I know I know...It has been a LONG time.

Okay, so I am so sorry, I have completely forgotten about our blog, but I see most of you or talk to most of you who follow anyway, especially through facebook.

What has been going on at our house? Well...I think the question is what hasn't been going on at our house?

My two beautiful kids are in the full swing of school. Madelyn absolutely loves it, and can't wait until she is able to go all day every day next semester. Elijah is still a little unsure, but is doing great.

My hubby has been around a lot, and we are not looking forward to the tax season. I will become a single mom for about 4 months, and slowly start to pull my hair out piece by piece as I am driven insane. I will be sick of the midwest weather, b/c there is nothing to do around here when it is cold. My kids will be tired of going to the Pavilion for the 100th time, but it is all worth it in the end, cuz we get to have dad all to ourselves during the remainder of the year...for the most part.

I am watching a little girl and making cakes on the side. I love every minute of it, and it gives me a baby fix. I am truly enjoying staying at home eventhough I don't admit it all the time. I really need to get back into my school routine and have lessons and stuff for my kids. It would make our time a lot more enjoyable at home.

I am rambling now, so I will call this good. I know that it isn't much, but it is a start to help me get back into the swing of things. Hopefully I will have a few more pictures next time.

The Days Before Christmas

'Twas the days before Christmas, when all through the house

Every creature was stirring, though, I hope not a mouse;

The ornaments were decorated and painted with care,

In hopes that our tree would no longer be bare.

The children were hyper and jumping on beds,
While dad told them to stop, 'cuz they might bump their heads.

And now came the time for Elijah to nap,

But first we must find his coveted Titleist green cap.

When up in the living room there 'rose such a clatter,

I ran up the stairs to see what was the matter.

Away up the stairs, I don't fly like a flash,

I hardly can run the 100 yd. dash.

Madelyn was yelling, "I love the new snow,

let me go play in it, I want to, you know!"

When, what to Madelyn's eyes should appear,

Elijah's green hat, and just as I feared;

Our sweet little girl, so lively and quick,

grabbed the green hat, to play a mean trick.

I couldn't handle it, so quickly dad came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now Madelyn give back your brother's green hat."

Then came Elijah and on Madelyn he sat.

Dad said, "Off your sister, go sit by the wall,

Now give back the hat that was not nice at all."

As snow flakes that before the wild blizzard fly,

When they meet an obstacle, soar through the sky,

So up to her brother she grumbled and knew,

Just what it was that she had to do.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard with a sigh

"I'm sorry Elijah, what I did was not right."

As I stopped in my place, and was turning around,

They gave a great hug and then fell to the ground.

They were tickling and giggling from their heads to their feet,

And when it was all through they both took a seat.

"Out to the snow, get your coat on your back,"

I said to the kids while running the vac (vacuum)

Their eyes how they twinkled. Their dimples how merry.

Their cheeks were like roses, thier noses like cherries.

Their bodies were eager and ready to go

And make a big snowman out in the new snow.

We try to make snowballs, then they both grit their teeth (ugh)

"This snow is too fluffy" then she threw it at the wreath.

"Let's make a snow angel," I said with a beg,

"Lay down on your back, move your arms and your legs."

Elijah's was small like a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I heard him say, "That's not myself."
Madelyn's was perfect from her toes to her head.

Soon I decided it was time for bed.

They both were tired, playing in snow is hard work,

"Goodnight my angels," and they gave me a smirk.

Tucking them in and giving them kisses, you know

my babes are so precious, for too fast they do grow.

I thank God everyday for giving to me,

A beautiful, wonderful family

As I look at the stars God gave us, so bright,

I say,"MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOODNIGHT"

**I hope you all have a blessed Christmas season, we are very blessed to have each other and all of you our friends in our lives. We love all of you!

Side Note:

This is a conversation I had with Madelyn while baking cookies for her class.

Mom: "You have 17 kids in your class, we have 5 cookies on this sheet and 5 on this one, how many do we have all together?"

Madelyn: (without hesitation)"10"

Mom: "Right, so if you have 17 kids and we have 10 cookies, how many more do we need?"

Madelyn: (again, without hesitation) "7"

Mom: "How did you know that so fast"

Madelyn: "I'm good at my numbers, Mom"

I guess she put me in my place, and it is scary to think that she has her dad's brains, and is going to be smarter than me by the time she is 10.

Christmas Time is Drawing Near

I am realizing that I am terrible at this blog thing. I am not near as good at it as my dear friend Andrea :o) Andrea...I need to give a shout out to you, because it seems that you are incredibly organized and are awesome at writing your blogs, I love reading them. It is my dream to be as good as you!! ;o)

Anyway, we have had a lot of things happen since the last time I wrote. The picture up top is of my grandma and Madelyn during my family's yearly Christmas tradition, making tons of fattening, but yummy, cookies.

Madelyn loves to put sprinkles on all of the cookies, sometimes a few too many. My grandma is so sweet though, she would calmly say, "okay sweetie, I think that is enough sprinkles for that cookie," then she would take the pan over to the sink and sneakingly dust some of the sprinkles off, so not to hurt Madelyn's feelings (You can see in the picture above with my grandma, just how many sprinkles are on the cookie sheet :o)). Madelyn was also pretty sneaky when it came to 'eating' the sprinkles. (I am laughing as I write this, because I am just thinking of how many Madelyn germies are on the cookies that we have already eaten.) She would lick her fingers and dip them

in the sprinkles and eat them (it is no wonder she didn't want to take a nap, because she was on a sugar high). My soon to be favorite sister-in-law joined us in our venture for her first time. We kept her busy, because my sister and I were scheming up some cookies for her Bachelorette party later that night. I had told her how to dip the peanut butter balls in the chocolate, and all she needed to do was carry the HOT crockpot of chocolate over to the table. Okay, so I told her that it was HOT and not to carry it without pot holders. She gets a couple of pot holders and heads slowly over to the table with the mini crockpot. I guess I should have told her that the inside comes out, so don't just hold the handles, because the next sound I heard was a crash on the floor, an the poor thing was so worried about chocolate spilling all over the floor that she grabbed the pot without pot holders, OUCH! No chocolate was spilled, but Kyla had her first casualty while making cookies with us. Thanks for saving the chocolate Kyla! She ended up getting a blister on her finger, and unlucky for her we went bowling later that night, and it popped. What a great start to her night of freedom celebration, sorry Kyla.

Oh...about the cookies that my sister and I made, we had a lot of fun making 'male anatomy' cookies for Kyla, decorated in green with one eye and the others in pink with chocolate curlies at the bottom, it was a lot of fun!

You might be wondering what the 'guys' did while we were making cookies, well...if you know my family we are all golfers, so we sent them, including my mini man to Austad's virtual golf. My husband is an amazing golfer, and he came home and said that he basically wasted them all :o) I am sure that it is true, and Elijah is going to be a great golfer as well. He hit his little plastic club and plastic ball at the screen (my little left hander) and it registered him hitting the ball 30 yards. He also has a new Titleist hat that he has to wear everywhere! We headed out to church today, and he had to find his hat (we are going to have to start hiding it on Sundays). We fought tooth and nail to get that away from him, we finally convinced him that daddy wasn't wearing a hat, so he didn't need to either. He wears it to bed and has to wear it on top of his stocking hat when we go outside. (I will get some pics of this, so you can see what I mean especially for the extent of the obsession, but it is really cute).

As for me, I am just finishing up one of my Master's classes, and I got my 10 page paper written and mailed to my prof. I have been so busy doing, I don't know what, so I am sorry that my blogs are so long. I hope you all have a blessed Christmas season. We will be heading out to Washington state soon after Christmas for my brother's wedding. Wish us luck, I am standing up as well as my two kids (flower girl and ring bearer - Elijah calls himself the 'rainbow', boy, I hope he isn't crushed when he doesn't get to wear a rainbow costume :o) I am also making their wedding cake and helping with make-up for the girls. Ryan's grandma isn't doing well, and she hasn't been for a while, so we are hoping that she doesn't go to meet the Lord until we come back(how selfish does that sound, but I really don't think I could fly with 2 kids and do all this stuff without my wonderful husband). Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year if I don't blog until then, you know why I am busy :o)

Time for bed, Goodnight

It's Been a While...

Okay, so I don't have a lot going on in our household right now. I thought that I would quick write while the kids are sleeping so soundly in their beds.

The kids and I have been busy at home, going shopping, making crafts, and playing with our neighbor and her granddaughter. We had them over to our house, and I had the kids just have fun with new crafty things that we bought. Madelyn made an adorable little turkey, she traced her hand and I helped her cut it out. Once the turkey was cut out, she proceeded to glue on feathers that were brown, red, and orange. Her turkey's body was purple of course. Then we had to glue on 'gwiggly' eyes (those are her words). But, if you know my daughter, that wasn't good enough. We bought some glitter and of course no turkey is complete without lots of pretty glitter. So, Madelyn took the glue and drenched her turkey so that it could be the most beautiful, sparkly turkey of all. It was a beautiful turkey, and she wondered why God didn't make turkey's with glitter on them, 'they look a lot nicer'.

In the meantime, Elijah decided to use all the glue that I gave him and put it on his piece of foam paper. You see, when it comes to my boy, the messier the better. We bought some ball stickers (of course, the only thing he plays with) and instead of taking the backing off, he just glued them right on :o). His paper was covered in footballs, basketballs, baseballs, soccer balls, wait...something is missing. Can you guess? If you know my family at all, we are HUGE into golfing, and there was an outright fit/tantrum that there were no golf ball stickers in that package!! Who makes these things anyway, don't you know that golf is a sport with a BALL too?!? So as fast as I could I cut out a ball from the foam pieces, put some dots on it and presented it to Elijah, all the while hoping that it would be sufficient and meet his standards. He was ecstatic when he saw the golf ball. But what is a ball if it isn't complete with a club. So back to the drawing board. I conjured up the best golf club I could. He loved it, and he is so proud of the work that he did.

Well, it is almost time for the kids to wake up, I will try to write a little more, but don't quote me on that.

Tired...

I am so glad that tomorrow is Sunday, hopefully I will get a nap in. We started trick or treating last night at 6:30, and we were finished around 9:00, seems like a long time, but we rode around to different people that we knew, and were invited to come in to a party, but declined, because Madelyn was owly. Amazingly I didn't get any pictures of the kids, we were off and trick or treating with a neighbor, and totally forgot to grab it. So...picture in your head if you will, Madelyn as a cute little, fluffy bunny with a pink bushy tail and pink ears and pink paws (only this bunny had an attitude toward the end of the night). She ended up being a scary bunny instead. Elijah was Buzz Lightyear and he was sure that he let everyone know, "I'm Buzz Wightyear," he did a great job all night, until mom realized why, he was eating candy secretively, so he was wired. On our way home Madelyn fell asleep, while Eli was wide awake from a sugar high. It was as if he was addicted, because when I took the bucket away he SCREAMED so loud you would have thought I just took his blankey away. All in all it was a good night, Ryan knows a lot of people through his work, so we had a lot of people to visit, glad it is over. Now I just need to stay away from the candy.

Got little sleep last night due to the candyholic getting up 4 times. Usually Elijah is the best sleeper, all I need to do is put him in his bed and he falls asleep, he did this last night, but he had too much to drink with his candy, so he needed to go to the bathroom, and of course dad can't help him, because he is mamma's little boy, ugh. Sometimes it is nice, others, not so much.

I made 24 pony o's and 6 korker bows for Sioux Falls Christian school today, and am sick of seeing ribbon and the sewing machine. Madelyn thinks that she needs to help all the time, but a lot of the time it just makes things take longer. Oh...and while I was doing this, Ryan decided he needed to go golfing, again (he just went yesterday, when is it my turn for a break!!??) with his dr. friend, he is lucky both of the kids stayed sleeping.

Anyway, I am tired of getting Elijah out of the tub, because he thinks he has to go to the bathroom, so I am just going to get him out and leave him out. Time to get the kids to bed, too bad daylight saving time won't help me. Goodnight.

My First Blog

Alright...Not sure how well this will go, but I will give it a shot

Since I am staying at home now, I thought that I would try to keep up with the times and have a blogspot. I am not saying that this is going to be updated everyday, but if you want to read it you go right ahead.

Happenings...
In case you haven't talked to us in a while here is what is going on. Ryan is still busy at work with the CPA firm, and is looking into becoming partner. I, DeAnna, am currently staying home with my two beautiful children and loving it. Madelyn is now 4 1/2 and is in preschool and Elijah is 2 and he is going to be our little golfer. I am also currently enrolled at UND getting my Master's in Autism.

My little brother is getting married in January out in Washington State, so we all get to fly out there after Christmas. Madelyn, Elijah, and I are all in the wedding, and I am also making their wedding cake, so we will be very busy when we are out there.

Anyway, it is time for me to wake my son up and go get my daughter from preschool, so if you feel like reading this enjoy. You can also find me on facebook. I have pictures posted there.