Christmas is Coming!!

We spent last Sunday and Monday getting our house ready for Christmas. It took two days this year as we had two trees to put up. Ah yes, I am following in my Mother's footsteps. (Although I have promised Jacob that I will never make him do three trees) Jacob found a great tree at a garage sale last summer for $3.00. He bought it thinking to replace our smaller tree. I was so excited when he brought it home to realize that I could now have two trees.

It was the perfect year to start the two tree tradition as we now have two rooms for Christmas trees. We put the "new to us" tree in the living room and decorated it with the matching ornaments, ribbon, and white lights. How we got all of these matching decorations is a quirky story.

When I was pregnant with Spencer the company that I worked for announced that it would be closing its doors. My boss and I were responsible to go through all of the assets and account for each as we sold them. When we got to the end of the list we realized we still had a few things in the storage shed that hadn't been accounted for. This included the Christmas Decorations for the tree they put in the lobby each year. As it was never listed as an asset it wasn't required to go in the "sale" pile of assets that had been sold to another company. And wham, suddenly I inherited a beautiful set of ornaments to decorate my own Christmas tree. And all I had to do was lose my job :) I also got a cool office tree (one of those fake ones) but it never made the move.

So this "new to us tree" and "new to us decorations" now makes up my "formal" Christmas tree. I love it. I can't tell you how happy I am not to have Homer Simpson hanging on my beautiful Christmas tree. I can't wait for the after Christmas sells. I would like to get a few more of the really nice ornaments for my formal tree, just for some variety, but I can't bring myself to pay for them at the before Christmas prices when I know they will be going 50% - 75% off after and it really looks great now so it is definitely something that can wait.

So where is Homer now? We set up our old tree in the family room and even bought (shocker I know) some colored lights and a few more glass balls for it. (the ornaments where a little thin now that they are divided between two trees, I love that Dollar Tree.) The tree turned out great and it is so fun to see all of the handmade ornaments that the kids have made. Although I think next year we won't be putting candy canes on it as I keep finding them stuffed in my couch cushions, broken in half with one bite out of them. Thanks Kristian.

All in all, it turned out to be more fun to set up our Christmas stuff then it has been in the past. Spencer was much more of a help this year and all of the kids really seemed to get into the process more. The kids get so excited each morning to take another mini ornament out of the advent calendar and they plug in the Christmas lights any time they are in the room. It is just fun to see them so caught up in the Christmas Spirit.

The First Annual Eastern Corry Thanksgiving

So as I am typing this for my Journal as well so you will get an in depth play by play of what went on mostly in the kitchen. Feel free to skim or skip.

It was a great Thanksgiving Holiday for us. Jacob was slammed at the Hospital all day Wednesday but when 8:00 rolled around everything just slowed down. He headed to the call room and was able to sleep most of the night. This was a huge blessing as he arrived home at 7:00ish on Thursday morning and was able to enjoy the entire Thanksgiving Day without needing a nap first.

Meagan and I stayed pretty busy most of the day in the kitchen. I feel pretty good about our first go of making an entire Thanksgiving Meal on our own. We prepared the pies on Wednesday so that was out of the way. We had a great breakfast of Pumpkin Pancakes (courtesy of Doug and Meagan) Eggs, and Bacon. The pancakes were a great hit, especially with Kristian. He ate three and had pumpkin toots the rest of the day. Yup that is right, pumpkin toots. This means when Kristian tooted, it smelled like pumpkin. Hilarious.

After breakfast we started making the rolls. The guys took the kids outside to play with the remote control cars. The kids had a blast chasing after the cars and I think Jacob and Doug had just about as much fun, keeping them away from the chasing kids. While the kids were outside and out from under foot Meagan and I moved on to prepping the turkey, that was a fun experience. It is amazing how you can watch your mom do this whole preparation every year but suddenly when you are in charge you realize you never payed very close attention. Ah well, Thanks again mom for keeping your cell phone close to you all day and answering question after question.

During nap time Meagan and I finished prepping all of the Thanksgiving sides and Jacob and Doug went to see The Dark Knight. They triple checked to make sure this was okay and we let them know they were allowed to go as long as when they got back they did whatever we asked of them, including dishes. (Which they did, Thanks guys!!) Upon their return from the movie, began the "down to the wire" time. Meagan and I had every burner on the stove going and Jacob and Doug has us laughing with their creative carving techniques and their constant howls of "oh man, that's hot". With very little stress, much less than I was anticipating, we were sitting up to the table ready for a prayer at 5:15. We had planned for 5:00 so I figure this is pretty good.

The turkey turned out great, very moist and we even managed to have gravy from the drippings that wasn't lumpy. (this was the part that caused the most worries) All the sides (Rolls, Stuffing, 2 types of Potatoes, and 3 Veggies) were wonderful, with a slight exception to the roast potatoes which were a little underdone. Meagan's family's tradition of Pretzel Salad was a big hit and a great addition to the meal. By the time we pushed away from the table everyone was sufficiently full and we waited a little bit for pie.

After clean up, which went super fast, we sat back up for pie and I was very happy with how our homemade crust's turned out. This was only my second time making pie crust so I was a bit nervous of how the end result would be. The pies continued to be pulled out throughout the rest of the evening. We put the kids to bed at 8:00, I fell asleep on the floor at 8:30 and Jacob and I went up to bed at 9:00. Doug and Meagan said they followed to bed pretty soon after that. We are party animals!!

So that is the play by play of the First Annual Eastern Corry Thanksgiving. We are hoping to have Mark and Krista join us next year, and whom ever else we can coax to visit. It was a wonderful visit with Doug and Meagan and we are so grateful they were able to come. There was lots of laughs, chats, and good old family fun. We have so much to be grateful for and I am overwhelmed at how much the Lord has blessed me and my family.

The Big Game

As Jacob wrote, we went over to a friends to watch the big game. Here is our little family picture just before leaving to go to watch the game.

Jacob was on call the next day and wasn't able to attend church with us. I decided that we would celebrate for him by wearing our favorite team's colors. Here is a picture of the kids. Most everyone asked if we were taking Christmas pictures after church and I let them know we were celebrating the big win. However, after looking at the pictures, we might end up with a Christmas one that looks very similar, with mom and dad added of course.

4th and 18 no more (and an update sent by email for those who don't check the blog)

At long last I can wash from my mind the visions of Austin Collie getting behind the Utes defense on 4th and 18 for a gain of half the field. The last second touchdown of 2006 is but a memory now. I'm betting any Cougar fan would gladly trade those two games for what Ute fans are experiencing now. Though I must admit it's not quite so exciting for me the second time around.

We were fortunate enough to watch the game from start to finish at a friend's house. Being surrounded by BYU fans made it a little difficult for me to properly celebrate with each Max Hall miscue, but that's probably a good thing. I was very nervous when the Utah offense seemed to shut-down soon after the second quarter commenced. I had visions of a blow-out when the Cougars started to get on track and got a few defensive stops. When the second half started and the Cougars pulled within 3 I was pretty sure the game was going to get out of hand. The Utes hadn't done anything on offense, excepting one long pass play after an interception, for 45 minutes (real time not game time). Then, inexplicably, Max Hall decided to put his stamp on the game. The Cougars were running all over the field. So it is only natural that they would want to balance out their game (people try to do this with their financial portfolios all the time by selling their big gainers to buy more losers) by drawing more pass plays. At this point I think the Utes had already batted down 3 balls. We all know what happened next. For those of you who don't, Max Hall threw 4 more interceptions and fumbled the ball. The Utes capitalized and my memories were washed clean.

I think the Utes played a good game, but not a great game. Some of the turnovers were good defensive plays and some were just poor decisions (or mistakes) by the BYU offense. My sympathies to all you Cougar fans out there. I'm trying not to gloat, but I have two years of pent up rage just now being released. I'm also still perturbed by all the attention this Cougar team got during the offseason.

Now that I've bored half of you and offended the other half let's see what's going on here in South Bend.

I'm in my last week of OB call and while very taxing physically I have enjoyed the month for the most part. The attending physicians I have worked with have been wonderful. They've been very receptive to my questions and I feel like I have learned a great deal over the past few weeks. I haven't decided for sure whether or not I want to do OB as part of my practice for the next 30 years, but I'm leaning more toward that avenue now than I was a month ago. We'll see how I feel about it when I'm called in for my own patients rather than being on the floor for each 24 hour call.

Melissa continues to discover new aches and pains with each passing day. I keep expecting to come home from call to a house in disorder and children sacked out in front of the TV, but it just hasn't happened. I'm not sure why I expect this as it never happened with her 3 previous pregnancies either. She has kept herself busy with a variety of books and sewing projects as well as helping Spencer with his homework, encouraging Jessi in her lifelong battle with the potty, and keeping Kristian from breaking everything n the house. She is very happy here and has the best support group I could wish for. She constantly tells me of these wonderful women who continue to support and comfort her at playgroup, sewing group and whatever other group she can fit into the week.

Spencer is still loving school, though he does enjoy his Saturdays. He and I went over to the school the other day to fly his kite. I haven't flown a kit since I was a kid and I've got to tell you it was a lot of fun. His kite is a cheap flimsy thing we got from the dollar store, but it was very fun for both of us. I may have to buy a nicer kite when spring rolls around.

Jessi's relationship with the potty is on the rocks once again. She has done so well for the past few months, but apparently she's just not into it at the moment. She has a cold and her ears have been draining so I'm hoping that her her potty issues will resolve when her cold does.

As I mentioned previously Kristian gets into everything. It feels strange to us that he will turn 2 next week. The last time we had a 2 year we also had a 6 month old so this feels a little different. His babbling is becoming a little more understandable, but he has found that temper tantrums are the way to go most of the time. Compared to our other kids Kristian is exceptionally strong (and aggressive) If we leave the bathroom doors open he climbs until he can just reach the faucet then proceeds to pull himself up to the counter so that he can get into the cabinet and play with the toothbrushes. I was certain somebody was helping him get up there until I saw the feat for myself.

We very much enjoyed Mark and Krista's whirlwind visit for interviews. I think they enjoyed themselves as well and we are pulling for them to make South Bend home (for 3 years anyway). We are also looking forward to Doug and Maegan's visit for Thanksgiving (though I will spend most of their time here within the warm confines of the hospital).

We wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and hope this finds you well.

Not in denial

Spencer: "Dad be quiet. I'm talking to myself and I can't hear."

With a statement like that who cares what the background story is.