. It's easily hidden, but there's not very much hair on the one side. She only took one swipe with the scissors, whick is lucky. Oh well. I took her and showed her what we can cut with scissors and we made paper snowflakes. Since she wanted a haircut, I took her to Devenee and she trimmed her hair.

My kitchen...finished!

Ever since we moved out here to Wisconsin, our landlord had talked to Lance about doing the tile in our kitchen and the kitchen upstairs as well. We are glad to say ours is finally finished. Sorry Meghan and Brad, yours isn't started yet, but it will get done faster once it is started. Lance did all the tiling over Thanksgiving break, and then left the clean-up and finishing touches to me. That didn't get done very fast because I didn't want to do it. Today we finally finished it and sealed all the grout lines. Lance did a great job, and our landlord is pleased.

While we are on the subject of our apartment, let's just say our break for two weeks was hard on our kitchen and bathroom. First, we got a phone call from Brad (our upstairs neighbor) saying that their toilet had been overflowing all night and the water had gone into our bathroom, and all the way to the basement. Not much we could do being 1,200 miles away, but bad news nonetheless. It seems like everything (including the walls) survived without extensive damage.

Second, we got a call from him on Jan. 2nd. He and Meghan (wife) had smelled something funky coming from our apartment and went in to check it out. Our fridge had quit for some reason and all the contents of our fridge/freezer were rotting. We were still two days away from coming home so he offered, being the overly generous guy that he is, to clean it all out. I can imagine the smells he had to deal with, since we are still getting a whiff of it whenever we open our fridge. We are forever indebted to him for cleaning that out. From here on out we will empty our fridge when we leave (even though it will never happen again).

All in all, we had a wonderful break. We loved being able to spend time with our families, and loved having a break from studying (I need breaks from Lance's studying as well). We ate way too much delicious food, and were spoiled way too much. Jaycee was especially spoiled and given anything and everything she wanted. Thanks Mom and Dad (both sides) for everything.

Quick update for the holidays!

To start off our holiday, we flew out of Milwaukee at 6:05 PM. The miracle of it all is that Milwaukee got a foot of snow the night before and hadn't even opened the airport that day until 4:00 PM. We stood in line to check in for 2 hours, and had almost given up hope that we had missed our plane. Right before we got to the front of the line Jaycee fell asleep on top of our bag. It wasn't the most opportune time to have a dead-weight child to carry through the airport while running. I almost passed out, but we made it. When we got to the Salt Lake airport there was a small plane that had slid off the runway, forcing us to stay in the air until they figured everything out. When we landed, they had no walkway to hook the plane to so we could get off. It was great fun.

This is a cute apron made by my sis-in-law Brittany for Jaycee.
Of course Lance has been fishing as much as he can. He's caught plenty of fish to keep him happy for a little while.

My brother Chase got married on the 26th. I have a new sis-in-law, and she is awesome! This is Jaycee and her cousins McKynzee and Kambrie at the reception. They were flower girls for the wedding, but didn't understand their responsibilities. They looked cute anyway. For more pictures of the wedding and these adorable flower girls, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/jcmj526/ChaseSWedding#.

My brother Corby got his mission call to the Mexico Monterrey East mission. Way to go Corby! He leaves on March 25th.

Wow! The holidays have been eventful, but we've had so much fun. We've missed good old Bear Lake, and are glad to be able to spend some time here. This is a cute picture of Jaycee making friends with the biggest dog she's ever seen. He weighs 120 lbs. and his name is Boudreaux (not sure of the spelling).

We went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to spend New Years with Lance's family. Not too much excitement, but we did play some games and watch football. Thanks to everyone who made it possible to be there (Mark and Kammi).

I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'll post it later.

Funny!

These moments brought to you by: Toddlerhood! How boring my life would be without this little munchkin! Who would have thunk that pretzels were really meant to shove up your nose, and apple skins were really teeth? Not me.

Good intentions!

This is the Christmas card that I was planning on sending out this year. It's the thought that counts, right? I'll be the first to admit that Christmas cards are not my thing. I'm into the spirit of the season, and am so excited for Christmas to come, but I couldn't make it work into my frozen budget. That's not to say we're not doing alright. We are having a great time and we will survive. We haven't even bought a package of hot dogs (because I can't stand eating hot dogs), which is my mother-in-law's definition of being poor. So, without any further ado,

Happy Holidays, Everyone! We can't wait to come home!