thankful, part I

Soooo.... I figured that since Christmas is nearly upon us, I should maybe finish writing the Thanksgiving post that has been in my Draft Box since the end of November. Because I am all about being punctual like that. Above is a picture of the giant Christmas card now adorning our front yard. More on that later.

Grammie, Uncle Nate, and Aunt Alissa joined us in Huron for the Thanksgiving weekend, and we couldn't call it a visit from Grammie without some sort of craft project, could we? Here's Grammie & Ellie hard at work on the Oreo turkeys. Well, I guess mostly Grammie is working hard while Ellie eats cookies and supervises.




Aunt Liss and the boys watch in amazement at Grammie & Ellie's craftiness.

I must say, we really outdid ourselves with Thanksgiving dinner. We timed the meal to happen during the boys' naptime, so it was delightful to eat an entire meal without getting a fork thrown at me or hearing any little voices begging for more yogurt bites. Lovely.

After dinner we had our yearly neighborhood stroll while Chris put up the Christmas lights outside.

The boys, relaxing in front of the fire with Nate & Lissa.

Okay, more about the giant Christmas card. Our neighborhood is one of 41 streets in the city of Huron participating in "Christmas Lanes." There are all kinds of decorated streets, with names like "Moo-ry Christmas Lane," "Candy Cane Lane," and "Christmas Village Drive." Our street is Christmas Card Lane, which basically means we had to create a giant Christmas card (ideally with your family's name on it) to display from Thanksgiving until New Years Eve. Well, thank the good Lord the two craftiest people in our family (and I do not mean Chris and myself) were at our house over Thanksgiving weekend. I found a card for inspiration, and Nate and Alissa took it from there. Chris also took one for the team and did a LOT of painting. I think it turned out fantastic, and desperately hope we win a prize for Best Holiday Spirit. And I may be joking about my desire to win, but I am totally not making up the award thing. They are Serious with a capital S in this town about Christmas -- there is a panel of judges who drive around the Christmas Lanes and at the end of the season, they give out awards for Most Festive Lane, Best House, etc.

Wowsers.

Another highlight of the weekend was the Parade of Lights. At first, we were a little skeptical about a Parade of Lights in a smaller town, but it was great!

Here was our best attempt at a picture of Grammie with all three kids. Impossible.

It would be silly of me to not talk a little bit about our first holiday without my Dad. Some parts of the weekend were more difficult than I thought they would be, and some were easier. We had some really good talks around the fire after the children went to bed, about life and grief and how nothing is ever what you expect it will be. There were tears, but there was also much laughter and comfort in being together.

This year has been hard, there's no way to gloss it over. In the last 12 months, we've gone through a layoff, a (thank goodness, successful!) job search, a home sale and new home purchase, a move, and the loss of a parent. But we are choosing thankfulness.

There have been some tough times in 2009 but we still have so much to be thankful for. I don't say that lightly. While our time together at Thanksgiving was obviously colored by our loss, we decided to see the joy in the happy moments, and allow ourselves the room to be sad when we felt sad. My dad wouldn't want us to all sit around and be sad the whole time. Maybe for a little bit, though.... :) On his grave marker is the phrase "Joy in the journey," and to focus only on our loss during this season would be to miss out on all the moments of joy that do come from being together. So again, we choose thankfulness.

"Thanksgiving is turning the heart to look back to see all the long way His arms have carried. Lord, today to pause and hold a memory, even one that hurts... because remembering is looking back to see You holding me." --Ann Voskamp

Pajama Party!

So there I am, sitting on my couch, watching my big TV when my wife says, "So what are we going to do for Ellie's birthday party?" To that I say, "I suppose the usual...tons of little girls...cake...Barbies...lots of pink." We already had a family birthday party, so it was time to have a gaggle of little girls come through our doors and celebrate.

Ellie invited over five of her closest friends, and it was her idea to have a "Pajama Party." So all of the little girls, donned in their jammies, converged on the Studer household for an afternoon of, well, all the girly stuff I said before. Plus a rousing game of "Pin the Princess on the Castle." My favorite. Ellie and Mariana...together again. The two old friends couldn't stop smiling and giggling at each other. Turn your head to see the cake's design. Ellie insisted on helping. I guess it was her cake. Ellie had a fine time running around the house, eating her cake, and opening her presents. Among the gifts? A Barbie car, a Barbie Snow White, a Barbie dog that poops, and a few other odds and ends that were, of course, Barbie themed. When it was time for cake, Ellie was more than happy to blow out (or spit all over) her candles.

Then it was time to break open the presents. This is just one of the many new things that now call my house home.

And there it is...the Barbie VW Bug. Complete with Volkswagon keys and a flower vase on the dash.

More pink presents. They sort of just run together in my head...can't really remember what it was.
Here was our attempt at a picture with all of the small children in attendance. This was about the best we could get. Even though you can barely see Ellie tucked in the back. At least only one is trying to run away.
We still can't believe our little girl is 5 years-old already. Even though most of the time she talks and acts like a teenager. Only 8 more years and she actually will be. That is the scariest thing I've ever written.

For Your Viewing Pleasure: A Favorite Game & Some Musical Stylings

Be sure to listen for the boys (especially Alex) pretending to snore in the clip below. They can't get enough of the Good Night-Wake Up game.

And on to the musical entertainment. First we have Ellie's rendition of the ever-popular ABC's, followed by the boys singing the favorite old standard "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in the last clip.

My apologies for how my voice sounds in this video -- the tail end of a cold has stolen my voice. Now how am I supposed to yell at my kids? Don't worry, I'm mostly kidding.

Did you catch Maguire coaching Alex on the lyrics?

Makes me laugh every time.

Fight For Preemies: Prematurity Awareness Day

Today is National Prematurity Awareness Day. I know we don't normally blog about anything other than our little family, but I decided to make an exception for this cause.

I don't think anyone ever expects to have a premature baby, let alone two at a time! We were very fortunate to be living in a bigger(ish) city when the boys were born a little more than a month early, at 35 weeks 5 days, with access to state of the art facilities for premature babies. Although we had a relatively "uncomplicated" two-week stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), not all babies do. We met a little girl who was celebrating her first birthday within the walls of the NICU, having never left the hospital.

Our family is only one of many, many families who have benefited from the March of Dimes' years of research and education on prematurity. We have two beautiful, healthy, crazy, active, almost TWO-year-old boys to show for it. We are blessed.

Today over 400 Bloggers are participating in Bloggers Unite Fight for Preemies to raise awareness of the 20 million babies who are born prematurely each year. You can learn how to help fight against premature birth here.

5th Birthday: The Prequel

Last weekend, we headed up to MN for some deer hunting (Chris) and relaxing at Grammie's (the rest of us). For the third year (I think?), we also had a family birthday party for Miss Ellie. No birthday in the Eiesland family would be complete without a birthday wall sign, handcrafted by Grammie. We just never knew growing up what our sign would say -- Grammie busted out sayings like "It's heaven, Ben is 7," "Peachy keen, Carrie's 13," and "How great, Nate is 8!"


It goes without saying that Ellie wanted pink cupcakes, so we whipped up a batch and got creative with the stand (two plates and an upside-down bowl) as I had forgotten my beloved cupcake stand at home. For any of you not familiar with my stand, it is a much-ridiculed purchase I made when Ellie turned two. Chris could not believe I spent $12.99 on something so trivial. But let me tell you, I have gotten my money's worth out of that thing, and then some! I have lent it to friends for their kids' parties, and it has been used no less than 10 times. So there.



Alex provided the mood music.

Ellie spent some time with Uncles Tom and Scott, discussing the merits of Rapunzel Barbie vs. Ariel. I think these two learned more about Barbies than they ever wanted or needed to know that night.

The birthday girl blowing out her candle. We had a great time celebrating with lots of family -- thanks Grammie, Grandma & Grandpa Eiesland, Uncle Scott & Aunt Doreen, Uncle Tom & Aunt Julie, Grandma Studer, and Sarah & Chad for partying with us!

Trick or Treat!

The Studer family hit the streets of Huron on Halloween in search of candy. Before the actual night of Halloween, however, we stopped by Chris's office on Friday for a dress rehearsal. I think Chris is the only employee at Farmers Union with small children, so we hit the jackpot when it came to candy!

We got out the costumes a day early, in hopes that the boys would get used to their hats and not put up too big of a stink when it was go time. Well, it must have worked because they both wore their hats the entire time we trick or treated! Also, it was in the 40's, so I suppose any bit of warmth helped. At least it wasn't snowing!

Maguire and I having a chat about maximizing his cuteness in order to score the most candy. For those of you who've known me since my Bemidji State University days, yes that is the same sweatshirt I stole freshman year from Scott Erickson and "forgot" to return. 13 years ago. Ahem.

For some reason, Ellie wanted a little hairspray for her Ariel 'do, although I had a hard time distinguishing it from her everyday hairstyle. Must be the seashell headband.

Hard to believe that our die-hard Little Mermaid fan made it to her 5th Halloween before she actually dressed up as Ariel!

Alex the dragon -- he roared on command, walked all over people's grass and flowers, and tried to knock on doors at even the dark houses. He was pretty into the trick-or-treating.

Maguire the puppy dog -- barked on command, loved knocking on doors, and just kept on taking candy from bowls as long as the person kept holding the bowl out (I swear at the end of the night he had twice the candy of the other two!)

They had a blast! This was the first year we haven't celebrated with our friends the Lawrences in Sioux Falls. Although we missed spending Halloween with them, it was a lot of fun to walk from house to house in our new neighborhood.

Maguire, double-dipping from someone's candy bowl. Seriously, Chris and I would be introducing ourselves to a new neighbor and Maguire just kept grabbing candy from their bucket.

Somehow, the almost 5 year old ended up getting carried while the two little boys walked the whole time. Doesn't quite seem right, but they didn't seem to mind.

Maguire also loved to shut people's doors for them. Sometimes the person would still be talking or saying goodbye, and he'd just start pushing their door closed like, "Thank you, that will be all for tonight. Let's move on."

We had a great time trick-or-treating, the boys did so good without the stroller. Ellie was the one who called it quits and decided to go home and pass out candy. I think the boys could have kept trolling for treats all night.

Girls' Night Out: Imagination Movers Live Edition

Ellie and I hit the big city of Sioux Falls last Friday night to see the Imagination Movers Live show. Now, if you have no idea who the Movers are, you may just want to skip past this post. It involves children's music and grown men dancing around in matching jumpsuits, so consider yourself forewarned. Imagination Movers is a show on Playhouse Disney, and we have long said that if they ever went on tour and came to Sioux Falls, we'd go. We've got two cd's by the Movers, and it's catchy stuff. So catchy that I unfortunately find myself singing songs like "What's In Your Fridge?" and "Please and Thank You" all day long. Anyway, we had some delicious dinner at Famous Dave's before the show (I miss Sioux Falls!) and headed off to the show. Added to the pictures is a little commentary from Ellie.

Ellie: We're going to Imagination Movers and I like them so much.




Ellie: The show is almost beginning. We are just loving it. Some of the people even dressed up like the Movers. It was funny.

Ellie: We love the Movers. This is a picture of them onstage.

Ellie: They were really funny and they sang all of my favorite songs. Mover Scott with the glasses on his head is my favorite.

Ellie: This is Mover Scott and Mover Rich.

We had a great girls night and can't wait to see the Movers the next time they come back to Sioux Falls!