The Salmon Family: 2009

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Giggle Puss!

This giggle fit of Lucy's happened completely by accident. Lucy was quietly playing on the floor, and Maggie was running about, dancing, singing, and being, well, 2 1/2. All of a sudden, Maggie tripped and fell, right in front of Lucy... which started a fit of giggling that lasted and lasted and lasted..... Intentional or not, we have found Maggie is the only one who can get Lucy to giggle like this!

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells....

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Santa Came! Santa Came!

This year was SOOOOO fun! Maggie is finally at an age where the entire concept of Santa kind of makes sense. She was so excited to open stockings and then run downstairs to see what Santa brought! (sorry about the dark video.... Mom never thought to have the lights turned on BEFORE Maggie came down the stairs!)

Opening stockings...

...and Lucy's stocking!

Maggie was THRILLED with the cash register Santa brought!

Lucy is a reindeer!

Helping Daddy open presents

Soooooo excited!

Maggie got a new bathrobe!

Maggie and Gramma took a top secret trip to the dollar store to pick out presents for mommy and daddy. Here is daddy showing off his gifts (mommy got a matching purple hat and black horse!)

Maggie with mommy's hat and horse!

Maggie decided the horse made a pretty good "ree-tar" (just like the guy on TV!)

Lucy looked pretty cute in the cowboy hat, too!

Smiles!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was spent at Ant Jood's house. Another yummy meal and lots of Maggie running around, excited about Christmas!

Gramma and Lucy... both decked out in "holiday gear!"

Christmas is EXHAUSTING! Papa and Lucy find a quiet corner to take a nap.

Maggie LOVES Ant Jood's chocolate pie!

Shoes off.... Stockings off... Now a girl can RELAX!

Christmas Eve....

This year we were scheduled to celebrate Christmas in MN with Dan's family. Wednesday night we decided to change our plans and stay home after all- freezing rain and heavy snow in Winona didn't make for safe travel plans with 2 little ones in the car. After an afternoon of baking (mommy realized we didnt' have any cookies to leave out for Santa!) and decorating a "gingerbread tree," we all needed a bath! After mass, we headed to Aunt Kath and Uncle Dan's for a delicious dinner and yummy holiday "beverages!" We are so blessed to have family here in town and were still able to celebrate Christmas with loved ones. It was much quieter than usual without all the kids, but Maggie and Lucy were excited enough for everyone! We got home around 11pm, wrote Santa a quick note (Maggie requested he come in the door instead of the chimney), left out him some freshly baked cookies and milk, and headed to bed!

The finished product... So proud!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Lucy's antlers!

Mommy and Lucy

Daddy and Lucy (Maggie was WAAAAY to busy to stop and have her picture taken!)

Bundled up and ready to go home!

Maggie- ready to head home a just a LITTLE excited for Santa to come!

Darn It!

The past few months, I have had some weird "tummy" symptoms and some random, sharp shooting pains in my right side. Back in November, I finally went to see my doctor. She sent me for an ultrasound of my gallbladder and then followed up with a scan to measure how well my gallbladder functions.... Come to find out, I have "chronic cholecystitis" (a gallbladder that was functioning at 19%) and was scheduled to have my gallbladder removed! Well, thanks to dear, little Lucy, I had long ago met my medical deductible for the year (as well as used all my sick days for the year) so I hurried to find a surgeon who could get this taken care of before the end of the year. That way, I would be off work for a few weeks to recover and have help from family who would also be off work.... Thank goodness for favors and great connections, because I was lucky enough to get scheduled with a super surgeon here in Kenosha on December 21. Surgery was scheduled for 7:30. Dan and I checked in to the hospital at 5:30 am, surgery took about 25 minutes, and I was back home sleeping in my own bed by 9:30 that morning! Lifting the kiddos has been a little hard, and our house was not quite as clean as I would have liked for the past few days, but all in all, I feel pretty good! Not quite the way I planned to spend my holiday break, but I am thankful to have this taken care of while I had the time off, and will be able to return to work in January feeling great!

In case you were curious.....

Lucy

On December 4, Lucy Elizabeth turned 6 months old.... Wow! Her 6 month appointment is not scheduled until the end of the month- we can't wait to see how much she has grown!

She is too cute all snuggled in her winter coat!

Lucy LOVES bath time!

She helped string the Christmas lights this year....

(who knew something so simple would keep a baby busy for SOOOOO long?)

Disney Live!

Back in early December, Gramma and Papa took Maggie for a special day in Milwaukee to see Disney Live! Maggie had an AWESOME time... she got to see all her favorites from the Disney channel live on stage... Handy Manny and his tools, Imagination Movers, Little Einsteins, and of course, Mickey, Minnie and all their friends! It was a great day!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Here comes Santa!

The Kenosha Public Museum was offering photos with Santa. We thought this would be a great opportunity to get a nice picture of the girls - and not just a quick, cheap, yucky photo from the mall when the girls were tired, hungry, and sick of waiting in line for hours. So we dressed them all up, got the museum nice and early....and watched as Maggie absolutely freaked out and refused to go near the guy in the red suit! Thank God for an understanding Santa and an even more patient photographer (Tom from Keylight- the same guy who did our wedding photos six years ago- we think he got a lot of practice dealing with difficult toddlers working with Unky Dougie in our wedding party....) but we finally got our picture. Not quite what we were hoping for, but what the heck. (Look closely and you can see mom holding Maggie on her knee and ducking behind Santa's head!)

Just for fun, here are our "Santa" pictures from the past 2 years....Maybe last year's should have offered us a little insight to how Maggie would react this year....

LIghten' Up Kenosha!

The Friday evening following THanksgiving, there was a great event in downtown Kenosha called "Lighten' Up Kenosha." Since cousins Grace and Paige were in town, we decided to head down to check it out with Gramma, Papa, Ant Jood, and Gary. Stores were open late, and each one had a fun (free!) activity/snack/craft for kids to work on and take home. We had a blast!