Concerts and Christmas Parties!

I've been a little lazy in the blogging department lately! It has been go, go, go in the Shaw household! Ryan was off last week (and only last week)...he got called back again on Monday. They are hoping to get another couple weeks in and then have January off, and start up in February again....BOO! I guess it's payback for his long break last year (Oct - May!!). Don't get me wrong, we are so thankful for the construction work! However, when your hubby's away all week long, week after week...you look forward to this time...we prepare for it all summer long...we have our money saved, our vacation planned, we're READY!! However, his job doesn't agree...they've got their minds set on a late/ early season, which means a shorter break! It just goes to show that we are NOT in control! We plan, we prepare...and tada...we are still waiting! Oh well, it is what it is...and we are very thankful for his job, and for them to respect Ryan how they do! He deserves it...he's one heck of a good worker....at work anyways...I kid!

Well, not that I got that rant over with, we've been busy preparing for the holidays, and our vacation coming up very quick! Less than a month actually!! Wowzer!

Brooke had her Christmas program. There were 4 classes of tiny little kindergartners that were led in by their teachers, they all sat in there spots on the bleachers (I suppose they sat so they didn't fall off the bleachers, if you know kindergartners...they don't sit still well!), each class had their own song they got to perform. The music teacher is Ryan's sisters sister-in-law (get that?), so we were excited to see her work as well as Brooke! Brooklyn's class was the last to sing...she marched up there (front row), lined up in front of the microphone, she had no expression at all on her face, knowing Brooke, I thought for sure she was going to just stand there...frozen. The audience was huge! I thought she was going to get a case of stage fright. The music started...she stood still, but as soon as that singing started she was unstoppable! She was so enthusiastic with her singing and her actions...so much so that she almost took out the little boy next to her with her arm actions several times. Ryan and I were in tears from laughing, and pride!

See her? She's the one looking right at us!

This is how it started out...no expression at all....



Then this happened!

And then this...

And this...

She was adorable! She brought tears to my eyes (first, cuz she was awesome...second, cuz I was laughing so hard!). After the program we got to visit her classroom and have a treat.

Mmmm, cookies for breakfast!

chattin' with daddy!

Okay, so enough concert talk. Sunday we had our christmas party for Ryan's side... It was fun to get to see some you don't get to see much...including Ryan's sisters who we don't see all that often anymore! It's also nice to see Ryan's grandma and grandpa! And of course the girls love to play with their cousins!

Presents!!

Is that a confused look or not? Gotta love grandpa!

Cousins, cousins, and more cousins!

It was a good party! We still have a few Christmas parties left...the girls ask everyday if they can open a present....just one...please....pretty please....mooommmm, but please!? At least they take my "no" answer a little better because I can use Ryan as an excuse..."your dad wants to watch you open your presents too...it wouldn't be fair to him". It seems to work...however I still have to say it everyday (apparently they forget). I'm excited this year to have Christmas just with our family. I'm excited to get me some Ryan time! I sure do miss him, and so do the girls! I think he might just miss us too!

I am so thankful for how our life together has turned out! We have a happy, healthy family...two very smart and adorable (of course I am biased) girls...good jobs...and all of our needs are met. We are very blessed! I hope that you all can see everything that you have been blessed with. I'm a naturally negative person...but it's so much better to try to see the good in everything. I think that is going to be my resolution this year! If I'm not on here before saturday I wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas!!

XOXO,

Erinn

baby deer and gingerbread houses

long time no talk huh? life has been ubber crazy, plus trying to get christmas stuff ready...and done. i've been thinking about making cookies (haven't done it yet, but thinking about it has to count for something right?).

ryan got a couple days off this week, with the freezing cold they got shut down for a couple days...the nice thing is they actually called him while he was at home to let him know so he didn't drive all they way up north for nothing...he's thinking that it won't be too long before he's done (secretly hoping!). they're starting to get a little wimpy with the cold..so hopefully they'll decide to cut them off! it'll be nice to have him home for awhile, but at least we get a couple days as he doesn't have to work until wednesday night now...did i mention he was on the nights crew, who knew there would be so much road construction work at night!

since i have mondays off we got to spend an extra day together which was wonderful! we even had some baby deer venture down our road! at one point they were digging for some food, then they would go up on their hind legs at eachother.

can you spot it? to the left of the tree....so cute!

they were trying to cross the road, slipping on the ice



they're were three little babies..adorable!

 we also had some hungry, hungry squirrels in our crab apple tree, there were 5 of them hanging from branches, shoving their faces...they were fluffy little things!

we wrapped up the day building our own little gingerbread house. brooke was begging to do one after she saw the art teachers during class, i gave in...we had to run to the grocery store anyways and knew the girls would have a blast with the project, they did!

notice the pic on the box in the background? i don't think we did too shabby!

the master decorators!

there was only one fatality...someone dropped him on the floor...

it turned out wonderful! and only a handful of candy was consumed during the construction of the g-bread house!

it was also hannah's christmas program for school this past week...yeah so i'm a little slow! here's some pics from that sweet treat! the big production of "north pole musical"...

is that you mom?

yep it's my mom!

hannah's big debut!

take a bow!

it warms my heart to watch my kiddos do these things! i feel so proud of them! hannah did wonderful, she sang her little heart out, did all the actions....there was one boy who just stood there the whole time with one peeved look on his face...i had to giggle, i was going to take a pic of him...but not sure if that's considered "ok"...

brooke's is this friday...so pics will follow of that later this week!

well back to watching this poor excuse of a football game...we're on QB #3! we don't have any left!

happy monday!

XOXO,

Erinn

She's crazy!

After reading a couple blogs where people posted some silly crazy things they do..I thought I'd let you in on some of my weird OCD things I do....

• I weigh myself daily (not healthy, I know). I tried not to weigh myself one morning, by hopping in the shower (cuz in my head my hair has to soak up a few lbs of water...so no WAY I would weigh myself wet)...however I couldn't make myself get all the way in the shower before getting back out and weighing myself anyways.
• I always have my scale set back 2 lbs, I'm not dumb, I know it, but when I look at the scale it looks better that way.
• I can only eat M&M's and Skittles (YUMMO!) 2 at a time, and they can't be the same color, if I get stuck with 2 at the end the same color by accident...I won't eat them.
• I won't drink the last quarter of anything in a can or a bottle...I believe it's mostly backwash.
• I pick at my eyebrows...to the point that I get bald spots in them sometimes (I also will pick any bump on my body until it bleeds, not a good mix when you live in MN where our state bird is the mosquito!
• I still don't step on cracks on sidewalks...just in case it will in fact break my mothers back ( I take no chances)
• I hate cotton with a passion...to the point I get physically ill if someone puts a cotton ball or q-tip near their mouths (good thing I've never had to be tested for strep!), I also have a very hard time wearing sweaters...I get that teeth grinding sensation.
• I put chips on my sandwiches (6 doritos to be exact).
• I'm obsessed with hand washing, especially in public places...I make all of us use hand sanitizer like it's going outta style!
• I don't wear red...ever, I think it clashes with my hair.
• I will only carry a coach purse...I found this obsession a few years ago, and cannot bring myself to get any other purse...it's my one splurge...and I refuse to give it up.
• I make noises to myself when driving...a lot. Car noises usually, duh. Like vroom if I'm speeding up...or ert if I'm stopping.
• I have to put lotion on constantly...probably to counteract the obsessive hand washing.
• I can justify anything in my head...anything at all...no matter what, in my head weird things make sense (however sometimes when I speak them...not so much)

Okay, there's a few! I know...born and raised crazy. I'm okay with it. I'm better than I was. I used to have to say things to get a certain response...if I didn't get the response I was looking for, I'd ask again until I got it. I also used to count things, and they had to be even...if not, the world apparently would implode. So see...some of the crazy has gone away...although I still check the alarm at least 4 times at night. When I say my prayers, I have to say Amen...twice. And I check all the doors, cars and house and office.

Aaah, it feels good to get that out there! I know I'm crazy! I don't bother me!

XOXO,

Erinn

Slacker bloggitis!

I'm feeling a little less than creative lately! It's been crazy!! Ryan's usually off by now, and he's working still...which is good, but we are really ready to have him here with us! Now he started the night shift this week (weird for a road construction crew) but they are trying to wrap up as much as possible before shut-down. This leaves a lot more stuff undone...weekends go super fast, barely getting what we need to done (my growing to-do list is not getting near as much checked off as possible!).

I am one of those that enjoys going to the stores and Christmas shopping...but I think I might have to break down and do some online...then getting ready for vacation too ( at work and at home ).

We did finally get our Christmas tree set up this weekend. I haven't had a chance to rearrange the decorations yet...they are a little clumpy yet (if you have kids...you know what I mean).

I wanna climb that tree!

"clumping of decorations"

Now I just have to dig out the skirt and the rest of the house decorations. It's really hard for me this year! I'm trying to get in the spirit...if for nothing else, the girls! I don't know how to get outta this funk!!

Oh, Ryan and I have been trying to treat ourselves to a little more. We've always worked all our years together, and worked hard....never played hard! So we've decided to do fun things for ourselves...we need it as we spend sooo much time apart in the summer months. So as you know we went to the Vikes/Pack game a couple weeks ago....completely disappointing! We decided we should buy tickets to the Bills game as we have a much better chance of beating them...so we did...and found awesome seats for a great price!

6th row!! And we were right by where they run in and out of the locker room! It.was.awesome!!

You know what's funny is that I didn't grow up with football...in fact last year I didn't even like football as much as I LOVE it now! I have a little bit of an addictive personality I admit...but this sport has been missing from me my whole life!! It's great! It started last year with a little office bet on the play-offs...from there I have been HOOKED!



TOUCHDOWN!!

 It was great! Favre was knocked out on like his 2nd or 3rd play...which meant TJack was th QB...we didn't know if Favre would be back or not...and I watched TJack play at the preseason game I went to...he sucked!! But holy man!! The football gods were on our side (with a little help of the might AP!) It was awesome! I lost my voice from screaming so much! It was one touchdown after another!! Love my vikes!!

Okay...well hopefully this week will get me up and motivated! I need to get moving on getting decorating, shopping, and working out! BOO!

Happy Monday!

XOXO,

Erinn

Children.....

I'm finding that kids can make up ANY excuse of why they should not go to bed...

 *too hot
 *too cold
 *hafta pee
 *I'm thirsty (which usually leads to another "hafta pee")
 *I miss Dad! (ya, you'd think this one would be cute...but they totally use it as an excuse)
 *Hannah hit me
 *Brooklyn hit me
 *and the list goes on....

Our girls have their own rooms, but choose to sleep together....Awwww sweet, right? Not when they've been up there for two hours and you can still hear them giggling!

Oh, and then as soon as I go into bed, they sneak downstairs and try to sleep on the couch! If it wasn't for the afore mentioned giggling...they might get away with it most nights...

My hope for them is that they will grow up to be close. Of course I want to be the mom/friend-they-can-go-to-with-anything....but I hope they establish a great friendship between the two of them. For now...it's about 50/50 - love/hate....still a toss-up!

XOXO,

Erinn

24 days til Christmas!

After getting to work, looking at my calendar...I suddenly realized there is only 24 days until Christmas!!  We haven't even set up our tree this year yet! It's one of those years that I am trying to de-clutter and organize our home...and the thought of unloading that stuff seems a little overwhelming to me right now... However I have two little girls that ask everyday if this is the day daddy can get the tree down (Or brooke asks how many sleeps until daddy's home). So this weekend will be it...we'll HAVE to get that thing down and decorate it! The girls love to see all of their ornaments collected over the years (although it usually leads to argument, because Hannah has 4 more than Brooke, as she is 4 years older...ah, fun). So this weekend will be it...or Saturday will have to be it! (Cuz Sunday we will totally be busting out our Vikes jerseys again and going to the Vikes vs Bills game!!)

Also looking on my calendar I'm realizing that their are only 3 (yes 3!!!) weekends until Christmas shopping needs to be done...which would normally be no big deal...except every single weekend we have something going on!! As I mentioned before we are going to get the girls new bedding (and a couple things for their rooms)...but I'm thinking we should probably get them something fun from Santa...could you imagine waking up Christmas morning being 5 or 9 with no fun toys under the tree...I'll have to come up with something! I'm not even sure if Hannah still believes in Santa..or if she's just not sayin, cuz she still wants the presents (I remember being in that stage! I wasn't gonna tell my mom and dad that I knew they were Santa...cuz then I wouldn't get the presents!) Oh the mind of a child fascinates me!

So in my already stressful life...that I'm trying to calm down...I realize Christmas is really right around the corner!! AAHHHHH! Maybe online shopping will be the way to go this year!?

Dear calm, organized life....where have you gone???

At least its Thursday! That means after today there's only one day til the weekend!! Yippee! Joy to the Weekend!!

XOXO,

Erinn

oops I did it again....

Warning....pointless, random blog post to follow!

I know...cheesy...Britney Speers! Anyways...I totally gave in again today and got a mocha from caribou! You know how terrible those things are for you?? I made sure to pair it with some veggies and yummy hummis, and a little chicken and rice smart one meal (again, I know...not the best for you...but this one was actually okay in the sodium dept). It's one of the Steamer things...really good actually, lots of veggies! Yum! Plus, I completely skipped breakfast, so in my head...no breakfast = okay to drink caribou!! Right? Totally makes sense!

Word on the street with Ryan's work this week is he's working until Christmas Eve (although he was off today for some minor mechanical problems with his machinery....he totally broke it!). We'll see...ya just never know!

Oooh, on a happy note! Eclipse is coming out this Saturday!! Yippee!! I'm so excited to bust out some popcorn and have a twilight marathon!!

By the way, they should really have a Team Emmett! I mean, I consider myself "Team Edward" all the way! But if they had a Team Emmett....I'd join! Haha. Dork, I know!

Well, the girls are in the bathtub...and suddenly it seems a little too quiet! Quiet bathtimes I've learned means more messes for me to clean up after! Better go check it out!

XOXO,

Erinn