Our Christmas is officially over

Today our Christmas officially came to an end as Courtney, Paul, and Tizita headed back to Oshkosh. Even though they arrived a day late, we still had a very great celebration. It took Paul quite some time to load up their car today with all the goodies they had accumulated over the holiday. Tonight John and I will have our king bed back to ourselves without our little Tizita sleeping between us. We will miss her, especially when she would wake up in the morning and greet us with her, "Good Mornin' Grandma, Good Mornin' Grandpa"- such a sweet way to begin the day!

Having some silly grandma/Tiz moments. The entire Christmas was filled with laughter and joy brought on by Tizita.

Today before Tiz left for home, she and I spent some time sledding. It was a beautiful day out there and we both had so much fun!

So, in agreement with this sweet little Lady, thumbs up on this Christmas!

Another Christmas over, bring on the New Year!

John and I sharing some Christmas cheer! This was on Christmas Eve at Kev's house after church.
Christmas Eve gifts. New sunglasses for Mal!
The annual new pajama modeling. Courtney was missing in the fashion show this year, but she did get her pajamas when she got here. The cutest ones ever, we think.
Our Christmas gift exchange with Courtney, Paul, Lis and Nathan on Dec. 26. John got a vintage Jimmy Buffet poster and his new CD.
My first picture with my new camera! I got a new camera from Courtney, Paul, Lis, and Nathan. No more double flash!
Our annual Pajama picture coming through the arch looking at the presents under the tree. This picture goes back to when I was about 2 years old and we don't miss a year!
Working on the donut holes.

A new car for Tizita!
Christmas turned out to be a great time despite getting off to a rather bumpy start with snow storms. Sometimes the best laid plans do not work out the way we think they should, but with a little flexibility ( I am still working on this) things can be just fine.
Courtney, Paul, and Tiz will be here until Wednesday, so I have lots of time to spend with my favorite little one!

They are on the road home!

First of all, thank you Verna for the very nice comment. We did, indeed have a wonderful Christmas Day. First, our brunch in the morning with Kev and Mal, Lis and Nathan, and my mom. Next our celebration at John's mom and dad's with his side of the family. His mom always goes out of her way to make it a special time. We gave up gift exchanges with them years ago, but she adds so many little touches that no one misses a big gift opening. The only sad part of the day was that John's dad is now in a nursing home (hopefully not permanently) so he was only able to come home on a day pass. He is failing, weak, and suffering from Parkinson's. It was hard on MaryAnn (John's mom) when he had to go back and to see her sad, just makes us sad for them. While they took John's dad back, Alissa and I cleaned up the house, did all the dishes from our delicious prime rib dinner, and hit the road home.
The festivities were still not over though! Kev, his friend, Vikki, and Mal came over. We all headed to our basement, started a fire, looked at many old pictures, and drank beers to toast my dad, Kenny whose spirit lives on in that basement. What a wonderful Christmas Day we had!
And to make matters perfect, Courtney, Paul, and Tiz are somewhere in Minnesota on their way here! I have to put the turkey in and get the preparations started for that Christmas!
Yep, Verna, you are right, it does all work out if I give it some time and understanding!

Untitled phase 2

It is 6 AM on Christmas Day. Merry Christmas everyone! I just got a call from Courtney. To their credit, they did make an attempt to get here, but they are turning around and heading back to Iowa. They will be stuck there for a few days yet and we are forced to celebrate the holiday without them. This will be the first Christmas ever since the girls were born that they will not be together at Grandma and Grandpa's Damman's for the gift opening. Over the years they have always been each other's support system at the gathering, sitting side by side and opening their gifts. Granted, we have not always been there on actual Christmas Day or Eve, but it was always the two girls together at that gathering. I will miss Courtney there today, but I know it will be Alissa who will probably miss her the most.
Now, you may be wondering what about my side of the family? Well, since Courtney got married we have had a few Christmases without her and Paul so we have learned to just find new and different ways to celebrate. Christmas Eve for us always has been church at St. John's where both girls and my brother and I were part of the gradeschool Christmas program and then gift opening afterwards and that will stay the same for years to come. It is what is expected of us and one of the few traditions this family actually has. I have yet to figure out how to fit Courtney and Paul into the mix. We have yet to come up with an alternative to celebrating Christmas that works for us. I wonder if all families have this dilema when a child marries.
I am thankful that for the time being Alissa and Nathan Christmas with us and head to his dad's the week after to celebrate with him. I appreciate that they have done this for me, it is a good gift. Once they have their own family and if they move to Bloomington in the future, they may not be able to spend each Christmas Eve and Day with us, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.
So, plans for the rest of today, glad you asked. I have an egg dish ready to put in the oven and there will be cinamon rolls. My brother and Mal will join us for the brunch and then we will head to John's folks around noon with Alissa and Nathan. No matter what, Christmas is still Christmas and the celebration goes on.

This Christmas seemed to be planned so well. Courtney, Paul, and Tiz were heading to Iowa for five days and then they were headed back here on Christmas Day, but lo and behold, the weather has not been very cooperative and it appears they may be snow bound in Iowa for one or two extra days. Simple enough, right? Not so much for me, I am a planner and I am a controller and I want things to run the way that they are supposed to run and as you can imagine, this has thrown a major monkey wrench into my well planned out, controlled Christmas.
Logically, there is no one to blame for the weather, but part of me feels that if Courtney had watched the weather forecast they could have cut their visit short by one day and gotten here to celebrate. They apparently do not forecast with the same gloom and doom when the white death looms in Iowa as they do here in Wisconsin because they heard nothing of the storm until the ice pellets were hitting the windows. I have my own theories of their awareness of the weather conditons but I have already discussed these at length with Courtney. I have instructed her to go online and find a Wisconsin meteoroligist and listen to his forecast for tomorrow and beyond.
Alissa and Nathan have just arrived for our Christmas Eve celebration so I am off to have some fun. I will continue this later.

And more celebrating with Tizita

Here is our little three year old Birthday girl with her favorite Uncle! Lissa, Nathan, Gigi, John and I headed up to Oshkosh to celebrate the big day with our little lady. It was indeed a great celebration.
Tizita loved her donkey pinata. Luckily it was one of the pinatas with the ribbons so we did not have to break it to get at the surprises!
We played "Pin the Nose on Elmo". It is a long standing tradition to play a pin the something on something at all or our parties and so the tradition continues. Here is Tizita getting ready to take her turn at putting the nose on Elmo. Funny thing, Alissa and I both put our noses on the window of the front door which is not even on the wall where Elmo was hanging, huh!
Here is the beautiful cake that Tizita picked out. It tasted as good as it looked, too.
Papa got out his trumpet at Tiz's request and played some Christmas music for us.
Here is the desk that we gave Tiz. She had lots of fun filling the drawers and trying it out.
Here are the rpoud grandparents with the little birthday girl!
Eating the yummy birthday cake.
Snuggling with Aunt Lissa and Uncle Cheddah.
And finally, ending the party with a ride in a box. Why is it that little ones always have the most fun with boxes? I tried to have John carry this box of Tiz right out to the car without her Mama and Papa noticing, but it didn't work!
Today they are on their way to Iowa to celebrate Christmas with Paul's family. Big snowstorm predicted for Christmas Eve and Day so we may not see them till the spring thaw!
At any rate, our little Tizita is three years old now and right on track for all the things that a typical three year old should be doing and then some!

Celebrating Tizita's third birthday in Preschool

Happy Third Birthday, Tizita Desta Van Auken!
Today was a very special day for Tizita in Preschool. Not only was she the star of the day, but we also celebrated her third birthday. She brought the treat today and I have to say she brought the best chocolate, chocolate chip cookies from Shonda's. This is a time when it definitely pays to have your granddaughter in class. I could tell her just which cookies to bring for the treat!
The older Preschoolers went up to the Kindergarten room today for a visit so I only had eight little ones for this delicious snack and they all enjoyed it very much.After the snack of these yummy cookies, the kids enjoyed playtime. Here you see Tizita and her friend Carlee in a train that Gavin made for them. Gavin insisted on pushing them around the room. It was pretty funny and you can see that they were having a very good time. You can also see how much Carlee enjoyed the cookies since she is still wearing them on her face!I think it is safe to say that Tiz had a great birthday in Preschool.

After Preschool Courtney, Tiz, and I went over to Rock River Pizza for lunch. I was hungering for spaghetti and meatballs and that is what I had. It was yummy. Tiz had her usual, macaroni and chesse while Courtney had some ravioli. After lunch we shopped at the Outlet Mall, Kohl's, Shopko, and Joannes. It was a fun afternoon.

Now I am looking forward to Tizita's birthday up in Oshkosh on Saturday. Hard to believe that she is already three years old!

Welcome to the Deep Freeze!

Because it is so very cold here in the frozen tundra I just wanted to remember warmer days...Oh, the sweet, warm memories of that wonderful, magical place! St. George Island, I miss you, especially when I am in the deep freeze of a Wisconsin winter!

A Wonderful Tizita filled few days

I have just organized the house and put everything back in order, there is a load of laundry in the washer, and I am finally sitting down to do some catch up computer business. Tizita and her mama and papa just left for Oshkosh and there are many little reminders of her visit around the house and that is the way I like it!
John met Courtney and Tizita in Waupan on Thursday night, had supper with them, and brought them to Watertown for a nice three day visit. On Friday, Tizita came to Preschool so she could sing with her classmates in chapel. I was very proud of my students. They all did a wonderful job with their three songs. After Preschool Tizita, Courtney, Gigi, and I went to see the Frog Princess movie at Creek. It was Tizita's first movie and she did very well. Only needed to go out once for gummy worms and once for a bathroom break. The movie was actually very good and Tiana is a beautiful princess. After the movie we came home and made sugar cookies. Something went a bit wrong with the dough, but the final product was very tasty. I doubled the recipe and I think I may have forgotten to double the flour, oops! They were certainly rich cookies!
Tizita sleeps with John and I when she is here and that is always a special treat for us. She wakes up in such a sweet mood and always greets us with "Good Morning Grandma" and " Good Morning Grandpa." On Saturday the three of us just laid around chatting and laughing in our bed for quite awhile. We got up and frosted our buttery sugar cookies. I think Tiz is going to be an expert cookie baker! This is the big cookie that Tiz rolled out and baked just for her Uncle Cheddah!
On Saturday we headed to The Texas Steak House in Waukesha for Mallory's birthday celebration. She chose that restaurant for her Birthday lunch and we all had a great time there helping Mal celebrate turning 17!Here is Mal on the Birthday saddle!
After the great lunch we came over to our house to open gifts and have cake and ice cream. Mal is growing up which was evident when she had to leave to meet friends for the evening!And as if this weekend couldn't get any better my Preschoolers sang their Christmas songs in Church this morning. Here Tiz and I are just before we left for church. Here is my class in front of church ready to sing their songs. They did such an awesome job and they made this teacher very, very proud! As they say, from the mouths of babes, that is where we can learn the real meaning of Christmas.

It's a Winter Wonderland!

John spent his snow day shoveling and I spent mine making a snowman and snow angels! I will admit that I am not the biggest fan of winter, don't really care for the cold weather, slippery driving, and snow in general, but today I loved what we woke up to. Schools were already cancelled last night and John's boss had said no one should risk life and limb to drive in today so we began our day by just sleeping in a bit before bundling up and heading outside. It was very beautiful! The trees looked like this:I helped John shovel for a bit, but I had other things on my mind. That is when I made a few snow angels and built my snowman. Sometimes just being a Preschool teacher gives you the excuse to act like a kid again. It is good for the soul.
Anyway here is my finished snow man. He has my bike helmet on and he is smoking one of my dad's old pipes.John took part in the annual passage into winter, "shoveling out!" There is just something necessary about that first shovel out of the season. It wouldn't be winter in Wisconsin without this ritual.And folks, he still uses the old Armstrong shovel!