17 December 2010

1.  Last Friday we had Eric's agents and staff over for the CBB holiday party.  You never quite know how an office Christmas party will go...but when the last guests left at 1:22 {one left doing multiple somersaults down our driveway in the falling snow} we knew it was a success.  There was lots of laughter at the Newman household that night.  I'm just glad E still had a job Monday morning.  I wasn't sure how some would react when he got his Speedo out, but all is well.  =)  He only wore it OVER his jeans to shovel snow so people could get out, but still.  COME.  ON.

2.  Speaking of that snow...Holy Hannah.  Shakopee held the state record for the weekend with 21.5 inches falling in 24 hours.  Thank goodness we had no place we had to be since everything was basically cancelled for the weekend.  We spent a lazy Saturday at home together which we haven't done in quite some time.

When it was time to blow snow E was sure glad he got the snow blower working again.  That would have been a LOT of shoveling.

A view from the street Sunday morning...

3. By Sunday the snow had basically stopped and we were somewhat able to buck the drifts to get out, so we headed to church to light the Advent candles and then zipped off to celebrate my Dad's birthday with my family.  After a nice lunch we retired to our house to let the kids make cookies with Gram.

Of all the kids Ave was the most dedicated baker.  Beckett just wanted to stick his tongue in the sugar in the bowl {see pic above...can you tell he was caught red handed??} and Jack just wanted to keep adding Hershey Kiss wrappers to the dough.  Little stinkers!  Tate was at a birthday party and missed out on most of the making of the cookies...but was still there to enjoy the eating part!

4.  It was "Watch Week" at Avery's dance class.  We are normally are not allowed in to watch classes, but during watch week you can go in watch and take pictures and video.  After these two pictures I decided I needed to move so my flash wasn't in the mirror in every picture...

 Much better after I moved...

She seems to have fun with the other girls, especially loving that Brielle is in the same class!

She loves ballet but really loves the tap portion of class and is doing her aunties proud!

Santa happened to stop in during dance as well.  I had to laugh because as soon as we got in the car she said "MOM.  Did you see Santa's shoes?!  That was NOT the real Santa."  I said, "Yes, I noticed too.  It must have been one of Santa's helpers.  His beard didn't look real either."  She said, "It kept falling off!  So fake!!!"  She cracks me up.  She can spot a pair of Sketchers a mile away.  =)

5.  On Wednesday night I was leaving school with a little bounce in my step.  I had all my lesson plans ready for Thursday because my team teacher Angie was going to teach for me on Thursday.  I taught a couple mornings for her in October when she went to Florida with her family so she was going to return the favor so I could finish up my Christmas shopping.  I was rifling through my purse on my way out to my car and realized my keys were not there.  I immediately knew I had locked them in my car.

I am not even going to get into the details of the entire night, but after E came and we waited 2 hours to get someone to come make us a set of keys the guy called and said that he wasn't going to make it so we left my car in the school parking lot overnight.  I would like to say the conversation was rosy waiting in the car, but it surely was not.

I was more calm than I was the last time I locked my keys in my car in the school parking lot 6 years ago...that time I had a screaming 8 month old who had been holding the keys while I strapped him in his carseat and locked the doors with the remote.  After calling 911 I waited not-so-calmly with a policeman for 45 minutes until the tow company came and opened the doors and rescued my screaming infant.  So in the grand scheme of things this was much better.  Not as good as, say, NOT locking the keys in, but you know what I'm sayin'.

So after my car spent a night at school, we stopped at school during our shopping trip and met our new best friend...

Within about 10 seconds we were in and in about 10 minutes we had a second set of keys!

In spite of a damper of the night before we had an awesome day shopping.  We haven't shopped together for Christmas gifts since before Tate was born.  E insisted on saying "Glad Tidings!" to everyone who wished him a happy holidays...he's such a geek but I sure laughed.  Hopefully we'll make this a yearly tradition...maybe without our new best friend the key guy and the "glad tidings". =)