It was a long week this past week. I wasn't sure if I wanted to share this on the blog, but I figure that my family needs all the thoughts and prayers we can get. Last Wednesday my dad had a heart attack. I talked to him on the phone that day and he seemed to be doing well. The next day he saw the cardiologist and received an angioplasty. The news from there on out kept getting worse. Two of the three of his arteries were 100% blocked and the other was 70%. He had to have emergency surgery on Saturday. He made it through the surgery, but had to be put in a hospital induced comma to recover. He is still in a comma as of today, they are slowly trying to get him to wake up, but it has been too difficult for him to breath on his own . Hopefully he will wake up in the next few days or he will have to have a Tracheotomy . There are other complications that are going on as well, the situation seems to be not all that great. Keep us in your thoughts and prayer.

Progress

My January goal for painting the living room is coming along nicely. Thank you to my wonderful friend and visiting teacher Amy :) She was a great help and it was nice to have someone to talk to as I painted. We are about 1/3 done and hopefully by the end of the month it will be done!!! Hooray for progress and goals.


Amy did all the detail work and it looks so good.

No more white :)


I'm busy painting the wall on the other side of the kitchen. The rest of the living room will be two shades lighter than this color.

The whole family had to be involved. Anton saw me moving the roller back and forth under the water so he climbed up on the stool and grab the handle and started to wash the roller. Who was I to stop him? Free labor :) he actually did a good job.

RJ saw that Anton was having so much fun so she had to join in.

Candy Time

RJ celebrated her 3rd Birthday in style at home with friends and family. This year the theme was Candy Land, and there was plenty of candy to go around. We all had a good time and it was nice to be surrounded by good friends.

A Little Sprinkling of Tooth Fairy Dust

Kajaani has recently lost her two front bottom teeth. We asked her how much she though the tooth fairy was going to leave and this is what she told us. "Five quarters because I am five years old." She was so excited to see that the tooth fairy had left five shiny quarters under her pillow. Greg now has a nice collection of teeth building in his dresser.





The adult teeth are already poking through. Notice how pointy and jagged they are. Also notice that under and just on top of her lips it is chapped and red (she won't stop licking them.)

A Goal A Month

The new year is generally a time to make goals, so that is exactly what I am doing. One of my goals is to have a goal a month, that way I know that I at least get 12 things accomplished this year. I would like to share my goal a month each month, with you my friends and family. Someone told me once that it's not a goal until you write it down (may or may not be true). For the month of January I will be attempting to finish painting my living room :) wish me luck and I will let you know at the end of the month how it went.

Here are a few before pics
All the walls are currently white and just for those curious ones- I didn't pick any of the sample colors that you see in the below pictures. I'm not sure why, but I just went with what looked good in the store. Stay tuned in for updates.

North facing wall (please don't pay any attention to that ugly foil on the TV antenna) That could possibly be February's goal :)

lower wall looking into the kitchen

left side of the north facing wall

the rest of the wall looking into the kitchen

Adventures in Utah

We bravely decided to make the drive to Utah for Christmas this year. It was a great Christmas and a fun New Year. There were many exciting adventures that kept us busy, and yes, with three small kids everything you do is an adventure. We hope you all had a great Christmas and we look forward to an excellent 2010!


We celebrated Raija's third birthday


Hooray for frog jammies


Yummy to my tummy


What birthday party would be complete without pinkalicious cupcakes


Thanks for my cool book :)


Next we move on to Anton's haircut from daddy. All I can say is YIKES!!!! I'm supposed to say that he did an ok job for his first time and that at least he was trying to learn to cut hair. I will let the pictures speak for themselves and let you decided.

Mom, what is dad doing to me? My thoughts exactly. The best part of this was that Anton kept shaking his head no and putting his hands on his head so Greg couldn't cut his hair. Poor little guy.


Greg pointing out the second huge goudge (the pictures don't tell the whole tell)


Let's move on to something nicer. Greg and I at a really nice bed and breakfast in Salt Lake. We stayed in the February room. This spiral staircase lead to a huge jet tub located in the turret. Way cool and way fun :) thank you mummo for watching the kids.


What vacation would be complete withouh constructing a gingerbread house? KJ, RJ, and Sam working hard to spruce the place up.


All done- I think they did a great job.


We enjoyed a few sledding trips (I won't mention that it took Greg 45min. to blow up the big blue tube)




A fun visit with our friends Skippy and Becca and their two cute kids Emily and baby Jacob



Finally a nice family photo with all the grandkids :) look how perfectly still everyone is holding.

We had a great trip!! thanks to Mummo and Uncle Nick and Aunt Ashlee