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MMM 1-26-09

Good morning! No need to hurry this morning as Trent doesn't have school today, teacher workshop day. Tonight I am going out with my friend Kim for dinner and Let's Dish while Russ attends Addy's Kindergarten Registration meeting. I can't believe it is time to get her signed up for school already! Anyway, back to what we did over the weekend:

Friday night we went to the beach. Yep, but you wouldn't of guessed that huh!! It might of been negative temperature numbers outside, but inside at Twin Lakes Elementary School, it was a warm, tropical atmosphere! Trent had is school dance and the whole family went. It was a fun time. Trent enjoyed running around with his friends (not a lot of dancing per se out of him) and Russ and I got to catch up with friends as hung out along the wall in the gym. Addy danced a couple dances with me, but mostly just spent her time between trying to keep up the group Trent was in and hanging out with the other little sisters.

Saturday, I did some shopping with my mom and then she stayed at our place to babysit while we went to our Christmas party. We have the BEST group of friends! They are so much fun to be around and I always know we will share many laughs, and good food. Apparently Russ was the big winner out of the guys for the dice present exchange game as he ended up with a bunch of fishing lures (yawn.) I thought I did pretty good with the bowl I ended up with though!

Sunday was Trent's big day for Scouts. The PineWood Derby Race. Russ and Trent have been working on his race car for the past few weeks. Trent designed it's shape and picked out the colors. Here it is, car #54:

They run 6 heats, 2 each on the 3 tracks. Then the computer calculates the top 3 overall winners for each den within the pack. And while Trent was not one of the top 3 winners, he took 2nd place in a couple of the heats and his fastest time was 2.8251 seconds. It does go fast! It is so fun watching the boys as they cheer and watch their cars racing down the track. They also had a lot of creative cars and you can tell the boys put a lot of effort into making their cars.

Happiness

My latest layout. These pics were taken last June. Those two smiling faces certaintly bring happiness to many people :)

That's O'Mama to you...

Here are just a few random things heard around the Soukup household this past week:

After being stuck inside for 3 days straight with the kids, Addy tells this to me before going to bed on the 3rd night:
ADDY: "Oh, I think I know why we have dads!"
ME: "You do?!"
ADDY: "Yes, so that at night when we go to sleep, you have been with us all day, but then dad is here so you won't be lonely."
ME: "That must be it."

TRENT (overheard singing in the shower) what he thought were the words to Queen's We Will Rock You:
"Buddy, your a boy, make a big noise, play in the street, going be a big man some day, you got mud on face, jump in the lake, kicking your ass all over the place, singing we will, we will ROCK YOU!"
***ummm, yeah, we had to make some corrections to his singing on that one!

Yesterday, I was explaining to Addy that we now have a new leader of our country, and that his name is President Obama.
ME: "So, the person who is going to lead us, his name is President Obama. You can tell your preschool teacher you know the name of our new president. Can you say 'President Obama?"
ADDY: "President O'Mama."
ME: (correcting her) "Obama."
ADDY: "That's what I said, O'Mama!"

Well, she's got 4 years to learn the correct pronunciation...

MMM 1-12-09

Another weekend that went waaaay too fast! Luckily, we finally got the basement cleaned and organized from putting away the Christmas decorations; it was getting to be a big mess down there! I am still in the process of getting my scrapbook room put back together after painting it. I am being putsy and taking my time organizing, which is somewhat unlike me, but it will get done this week!

Unfortunately, Grandma Rose (Russ's grandma) is not doing well. She had to be flown to Abbott hospital from New Ulm hospital Friday afternoon. She has fallen several times, resulting in a black eye, sore tailbone, and a large bump on the back of her head. They are trying to figure out what is wrong. They believe it has something to do with her heart and are thinking she will need a pacemaker. She will be there until at least Tuesday. Your thoughts and prayers for Grandma Rose would be much appreciated.

Saturday, Dave and Natalie Rein came over to play and go ice fishing. Since Twin Lakes is only about 5 minutes from our house, it is a perfect lake to ice fish on. The guys and kids headed out after lunch. An hour or so later they called and I went and picked up the kids so they could play inside. Trent and Addy had a great time playing with Natalie and she was a little sad when it came time for her and Dave to leave.

I received a phone call later that night from my sister Beth. She had news to share...she and boyfriend, John, are engaged! She had always been pretty adamant that she would never marry again, but John is obviously wonderful to her and changed her mind! We are extremely happy for them and will enjoy being part of their wedding in October. They plan on getting married in North Carolina where they met, so we will be traveling for their wedding. Such happy news to end the weekend with :)

The Grandma-Grandma sweater

Let me tell you, Addy is one lucky girl. See the adorable sweater she is wearing in the picture? She received two of them for Christmas! Both my mom and Russ's mom incidentally picked out the exact same sweater for her! It was so funny watching her reaction when she opened the second one from Grandma Soukup. She knew to be polite, so she just smiled and said thanks. I explained that Addy had received the exact same sweater from my mom just the day before. Luckily, we were able to return one of them to the store. But, she loves this fuzzy sweater from both her Grandmas. It is now known as the "grandma-grandma sweater".

Monday Morning Minutes 2009

Welcome to the first Monday Morning Minutes for 2009!

We have been crazy busy since about Dec. 21st and it will be nice to get back into a normal routine with school starting again this week and Russ starting back at work (I hope...as I write this he is really sick with the flu). One of my goals for 2009 is to learn more about how to manage this blog site and figure out some of the things that have been driving me mad with some of the formatting, etc.

Christmas was celebrated for 5 days in a row! Only way to do it and get all the families in. It was great having my sister and her boyfriend John here for Christmas. My dad and stepmom left for Mexico the day after Christmas (I am so jealous!) so we celebrated Christmas Eve with them this year. We had Christmas morning at our house with the kids and then my mom, Beth and John joined us for the afternoon. Then we headed to New Ulm to see Russ's Grandma Rose on Christmas night. Then back to our house, and got up the next morning to head to Spicer for Christmas with Russ's family. Russ and the kids enjoyed plenty of ice fishing with Grandpa Soukup and their uncles. The whole week was fun, if not tiring!

Trent and Addy also spent New Year's with G & G Soukup so that Russ and I could go have some all night fun. The last time with celebrated New Years out on the town was back in 1999, before Trent was even born. We celebrated with 3 other couples, the Rein's, the Bailey's, and the Balvance's. We had fondue at the Rein's and then headed out to Majors Bar to ring in 2009 and also met up with LeAnna and her boyfriend Jared. (which Mat if you are reading this, you and Jared know each other from your college days at UMM) I don't much remember much after about 12:30am, but I do know I had a lot of fun!! And that I am too old to party like that any more!

We headed to Owatonna on Friday and stayed with Dar and Mary until Saturday night so that Russ could help Dar re-do their upstairs bathroom. Trent and Addy had a blast playing with their second cousins and falling into the hay bales in the barn. I am still cleaning hay out of boots and hats!!

Unfortunately, Russ got sick early Sunday morning and had to miss attending the Vikings game with Jake. I got started on taking down all the Christmas decorations and general house cleaning and then finally sat down to watch the game. And we all know how that turned out. Another playoff game, another loss. It is so hard being a Vikings fan sometimes. And as the famous saying goes, "There's always next year."