Sarah in her Dora pajamas

Sean and Sarah playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Jason, Meghan, Sean and Sarah

Aunt Kim and Sarah singing and watching themselves on t.v.

We just had a great visit with my sister and parents who were in town this past weekend. Kim was here to celebrate her 40th birthday in Milwaukee. It was great to be able to be a part of her milestone birthday and to remind her that she's 3 1/2 years older than me. Tee-hee. It was fun to watch Sarah monopolize Kim's time while she was here. She wished Uncle Cleo could've been here, too. I love having her here to visit, but hate to see her go. Of course, I cried as we said good-bye at the airport. While I know she's happy to be with Cleo in Virginia, I miss her terribly. Thank God for free calling after 7 p.m. Thank you US Cellular. :) Now if I could only get her to have a DSL connection to her computer so we can webcam better. It doesn't work real well with her wireless connection for some reason.

Sarah's vocabulary increases every day. It's so amazing to watch that process occur. She knows her letters, counts to 13, knows her colors, says some words in Spanish, and is extremely independent. "Do it myself" is a very common phrase in our house. She had the stomach flu for the first time a week ago. Poor thing. She didn't know what had hit her and was quite upset. It passed through all of us before my family came to stay. So if we had to get it, it came at the right time. Not fun.

Jason's staying busy with school activities and lessons. He's getting ready for solo/ensemble and a couple of jazz festivals coming up in March and April. We're looking forward to going out with Meghan and Bob this weekend to celebrate their February birthdays. It's always a good time when we all can get together.

Better go. The Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice crossover show is on and I haven't started watching. Priorities. :)

Trip to The Cities

Thoroughly enjoying our time with old friends

Roomies!

The reason for our trip up north...the happy couple: Tim and Angie Hoffman

Starting from the front center and going around to the left: Doug and Sue Berg-Williams, Heidi and Eric Songer, Jason, Stacy Julson (Dan was ice-fishing--we really missed him), Paul Budde, Drew Disher, Kim Budde, and Camille Disher.

It was a fabulous wedding and an extremely fun college reunion! Thank you to Tim and Angie for having us share in your special day. Thank you to Kim and Paul for your amazing hospitality. It was wonderful to catch up and spend time together! We are so lucky to have maintained our close friendships with these college friends that mean the world to us. It makes us want to live in The Cities every time we go visit.

Sarah reading a Dora book to her baby doll while we were up in Minnesota.

Thank you Mom and Dad for watching her while we were gone!

Happy 2009 to all of our blog readers!

The Holidays

Sarah playing in the dress Great-Grandma Laura made for Aunt Meghan






Sarah and Grandma Gillette posing for a picture for Grandma's 65th B-day

Sarah and Aunt Meghan admiring the Christmas village

The cousins opening up Sean's gift

Father and daughter on Christmas Eve









Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Whitehead's house






Opening presents Christmas morning

Reading a book with my cousin, Val, her husband, Garry, and daughter, Aida.

Watching for the jack(Snoopy)-in-the box at Great Aunt Ellen and Great Uncle Dick's house where we celebrated with Jason's side of the family.

Cousins: Sean, Sarah, and Gabe (Jason's cousin's son)

Uncle Dick, Aunt Ellen, Nikki, cousin Steve, and Gabe.

The pictures pretty much lay out our holiday season. We had a great time celebrating my mother-in-law's 65th birthday the Saturday before Christmas. The Lane family came up and we enjoyed all of the Christmas decorating at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We went to Iowa for 5 days and enjoyed a lot of relaxation and good food with my folks. The first Christmas Eve service in their new church was wonderful and Sarah enjoyed every minute of the visit. She especially loved playing with her 2nd cousins, once-removed (????), Aida and Cassidy. We really treasure the times we're able to see my cousin, Val and family. What would've made the visit perfect would be if my cousin, Scott and family and my sister Cleo and family could've been there, too. :) We really missed Kim and Cleo's presence at Christmas, but were glad to hear that they had an enjoyable holiday together with his side of the family.

After driving back to Wisconsin in dense fog, we turned around the next day and headed down to Illinois for a fun, belated Christmas get-together with Jason's family. Dick and Ellen always outdo themselves with all of the entertaining details.

We had so much fun watching Sarah experience all that is Christmas. She was constantly pointing out Baby Jesus and Santa wherever we went. We're very thankful for all the blessings in our lives and the time spent with family.

Sarah's two-year pictures

Thanksgiving and Sarah's Birthday

Relaxing downstairs after our big Thanksgiving meal.

The Gillette-Lane Family

The Whitehead-Battle-Gillette Family

Jason and nephew, Sean having fun on the piano.


Uncle Cleo, Aunt Kim, and Sarah



Sarah opening a Geo Tracks toy

Sarah and friends playing in the balls.

Mom and Dad were not expecting to be in this picture. Santa roped us in after Sarah started crying.

We had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Kim, Cleo, Mom, and Dad all got in on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stayed the week. Kim got the chance to meet up with her Milwaukee friends as well as spend some quality time with her niece. Mom and Dad were so good to help finish projects around the house and help me get ready for the Thanksgiving meal. I had decided to paint the bathroom the week before. Those types of projects always take longer than planned, but we got it done. Dad helped hang up some things around the house so everything looked nice for guests. :) My aunt and uncle drove up from Iowa on Thanksgiving and stayed the night. We ate a lovely meal and just had fun spending time with family. We played a game of dominoes late into the night where we belly-laughed multiple times. After Thanksgiving, we got the house ready for Sarah's family birthday party. The weather was much better for her birthday this year compared to the ice storm last year. Her Grandma and Grandpa Gillette, Aunt Meghan, Uncle Bob, cousin Sean came over. Jason's Aunt Ellen, Uncle Dick, cousin Steve and family (Nikki and son, Gabe) came up from Illinois. The Edmond family joined us, as well. I was a little worried that Sarah was going to have a bad time since she had a cold and hadn't napped. She was a trooper and had a great time playing with her friends and cousins. I wish I could upload video since we have a hilarious video of our nephew, Sean playing the piano with Jason and moving to the music like Ray Charles. It was adorable. It was so fun to watch Sarah with Kim and Cleo. She loved having them around to play with. It was great to have them here for 5 days and we hated to see them go.

After all that hosting, we've been taking it easy this last week and this weekend. I'm not sure I've updated the readers of the blog about Jason's hearing issues. He's been diagnosed with hearing loss after experiencing sound distortion at certain frequencies. He's isolated it to concert A and Bb above middle C for those musicians who are reading. Many factors can contribute to it. His band room is a terrible set-up acoustically in addition to various gigs he's played over the years. It's been very disheartening and he has his good and bad days. When he went in for a follow-up visit to get his musician's earplugs, he met with a different audiologist who was very sympathetic to his situation. She is a former musician and her band director went through something similar. Many of us have heard of tinitus (sp?) where you have a constant ring in your ear. Jason has some of that, but it hasn't affected him the way this distortion has. It's as if the sound is tinny and gives you the sensation you feel when there's feedback on a microphone. There's a machine that is new to the scene which can help desensitize the patient to the tinitus and the doctor thinks it may work for Jason's sound distortion issues. It's very likely that workman's comp. will cover it which is a huge relief since it's $5000. Please keep Jason in your prayers. Those that know him, know that music is his biggest passion aside from his family. It's who he is. This has taken part of the enjoyment away and has made him wonder if he can teach this way for the rest of his career.

Now to something more postitive....

We can't believe Sarah is two. We're so blessed to have her in our lives and marvel at how much of the world she takes in and discovers each day. She's talking more and more and sings constantly. She loves her dolls, books, and playing with her playgroup friends. She is in the 95% for heighth and 90% for weight. She's a solid girl. :) We'd love to give her a brother or sister soon. We've been trying for a year and after 3 failed artificial inseminations, we're taking a break from it for awhile. We try to focus on the fact that we were so lucky to have Sarah and trust in God's plan for our lives. I would love to have another child, but who knows what will be. Only time will tell. Until then, we celebrate Sarah and all the blessings we have in our lives.

I think I'll head upstairs and make some pizza for a nice, cozy Saturday night spent at home.

The Cousins at Apple Hollar

I forgot to post these pictures with the Halloween pics. We met Jason's sister and family down at Apple Hollar off I-94 the weekend before Halloween. My camera had some condensation on it so the pictures are fuzzy. It was a cold day, but a nice time spent with family. Our nephew is so stinkin' cute! They're growing up way too fast. We look forward to seeing them again for Sarah's birthday party after Thanksgiving.

Learning about the life cycle of an apple

Posing for pictures

Seriously....it's not fair to all the other boys that he's that cute! (I'm not a biased aunt here, either. It's just simply fact that he's that adorable!!)

It's a Beautiful Day!

YES WE CAN!!!