Christmas Eve/ Meyer Christmas

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun for our family this year! We woke up early and had a good breakfast, hung out for a little bit, and spent some time getting ready for Christmas day! Below is a pic of Tanner helping me a couple days before Christmas make some goodies for work. He always has to help as much as we'll let him!

I got a new book for Tanner for Christmas, it's "Twas the Night before Christmas" book. Mike read it to him, and then I had to, too, and then Mike again! He just loved it!
Then Tanner and I made some cookies for Santa. It's been a long time since I've made sugar cookies, so it took me a little bit to get the hang of it again, but we had lots of fun making them!

He loved playing with the cookie cutters and the dough!

Cheese!! If you look closely at the bottom left corner, those are Tanner's cookies! Every time I put a cookie on the cookie sheet he would grab some dough and put it on there too!

Then Tanner took a little nap and then we headed out to my Mom and Dad's place, which was an adventure in itself. It had just started sleeting and getting really cold, so the roads weren't great, but we wound up making it there. We had to detour a little bit, and take the gravel to get there so we had a little more traction, but the truck got us there safe and sound!

Here's Tanner and some of his cousin's opening presents!

Tanner playing farm with Uncle Brian!

Tanner got into Josie's makeup she got from Grandma and Grandpa! He did a surprisingly good job putting it on, but he does have a lot of girl cousins that like to play dress up with him!

It wasn't too bad getting back home that night. We left a little while after it started snowing, so we had the snow for traction on the way home. The wind and the snow made it kind of hard to see, but we took it slow and got home just fine!

Here's Tanner in his Christmas PJ's!

Jensen Christmas

This year was Mom's turn to take care of the Jensen Christmas Dinner, so of course us girls helped out too as much as we could. It really can be a big undertaking since there are over a hundred of us now, so that's a lot of food, tables, and decorations! Since there are ten kids, and they have a rotation going, each one only has to do it once every ten years, so that helps, but it's kind of a shock when your turn comes back around! I think a good time was had by all, and there was plenty of good food and fun times! Here are a few of the pics we took:

Cailyn, Sydni, Lexi, and Tanner playing in the corner!

A picture of the group! We had a final count of 95 people!
Tanner opening his gift from Great-grandma Jensen.
Mom's grandkids with Great-grandma.

The kids playing while we cleaned up!

Snow much fun!

Getting Tanner all bundled up to go outside the evening before the first "blizzard"!

Mike got Tanner his own snow shovel so he could help scoop snow, since Tanner has to help do everything!! He loved it, but unfortunately we think it go buried in the last snow we had and now we can't find it!


Tanner and Mike sledding for the first time!

Tanner had fun being pulled around in the sled too!

Poor Memphis wanted to run and play in the snow, but it was a bit too much for him!

I had to go out later and scoop him some paths around the yard!

Mike and Tanner making Tanner's first snow man!

Happy Holidays!!

I know it's been forever since I blogged, but the last month has been kinda crazy, especially the last week! I'll try to think of everything I've missed! We had a great Thanksgiving at my brothers house Wednesday night and at Mike's parents on Thursday. Then we were just getting ready for Christmas and Mike was working overtime a lot at Kawasaki. The weekend after Thanksgiving, he got to take the weekend off, though, and go to the Chiefs game with Beaty, JP, and some other guys, so he really enjoyed that (probably more than I would like to know!)! Work got really crazy for me in there too, but I never get OT, so I just had to fit it into my 8 hour work day (Nice...I know!). Otherwise, nothing really big went on..we had a couple holiday things to go to and they were nice, did a lot of Christmas shopping, and tried to keep up with the snow that kept coming down! We did get one day off of work because of the snow, so that was nice! I'll upload some pics later of all the fun we had in the snow! Tanner absolutely LOVES it, which can be nice, but then it's a bear to get him to come inside! He's just loves to be outside, he is sooo his fathers son! I'll add a bunch more blogs on our holidays, but otherwise that's it! Hope you all have a great New Year's!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tanner hanging out with the boys!

So far it's been a great weekend, and we still have two days left! Wednesday we went to my brother's house for dinner and all the kids had a ball together! They are all so funny and get along really well, so by the end of the night they had all worn each other out! Thursday we went to Mike's parents house for a late lunch and then hung out there for a while. Then Mike and I went home and left Tanner there to spend the night. Mike took a nap before he had to go to work OT, and I got a quiet evening to myself! I got to do a little cleaning, finished my book I was reading, and watched a movie! It was great, but it was almost a little too quiet around here! I kept thinking I was forgetting about something......;)

Then I got up at 4:30 this morning and went to Wal-Mart shopping and found everything I wanted! Our microwave crapped out yesterday while I was cooking, so I bought a new one of those, too. Then I came home, and put everything away and got out all my Christmas decorations. While I was putting things away, the dogs were barking, so I went outside to find they had treed a raccoon! This raccoon has been hanging out around here for a while and this is the third time the dogs have treed him, but this time it was in the yard! So I had to drag the dogs inside and let the little guy make a get away! Mike picked up Tanner on his way home and we played through the morning and then he went down for a nap and so did I! When we got up, helped Mike clean up the yard and put up lights, then Tanner and I went to Wal-mart to return the microwave I bought this morning! Darn thing didn't work! So far, the new one works great! Then grabbed some Taco Bell on the way home for supper and during supper Tanner fell out of his chair and gave himself a goose egg on his forehead! That should look great for Christmas pics tomorrow!

So tomorrow we're going to put up the tree, take a good nap, and then head to St. Joe for pictures at Sears and a little shopping! Then lots of relaxing on Sunday! So far this weekend is turning out pretty great....family time, shopping time, nap time, Mike got overtime, pictures, and we got a lot done around here! I need more weekends like this!!

Here are a few pics from Tanner and I hanging out tonight.
He found Daddy's hat and put it on!
Lately he thinks it's fun to play on and behind the couch!

Lovin' on his doggies!

November

It's November already!! I can't believe how fast this year has gone by! Thank goodness October is over, though! It was a very fun month, by it was crazy!! Right now, though, I think were finally caught up and have a little time to relax! Mike, unfortunately, is now on mandatory OT for the next 6 weeks, so that kinda sucks, but at least it means business is finally looking up!!
We don't have a lot planned for November, except Thanksgiving and I'm having an Upper Case Living party on the 15th (if anyone would like to come or order anything, please let me know! ;) ). It's been a pretty good month already, we've had time to get some stuff done around the house and the weather's been great for getting out and playing outside! This weekend, Mike and I took Tanner to St. Joe to visit my brother and his family, while Mike and I went to Legends in KC to do some Christmas shopping. Tanner had tons of fun with the girls and was worn out by the time he left! Mike and I loved getting to do some shopping by ourselves and the weather was perfect for Legends. We wound up getting Tanner a bunch of new clothes, a toy or two, and a couple things for ourselves.
Below are a few random pics from the last couple weeks! Enjoy!

We went bowling for Dad's 60th Birthday, so Tanner got to bowl for the first time!

Watch the ball go!

Watch Tanner go after the ball!

Tanner and Bailey were playing with the humidifier box the other night!

"Cheese!" Tanner acting cute so he doesn't get into trouble for playing with the dog food again! Tanner has been obsessed with babies these days, so I bought him his own baby boy at the store the other day. He Loves it! This was about one minute after I took it out of the box!And this was today at nap time!

Crazy fun week!

So many of you know, life's been crazy for us these days! It's fun, but it wears you down fast! Works a little busy, but it's starting to slow down (knock on wood!). Two of my Japanese bosses are going home to Japan next week, so I collected money from my engineers and ordered them really nice watches as going away gifts, and had a goody day at work for them on Friday. Then Friday night, the company had a party for them at the house, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with the guys outside of work, and wound up not getting home until 1 am! Thankfully I don't think there are many pics from that night!
Also this week we had to say good-bye to Mike's little brother Matthew, who is joining the Marines. Monday night we headed to Barry Road to get Tanner a new winter coat and my dad a birthday gift, then headed to the restaurant for a good-bye dinner. He'll be gone for 3 months at basic, so he won't be home til January! I think is going to be a long 3 months! We'll miss him lots! Here are some pics!

Tanner, Grandma, and Grandpa

Good bye kiss!

The boys! Yesterday, my mom and I spent the morning at the Clarinda craft show. It has to be one of my favorite shopping days each year! I just love seeing what new, cute things people have come up with! I'm not that creative myself, so I really appreciated their talents and that I can buy their stuff! The Kawasaki party the night before put a bit of a damper on it for me though! ;) Then I can home, made a fruit pizza, squeezed in a nap, and then took Tanner trick or treating at Mozingo. We've had a hard time getting Tanner into his costume, but took him to Mozingo and then put it on him, and luckily he was so distracted by all the people and costumes, he didn't care what he was wearing!! Then we headed to a friends house for a bonfire and 30th birthday party!

Little Monkey Man!

Tanner with the girls

Next week we've got a couple small things going on during the week and then we have friends coming up from St. Joe for homecoming on Friday night, and we might ride in the parade Saturday, so it should be a fun weekend! Oh and our friend Pam had her baby, so we went to visit them and hopefully my friend Jessica will be having her baby this week! Yay! Oh, and Mike and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on Thursday. We didn't do a lot for it, (we knew this was going to be a crazy week, so we celebrated a couple weeks ago), but Mike was a sweetie and sent me flowers at work and we got Subway for dinner so I didn't have to cook! Then I picked him up some hamballs and his favorite beer in Clarinda on Saturday! Sometimes it's the small things that mean the most! Hope you all have a great week!