Bailee Jo

We lost our sweet, lovable family 4-legged family member yesterday. (Feb. 2nd) It was a sudden loss and one that has left us all sad and lonely!

Sunday evening came with Bailee running around the living room chasing a tennis ball that was being thrown. She was acting her normal self. During the night on Sunday night Matt and I both heard her moaning and groaning. We weren't sure what was wrong but when we woke up early Monday morning we noticed 2 large piles of vomit. Bailee was really lethargic. Not interested in eating, drinking or moving for that matter. She continued to not act herself for most of the morning. I called the vet and they told me to bring her right in. The doc took blood and checked her over. She said that nothing looked out of the ordinary with her physically, but they would call me with the results of the blood test. Later that afternoon, the results came in. Bailee's liver was not doing well. Dr. Beth wanted me to try as hard as I could to get her to eat and drink. She said if she continued on the same path to bring her back in. So Tuesday came and she still would not. She started spitting up stuff and continued to just lay lifeless. Tuesday evening she was laying on our chaise lounge chair and I noticed there was a large mass on her groin area. I felt around and it was not right. Matt took her back to Dr. Beth and the results would not be promising. Bailee had a strangulated hernia. The best thing to do for her at that point was to lay her to rest. So at around 6pm on Tuesday night February 2nd Bailee was put to sleep. It was a sad time for all of us and we are still trying to figure out how to be in our house without her. The place feels so cold and lonely! Jakob and Jaden are taking it really hard. Jameson is still too young to understand. He keeps asking where she is and where she is sleeping. Matt and I are struggling. She was almost 11 years old and we miss her so much. It still just doesn't feel real to us that she is actually gone.

Bundled up!

This was our first snow day of the school year. Jakob and Jaden were dying to get outside to and although they didn't last long they had fun! It was super cold out there! Jameson thought he wanted out so we bundled him all up and opened up the sliding glass door. The wind whipped in and hit him square in the face. He quickly said "Nevermind!!!!" He was perfectly content for the rest of the day to stay inside and warm with mommy.

Christmas 2009

Yes, I am just now blogging about Christmas. I am going to try to get back up to date with all of our activities! We stay so busy that at times I forget to even pull out my camera because I am just taking in whatever is going on and trying to really enjoy it. After it is over and I have no pictures to show for it I am sad. So I am going to try to be better about pulling out the camera and at least capturing something. Anyway, this is our own personal family Christmas that we celebrate on the day the boys get out of school for Winter Break. This year for some reason it didn't work out to open gifts on that Friday night so we didn't make the boys wait. We opened gifts on Thursday night instead. All 3 boys were thrilled with what they recieved and were very thankful!

On Friday night we sat down to watch one of the boys new movies and about halfway through the movie our Christmas tree fell to the ground making a huge mess and breaking one precious ornament. Had we waited and opened gifts on Friday night it would have ruined everything! We spent the rest of the evening getting the mess all cleaned up and tryed to get our lovely tree back up. It however would NOT go back up and we didn't trust it at all so 13 days after putting our christmas tree up it was hauled to the back porch. It was a really beautiful tree and we were happy to have it for the time that we did. A new tree stand is top on the priority list for this next Christmas and we might not go quite so big this next time!

HIghlights from Thanksgiving

• safe travel to Iowa
• meeting my new cousin Katie adopted from China
• spending time with my grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, and brother
• watching my Uncle Bob with my boys! He taught them so much and is so patient.
  
• YUMMY FOOD!!!!
• Christmas shopping for our boys on Black Friday with Matt.
• playing Dominoes with Aunt, Joy, Aunt Jeri, Uncle Jim, mom, Kyle, & Matt
  
• watching all 3 boys take a ride up high in Uncle Bob's Cherry Picker!
  
• having so much fun that I didn't even have a chance to break out my camera!!!!
  

Halloween Costumes 2009

Jaden as Indiana Jones with our buddy Cody dressed as Peter Pan!

Jakob dressed as Luke Skywalker and below is our little Yoda! (yoda costume hand made with love by his Nana) We just weren't quite ready for our little guy to wear a big boy costume yet and he wasn't fitting into the baby ones anymore. Ok, Ok.... MOMMY wasn't ready for Jameson to be in a big boy costume yet so Nana made him one. The big kid Yoda just wasn't nearly as cute!

More Pictures from Dresden

Dresden, Ohio Trip

Kari tapping away to finish off.

Mom weaving away!

Our Group of 27 ladies!

My mom and I took a long over due trip back to Dresden, Ohio for some quality time together. The last time we took this trip was in November of 1998 just months after Matt and I were married. It was so much fun that we have been talking about re-visiting ever since. Finally almost 11 years later we made it back. A lot had changed with the little town of Dresden. The economy had gotten the best of this little town and lots of the shops were closed down. The shopkeepers were thrilled to see our tour bus arrive and opened up their stores at times just for us. We also visited the Longaberger Home Office which seemed much larger the first time we visited. Kind of funny how that happens. It was still as cool as ever. The Homestead was new to us and we got to shop in the Factory Store and scored some great bargins there. Mom and I also made our very own Longaberger Baskets just as we had done in 1998. This time with more selections on colors and extra features. We had a really great time!