You think your Thanksgiving was good...

Aren't they cute?

Emmalynne and her new Thanksgiving Day acquaintance, Eliza were having a good time holding hands while smiling at eachother. It was so cute. I couldn't get Emmalynne to look at the camera but Eliza was a ham. Emmalynne was also practicing her bouncing in this shot.

Looks good, eh? Well that's nothing compared to what Emmalynne ate!

Isn't she lucky?

She probably wouldn't be so content if she knew what she were missing out on!

Nice Schedule

Carman's been working for Canteen Vending for the past 4 months. Here is how a typical day goes for him:

4:00 a.m.--Hit the snooze.

4:09 a.m.--Hit the snooze again.

4:18 a.m.--Push that snooze one more time.

4:25 a.m.--Wake up to Sarah saying, "Will you please turn that alarm off before it goes off again?"

4:26 a.m.--Get out of bed and ready for work.

4:45 a.m.--Hussle out the door.

5:00 a.m.--Clock in at work.

5:45 p.m.--Clock out at work.

6:05 p.m.--Sneak in late to class.

8:50 p.m.--Class is over, time to head home!

9:10 p.m.--Get home, hug wife, start homework.

12:15 a.m.--Get ready for bed to start it all over in a few hours.


Long day, eh? My poor husband has been a trooper. A few weeks ago we were very disappointed to find out that the company was handing out pay cuts across the board. They said for Carman not to worry since they'd give him another route so he could make the same amount of money. Understanding his schedule, I'm sure you can see he didn't exactly have time to be given more work. Next thing I knew I received an email about a job offer at McKesson, Carman was applying, interviewing, and wa-bam! new job! Here's how his new typical day goes:

7:15 a.m.--Emmalynne starts crying.

7:18 a.m.--Carman goes to get her.

7:45 a.m.--Sarah finishes nursing and Carman feeds her baby cereal.

8:00 a.m.--Continue hanging out with family!

9:00 a.m.--Still hanging out with family!

10:00 a.m.--Homework time.

11:00 a.m.--Off to work.

8:15 p.m.--Home from work, homework time.

9:30 p.m.--Hang out with wife.

10:30 p.m.--Time for some real rest and relaxation!

*In case you noticed he doesn't go to class anymore, that's because (since it conflicts with his new work schedule) his nice teachers are letting him finish out the semester over the internet! Next semester he'll take morning classes.

Miss my birthday?

Well for all of my friends that either gave me a "Happy Birthday" note just a day late, only remembered which month it was in, or plain ol' forgot...

I know how you can make it up to me! I've been thinking about it all week. In fact, you can even participate if you remembered my birthday on the right day! Today is my sister's birthday. She's pretty old now and loves being the center of attention. So, lets all give her what she truly wants and type her a little "Happy Birthday" message on her blog!

Thanks!

And just in case anybody forgot that I tend to joke a lot, I didn't actually care that anybody forgot my birthday. I'm the worst at remembering those types of things!

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday and in the evening we had a little family celebration with Laura and her kids. We opened presents, had cookie cake, and played Catch Phrase. Here's Carman bringing the baby girl to the party...




Lighting the birthday candles was a very coveted job. Uncle Carman stepped down and handed the torch off to Jared and Zach. They only got one candle each and one match each. Jared is pretty excited here because Zach's match went out before the candle lit and he thought he was going to get another turn.

Wow! A new sweater! Oh wait...that's my sweater. ...I was looking for that this morning!

Cookie cakes are my favorite cakes! Laura did a great job on this one.

Some might call it a miracle

When Carman and I were engaged we thought we'd share our photographic lives via picasa. It was a great way to share our pictures with friends and family. But once we got married something terrible happened. We couldn't afford high speed internet access. We thought that was it. But wait! A kind neighbor was willing to share their wireless access!

"Yes!" we thought.

"On no! Our power cord to the laptop broke!" we cried in defeat.

Now there was no way we could use picasa to share our family photos. We're doomed.

Since that experience we've dissappointed everyone with less frequent emailed pictures. Well folks, things are looking up. An extremely generous friend from church hooked us up with a power cord and viola!

Check out the recently posted pictures here.

Tagged-Yay!

How lame is it to secretly hope you get tagged? If its pretty lame than forget I ever mentioned it... My friend Tiffany gave me that coveted 1st tag! Her blog had this really neat thingy with the rules on it but I'm not yet gifted enough to know how to put it on my blog so I'll just type it out myself.

The Rules Are:
1. Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Weird and/or Random Facts:
#1:: I was so excited to get tagged that I didn't even mind that Tiffany totally didn't do #4 on the above listed rules.

#2:: I have a strange addiction to going to yard sales. Its so bad that whenever Carman suggests spending $1 on something little at the store I can't help but ask him, "Do you have any idea what I could buy at a garage sale for that much money!?"

#3:: When I was younger I used to think the words to the Bob Marley song "I Shot the Sherriff" were "Eye-shockin' Sherry." I didn't learn the real words until I was about 20.

#4:: I love Spanish. I wish I could speak it more frequently. I talk to Emmalynne in Spanish a lot, half because I hope to teach her, and half because I feel like talking. It seems a little more normal if I'm talking to her rather than myself.

#5:: Just before this post I was writing an email to a friend from 2nd grade in Long Grove, IA that I haven't spoken to since we were children.

#6:: I take my 5 month old daughter to the toilet. I've been taking her since she was a few days old and now she harldy ever poos in her diaper. If your as mathematically minded as some people I know you may prefer a percentage to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. I'd say she poos in the toilet about 75% of the time.

#7:: When I have a sore throat I like to sleep with a cough drop in my mouth. I suck on it all night long and sometimes there's still a tiny piece of it in my mouth when I wake up.

Alrighty! I tag my Mom, Laura, Tammy,and BreAn.

Birthday Trip

It was so hard not to blog about my extreme excitement of going to surprise my mom for her birthday. My sister and I made a shocking week-long visit in Illinois. The week prior I was so anxious I just wanted to blog about how fun it was going to be. I restrained, knowing it would definetely ruin the whole surprise factor. All of the holding back paid off and Mom was ecstatic! It was so good to spend time with her. I think I was just as happy and excited as she was. I also got to drop in on my friend Angela, who just had a darling little baby boy. Of course I also got to visit with cousins, aunts, and uncles.

Laura and I had an especially fun time helping our cousin Jennifer with a school project. She wanted help making a cube out of poster board. She may have been slightly annoyed by our precision in measuring or our pestering about how to make it estetically pleasing. She took it in stride and did her whole project according to our suggestions. Good sport.

An amusing highlight of my trip was on my Mom's birthday when she had her Uncle Perle over for dinner with the rest of us. He's mentally handicapped and a lot of fun to have around. He very gentlemanly-like took off his baseball cap and sang her his slightly tweeked version of Happy Birthday. It was precious. After that we were all sitting in the front room when Mom came out of her bedroom, dressed for bed in comfy pajama pants and an oversized T-shirt. Uncle Perle took one look and said "Huba, huba, ding, ding, ding!" It was hilarious! We all had a good laugh. When Perle saw how funny we thought it was he joined us in the laughter with one of those laughs where its so funny that you can't even get any sound out! It was a good time!

Then Laura and I drove all the way home this past Friday. The kids were all remarkable behaved considering the 10 1/2 hour trip. When Jared and Zach started getting loud Laura simply threatened them with an extra half an hour in the car and they calmed right down.

Emmalynne and I got home just in time to catch Carman's cold. Yesterday Emmalynne felt so yucky that she just snuggled her head onto my shoulder and layed there motionless for an hour. The snuggle time was fun yet sad considering the circumstances.

All of my visiting with friends and family made me want to live close to everybody I love. I was thinking I'll just make a list of everyone I want to live within a half an hour of me and then we'll all move to our own town. All my family would get to go. I've got some friends that I wouldn't be able to leave out. I'm thinking I'll basically get all my favorite people to come. We'll call it "Sarah's Happy Place" or "SHP" for short!