Family Christmas Party

Flooded Again!

What a nice thing to come home to after church! We were in the process of making dinner when one of the twins came in and told us we had a leak downstairs. It wasn't just a leak!!! The sewer was backing up into our basement again! We hurried and called the city and they came over to clean out the city's main line that runs in front of our house. This time the flood was even worse than we had this last summer. The new carpet was just laid in November! Now we have to do it all again. I don't know what the city is going to do, but they had better get the lines fixed! Brent is not wanting to put carpet in any more of the basement. We will be tiling or staining the cement for the flooring down there. So, here we go again with a claim to the city to replace the carpet! URGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! Don't these picture look great?

Christmas Day!

(Pic: Christmas Eve New PJ's) Wow! It is sure different when the kids are all grown! Jared and Shari were the only ones at our house. We actually got to sleep in until 8:16 AM. Shari insisted on getting up and going in to see what Santa brought!

Our children gave us a scrapbook for Christmas. It was a very nice gift and there are some good pictures in it to remind us of each of our children. We also will be taking a short trip for one of our gifts. We will get to go spend the night at the LC Ranch for our anniversary! Brent and I have now come into the iPod world with our gifts of the iPod Touch! Now we just need to learn how to use them with all their technology!

After opening all our gifts, we made the rounds! First we went to Jason and Tabitha's house. Hailey was loving all her new toys. She was a very happy girl. She received many new things to keep her busy. She will even learn to walk soon with the walking stroller she received from Santa.

Clark and Danielle had busy kids too! Carsten had his lego transformers almost put together by the time we got to their house. Clark showed us another toy that Carsten had. I think Santa must have given it to the wrong person as much as Clark was the one enjoying it!

By the time we were finished at Clark's, it was time for Jared to get his kids and we were the picture takers, so off we went. We met him at his house and watched the boys open up presents. It had been a long time since I have seen kids open presents as fast as they did! They were way fast and enjoyed every gift. Bodie really likes his new LeapFrog Bus learning toy. He sat down and played with it for quite a while.

After things settled down a bit, we went to Steven's house. They finally got up around 11:00 AM so we could not go to his house any sooner. Lily loved her new fish game and was having all kinds of fun giving everyone a card. She didn't really know how to play the game yet, but the pictures on the cards were enough to keep her occupied. She had a name for each fish on the cards. She made them up as she went.

We talked to Tyra Lyn on the phone. Her family had a great Christmas. The two boys were loving their gifts and the two girls loved their Fisher Price doll house. They were busy and noisy with excitement!

Boyd's house was a busy one too. We also talked to him on the phone. Michael had fallen asleep on the floor so we didn't get to talk to him. Claire was very excited about her new toys. She hadn't put her lego set together yet, but she was looking forward to doing so.

December Medical

What an eventful time! Shari had surgery on both knees on December 19, 2008. The surgery was to lengthen the ligaments on the outside muscles of her knees. They were too tight and pulling her knee caps out of position. She was in leg braces for 5 days. Thank goodness there are other people in the family who had some equipment she could borrown so she could kind of walk.

She was able to get the braces off on Christmas Eve. She has physical therapy that she will need to do now that the braces are gone. She is now able to get around quite well, but she still needs help with some of the things we all take for granted in being able to move!