Not So Quiet on the Hansen Front

Ah the Holiday season! We're doing great, even if I hardly have a moment to sit down and update all my internet friends on how we're doing.

First a final report on my "day off" - So much fun, so great to see good friends. We had a great time - walked the entire Mall of America, sitting down often to watch the people busily going about their errands. I drank LOTS of coffee, relaxed for an entire 12+ hours and had a great meal with Nic and Leah - so sorry Abe wussed out....we missed you!!!I still haven't recieved the adaptor I need in order to download the film of the Christmas program, but for now here's a picture of our little sheep singing "GLORIA!" Gloria is now the song mom sings every night at bedtime. Which is great for me because the entire song, as we sing it, is: Gloria, gloria, these are the words that the angels sang, Choirs of Heavenly voices rang. Gloria, Gloria, Glory to the newborn king.
That's it! Takes me all of 20 seconds and I'm done. Love it.

This week has been a non-stopper for me and the girls. Chris took off Tuesday morning for Dallas. He was a little delayed by the ice, but arrived safely before the day was done. The girls and I spent the morning with Addie and Laney decorating green cardstock Christmas trees and delivering them to the residents of Southfield Wellness Community here in town. The girls were so responsive to the ladies and gentlemen - what a great lesson for our toddlers. Addie capped the visit by spontaneously running smiling to a man who was lounging watching tv, wrapping him in her arms in what was the biggest hug a two-year old can muster. It was unbelievably touching. We hope they all enjoy their Christmas this year.

We took a few hour break at home during which Ella had her first snow tromping of the season!
Yes...the face plants are intentional! Addie came back for the afternoon, only to be joined by the entire Bargfrede family, and eventually her own so the girls could bake and decoarte Christmas cupcakes (which got left at my house and which I am unable to resist). I was reminded once again how blessed we have been with great friends in our cozy town. On Wednesday the girls hung out at the Tesdahl's for a few hours before we hauled all the kiddos to indoor playground, after which we played outside with Laney for a good 45 mintues in the snow. The girls mostly jumped on the snow and ice covered trampoline. It was definitely a sight! Wednesday evening was spent mostly with Addie and Matthew - and my girls actually made it to bed decently early!

Today I donned my crazy hat and took both girls to the mall for pictures with santa. We took the ghetto stroller which is so named because I ran into with our new car, putting a gash in the wall of our garage and crushing the stroller. The stroller still works but the frame is a little bent, and only three of the wheels touch the ground at any one time. Oops. Ella rode on her little side car bike, and got many grins from passersby. Click here to see what the bike looks like...Ella loves it! The girls were great at the mall, I finished my Christmas shopping completely, and we even got a decent picture with Santa!

Mia had her first meal this week, this is my attempt at a picture of it. She was super into the bite part, willing as all getout to accept the spoon and food. Her problems came in when the spoon came out and she spit out everything on it. She got right back on the horse though, and opened her little mouth wide as she could for the next bite! Soon enough she'll be eating nuggets and fries like Big Missy.

I'm also including a random picture of the adorable smiling Mia, mostly because I just can't resist. For more photos of my tiny angel you can check out her 3 month photo shoot by clicking here. The Login is HANSEN (all caps) and the password is MIA (all caps). Our photographer is Jennifer Callison with Sweet Pea Photography in Ames. I love her! If you need someone in this area, I offer my recommendations.

Ugh! My incessant apologies for not keeping you updated better lately. I also have no pictures to share.

Chris is currently trying to get out of the house for another meeting. He's headed to Dallas for the rest of the week and is likely going to be stuck in Des Moines overnight waiting for a flight to go out. Oh winter travels. How crazy.

Sinc eI've been on here last I spent the most blissful day at the Mall of America with Leah and Ella has performed in her first Christmas program. It was precious. I aim to post hte video of the program but have much learning to do before I get there.

We did the Nursing home thing with the girls again this morning...again no pictuers. I'm hoping Heidi and Meredith will be compliant enough to share their's with me.

The biggest news I have is that yesterday was Mia's 4 month well check. She's awesome. But some combination of a cold, shots and just maybe growing up resulted in an all-night sleeping session! Heaven.

The Week After

As week's after go this one wasn't too bad. Sometimes coming back from vacation is more painful than not going at all, but we've had a good week. Chris took off Wednesday before we left to help me get everyone ready to go and Monday after we got back to settle in again. It helped so much!

Our trip to Racine went great...the girls traveled well both ways and we had lots of fun while we were there. L had a bit of a set-back with the potty and peed her pants five times in a day and a half once we got to Granny and Grandpa's. I was beside myself. But a trip to ChuckECheese prompted a change when she chose to pee through her pants and onto the floor of the bathroom instead of actually going in the toilet. The wet pants required leaving for a while for clean clothes and she seemed to figure out that peeing in your pants is not such a good idea. From that point on we've been back to using the potty. Thank God. On Saturday we trekked up to the Children's Museum in Milwaukee and Ella had a great time. There are lots of cool exhibits and there were plenty of things Ella could get into. Loved it. All around. LOVED IT!

Heather brought home a Jumperoo from the daycare and both girls loved playing in it, even though L is quite a bit too big.

We hit up IHOP for pancakes and "hotdogs" (sausage) before hitting the road.

Thanks to Granny, Grandpa, Scott and Heather for sharing their home and to Heather for ceding her room to our little family. We had a great time and are looking forward to our trip back over Christmas.

It turns out we'd missed Addie enough that upon our arrival in Webster City we called them up and took her for bath and movie for the night!

Since returning we've been plenty busy. Monday Mia and I went to Ames to check out her 3 month proofs (which should be on-line soon for everyone's viewing pleasure) and a trip to Target. On Tuesday Peanut had a playdate with some friends while I power cleaned the house. I got most of the house clean and was able to (finally) get the Halloween decorations down in the afternoon. Ella wasn't a huge help, but it was fun trying to match the houses to the boxes. And by fun I mean Ella destroyed more than one box. :) Ella spent the day at Miss Patty's today so Mia and I could have some time together, but mostly so I could catch up on some housekeeping duties. It's always nice to have some bonding time with Mia, but when I pick her up I'm reminded of how grateful I am that I get to stay home with my babies and don't have to send them to a babysitters daily.

I am cashing in on the best Christmas gift Chris could ever give me this Sunday - he's watching both girls while I spend the day shopping with Leah in Minneapolis. I can't wait! We're planning on wasting the day at the Mall of America and doing more people watching and chatting than actual shopping! We also have dinner plans with Jess and Nic at the Japanese Steakhouse in the cities. I CAN'T WAIT!!!! Chris will, I'm sure, enjoy being King of his Castle. His only assignment is to get Ella to her full dress rehersal for the Christmas program at Church. Which, but the way she will be performing in on both Wednesday the 5th and Sunday the 9th. So exciting! My little girl's in the Christmas program - I'm so proud...yes, every kid is in the program...the 2 year olds have little lamb outfits and someone herds them onto the tage for one song before they're herded off before they have a chance to destroy too much of the set.

That's about it for us. Currently the girls are sleeping and Chris is at Fantasy Football. I'm blogging and watching Project Runway. I've dubbed Bravo and TLC my Guilty Pleasure channels.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We've made it to the Hansen's in Wisconsin and have had our fill of Turkey - we thusly have much to be thankful for. Safe travel, good food, family, and of course - mom's completion of the Webster City Turkey Trot! It was great fun. Chris brought the girls out in the 20 some degree weather to watch mom waddle through her first race in roughly 10 years. There was a time in my life when I strove for gold medals and course records....might I suggest that I am more thankful than anything that God has provided me with such blessings that those motivations seem increadibly trivial. While I am well aware that my youth made me who I am today, and while I do not mean to imply that those years were spent unwisely - my memories couldn't be any stronger or better - the thought of my babies at the finish line was a stronger motivation than any gold medal. Which is also not to suggest that I am as fast today as I was then...on the contrary - I'm quite slow.

Thank you Chris for supporting me and for withstanding the cold with the girls - you are the greatest blessing God could have given me. I love you every day, and each day a little more.

Our Week w/o Chris

We Made It!!!

The Bible tells us that each of us has been given a gift. Some have the gift of teaching, some of prophecy, etc. etc. etc. I'm now convinced there is one gift that has some how been mistakenly omitted: The gift of being a single mom. Holy crap. I feel as if I ran the half marathon with E last weekend. I'm exhausted. And I only had to do this by myself for four days. I did, however, manage to sustain life in both girls, the cat, the dog and suprisingly myself. Chris is due home any minute. The girls are both in bed (although I'm not quite sure Ella's actually sleeping), and the house is, again suprisingly, pseudo clean. At least picked up if not cleaned and I'm watching "Numbers" and anxiously awaiting "House." Sadly Friday night TV is the highlight of my week. I'm a loser.

Our week was mostly good. Chris took off Tuesday morning - we did the library thing in the morning and went over to play with Lainey, Carson and Grandma Terri for a while after that. Ella passed out on our bed watching "Your Backyard Friends" (aka the backyardigans) and Mia was compliant enough to sleep at the same time. And so did I. There's nothing quite like curling up next to your toddler for a nap. Wednesday was indoor park and Ella was a TERROR. I love her, but she was naughty. She's gotten into this "don't play with me, leave me alone, no one can play with anything I like" thing. So we went home and she put her comfies back on for the rest of the day. Fine by me. We made banana bread and took it easy. Our evenings were calm, I turned the tv on at about 6 or so and we'd hang out in the tv room. We ordered pizza, drank sodies, and had our dinner downstairs. It was loads of fun. We dressed all of Ella's babies who had been previously naked...which was every single one...and lined them up on the couch. For the record - we DO NOT need anymore dolls. Can you find Ella??? Ella brought her trampoline from the playroom into the tv room and entertained us all.

All in all we had a good time. I enjoyed my girls and am grateful I have mostly good kids. Mia slept with me most nights after 1 am or so....and on Wednesday morning I woke up to find myself wacking her in the head with my elbow. Oops...sorry princess. It was nice being vegetables for a while, but I am much anticipating Christopher's return. Ella missed him too. She even wore his socks for a while in order to be close to him!

I'm less than a week away from my race! The Webster City Turkey Trot 5K is on Thanksgiving and will this year feature none other than myself. It'll be interesting to see how it goes.

My profound musings for the evening are as such: I know everyone hates Disney cause they're taking over the world, and everyone hates Baby Einstein - mostly because they themselves weren't brilliant enough to decide to make B grade films for dirt cheap and sell them for billions of dollars to every parent out there who is desperate for their kid to be the smartest two year old on the block (sorry...my kid wins!), but I hate Disney and Baby Einstein for what I honeslty believe is a warranted reason: The freaking previews!!! What kind of company can feel good about themselves knowing they put like 30 minutes of previews on a film a baby is watching!!!

She Rolls!

Maybe it was a two-time thing, and maybe she'll take a break for a few months but the increadible Miss Mia rolled over. Belly to back. And unlike Ella's first roll I got to witness this one. So precious!

We've been decently busy, but I must confess I've been horrible with the camera since Halloween so I have no pictures to share. We spent the past weekend in the cities for Nikie's wedding. Gorgeous. Nikie was a princess....or so Ella thought. We all agree Ella. Nic did look like a princess. You should have seen L inspect Nic's dress...she wanted to take in every inch of it. It was priceless. We had a great time. It's always good to see old friends. Leah and Tom your little Emma is adorable. We really do need to do a better job of seeing each other now that we're so close.

I purged our sippy cup cabinet this morning. And by purged I mean threw away every single sippy we own and replaced them. They were gross and I couldn't handle it anymore. I figure the girls can have new cups every two years right? :)

We had Mia's three month pictures taken today. Some with dad and some with Big Missy for the Christmas card. Mom avoided any snapshots this time aroudn. 6 Month shots may include a family pic. We'll see. I can't wait to see the pictures...and to share them with you all.

Mad props to E who ran the half marathon on Sunday. You rock.

Chris is headed out of town this week for a Merck conference of some sort. Aye aye aye. God Bless the single mom. I'm sure not good at it!

Promised Costume Pics

We're back from Texas and settled back in. Halloween was awesome. Heidi, Meredith and I took the girls downtown for "Merchant Trick-or-Treat" in the afternoon. The girls did great and quickly picked up on how to best fill your bucket! Then it was the boys' turn to herd the kiddos and Chris met up with Corey and Jim to take the kids around the neighborhood. They were awesome! We had expected an hour or so but it was more than two hours before Chris and the girls got back. We had lots of kids come by the house and Ella came back with a bucket full of candy. Ella was a skunk; Mia a jalapeno pepper.





Try and see how full the buckets are in this picture!!!

As soon as Chris got back for good with Ella we put the girls in comfies, and loaded them up in the car. We got on the road at about 8 and made it to Joplin, MO before 2 am. We had a smooth transition to sleep in the hotel and were up and on the road again on Thursday before 10. We made it to Texas at about 3:30. We made a quick stop at the clinic to say hey to our good friend (and hostess for the weekend). Upon her removal from her car seat we discovered Mia had crapped ALL OVER herself. It was her first real blow out. Good timing Miss Mia. After we spent a little while with Jill at the clinic we took the car (yes the new car) to the Chrysler Dealership cause the freaking cruise didn't work. You try and drive from Iowa to Texas w/o cruise control and NOT get a ticket. Let me assure you it was not the easiest thing I've ever done. Chris and I sat through an ENTIRE adult league soccer game Thursday night with the girls. After that it was mostly hanging at the Breeze ranch for me and the girls, and fishing for Chris. Highlights of the trip included Chris dropping Shane's truck key in the lake, and my discovering Mia had an ear infection. Aye aye aye. Tragedies aside we both had a great time.

The ranch is such a great place for the girls. Mia doesn't know it yet, but Ella does. There are horses, a goose (two geese now actually...we were a part of acquiring a pal for squeaky), lots of dogs, and we even got to watch the tractor cut down the hay. Good times. We caught an art festival on Saturday and got to go to Church on Sunday. I love that Church. It's a breath of fresh air to be in a church where there are all kinds of people, and each one of them knows they are loved exactly as they are. No one is asking them to change...they just want them to know that since Jesus loves them as they are, then we will too.

Ella caught a small stomach bug upon our return to Iowa, but that's all cleared up now and we're moving on full steam ahead. Mom and dad are coming up to visit at some point this week/weekend and some combination of the six of us will be at Nikie's wedding. I can't wait!

On a more somber note, we have good friends - Cory and Meredith Bargfrede (Lainey's parents) who are going through some family adversity. Corey's grandfather suffered a massive stroke recently and is struggling to recover. If you have room in your prayer list please consider them. And if you don't have room in your prayer list may I pass on a bit of wisdom Linsey shared with me: Never be too busy to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Mostly Pictures

Addie and Lainey came over to decorate Halloween cookies...and for some general good food and good company. These are the resulting pictures - suprisingly the girls stayed mostly clean. Not a single one of them picked up a cookie to eat it....who needs cookies when you have tubes of frosting on hand!!!

I promise to post costume pictures...but not until we get back. We're off to Texas for almost a week!

MY new favorite You Tube!!!!!!!!

Ella's New Favorite YouTube

De Car! De Car!

I'm an official lessee of a metallic black Chrysler Pacifica with light tan leather interior. LOVE IT! It's so much more than I thought I'd be getting and I love every bit of it. The kids seem to like it too. Ella is much appreciative of the DVD player, although the small ones were good enough for her, they were a pain in the neck for mom and dad to hold/move/not lose/etc. And Mia just likes the way her seat sits....or so I think.

We babysat Delainey again today, our prayers continue to go out to the Bargfreded family. Lainey and Ella played great, we spent some time outside, some time inside and even some time over at Grandma Terri's on the trampoline. Ella's indoor slide and little trampoline made the trip up the stairs and outside again for the girls to play with outside. I much appreciate time they spend NOT in my house. :)

I did some gardening over the weekend...I put a few hostas around our house and planted a handful of tulip and dafodil bulbs. Ella helped me put a few hostas in front of our neighbors porch, and we transplanted a Yew Evergreen bush for him too. I plan to add some bulbs tomorrow or maybe Wednesday. The gentleman who lives there lost his wife and daughter in a car accident well before we moved to Webster City - he has one son, a 12 year old, whom Ella adores. He's an excellent father, and between running the 12-year old to various sporting events has not been able to find the time to finish up his landscapping....we were glad to help out. I just hope everything lives and it doesn't look like trash in the spring!!! :)

Saturday was Pre-school Trick-or-Treat day at the local rec center. The girls were the cutest rascals in the place. Ella was a skunk, Mia a hot pepper. Very cute. We're excited for "real" trick-or-treating on Wednesday....should be fun.

Speaking of Wednesday...Only Two more days until we leave for Texas! It will be a much welcomed vacation. Chris is fishing all weekend, and the girls and I will be hanging at the Breeze ranch. Sunday will, of course, be a trip highlight as we set foot in the new Joshua's Crossing building for the first time. I can't wait!

Quote of the week (not verbatim, but pretty damn close): "The state of this (Tennessee) football program is worse than Nebraska." - Phil Fulmer. Nebraska is apparantly so bad that to be worse is unthinkable.

Someday My Car Will Come

Or so they tell me. My long trek to a new car continues. When our dealer showed up to pick it up at the lot in Council Bluffs for the swap they discovered damage of some sort to the fender or bumper or I really don't care. What matters is that they are fixing it and I'm not getting my Pacifica until Friday at least. Oh well.
Nearly 30 years after arriving on the Earth scene I am officially an adult. By which I mean there is adult furniture (furniture store style, not Target self assembly style) in EVERY room of our house!!!! Our living room set arrived today and I love it. It has completely transformed our house. We've rearranged two rooms and completed our quarterly toy purge...our house is now free of all fast food toys and other broken objects! We also tossed anything that is small enough for Mia to choke on.
Speaking of Mia, Heidi came over Monday morning and we painted her (Mia's) room. Ella got sent to Miss Patty's day care with Addie for the morning and it was a win-win situation for everyone. Especially considering that Patty told me that having met Ella she is willing to take her as a drop in if I need her. Maybe someday I'll take her up on it!
Chris is hosting Fantasy Football tonight, so there's plenty of testosterone in our house. I love entertaining, and I'm glad to be able to show off my newly furnished house!

Spending Money

It's been a big spending week around here. We've known for quite a while that we're up against selling my truck as it has nealry 85,000 miles on it. As much as we want to let it go before it loses too much value the realization that we will have to be making a car payment for the first time in our marriage has been hard to swallow. Funnily enough, as we draw nearer to making said payment I'm more nad more excited about getting my new car.
Here's how the story of this past week goes...On the eve of our first car shopping trip I spied a living room set that I kind of liked and thought would fit our needs. More importantly it was decently affordable...much more so than we were thinking we'd have to spend. Chris and I decided, in the interest of being good stewards of what we've been given, not to make hte impulse buy and to look around a little first. So we took off for Fort Dodge to check out some cars on Thursday and discovered a HUGE rebate on the Pacifica. Huge enough, in fact to bring it into our price range. The Pacifica was originally the car we were wanting, but thought it was too expensive....funny how God provides in His own way....Instead of providing the cash flow to afford a purchase, He simply took away from the cost of said purchase. Amen.
So with ambitions of a nicer car than we'd imagined we took our kids and the money we were saving due to a larger than expected trade-in value on the Trailblazer and went furniture shopping. We bought a sofa, loveseat, and chair w/ ottoman. Soon enough this house will look like adults actually live here....not just the kids.
On Friday Chris went ot eh local car dealership to see if they could offer us something int eh same price range that we were looking at on our Pacifica....they couldn't but sent us to another dealer in their family - where we went today. After an hour plus drive to Algona, IA we discovered that the dealership had no internet access, and thusly couldn't find us what we were looking for. Before I completely freaked out the salesman took it upon himself to use a friends home computer and make some phone calls in order to track down some options for us. The hope is that on Monday morning they will call Chris and be able to finalize things, so as to be able to go pick up my new Pacifica (black w/ leather interior....wow!!!) in COuncil Bluffs and transport it back to Algona, where the girls and I will at some point go get it. Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!! It's been a long trek, but I am faithful it will all work out really well. I am amzed at the Lord's provision and how He makes it available.

The girls have been great as of late. Chris took Thursday and Friday off and we've spent lots of time playing together and playing with friends. We spent most all of Tuesday evening at the Tesdahl's, Heidi and Addie came over here Wednesday evening, Thursday was a trip to the Bargfrede's so the girls could entertain each other whilst we zoned out on Grey's (still going strong if you ask me). And last night ws quiet before all three girls, Heidi, Jim and Meredith came over tonight for Chili, toys and baths. The girls were great and Ella is wiped. Mia, however is happy to watch the Michigan game with daddy. I'd much rather she watched that....the Husker's, it turns out, are horrible.

Go Huskers! Yeah right...

Another One Down...

Surviving Monday following a weekend trip is always tough, but we've made it. The girls were the cutest sisters to be found in downtown Lincoln Saturday. We searched high and low Friday for the perfect outfits and I think we found them. Chris and DeEtte are quite happy I went looking cause the default was going to be cheerleading outfits and they were none to happy about that. Ella and Bergen took the Children's museum by storm after Frost's pre-slaughter party, but the festivities were cut short by a puddle of pee curtsey of Ella.

Indoor Playground has been opened again, and Ella had the chance to run around with some buddies this morning, which is always good. And mom likes that it isn't at her house. I've decided to institute a new option at indoor playground whereby at 10:30 someone gets to leave their children under the care of whoever else is there and make a coffee run. I'm brilliant right?

As it is Monday we took the girls swimming - Mia seems ot be taking to the water quite well....didn't even have to work through the tears this time. The post-swim shower in the locker room is not her favorite however. She's chugging along though, has a beaming smile, and looks anxious to start exhibiting control over her muscles.

Vera did great - she flew through surgery with flying colors. We all know the tough part is yet to come, given rehab and all, but we'll be pulling for her every step of the way.

Concerning the firing of Steve Peterson: I say don't let the door hit you... Ella would say "See you later aligator!"

For my parting thoughts: I hijacked a few songs from the playlists E and some of her friends were so kind as to share. Among them is "My Humps"...turns out it's a great workout song, although it sort of makes me want to move it which always ends up making me laugh cause my humps have no business on the dance floor. :)

Go Get 'Em Old Grandma!!!

Our good friend Vera Seale is having hip replacement surgery today. She's 88 years old. How increadible is she? I say go get 'em Old Grandma!

Did you ever wake up and realize it's a week later? And no one asked you if it was alright that time kept moving? That's how I feel. All of a sudden Ella's two, Mia's 9 weeks old, the OSU game is already here and were three full episodes into the new season of Grey's.

We had an awesome week to follow up our visit from Granny and Grandpa. Monday night is family swim night at the local rec center and we took the girls for the second week in a row. After forgetting the camera for Mia's first dip we documented her second experience in the pool. It took a little bit, but she wound up enjoying the relaxing waters.

On Tuesday morning Addie and Laney brought their little brothers over, along with Trey and Bailey, to decorate pumpkins to take to the Senior Center in town. The girls were so good at the senior center and the residents loved adoring the babies, and some of them even held the little ones.

Grandma Terri and I took the kids to McDonald's for lunch where Chris and I are desperately trying to win Monopoly. I figure we've got a leg up on the lottery w/ Monopoly as our ridiculous attempts to win at least leave us full despite the poor nurishment.

In the afternoon we dropped L with Laney and the crew to take Mia to her 2 month well check. She's growing just fine (13lbs 2 oz) and seems quite healthy. She was not so fond of the shots, but is adjusting alright and didn't seem to have any major reactions.

After Mia's visit we picked L up and went to Nick's football game. Nick is our 7th grade neighbor and Ella's FAVORITE babysitter. He's also the starting quarterback....it's like living next to royalty! Tuesday evening was the first meeting of girl's night, which we hosted. Heidi brought food and a bunch of our friends all brought good converstaion and NO KIDS!!! Turns out that for many of us it was the first time we'd allowed ourselves the indulgence of just hanging out with other ladies for no good reason except the company. We've decided to get together bi-weekly so as to maintain our sanity.

Nana came Wednesday night to haul us back to Lincoln, where we are currently posting from. Ella has already played with Bergen and Mia is content to be dragged along. The weekend proves to be plenty exciting with the Smith Barney Pre-Game party Saturday morning. The game starts at 11:15am, so the whole of Lincoln will be setting the alarm clocks so as to be properly "hydrated" for kick-off!

And to close...my new favorite picture of the girls...thanks to Granny for the matching comfies!!!