Holiday highlights

Here's some pictures from our 2008 Christmas...

Calm waters

The days after Christmas and before the New Year are like a holding pattern. There's lots of visiting with family, little routine, trips to the store and playing with all the booty. It's a much calmer time. The Barsottis are at the airport now and will hopefully have a safe trip back to Kentucky. It was so cool to have so much time with family that it's sad to see them go. The boys loved being with all their older cousins.

It was such a nice Christmas. I thought it might be hard to be away on Christmas Day, but it was great to be in the house I grew up in. The drive through the Adirondacks was spectacular. I think my parents enjoyed seeing the kids Christmas morning, despite their high energy! There wasn't much sleep going on. At 3am, we could hear their little feet going out to the living room to see if Santa had been there. Then the whispering. We finally had to separate them and I think they did sleep until the 7am wake up call. Then the paper tearing began! For Christmas dinner, we had a feast of turkey, Dad's sausage stuffing, Mom's jello salad and I made both a green bean and sweet potato casseroles. We topped it off with checkerboard cake that night for Chris' birthday. We left early Friday so we could have Christmas again with Chris' family. That was a whirlwind day with traveling, presents and dinner. Every night since we've had dinner with all of Chris' family and it's been wonderful.

In other news, Nolan finally saved up enough money to buy a Wii, so he bought it yesterday. It took him a year, but he did it all on his own which I think is pretty good for an 8 year old. Today, we are heading to the mall to spend their build-a-bear gift cards from Aunt Kimmy. The boys got everything they wanted for Christmas, I think. They are very happy. Thank you to everyone!

I'll probably be very happy to have the kids back in school by the end of the week, but so far it is just great to have time together. It's what it's all about. Chris and I got ourselves a trip to a bed and breakfast in Plattsburgh for Martin Luther King weekend. I cannot wait. Really, the best present is time together.

Let it snow, and snow, and snow...

After getting a foot of snow yesterday, we woke up this morning to even more of it! Yesterday, the snow was very fine and blowing. When Thomas and I took Chester for a walk, it hurt our faces. But today, there are great big flakes slowly falling in all directions. It's very pretty. At least it is lightweight--makes for easy shoveling. We had to quickly shovel this morning so Chris could bring Nolan to basketball at 8am. Thomas and I are being lazy and hanging around here until swim lesson at 11am.

Swim lessons haven't been going as well lately. They keep changing the teacher Thomas has, and it's like starting all over again. He has trust issues. Today is the last session, then I think we'll take a break from it for a little while. We are ending our YMCA membership, so we may start taking lessons at the high school in a couple months. I think he still likes it and is good at it if he just had a consistent teacher. He mentioned a couple days ago that he'd like to try baseball again. So maybe we'll give it another shot in the spring.

We've been busy with a lot of Christmas prep. We've been running to the grocery store a lot and baking. We're having dinner with neighborhood friends tonight and a breakfast with Santa at church tomorrow. I'm hoping Chris will occupy the boys this afternoon so I can finish the baking and start wrapping. Monday night we have Christmas Pageant practice, and Tuesday the boys have their Christmas parties at school. Mary Ellen gets to town and we have dinner at Annie's house. Wednesday we leave for Moira to spend Christmas with the folks!

So if I don't get to blogging until after Christmas, Merry Christmas! May you find true happiness among friends and family and enjoy the whole New Year in love and peace.

Ice storms and Family

Our full weekend of kids' activities was wiped clean by Mother Nature this weekend. We were without power for 87 hours, Thursday night to Monday morning. It definately made us appreciate electricity! We camped out Thursday with sleeping bags. On Friday, it got to 54 degrees in the house. We needed to go someplace where Chester could come too, so we went up north to be with my parents. Both of them weren't feeling the greatest, but they welcomed us, fed us, and put up with 2 cabin-fever boys for the weekend. We came home Sunday night in the hopes of having power, but not so much. Thankfully Chris' mom did, so we borrowed her generator and hunkered down in the basement with 2 space heaters. Monday morning, Chris went off to work and the kids to school. By 1pm, the power flickered back on and I actually hip-hip-hoorayed! We were very lucky to just have lost a few tree limbs--no major damage. Actually, we did have one casualty. Our fish Dax died of the cold. He is now awaiting a proper burial in an Altoid container until the ground thaws.

In other news, here's a picture of our beautiful Christmas tree. Note the green ribbon holding it up through the bolt in the wall! This tree, despite its issues, is probably (to quote Chris' mom) the best tree we ever had. Which is nice because this Christmas has been a pretty weird one so far. With all of the lay offs at work, the economy, the ice storm and missing all the Christmas parties this weekend because of the ice storm, our Christmas spirit is a little frazzled. But we still have some school parties, and lots of family gatherings when the holiday actually gets here. So we have a lot of good right around the corner. Just like the Grinch that stole Christmas---Christmas comes anyway!

The good with the bad

On Friday, 15 people were fired at Chris' work. Some of them were good friends of Chris's and he may never see them again. There was no party, no fanfare. One man worked there for 15 years, and he just walked out the door. Another man has 3 kids at home. They got good severance packages, but it is still such a hard time of year to be without a job. And in their job market, they probably won't find any work. They will most likely need to find new careers. Thankfully, Chris probably has job stability with what he does.

The environment that we are in right now leaves no room for comfort. No one is immune. You think you are safe in your job and that you can handle things financially, and in a moment it can be gone. We just have to be grateful for what we have and take each day as it comes. Of course, prayer never hurt either. One silver lining, though, is I think it helps us re-examine what really is important. And it helps us be mindful of where our money goes. Chris and I are always trying to decide where our money should go and where it shouldn't. Heck, we drove an hour away just to get a Christmas tree for $25! Maybe we are cheapskates, but we're making it work and everyone's happy. It just saddens me when I see people that work so hard to make it work just like us, and then the rug is slipped out from under them. But we move forward. There's always hope.

Onto lighter news, the tree we got is beautiful...and HUGE! It was $25 for any tree, so we got a big one. Too big. Our tree stand is even too small for it. So we have paint cans and axes holding down the stand so it doesn't topple over! Actually, just when I wrote that, I saw the tree tipping. So we just screwed a hook into the wall so we could tie the tree up and anchor it. We used a green ribbon at least! I think it's not just that it's huge, it is also heavier with branches on one side. Oh well. It really is pretty!

Tomorrow Chris has the day off and we have a gift certificate to Panera's we're going to use. We CANNOT wait! Thomas has a new friend that's coming over this week. We have 2 Christmas parties too, although one is for Chris' work which we may not go to now. And on Sunday, my sister and brother-in-law are coming to visit-yeah! So spending time with friends and family again, what this time of year is really about. Merry Christmas!

Livin' the Good Life

With Thanksgiving behind us, and our bellies still full, we are launching immediately into Christmas mode on the Rooney train. Advent started yesterday, so we are starting our mornings by reading what good deed we should do that day and then eating a chocolate. Wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone always did that?!

On Black Friday while the rest of the world shopped, we went to the Albany Pine Bush and did a workshop on gifts from nature. We went to our first holiday party that night at our neighbor's house which was a lot of fun. Then Saturday morning, we got up early and left for New Hampshire to visit our college friends, the Reeds. We had so much fun. For the first time, the kids really went off and played by themselves and the grown-ups got to chit chat. We met their adorable dog, Dexter. It is just so nice to be with friends where you can totally be yourself and they already know all your history. They've seen us at our worst, and we've seen them at their worst--and we're still friends! Been drunk together, had fights together, been in each other's weddings, survived losses, gone on trips, and known each other for 19 years! What's most impressive is 16 of those years has been long distance. We don't get to talk as often, but the connection is always there. We love you guys.