January Chill

Haven't really been doing anything too exciting this month. Just kind of tired of the snow & cold with a touch of "cabin fever". I've worked on a couple quilts but haven't finished anything. I started a Facebook page-interesting to learn something about that. The teacher I work with is on maternity leave so we've had a sub. But that means I have to take on more of a "teacherly" role with the high school students in addition to being the preschool teacher/director. It's funny because some of the students also have the "other" Mrs. Mattila. The preschoolers are all a little crazy too for lack of outdoor time. But soon it will be spring (I hope). We went over to the Animal Center at school the other day to see the piglets & lambs. So cute!

Babysitting

Just some random pictures from when we babysat Egan & Kate's girls. :)

Egan & Papa playing cars

Eva feeding the monkey

Kaylee's Birthday

A horse for her Amercian Girl doll

Kaylee & her birthday cake

Our oldest grandchild, Kaylee, turned 7 on December 29th. Kate, Dave & the girls, and Tim, Cody & Egan came to our house for dinner. The others couldn't come. Kaylee's really been into the American Girl dolls-she has Ivy, so that's what she wanted for her birthday. I had fun making some clothes for her doll.

Christmas Day

No pictures. We went to our friends, Dan & Judy's for Christmas dinner. That was a first, not being with family on Christmas. We had a nice time. Good dinner & played a little Mexican Train Dominoes. It was a nice relaxing day.

Christmas Eve 2008

The great-grandmas-Bob's mom, Barbara & my mom, Joyce

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

The fireplace picture-

Kaylee, Grace, Eva, Berlin, Owen, Egan & Elijah

The chaos



We spend each Christmas Eve at the Mattila's. This year with my dad gone my mom spent it with us also. We take a traditional "fireplace" picture-usually of the grandkids, but there's so many of them now we've moved on to taking the great-grandkids. They're not very cooperative though so we get what we get! Aunt Jo still insists on giving ALL the kids stockings still! I'm sure they don't really mind! All the adults bring a small gift for their same sex to exchange. We draw numbers to open gifts. They can also be "stolen" from someone else but most of them are just too nice to do it!

Christmas with the Kids

The tree & presents completely dwarfs Eva!

The dinner table-we put 3 long tables together!

Berlin & Amanda

Egan & Cody

Grace, Kate & Eva

Dave & the girls-Eva, Grace & Kaylee

lighting candles as we read the Christmas story.

Elijah opens a gift with help from mom Amanda

Owen & Egan got big Tonka trucks. They had fun riding in them

while their dads raced them around the house.

John's giving Owen a ride here.

We were able to share Christmas with Timmy & Erin using a webcam.

That was really nice-although not as nice as having them here!

Doctor Berlin

We had Christmas with the kids on the Sunday before Christmas. It was the only time we could all get together. We had a good time. The grandkids got lots of presents. We took turns reading the Christmas story from the Bible & each family took a turn lighting a candle. Sort of like the advent candles but we did them all in one day. I enjoyed that-it added to our celebration. For dinner we put three tables together so we could all sit together. I don't know what we'll do when we have more people! Our camera is dying so I got my dad's camera which doesn't seem to take real good pictures. Plus we didn't have the USB cord for it so I had to order one. So most of the pictures aren't very good. :-(