Mi Vida Ocupada: My Busy Life!

Long, but good day.....

Wednesdays are always long days for me, as I am gone from 7:30am-10:30pm.  I took advantage of my prep/lunch and went to visit Michelle and Bennett at the hospital.  Michelle is doing alright, but because Bennett has been in the NICU on CPAP since he was born, she wasn't able to hold him until late last night.  Can you imagine not being able to hold your new baby when you have waited so long to finally meet him? (or her?) That is heartbreaking :(  Glad to hear that he is doing better and hopefully Brian can hold him today.
My parents had Annika and Bianca and came down to the hospital around the same time as I did, and then Jeff showed up, so we all went out to lunch....

Jeff had his camera along too and tried to take a panorama of all of us.....

I went back to work for the afternoon, then I met Kimmy for dinner before my evening class.  I had actually had plans to meet Jenny for dinner downtown near campus, but she had to attend to a family emergency so we have rescheduled for a couple of weeks from now.  So glad Kim was able to meet me last-minute, it was great to hang out and catch up.

Class last night was also good...we worked on art projects and my shoulder muscle is totally killing me.  It has been bothering me for a month now :(

Thoughts for Thursday coming up when I can get to it!

Welcome party....

My parents drove back into town today after being in Florida for the last several weeks.  They were missing my nieces like crazy, so they stopped at Bri & Michelle's on the way home.  Seemed like a good place to rendevous, so Jeff & I showed up and made it a family visit.  My parents brought little sun-hats back for the girls....too cute (but then again I have the cutest nieces!)

Michelle is just 10 days (or maybe sooner!) away from having Bennett and we are all so excited to meet him!

Pizza-bday Dinner

My parents had a little pizza party in honor of my birthday last night :)
I will be **29**  (+ 2 if you want to be technical) on Feb 11th.
They will be in Florida for the next several weeks so they wanted to make sure to see us all and help me celebrate before they leave tomorrow morning.
Thought it was cute that my dad, Bianca and I were all wearing pretty much the same thing...

Spring semester starts tonight, so once again I will be on campus every Wed. night until LATE. Uggg. Hope this semester is fast and painless!

Sweet Baby B turns 1!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little niece, Bianca, who turns one years old today!
Some of you have even been on this blogging adventure with me for a long time now and may remember when she was born. 
How fast this year went!
Today is also Annika's half-birthday (2 1/2 years old). Remember when Annika was born? It's really cool that I have been blogging long enough to document it all!

Brian and Michelle had a really nice party at their house yesterday, the girls had a lot of fun opening presents and playing with all the new toys! I tried to get a photo of them in the matching dresses I gave them for Christmas, but you can imagine how easy that was to manage! LOL

Bianca can be so sweet and her smile melts your heart.  Isn't she a doll?!

Foosball Tourney XXI Recap....

As I mentioned previously, my family holds a Foosball Tournament every year when we all get together for the big Birthday Party.
This is serious business in my family, folks..... no kidding! For 21 years now we have been having the tourney and my dad is the official "Commissioner" of The  Foosball Tournament.
Partners are drawn from a name in the hat and then written into the tournament bracket system....

Winners from past years are recognized in a variety of ways:

The Championship pair must choose between them who will take home the coveted Toilet Bowl Trophy.  They are responsible for re-painting it for the next year's tourney.  Check out the 2008 version! Looks pretty good considering there are 20 coats of paint under the current look!

This year I was paired with my cousin's boyfriend, Tony.  He is really good...so good that we went all the way to the Championship Game!!! Unfortunately we lost :( It was nice having so many of my cousins at the party....this is just a fraction of us!

Wanted to share a few other family pics from that day.....

Merry Christmas!

A few photos from Christmas Eve...

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas...... It is snowing like crazy again here today, please drive safe in the snow!!

Jeff's brain is our gain!

That was the slogan of the day, seeing how Jeff took the whole family out to lunch today.....
He had won several free giftcards for Majors restaurants by winning at trivia on Wednesday nights at the Majors in Roseville.  So his brain.......our gain!

Thanks for lunch, Jeff!  I will be writing a review later this week when I can get to it.

Brian brought the girls with him to lunch....he's flying solo with
them this weekend, as Michelle is at up north at the Intensive Crop Unit with a bunch of her girlfriends for the weekend.  A well-deserved scrapbooking retreat for her!

Most of the pics I took were of food, but I had to get a couple of Annika in this cute little tiger coat!

PS.  I went to Target this morning to get some things and to my surprise, it wasn't very busy at all.  Gotta love that!!

 

PPS Happy Birthday to Jules today!!

Ouch.

Woke up this morning with such swollen glands, I could hardly swallow. Decided to take my first sick day of the year and sleep the morning away.  Still have swollen glands, but hot tea and ibuprofen seems to help some :)
Its weird how stuff can just hit you like that, without warning.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Brian and Michelle's, watching football, playing with the girls, and eating yummy calzones.
I also took some of the cutest pictures of my mom and Bianca.

 

Going to take it easy the rest of today, it is dreary out and seems like the perfect day to cuddle up on the sofa and watch movies. I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Birthday dinner for mom....

My parents had us all up to their place last night to celebrate my mom's birthday with a delicious turkey dinner :)

Some pics...

Isn't my mom beautiful??

My darling "little" brothers...

Grandpa and Bianca.....

Michelle and Annika....

And blowing out the candles on the delicious fruit tort that Michelle made for dessert :)

 

To top of the great evening, I spent some time comparing packages between the Apple Store and Macmall.  You all were correct, I finally splurged and bought my Macbook pro.  I made a few hardware upgrades and bought a few accessories and software as well, so it probably won't get to me for 3-4 weeks, but it will be totally worth it!  I cannot believe how much money I spent, but I was fortunately able to get a teacher discount that saved me about $300.  I also got a FREE printer/scanner :) Oh, and my brother Jeff gave me a $100 credit toward the Apple store.  So I saved about $500 total.  Gotta love the savings!

Erin & Stew, happily married!

Friday night was the long-awaited wedding of Michelle's little sister Erin and her sweetheart Stew.

What a beautiful wedding and reception!  Both were held at The Great Hall downtown St Paul.

Besides having Michelle as her gorgeous Maid-of-Honor, Erin also had several beautiful bridesmaids and Annika was the flower girl.

Ready for a few pics?

 

The full album is here.

And Annika had the time of her life dancing for nearly two hours straight! I don't know how she did it without a nap and nothing but a piece of cake to eat all night, but check out this cute video of her dancing and watching the lights!

It was a very special evening and I am glad Erin and Stew included my family on their special day :) Check out Michelle's blog for more wedding photos :)

A lot of work, but also a nice little study break.....

Nothing like spending one of my precious weekend days sitting in class from 8-4pm :(

That was my Saturday, folks! 

I totally don't want my blog to turn into a place for me to lament all my school woes, but since that seems to be 95% of my life these days, thats all I think about. ( PS I am not a big fan of blogs where people whine in e/o post, so I will keep it to a minimum) 

I had planned to get a ton of reading and work done on Sunday, but woke up feeling really dizzy. Not sure if it was just from being exhausted from my busy schedule or maybe because my back & neck were hurting from sitting so long on Saturday? Could also be a new medication I take a bedtime.  I finally felt better by mid-afternoon and went up to my parents house for dinner.  I packed up my laptop and school work so that I could get something done while I was there.

Fat chance!  My laptop wasn't able to connect to the wireless for some reason and my nieces were kind of crabby ( I am easily distracted!) so I didn't get much done.

I did however, take some pics with Jeff's new camera....

We also took a little walk around the neighborhood since it was such a nice day out.  We stopped at the little garden by a pond and Annika would NOT sit still at all!!

I have another busy week ahead of me:

**Getting my hair cut & foiled on Tuesday (lonnnnnng over due)

**Classes all night on Wednesday (going to miss the Steve Vai concert I bought tickets for 5 months ago.  Boo hoo)

**Open house at work on Thursday night

**Michelle's sister's wedding on Friday night

Labor Day wknd on the lake.....

I am quite busy today (it IS the first day of school, ya know!), but I figured I better update so that Kim and those of you who check this blog faithfully every day for new reading material have something to read!

It was a glorious, hot & sunny weekend in Lake country.

Sunday was spent out on White Bear Lake with Lanee & Roger...

Wow, I am HOT!!!! The humidity and wind obviously LOVE me! LMAO.  Sadly I have also lost the two pair of sunglasses I bought this year, so I am stuck with these ugly backup pair....

Monday (Labor Day) I went up to my parents place on Lake Chisago for dinner and some fishing...

Mmmmm, ribs!

Fish that were caught...

My sweet little nieces...

And a gorgeous sunset on the lake....

Goodbye, Summer.  It was fun while it lasted!!

Fair Time!

The end of August means it is State Fair Time!

I can't remember a year since I was a very little girl that I didn't go at least one time.  Some years (back when I was a teenager) I would even go to the Fair 5-6 times!  There is no way I would do that these days when admission is $11 for adults and $9 to park.  Sheesh!  For the past several years now, Erick and I will go with maybe a couple of friends for just a few hours with the sole purpose of EATING.  This is the place to go to get your fried-foods and food-on-a-stick fix.  Not to mention the cheese curds!  Most people here in MN wait all stinkin year long to go to the Fair to eat!

It seems that everyone I know was going to the Fair today, and since Erick decided last-minute to go fishing for the weekend, I had nothing else to do today but go to the Fair too!  I ended up going out there with my brother Brian, Michelle and the girls, with the intention of meeting Kim, Mary and the kids out there.  Kimmy was kind enough to give me an admission ticket for free last night (thank you!).  Our brother Jeff lives like 1/2 mile down the road from the Fairgrounds, so we parked at his house and had him drop us off across the street from the main gate.  Can't beat that kind of service :) 

Look at the Sauers at the Fair!  And I am happy to announce to all my blogging friends that next year at Fair time, Annika and Bianca will have a little brother (or sister?).  Yes, you read that correctly! Michelle   just announced that she and Brian are expecting baby #3 due April 10th, 2008.  How exciting is that??!!  Go give Michelle a shout-out, she needs more comments on her blog!

So, back to the Fair.  First we hit up the animal barns:

Besides horses, we saw goats, sheep and pigs.  Pee-yew!!  Those barns are kinda stinky.  Michelle and I decided that pigs are very weird looking creatures.  Aren't they, though??? Kinda creeped me out thinking about the fetal pig I had to disect in 10th grade biology.

Once we got our animal fix, we started to look for food.  Corn dogs, french fries, cheese curds, cookies. It took me forever to decide what to eat, but finally I decided on fried ravioli. Too bad I couldn't eat them all! My philosophy is that it is better to share your food, that way you can try many different things :) I will be much more serious about eating when I go back with Erick sometime next week!

 

We did end up meeting Kim, Mary and the kids at the Kiddie Land for a very short while, but they were planning to stay at the Fair for several more hours and I was ready to leave shortly thereafter with Brian and Michelle.  Before we met Jeff back at the gate, Annika went on a little ride (moving too fast so most of my pics were blurred).  She loved it!

And I must post a pic of Ms. Bianca smiling, because it is just so sweet!

It was a beautiful short (cheap!) visit to the Fair. Would you believe I only spent $11.50 total?

$5.50 for fried ravioli

$3.00 Dole Whip cone

$3.00 Corn dog

I look forward to going back again with my honey :)

Birthday Party....

Bri & Michelle had a party up at the lake on Saturday to celebrate Annika's 2nd birthday.  It was a gorgeous day! 

Ready for some pics?

The birthday girl with her mama...            ....and with Grandpa Jim

And now Bianca is 6 months old!!!!!!  She has her half-birthday on Annika's birthday.  Bi with daddy....

She may be just 6 months old, but she already has 3 boyfriends! j/k....those are the babies of Michelle's best friends, Nikki (mother to twins Owen and Will) and Molly (mother to Harrison)

Annika got a ton of awesome presents from everyone (books and an outfit from me), and what better way to top off all the fun & excitement than with chocolate cake?

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

**PS I am slowly reading Harry Potter 7 (I'm only 1/4 through and I am reluctant to read any blogs, etc because I am afraid of spoilers!!).  Hope to finish it in the next few days!

Sunday (the day after Prince)...

After sleeping in very late on Sunday,  I went out on White Bear Lake for a brief time that afternoon with Lanee...we were keeping her company while Rog looked at the wheel on their boat trailer.  We hadn't been out there long when a terrible storm blew in.  Here is a pic I took of the sky about 15 minutes before it hit the lake.  I was fortunate to get dropped off at my car before the storm hit, L had to travel all the way around the Island to the other side of the lake where the boat launch and Roger were waiting with the trailer.  I guess it was unbelievably scary...3 foot waves and wind like a damn hurricane.  I would've flipped the F*** out!!!  They made it back but were drenched...and poor Lanee hit her head on the windshield.  This experience will teach us to watch the weather reports before heading out again!

I waited the storm out for a minute when I got home and then went up to my parents house for dinner.....My cousin Tyler was in town for the weekend from Chicago...always fun to see him.

  Have I mentioned yet that Jeff is totally in love??!! His sweetheart is Sarah (very sweet and smart...and isn't she cute?!) Jeff wrote a detailed entry on his blog about how they met.  I am very happy for them and I sure hope it works out! I know its way too soon to say this, but Michelle and I would love another sister :)  Speaking of Michelle...she couldn't love her girls anymore than she already does!! She is a wonderful mommy to my very special nieces :)

I hate to post too much all at once so I will be back later!

Father's Day Scorcher

Hot, Hot, Hot!! We went boating for the afternoon and to say it was hot was an understatement!!  There was a strong breeze, but it was still hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement! I got fried for the first time this summer...it should be tan by later today (I hope!) :)

I didn't get many good pics, but here are a few....

This beaver dam is just down the shore a few hundred yards from my parents house.  Not sure if the beavers still live there? Just a few years ago and this thing was nearly underwater....that is how low the lake is right now.

Jeff and his gf  Sarah, Jeff and Bianca

 

yours truly....

The concert I went to last night was decent but LOUD, my ears are still ringing!

I hope everyone enjoyed time with their families :)

Baptism Pics...

My niece Bianca was baptized on Saturday.  Here are some pics from the ceremony and from the party afterward.

Bianca was so good...not a peep out of her!

Biance with her parents and Godparents (Nicky E & Steve K)

Michelle and me...

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Gram & Gramp (I have seen them more in the past few weeks than in the past year!)

and how cute is Annika?!

Memorial Weekend!

Wow, I LOVE long weekends! Especially when there is a lot going on like there was this weekend :)

Friday night I went downtown Mpls. to see Static X at First Avenue.  Fun stuff! These guys are always good for an ass-kickin good time.  The only thing I totally hate about these type of shows is that there are too many BIG, sweaty, stinky guys everywhere.  I always try to stick by E but he always makes his way to the stage and I end up making my way to the back of the floor where I won't get pushed around.  Same story this time!

On Saturday we had a party up at my parents house with my mom's side of the family.  My cousin Tyler was in town from Chicago and his mom flew in from Tucson to surprise him.  He was totally surprised!! Gotta love it.  The weather was better than it the forecast predicted, so we were able to do many fun things outdoors.  I was only able to take a few pics (that didn't require flash) with my own camera, but I took a ton with Bri & Mich's Rebel.  Here are a couple taken with my camera. 

Tyler (who obviously was NOT smiling in this pic) and me sitting on the boat down at the marina.

My Aunt Connie with Bianca (who is getting so big at 4 months old!)

and my cousin Mackenzie with this adorable little 9-week-old weiner-dog puppy that belonged to my cousin David.

It was great to see some of my cousins...a few I hadn't seen in three years!

Later Saturday night I watched the movie, Apocalypto.  WOW.  Very good movie, but hard to watch some parts because it is so brutal.

Got some time in the sun on Sunday afternoon (which was the best weather of the weekend)....I  went swimming and to a BBQ.  Later that night so went back up to my parents house for dinner and to spend more time with Connie and Tyler while they were here.  My gram and gramp were up there too, so we enjoyed dinner, went for a walk and then had a bonfire overlooking the lake.  I love sitting by the fire!

On Monday I lounged around and then went out to eat.  I scrapped later that night.  I wish you could see how cool these American Craft glitter alpha rub-ons look IRL! (You can click on any pic to make it bigger).Oh, and does anyone have any great ideas for a journaling pen that writes on transparencies???

Hope everyone had a nice and safe weekend!

BBQ Party...

It was a lot of fun over at Jeff's place Friday night for his BBQ party!!  With a little help from his good friend Hucky, the two of them made 12 racks of ribs, a 16 lb Beef Brisket, and a couple dozen brats.  Delish! I made fresh pico de gallo and also a couple of trays of layered taco bean dip with tortilla chips and my mom made her broccoli salad and several strawberry cheesecake pies (with graham cracker crust) for dessert.  Hucky's wife Toya made potato salad and Coleslaw slaw.  Everything was so good it vanished pretty fast, especially the brisket!! There were about 40-50 of Jeff's friends/family at the party, including my Gram and Gramp! It was nice to see them now that they are in MN for the summer  (I hadn't seen them since last October).

I also invited Sonja and her daughter Angelina to the BBQ.....  Angelina and Annika got to know each other and played for quite awhile.  So, so, cute!  They were taking turns getting a ride" in this vintage 60's chair (made by a well-known artist, Herman Miller)

The fam all left Jeff's BBQ at around 9pm, but that is when the fun partying was just beginning!  I ended up staying until around midnight :) Here is the the album of my pics.  Glad you had a nice birthday, Jeff!

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Looking forward to more BBQ's at Jeff's house in the future!

Mother's Day....

Had a nice BBQ lunch up at my parents house for Mother's Day.  The weather was extremely windy and felt pretty cool coming off the lake, so we decided not to go boating.  Can you tell how much I love my nieces? Between Jeff & I, I think we took about 150 pictures of the girls, especially Annika (who happened to be in the happiest mood!)

I made my mom take this pic of her with her kids and grandkids

Since it was as short afternoon, I had time to go to a friend's parent's house for another BBQ.  I think I am all-BBQed out already!!!!!  I love it, but it made me seriously ILL by Sunday night.  Ugggg.

Hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day!

Its after midnight...

Yet I couldn't go to bed without jumping on the computer to share some cute pictures from today.  The fam got together up at my parents house for Brian's birthday dinner.  Since the temp was in the mid-70's, we also went for a short pontoon ride ( the first outting of the season).  While out on the lake we saw one of the bald eagles up in the tree near their nest.  After dinner the eagle was actually in my parents yard.  They are so gorgeous!

Brian & Michelle just bought a Canon Rebel (the first ones in the family), so Jeff & I took turns snapping a ton of photos.  He sure looks like a pro, doesn't he!? LOL.  Like this one of him getting a close up of the dog's head?   Sorry Jeff, but this is good shit bro!

Annika and Grandpa

Grandpa with Bianca

Grandpa in his new car...a Mercedes 500SL

Okay, now its late and I am reallllly tired.  Click here to see the rest of the album.   I will have to update about Friday another time :)

Easter

Thought I'd share some pics taken on Easter Sunday. We had a large gathering up in St Cloud....not the entire family, but we came close!  We had all 9 great-grandkids there too...all of them under the age of 4!!!

Annika and Bianca had the cutest matching dresses!!

Out to Lunch....

Started my Spring Break by having a nice lunch on Saturday with my mom and my cousin Andrea.  We went to the Olive Garden, a place I rarely visit.  It was very nice!

Hoping to enjoy the rest of my week off :)

Looks like Spring!

This weekend has been beautiful!  It definitely feels like spring in Minnesota when it is sunny and temps reach about 50 degrees F'.  Most of our snow is already melted, won't be long until it is all gone.

I lunched with Lori and Jen on Friday.  Love those gals...we don't see enough of each other.  Lori is a scrapper too (and Jen would like to try it out), so we plan to get together sometime soon for a scrapathon.  Can't wait!

I spent Saturday afternoon up at my folks' house....they just got back from a 6-week stay in Florida, so the whole fam got together for dinner, etc.  Some pics...

Look at how big Bianca is getting! 7 weeks old and 10 lbs. now.  Still can't tell who she looks like!

Uncle Jeffy couldn't get enough of some baby love....

Sippin the vino....

I went out later Saturday night to see an 80's cover band (Mortal Chaos).  They were pretty rockin! Didn't take any pics, but enjoyed the show :)

Hoping to go to the Mpls Auto Show today!  If not, I am sure I will be scrappin or trying to solve more Weffriddles.  I am now on level 21 and hopelessly addicted....

Peace out, peeps.  Hope you are having some sunny spring weather in your neck of the woods too!

Is it Wed. already??!! Time flies...

Wow, this week has flown by so far! I guess the expression is true, that "time flies when you're having fun".  Lots of fun so far this week.  Had company over on Sunday afternoon and then later we went out for pizza with Lanee & Rog.  Had dinner with them again on Monday night....homemade spaghetti...yummmm! I know I've said it before, but it is great that they live so close and like to get together so often (usually last-minute).

Last night Brian & Michelle had our families over for homemade pizza.  This date had been scheduled for about a month now...originally it was a "night before baby party" since Bianca was scheduled to be born by C-sect today.  Since she came 11 days early, this was a "welcome home, Bianca party" instead!  Also a chance for us to see my parents before they leave this Thursday for Florida (gone for 5 weeks).  The guest of honor was one sleepy baby....

Unlike her baby sister, Ms. Annika was wide awake.  I just can't believe how cute and sweet she is!!! And funny too....I totally need to take some video of her talking gibberish.  She has a lot to say, you just can't understand any of it!!

Got home and found all four of my cats chillin together on the bed...

Don't I have a good looking family of felines??!!

Had to change my banner again.  Can you see it up there? Sometimes I have to republish my site a couple of times before the changes take effect.  Loved this photo I found on Flickr of the snow in Tucson last week.  I like to use the "print screen" function to capture the image...that way I will have a record of what banners and schemes I used in the history of this blog.  I wish I had learned how to do that two years ago when i started blogging!  I love having a widescreen monitor too, you can see so much more :)

Looking forward to a couple of new features I am adding to my blog.  I will tell you more about it when I do what I want to do :)

Looking forward to dinner with my girls tonight to celebrate Mary's birthday.

Ciao!

Babies and scrappies....

Visited my sweet baby niece again yesterday morning.  She is still very tiny, but it is amazing how much she has changed already.   At first I thought she looked just like Annika did when she was born, but now I am not sure who she looks like...I guess we will have to wait and see!  Michelle looks gorgeous, as always.  She is such a good mamacita!

After visiting with Bianca, Brian and Michelle, I went and had lunch with Kara and Mandie at the new Granite City Brewery at Rosedale Mall.  This was the first time I got to see Mandie's baby, Aubryana, who will be 5 months old next week already!  She is so cute and is already looking so much like her daddy!  There was so much for us all to catch up on and talk about, I wish my girls lived closer...they are each about 45min-hour away from me in opposite directions :( Can't wait to see both of their new houses too!

Since I was feeling so good (something I used to take for granted), I stopped at Archiver's after lunch to pick up some new magaziness for inspiration.  I have not even cracked these magazines yet, but I was in the scrappin mood and had nothing else to do and spent most of the afternoon/evening creating these fun new scrappies:

I have quite a few pics to get printed from the past few weeks and CANNOT WAIT to get my hands on all the gorgeous new scrap products that are being released this weekend at CHA.  Monique at Scap Etc.  has done an excellent job of posting sneak peeks of all the good stuff....go check out her blog!!!  Be prepared to drool and drop a lot of moola this season :)

Hope everyone has a nice weekend...its FREEZING here!

Meet Bianca :)

My newest niece made her appearance into the world yesterday, 3 weeks early.  She was originally due on my birthday, Feb 11th, but knowing Michelle would have to have another c-section, they scheduled it for Jan 31st.  After Michelle started going into labor early Saturday morning, they obviously had to move up the C-sect. Michelle is doing good, more sore than c-sect with Annika, but hopefully she will have a quick recovery.  Bianca was born (1-20-07) exactly 18 months after Annika (7-20-05).  In fact, the girls will each share her half-birthday on her sister's birthday! Pretty cool!

I was able to stop at the hospital to see my new niece just a few hours after she was born.  She is a little peanut at 6lbs 11 oz, almost 2 lbs smaller than Annika was...but perfect! While I was at the hospital visiting, my parents showed up with Annika so I was able to see her meet her baby sister for the first time...totally precious!

*I removed the slideshow because it was slowing this site down too much.  Please click here to watch it!

Congrats Brian and Michelle!!! I love you guys and your beautiful little girls.  I am such a proud auntie!

Pizza & A Movie....

On Saturday afternoon I went to see Night at the Museum (Ben Stiller) with my family, in honor of my dad's birthday.  We do something special every year on his birthday, usually pizza and a movie.  The movie was pretty cute and enjoyable (unless you have people behind you who have an obnoxious laugh and tend to laugh at everything).  Julie, I totally forgot about the mini-donuts! Maybe next time :)

Afterward we went to Davanni's for deep-dish pizza.  They are the best local place for deep-dish...I highly recommend the "pink" sauce which is just an extra garlic sauce that goes under the cheese. Next come all the ingredients.  The chunky red sauce goes on top of the pizza so not to make the crust soggy, of course.  Totally delish!

Only took two pics this time.  First the guest of honor.  You may remember this post a year ago about his famous birthday.

And here is the other. Sorry Bri & Mich, don't know why I didn't take one of you guys? Probably 'cuz I took so many at Christmas! LOL

What do you think about me with my wavy hair? I bought a 3-barrel curling iron so I could do my hair the way that Sonja sometimes does hers. (Its totally cute on her!)  Just wanted to give it a try, not sure if it is a good look for me or not? I had perms most of my life so this isn't that big of a shock to see myself with big hair.  I don't think its that bad (just different), but E thought it looked kind of crazy. Men are so weird about change sometimes! I had to take another picture once I got home because I am not sure if/when I will ever do this again!  If you think its a nice change, please do me a favor and let me know :)

Today is New Year's Eve and I am not sure what (if anything) we are going to do tonight.  Nobody has anything planned and I really don't want to go to a bar or be out on the road with all the losers who will be drinking and driving.  I've had terrible headaches all week, so I kind of want to see how I feel.

Hope everyone else has fun tonight...please be safe!

Christmas Feasting

I think I may have overdone it with the eating and drinking this merry, merry Christmas.

I'm so full that I don't think I am going to need to eat ever again!

I finished up my shopping on Saturday afternoon and then went downtown and had  all-you-can-eat sushi at Ichibans.  It was all downhill from there...

I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house for our traditional hot-oil fondue dinner.  The house was looking very festive as usual!

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Plenty of marinated meats for the fondue, as well as jalapeno poppers and mozzarella sticks (Nice thinking, Jeff!).  My family has been doing the fondue on Christmas Eve for about 20 years now.  Its so good!

After our fondue we always open all our presents to each other.  I got a couple of giftcards for Archiver's (yay!), a cook book, a pretty purple sweater and amethyst earrings, a quesadilla maker, some calphalon pots, some DVDs, Scrabble, and I can't remember what else at the moment!

I made a little video montage with my Christmas Eve pics if you'd like to take a look :)

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

Later on Christmas Eve Rich and Angel came over for awhile (bearing gifts..all food related!)

I had a huge breakfast on Christmas morning and then spent the afternoon with the Sauer family.... my cousin Katie was in town from IL...it was great to see her and the rest of my cousins that were there too.  Its fun to have a big family :)

I had Christmas dinner with family and friends in WBL (seafood alfredo and lasagna).  Again, stuffed to the max!! 

Later that night we hung out with our next-door-neighbors, Darrell and Denise.  They had a few friends over to celebrate Darrell's Christmas birthday.  It was a good time! More eating and drinking all night. Denise makes the best fresh pico de gallo with tons of fresh cilantro.  I love it!!! Stayed up way too late. Was nice that we only had about 20 feet to stumble to get back home! LOL

Had dinner and celebrated Christmas at Lanee & Roger's house tonight.  Lanee made some of the best lasagna I've ever had....delish! 

My appetite has now met its capacity and I must take it easy for a few days :)

Hope everyone else had a great Christmas!

Gobble Gobble

Had a nice, relatively quiet Thanksgiving this year.  For the first time in many, many years, my parents hosted the holiday at their house.  It is tradition that we spend Thanksgiving with my dad's side of the family, alternating between St Cloud and the Cities.  My dad's brother Steve and sister Susan and their families joined us, making it a much smaller gathering than usual. (Instead of 40 we had 12)   Jeffrey couldn't make it because he was in AZ celebrating with my mom's side of the family. 

Here are some pics of our Thanksgiving:

Me and my Mamacita (For the record, I have always hated the color orange and I am trying to break out of my shell)

Brian, Michelle and Annika.  Annika is so funny and cute! She speaks her own language now...you can't understand it, but she is always talking away at full speed.  She is going to make a wonderful big sister to Bianca (only 10 weeks to go!)

Susan, Gene, Katie and Mike

Cindy and Collin (who just turned 16 and now has his driver's license!!)

The table centerpiece....

I took pics of all sorts of things, including my plate of food! Have I ever mentioned that Green Bean Casserole is my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal??? It is usually the thing my aunt Janice brings, but since she wasn't able to attend this year, my mom put me in charge of making it.  The recipe calls for cheddar cheese croutons, which are impossible to find around here.  Sure you can find cheese and garlic at any store, but never cheese without the garlic.  After stopping at four stores on Wed, I found Romano cheese croutons and made it with that.  Turned out pretty good!!

Following dinner we had our traditional "walk around the block" after dinner.  My parents neighborhood looks great with all the Christmas lights!

For dessert we had brownie cheesecake, some sort of apple bar/cake, and pumpkin chiffon pie.  Yummy!

Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving!

I had a pretty relaxing weekend.  Didn't do a whole lot.  Ordered takeout from local Thai place on Friday night and then Jason and Ruth came over to visit for awhile.  Watched a movie and went to bed late!

Slept in Saturday.  Lunch date with Kara and the girls got canceled, so I lounged around and read most of the day.  Caught I know What You Did Last Summer on TV...hadn't seen that in years. Debated going shopping, but decided to save my money (I guess I might have some will-power somewhere afterall)

We celebrated my Mom's birthday on Sunday night. Got a cool picture of the full moon rising over the lake in their backyard.  (Just wish I had a sweet camera with a zoom lense)

My dad and brothers made dinner........ penne with chicken and capers in a creamy cheese sauce (Good Job, Jeffrey!), Italian salad and cheese bread.  There was also pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.  To die for!

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Annika keeps getting cuter and smarter every time I see her (which isn't as often as I'd like).  She is going to be a big sister in just 3 months...hard to believe time has gone that quickly :)

   

Michelle looks great... I think Bianca is going to be a big baby like Annika was.  She is due on Feb 11th (my b-day) but will likely be born a few weeks early.  I am so excited that Michelle has finally gotten hooked on scrappin.  I hope to join her and a friend some weekend when they crop at Archiver's.  Its nice to have people to scrap with :)

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November 7th means....

Mom's Birthday.  Happy Birthday Mom! Hope you and dad have fun in Arizona this week :)

Gina's Birthday.  Have a good one girlie! See you Friday night!

Election Day.  Cannot wait until its over!!!!!!! So sick of the propoganda... but definitely going out to vote!!! Especially say "YES" to school referendum's ya'll.  Its soooooooo important!!!

Surprise shower!

On Sunday afternoon, my best friends and I threw a surprise bridal shower luncheon for Lanee (which is pronounced Lah-nay, not Lan-nee) at Mary's house.  Only it turned out not to be a surprise because Lanee figured out that we were up to something.  Or Sonja spilled the beans!? Oh well, it was still a great time!  We had a taco salad bar (thanks to Decoy's in WBL for making us the yummy shells) and spent most of the time chatting and eating. I realize I should have taken this picture before I mixed everything up in the salad...it looks kind of gross, but it was very good!

Check out the full album of bridal shower pics. I am really looking forward to our girls retreat (me, Lanee, Sonja, Kim and Mary..plus Lanee's cousin Olga) this coming weekend at Madeline, Island (Lake Superior).  Going to be a great bonding experience....I hope!!!! Aye, we have all been BFF since Jr. High and we have been through everything together.  As much as we all love each other, we don't always get along.  The five of us haven't all been together to spend time like this in a very long time, so this is going to be very special:)

After the shower, I drove up to my parents house for Sunday Dinner with Gram and Gramp.  They had all come at noon to watch the Vikes game on my dad's new big screen HD TV.  (The Vikings ended up winning in OT 16-13....E was at the game with a buddy, but I of course, did not see any of it being at the shower). 

Look at how big and adorable Annika is getting!  And Michelle looks wonderful for 20 weeks! We will hopefully know by the end of the week if the baby is a boy or a girl.  She and Brian leave for Maui on Friday morning...omg, how fun would it be to buy some baby Hawaiian clothes?! Annika would be so stinkin cute in a little hula outfit!

Me and Jeffrey with Gram and Gramp. They head back to Scotsdale in just a few weeks.  I hope I can go down there to visit this coming year!

Week in Review.....

Don't you just hate it when you get sooooo stinkin busy that you could've made about 10 long blog entries, but you had no time to do it????  Thats my story this week, kids! Its been like a week now...crazy! Gonna make this a quick review....

Monday: Went back to work.  Meetings, meetings, meetings.  No time in my classrooms at either school.  Met Lori and Ra at Champps for Happy Hour.  I will miss them a ton this year at the monthly Gifted Services meetings.  They will both be teaching in the regular classrooms this year.

Tuesday:  All-District Staff Meeting at Roy Wilkins Auditorium, in honor of our new Superintendent and celebrating 150 years of the St Paul Public Schools.  I wasn't too excited about going to this, but it turned out to be very inspirational and much better than I thought.  In addition to several speakers, a professional video was shown of our 150 years of history....we have had some very important people graduate from our school district.  Read about it here.  Meetings all afternoon as well.  Still no time in my classrooms.  Spent the evening organizing my closets and cleaning for family coming in town.

Wednesday:  Meetings, meetings, meetings.  Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  Hurting, aching, sore body.

Thursday: Meeting at morning school.  Time in my classroom at afternoon school....nothing much to work with....gotta start all over as far as collecting materials, resources, etc.  Dana, Kevin, Jasmine, Uncle Mike and Marissa all arrive from Chicago.  Pizza and taco party at Erick's parents house.

Friday: Meeting at morning school (enough already!!!!!), then I finally had about 2 hours to set my classroom up.  Still needs a lot of work before school starts on  Tuesday.  Not much I can do now...I will be working on it next week with the kids, I guess!  The classroom at my afternoon school is on its way, looking pretty good.

Later Friday night we headed out to the State Fair with Erick's big family, plus Rusty and Alex.  12 people total! We ate all night long and spent some time in the midway playing games.

Saturday: Lazed around, went swimming, and then off to Fuddruckers with the fam for dinner.  Had a nice bonfire when we got back to E's parents house.  Nice, relaxing day!

More fun to come...

Been Busy & Discovered Google Earth

Just got on my computer for the first time in almost 3 days!

Too tired to post all my fabulous pics from the past couple of days, but we'll start with a few from Georgia's (Jeff & Toni's little girl) 4th birthday party on Saturday afternoon...

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And here is one from Sunday afternoon.  My parents had our family up to the lake, along with my mom's cousin Vicki, her husband Eric, and their three girls, Nicolet, Gabriella and Isabelle.  Here are the girls with Annika!

I just discovered the coolest Program in the WORLD.......Google Earth!!!  For those of you who do not know about it, it is a virtual 3-D earth that is composed of pictures taken from a satellite.  You can pinpoint any location in the World (by giving an address or city and state or country) and zoom down to that location to see an aerial view.  I found my house, my parents', family in AZ, the schools I work at, etc. It gives you the exact coordinates of each location and you can "mark" specific locations so that you can go back and find them at a later time. The only drawbacks I have found is that you can't zoom super close to any spot without losing some resolution, and the pictures were taken like 2-3 years ago, so it does not show what the earth looks like currently.  New Orleans looks pre-Katrina.  Also, you can print or e-mail images, but you cannot save them as jpg files, which is  a bummer.  I was about to show ya'll the view of my neighborhood!  It is overall a very cool program!  Here you can download it for free as a program.  Try it out and let me know what you think and where you travel to.......so far I have seen the pyramids in Egypt, The Statue of Liberty,  Paris France and Barcelona Spain.  It is also great for directions and other points of Interest.  Have fun!

Brunch for Mom with a really cool view!

My wonderful mother...

In honor of Mother's Day, my dad made reservations for us to take my mom to Windows on Minnesota for brunch.  This is on the 50th floor of the IDS building, downtown Minneapolis. (Unfortunately (for us) Brian and Michelle are on vacation in San Francisco and couldn't make it.  E was doing something with his family and couldn't come with either.

I had never been up to the top of the IDS, but had been wanting to check it out ever since my friend Kara booked it for her wedding reception this coming September.  Very cool place!  From the top we could get a pretty good view of the city.  Here is one of the University of St Thomas, where I went to graduate school.....

.......and here is one of the Metrodome, aka "The big, inflatable toilet" where the Minnesota Twins and Vikings play. (If all goes well with the Stadium referendum's around here, this place will be OLD NEWS soon!)

Its funny....50 stories doesn't seem that high at all after being at the top of the Stratosphere (110 stories) in Vegas last month!

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We stopped by my brother Jeff's house after brunch.  He wanted to show us his roommate's new African Gray Parrot (only 5 months old).  He is going to teach this bird to talk! They can say up to 1000 words :) She likes to give Jeff kisses before crapping all over him! LOL. Jeff...don't kill me for posting these! Its just that you have such a way with birds.....  hahahahaha

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I got some awesome Mail Love from Muriel and Alex on Friday.........

My birthday tags!  Thanks again for all who made them :) It was fun to finally get them!

Chino Latino

Friday was the end to a very LONG week!  Cleaned my house fafter work for several hours before heading out to Mpls for dinner at the swanky Chino Latino with some of my girlfriends.  This place is the coolest! All the food is from places near the equator....lots of Carribean, Latino and Asian items.  You know I am lovin it! We ordered a variety of food that we mostly shared.....starting with drinks and queso fundido as an app, then as a main course we got an assortment of sushi, carne asada & chicken tinga taco platter and spicy tequila lime shrimp.  Muy delicioso :)

And of course we took some pics of our ladies night out......

I got home around midnight and waited up for E's cousins.  They didn't arrive until almost 3am! I had the toughest time trying to get up this morning at 8am to go to the gym.  My body was fighting for sleep and I gave in.  No gym for me today and I went back to bed for a few more hours! And its a good thing too, because I discovered that my left foot is really hurting to put any weight on it.  Must've been the shoes I wore last night?  Not sure, but it sure hurts like an M-Fer!

A whole group of us headed out to the mall this afternoon.....E and his cousins, plus his two brothers, Russ & Alex and me.  They spent a lot of time in the arcade playing vids.  Not my style, so I sat with my gimped foot on the bench just outside.

After the mall I sat and organized a bunch of patterend papers and pictures for future layouts.  Also made a few cute birthday tags to use in the future (not going to reveal these until I actually use one of them, perhaps for one of you!).  Did this with Jasmine, E's 7-year-old cousin.  While we were doing this she told me she didn't think she would have any fun today, but that she was actually having lots of fun!

Tomorrow we plan to go to the Mall of America.  Archiver's, here I come!

Have a good one!

On a Happier Note....

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes about E's grandma, it means a lot to us :) This would have been a very busy weekend for me, but I wanted to spend time with E and his family so I cancelled plans to attend birthday parties for Johnnessa and Mary on Saturday and a car show and a Super Bowl party on Sunday.  E's aunt and uncle arrived in town from Chicago on Sunday night and are staying until Tuesday when his Grandma will be cremated.  It looks like we will be heading to Chicago at the end of the week for the funeral, since all of her friends and family live there.  I am hoping that I am able to go, but this is like the worst week to have to take time from work.  I am doing what I can now so that I might be able to go.  Not looking forward to spending my birthday at a funeral, but such is life!

Before we got all this bad news, we went out on Friday night to see our friends' band, Xero, play.  Rock on!  Here are a few pics from that show. This first one is my friend Rich, the drummer.  I thought this was a pretty cool pic!

Xero (Matt, Bruce, Chad, Bob and Rich)

and me with my girls Heather and Colleen!

Fajitas!

We had a yummy dinner at my parent's house on Saturday night.  Since they will be in Florida for the month of February and will miss my birthday (Feb 11...same as Christina P), we celebrated it then.  As the guest of honor,  I got to pick the menu...chicken fajitas with all the fixin's and cheesecake pie for dessert.  My little brother Jeff made the fajitas....

Ahhh, I love fajitas! Just not the lingering smell of peppers and onions in your hair and clothes after cooking it inside, kwim? I hate that! I had to shower and change as soon as I got home because I smelled like one big Fajita Mama:)

On Friday night  I went out to dinner with friends to  Khan's Mongolian Barbeque.  Good stuff! I ordered an aqua-colored drink so that I could take a pic and use it for when I do my layout in Valerie's Aqua Circle Journal.  It was called Surf Monkey and wasn't quite as blue as I needed it, so I tried tinting it in PS.  If someone can help me with doing a better job than I did, please help me! I also need to blur the background or something. I will e-mail you the original to work with.

Today  I went to Quack's for lunch and then we had friends over all afternoon.  Somehow I managed to finish this layout for my friend Trudie's Circle Journal.  Her theme was "the essence of nonsense" which to her means "theme-free, no rules, let your creative spirit flow" in a 12 x 12 format.  I thought and thought about what I wanted to do...no theme? Yikes! I also had a hard time getting into a collage type feel so I just went out there on my own and this is what I came up with:

I arranged some of my silk flowers into a glass bowl and took pics to use on this layout.  I think it turned out just as colorful as I wanted! Isn't it pretty!? I see Trudie at work every day but she does not want to see my creation until she gets her CJ back at the end of August! I am glad all of you wanted to see it!

I also wanted to post this pic of me and my friend Farrah that we took at work the other day.  We work together but we have also been friends since college!

Family Foosball Tourney XIX

Last week on my dad's birthday I wrote about how he, his brother and his sister all share the exact same birthday, 12-30, all three being exactly one year apart in age.  I also mentioned that we have a giant birthday party for them every year, complete with a Foosball Tournament.  This event is NO JOKE, people! Its hard to believe that our family has been doing this for 19 years now!  I can remember back to 1987 when we held the 1st ever Sauer Family Foosball Tournament.  The party was held at my parent's house after we had just received our first little wobbly, rinky-dink foosball table from Santa Claus.  Since this tradition started in my home, my dad naturally became the "Commissioner of Foosball"....and boy does he eat this job up!  He is in charge of keeping the record of who wins every year, along with matching up the partners and making a gaint bracket for the tourney.  He even has made up the rules....

If you read #6 and said to yourself, "Hall of Fame"? or #7 "Ring of Honor"? Yep, you've read that correctly.  Those are the awards given to any member who has won multiple championships over the past 19 years.  We have a very large family....there would probably be around 50 people each year if everyone could make it. Some of us are die-hard foosball fanatics and practice all year at home...probably half the households in the family have an authentic wooden foosball table.  The other half of us play just once a year...at the tourney.  I have never once in 19 years made it to the finals, yet alone won the darn thing.  So you can see that I am one of the ones who takes this real seriously ;)

The best part about winning the Foosball Tournament is (of course!) taking home the coveted Toilet Bowl Trophy.  My uncle Joe had a friend cast the toilet on this little trophy in bronze after the first tournament and it has been the prize every year since.  One individual from the winning pair takes home the trophy and is responsible for re-painting it for the next year.  This is this year's paint-job.  This thing is super shiny and has about 19 coats of paint underneath this top coat! I had to turn the flash off for this one or the glare would've blinded you!

Here are a few shots of the this year's game in action. Can you see the tournament bracket on the wall behind them? We had probably only half of our crew, so it was a smaller tourney than usual.  My dad is on left and Uncle Gene on right.

and this one of Natalie and Mary...

Here is me, teamed up with my cousin Nick....we lost in the 1st round to the pair that went on to be this year's Champions.

and this year's big winner's were....my brother Brian and my Uncle Steve (pictured on the left).  They played my other brother Jeff and my cousin Angie for the Championship.

Since I still had no voice to socialize with, I played with and took pictures of my niece, Annika, most of the time.  Here she is with her daddy.  They both have the most gorgeous blue eyes!

And that is all for this year's Foosball Tourney re-cap! I think it is awesome that I have such a large family and that we have such a fun tournament as this one every year! Does anyone else have a family event that even comes close to ours?? Just curious!

Now pray with me that my voice comes back ASAP! Have a great week everyone :)

Our Christmas Eve Fondue

Merry Christmas everyone!!

It will be fun reading about the fun Christmas Eve and Christmas Day traditions that many of my other blogging friends will be writing about these next few days.  Now here I am writing about our family tradition.

Every Christmas Eve for the past 20 years or so, my family has been doing a hot-oil fondue for dinner.  We have bite-sized pieces of marinated beef, chicken, pork, scallops, mushrooms and tator-tots.  We have three pots set up for the seven of us and we each get a bunch of fondue forks.......

Each person eats whatever and as much as he/she likes! If you have never had fondue this way, I highly recommend it!  It takes us about an hour to eat because you only cook a few pieces at a time. Here are Brian and Michelle waiting in anticipation for the oil to heat-up for the fondue.

After dinner we always open our gifts to each other.  This is our first Christmas with a grandbaby....and boy, did my niece Annika get spoiled! She was the most fun to shop for by far and got so many cute things!  Here is (my dad) Grandpa Jim with Annika

I got several really nice  frying pans and a small crock-pot from my brothers.  Perfect for making chilli-cheese dip or reuben dip (Kara...I must get that recipe from you, it is soooooooo good!)

I got a couple of sweaters and a large Samsonite suitcase from my parents. Yay! Now I won't be needing to borrow theirs anymore when I travel!

I got my mom these gorgeous Swarovski Crystal and gold earrings ...she loved them! Michelle made her the cutest scrapbook of Annika pics too.  Lucky grandma!

My brother Jeff is going to the World Cup in Germany next summer so I got him this USA Soccer T-shirt so that he can "represent" while he is out there!  I am also going to take him out for a sushi dinner sometime soon!

Merry Christmas and let there be Peace on Earth!

Movie Mania!

The past few days have been nice and relaxing.  We've had family in town since Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving meal was complete with pumpkin and French silk pie from Baker's Square.  As long as I have good dessert, I could take or leave the turkey, to be honest!  My brother Jeff believes that the Turkey is Arbitrary.  If you haven't read any of his blog posts, you definitely should!  He is a witty kind of guy and great with what he writes!

Later Thanksgiving evening we all came back to our house and watched The Polar Express and War of the Worlds. I can't tell you the last time I watched two movies in a row..it was great to cuddle up under the blankets and relax.  I feel like I never do that enough! 

When we got up Friday morning it had started to snow so I watched Harry Potter 3. I thought it was pretty good considering that I have heard the contrary.  That was the first HP movie that I had ever seen all the way through, even though I have read all of the books at least twice.   It continued to snow all afternoon!

Later Friday afternoon I went to my brother Brian's house to see my baby niece.  She is getting so big! 15 lbs already! Can you tell how much I love her??!! It is the greatest thing to be an auntie!

On Friday we all went to a new sushi restaurant in Stillwater. Murasaki, I think it was called.  The fish was very fresh and the owners very hospitable...prices a little spendy though.  Despite that, we will definitely go back!

We went home and vegged out to another movie, Unleashed with Jet Li.  Very strange movie!

Today has also been a very busy day.....I am going out again in a little bit.....bye for now!

Baptized!

My baby niece, Annika, got baptized on Sunday!  I had not been to Mass in such a long time, but it felt really good to be there...the Priest seemed like a really cool guy.  I am one of the Godmothers (along with Michelle's sister and best friend) and my brother Jeff is the Godfather. Annika didn't make a peep throughout the entire mass, she is such a sweet baby!

Here I am holding my sweet Goddaughter in her pretty little christening gown:

Seeing that this was such a special occassion, Bri & Mich had invited many family and friends over to their new home, just a few miles from the church, for brunch.  What a treat! We had bacon, sausage, three kinds of baked egg dishes that Michelle's mom made and then my mom made several pans of her famous pecan caramel rolls...a secret family recipe :) Mmmmm....are you drooling yet??!

I also thought this would be a good opportunity to take a family photo:

I have mentioned this before, but I have a very large, Catholic family.  Both of my parents have many brothers and sisters.  A few of them were at Brian and Michelle's house yesterday.  While I was there,  I found out that a cousin of mine on my mom's side just had a baby.  This cousin and I used to be very close while growing up but then we both went away to college and grew apart.  Then four years ago her father got into a big argument with my grandparents and ever since their family has exiled themselves from the rest of the family.  It is very sad that this happened, but I have gotten over it.  I guess my attitude is that if they don't care about the rest of us, then I am not going to make any effort either. I moved on a long time ago.  My grandparents feel terrible about the whole situation and want nothing more than to make amends, but that family wants nothing to do with any of us.  I am angry at their attitude and the way they have treated my grandparents.  I never thought something like this would happen in my family.  And now my long lost cousin has had another baby that I will probably never see. Se la Vie....

So what else is new?

****I HATE Mondays.  No matter how much I relax over the weekend or if I decide to go "all out", I am always exhausted on Mondays.  I hate getting out of bed at the crack of dawn when the sun doesn't  come up until after I am already on the road or at work....and then it it is often dark when I leave to go home.   I hate it when day light savings time ends!!!!!!

***I am glad I took it easy this weekend because I have a long week ahead of me.....have to work late Mon-Wed.  And it is only Monday!!  Why in the heck did I agree to teaching the after school program??  Every year I say I am not going to do it again, but I have taught either a morning or an after school program every single year that I have been teaching.  Remind me not to say "yes" to doing this next year!!

***I spent almost the entire day on Saturday working on my scrapbooking while E had some of his buddies over to play video games.  I have three more layouts started that I will hopefully finish sometime this week.

***I have gotten addresses from most of you girls who want in on the post-card swap.  I think there are 8 of us.  If anyone else wants to join in on the action, drop me a line with your address.  We are sending postcards to each other from where we live!

*** A friend of mine just told me that she is expecting a baby! She and her husband had been trying desperately for 4 years.  I am soooo happy for them.  Yay!!!!!!

That's all, Folks!

My Little Sweetheart

I know it has been a long time since I posted pics of my sweet baby niece, Annika, and I am most happy to oblige my family and friends with current pics.  I went over to my brother Brian's house for awhile yesterday to visit with him, Michelle and Annika.  She is getting so big (7 weeks old now!) and has such beautiful red hair and big blue eyes! Here she is wearing her first Vikings outfit....too bad they still stink!!!

And me, the PROUD auntie!

And Brian watching the game with this sleepy cheerleader....

***I have many pics to upload later from my friend Mandie's wedding Saturday....stay tuned!

There's a place for fun in your life...

MALL OF AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!  For those of you who do NOT live here in MN, you may not know that jingle.  It is on ALL the commercials advertising the biggest mall in the USA.  A very fun place to visit if you've never been there...or even if you've been there a million times. Things are constantly changing so its fun to go a couple of times a year......

E, his brother, and I took their cousin, her daughter and her boyfriend to the MOA on Saturday afternoon.  It was just starting to rain so everybody and their brother had the same great idea to go to the Mall...it was PACKED!! Seriously, you would have thought it was Christmas shopping season  by the number of people there! We spent several hours walking around shopping and a few hours at Camp Snoopy .....Jasmine wanted to go on all the rides!

We stayed at the Mall for just over 6 hours...whew!!! Had dinner there and everything.  All this excitement.....who cares that I still have a cold???!!  That Dayquil works wonders :)

***When we got home we had a blast playing the Taiko: Drum Master game on PS2.  Fun stuff!!!

Sick...but still truckin'

So why is it that as soon as I go back to work I get a cold??? Probably because I have a tendency to keep pushing myself past the point of exhaustion.  I Never know when to say WHEN!

I wasn't feeling that great on Thursday, but I had to work an extra- long day due to Open House.  I finally got my classroom unpacked and nearly-ready for the students who will start next Tuesday.  Took a short break in the afternoon to have lunch and ice cream with my friend Farrah....check out the size of these ice cream cones!

So, most normal people would go straight home and relax after working 11 hours and not feeling good, right?  Well I am not normal, I guess, because I met E and my friends Lanee, Roger and Sonja at Wildwood Pizza for dinner after work.  We hung out for awhile but I knew I needed to get home to get my house cleaned for E's cousin's from Chicago who were going to be arriving in the middle of the night.  So clean, clean, clean E and I did until about 11:30 pm....then off to bed for a few short hours.  Dana, Kevin and Jasmine arrived at 3:30am and I woke to greet them and give them a short tour of our home before we all went to bed, truly exhausted.

Woke up Friday feeling BAD.  Real bad!  Worked my normal day (dragging some major butt and surviving solely on Dayquil) and then went to dinner with E and his family......we went and had Vietnamese at Mai Village in St Paul.  I have talked about this place before....excellent food and service!  Later that night we all went to Maplewood Mall.  Got a cute new pair of sunglasses and hung out....here is a picture of the carosel that Jasmine and Boe took a ride on.....

We left when the mall closed, hung out at E's parents house for awhile  and then watched a movie when we got home.  Went to bed at 2am....no problem!!

Our family keeps getting BIGGER!

My parents both come from BIG, Catholic families...  Eight kids on my mom's side (21 grandchildren including me and my bros) , seven on my dad's (18 grandchildren, ranging from 8 to 35 yrs). Our family is so blessed!

The Sauer family get-togethers are the best!!!!  Although most of us are still in Minnesota, some of the family has spread out....Colorado, Seattle, Milwaukee, New York, North Dakota.  We were fortunate to have some of my out-of-town cousins  (Jane and Jennifer) come to MN over the weekend with their kids that we hadn't had a chance to meet yet.  Perfect opportunity for a family gathering!!  We have had 7 babies born into the family in the past 2 1/2 years... Aaron, Marayna, Nathan, Aidan, Liam, Logan and Annika. Getting them all together was so much fun and so cute!  My newly-wedded cousin Theresa also announced her pregnancy, so we should have our 8th baby of the fam arriving mid-February! The family is getting so big that we have joked about renting a town-hall when we get together :)  Here are some of the pics I took of some of our newest family members

Introducing Annika....

I am officially an Auntie now!!  Michelle's C-section went great and Annika (pronounced On-ick-ah) was born just after 1 pm today.  She and Brian are going to be such great parents, I am so incredibly happy for them.  We are all so blessed! Check little Annika out :)

Babies, babies and MORE babies!

On Friday night I was supposed to babysit Angelina while Sonja went to work, but they called her and said she wasn't scheduled after all! Bad for Sonja, but good for me, I guess! I hung out with them for a few hours and got some cute pictures of Angelina.  She is soooo cute! She will be 5 months old on July 18th.  Hard to believe how fast that time has gone! Angelina is just three days younger than Chase, Mary's baby.  Its so fun that my two best friends had babies so close together!! Here are a few cute ones of Angelina:

**Because I didn't have to babysit all night, I was free to do whatever.  So E and I went to Jeff and Toni's house for a BBQ.  Another baby for me to hold! Cidney is 3 weeks old now and not even 7 lbs yet! Just a peanut.  Here is one of her from Friday night. Its hard to believe how tiny they start and how big they get so quickly!

**Fast Forward to Saturday.  The annual Sauer Family Picnic up at my mom and dad's place.  Small crowd this year...only 20-25 were able to make it.  Of those who did come were my cousin Dave's wife, Kim, along with 2 year-old Marayna and 4 1/2 month old identical twins, Aidan and Liam.  What adorable little chunkers!! These boys were born Feb 24th at 4lbs and 5lbs.  They are now 16 lbs and 17lbs! What a difference it was to go from holding Cidney to these big boys! They are so cute and everyone was loving them up!! Here are some pictures from the picnic.

More babies to come!!!
**  Michelle is 10 days away from her scheduled C-Sect.  I will be an aunt!!!!!!!!! So excited!
** I have plans with my friend John this coming week, and will get to see his sweet baby Jasmine, just 4 months old!

4th of July Weekend

Whew!!  Another fun-filled, action-packed weekend! Here is the weekend run-down

* Friday

Worked....summer school is going great!!!  I have fabulous kids and my mornings whip by before I know it!  Went swimming....didn't spend too much time at the pool, but it was a nice day.  Hung out with Jeff and Toni....Yikes, traffic was a killer driving north to their house...everyone was trying to get out of town for the weekend.  Took us forever to go 25 or so miles. That baby Cidney is so darn cute.  I just love her! Went to dinner at Famous Daves....I had forgotten to eat all day so I was starving...couldn't eat much though because I was so famished. Went home and hung out until bedtime.

*Saturday

Went shopping and bought my new Canon camera. Went swimming for about half and hour, grilled steaks with E's parents and their friends.  Came home, did a quick load of laundry, got ready for Mary and Dubber's party and then drove up to Becker, MN.  The party was a good time, as always, complete with over $1,000 worth of illegal fireworks.  Watched Dubber light them for almost two hours before the Fire Marshall came and busted us.  He was very cool about it, though.  I took tons of cute pictures with my new camera and just after making this collage, I accidently wrote over them with the pics that I took on Sunday.  I am SICK that I did that, because the original pics from Mary & Dub's are gone forever. Soooo sorry, Julie!! I had a great one of you and Dan and one of you and your sister. Good thing I cropped and saved about 5 of them with different names, so I will still have a couple pics to scrap :)

* Sunday

Forced myself out of bed by 10 or 11am (we didn't get home from the party until 3am).  Checked e-mail and showered, went up to mom and dad's.  My aunt Con is in town from Tucson and my aunt Theresa and her family are in town from Wisconsin.  Gram, Gramp and Paul, Bob and family also come up for boating, tubing and picnic lunch.  While out on the lake we saw the Bald Eagles from the top of their perch and later in the afternoon as we were drifting by the peninsula we saw a mama deer and her three fawn babies.  Triplets!!  We feel very special for witnessing such a rare grouping.

*Sunday Evening

Lanee came over to hang out for awhile.  E had one of his buddies over and we grilled steak (yes, once again!) for a late dinner.  My friend Shannon came over a little later to hang out for a little bit too.

A Fine Scholar: Andrea

Okay, as long as I am on the family bragging trip.......
My cousin Andrea recently graduated from High school and had a party on Sunday to celebrate. Andrea graduated near the top of her class and has also earned scholarships to the college she has been dreaming about attending for years : Gustavus Adolphus.  I am so proud of her! 
Here is a little collage from her party.  The food was awesome, especially the lasagna that my aunt Carol made.  Yummy!