Over The River and Through The Woods

According to the Mpls Star Tribune, this was the 8th Brown Christmas since 1967. Yesterday was a record-breaking 52 degrees! Previous record: 51 degrees in 1936. Needless to say, we had quite a different Christmas weekend than the usual sledding, snow-fort making, and sitting in front of the fire. Instead we took a walk across the field and into the woods, over to grandma and grandpa's cabin.

We walked across the big field (our house is in the distance on the left)...




...went down into the woods and across the frozen swamp...


...and to the river, where we could finally see the cabin through the trees.


Grandpa was on the porch waiting for us!


View from near the cabin.


Everyone standing on the bridge before our walk back home.


Over the river, through the woods,


and back into the field, with home on the horizon.


The kids explored the silo and found a patch of green.


Even crazier was the caterpillar they saw climbing up our front steps! With a Christmas this nice, we definitely didn't miss the snow. There's sure to be plenty to come during the next 3 months.


Here are some photos of the girls' Christmas dance recital last week:

Elsa and Lila warming up before the show.


Violet, Elsa, and Lila, with Lila's little twin Bridgette on the far left.


One of the dance routines.


The dancers and Teacher Sue.


Celebratory dinner and root beer at Al's Bar across the street.


Christmas photos:

New cowgirl horsies! Yeehaw!


Playing in the tent from auntie Emma.


Opening presents on Christmas Eve day.


Elsa's Christmas hair-do.


Christmas morning. Tired Tim in the background, and excited kids! They slept in their clothes from the night before.


Christmas with the Williams side was a lot bigger this year with all the new babies! All 4 of us cousins now have children, all of them girls. L to R: Avery, Elsa, Mayson, Minneha, and Lila. If anyone has a baby boy he'll be spoiled rotten! :)


Christmas time is Shot-ski time! The lucky guys who married into this family. :)
Yucca, Mark, Shane, and Tim.


Bottoms up!


The cousins: Becky, Kelly, Jenny, me.


That amaretto is tough stuff. :)


My dear cousins Kelly and Becky, with Minneha and Elsa. Beck lives in France so we don't get to see her often. It's always great to have her family home for Christmas.

Almost Christmas!

What a crazy holiday season it's been already. Last week we closed on the house, so it's officially ours! We're still getting settled and have a lot of unpacking/decorating to do, mostly because we still have a lot of painting to do. Tim is doing the painting and it's not the kind of thing he can bang out in a weekend. Perfection takes time! So in the meantime I'm gladly waiting and enjoying the rooms we do have finished.

This is a photo from Elsa's first school program! The kindergartners put on a Christmas show for us last Wednesday and it was so cute. Elsa is the one in the back row next to the super tall boy in white.


Elsa and Lila at the after party, eating holiday treats.


Last weekend we had a visit from Jenny, Shane and Avery. The girls were already in bed, but we had Avery crawl up the stairs and into their room, where the girls were eagerly waiting. She said,"Hi!" over and over and kept kissing them and hugging. The kids just adore her, so of course I said it was okay to wake up and play awhile.




Around 9:30 Elsa got really tired and said, "I think I'm going to go to bed now". Lila said, "Me too", and off they went!


This year I decided to do something new and made chocolate/almond bark dipped pretzel rods. It was so easy and the kids loved it - we didn't have to do any baking, measuring, or waiting, so it was straight to the decorating and eating, which are obviously the best parts!


The kids have been playing together SO well since we moved here. They're still in "explore" mode and love to play downstairs, with the clothes chute, in the pantry, in the play room, and they even ask to take naps in the closet. If they'll sleep, why not? Here's Elsa asleep in the closet...

...and then my camera clicks wake her up.


Happy Holidays! (Art by Elsa.)

Greetings from the Middle of Nowhere!

It's actually only a couple miles from town, but it feels like we're WAY out. We moved the weekend before Thanksgiving and it's been crazy ever since. Lila tripped while she was playing down the basement on Tim's birthday (11/27) and had to get stitches in her chin. It was bad - blood everywhere and the biggest gaping wound I'd ever seen. On my baby! Poor kid had a tough time in the ER (I managed to save my meltdown for later) but she's healing up pretty well now. We finally got our phone/internet hookup today, which is awesome, but also very dangerous... there's too much to do for me to get sucked into Facebook and whatnot. Had to share some pictures, though! Despite the craziness and stress of getting settled, it's been so exciting to finally live here. Feels like home!

Very cute. But mostly...


...very goofy!


I took this photo for the insurance company this morning. Porch faces east, my car is north. It was so cold out! Only 17 degrees, but the kids were happy to join me outside. We don't have a TV in our main living area anymore and I thought I'd hate it, but it's been great. We listen to more music, have dance parties, and the kids find other things to do, like throw/catch things down the laundry chute for hours.


After we decorated the house for Christmas, the kids got cozy in front of the fireplace.


Time for more endless unpacking. More later!

What's scarier than Halloween?

The hospital.
What started as a basic office visit ended in a trip to the ER. Elsa had been having an assortment mild ailments that lasted for too long, including a fever. None of them were alarming on their own, but all of them together was puzzling. We brought her to the doctor after the first five days - while she had a rash - but none of the doctors could figure out what kind of rash it looked like. It was most similar to a strep rash, but the test came back negative. We also had a Lymes test taken, which was also negative. Their diagnosis was, "virus of the week". Two weeks later, she still had an on/off fever and some other symptoms. The nurses at the Fairview nurse line told me it sounded like a virus and not to worry. In the meantime, she felt good enough to go to school, dance class, and every other normal activity. These photos were taken just 3 days before we went to the hospital. She doesn't look too sick, does she?




But we went back a second time, anyway. I figured we'd get some medicine to finally kick whatever it was and get outta there. But instead the doctor very seriously told us that we needed to go to the ER at U of M Children's in Minneapolis right away. They thought she had Kawasaki's disease, which can lead to permanent heart damage and is deadly if not treated. When we got to Mpls, the doctors all agreed that must be it... but then suddenly changed their minds. They still couldn't figure out what was going on, so we had to stay there for two nights and poor Elsa had to go through a ton of tests. Chest x-ray, CT scan, echocardiogram, eye exam, an IV, and the dreaded lab work... they took 10 tubes of blood. All the tests were negative. I didn't take any photos, I purposely left my camera at home when we left. Now I wish I would have brought it - the hospital was really impressive! I took some photos from off their website and the rest are from Tim's phone.





Elsa was relaxing while watching the HUGE flat screen TV.


After a full day of tests, finally some fun - playing cards with dad!


We still have to go back to Children's and she needs another echocardiogram just to be sure, and then we'll be 100% in the clear and hopefully we'll be done with doctors for awhile. She seems fine now. Just a virus after all!!

The house is done and basically move-in ready. Just some picky little things to get done for our inspections, and we'll have the occupancy permit this week or next. It's very exciting, but these last little things seem to be taking so long. I'm ready to move in!

Home Sweet Home.




Lila is the first to use the toilet in the girls' new bathroom!


Now that we have carpet upstairs, the kids finally seem to see the new house as a house. They run all around the rooms in their socks and have a blast.


Last night at dance, the kids got to dress up in their costume and we got to watch them do their thing. Lila and Violet had the same exact costume!


Today I went to Ikea with Lila while Elsa was in school. On our way home we stopped by Cousin Avery's house for a play date. Her first birthday is next Monday already!