finals

Monday Bryn visited the orthodontist again. Now he's replaced her clear retainer with a mouthguard-like piece called a positioner that she needs to bite into for 4 hours a day plus wear to bed a night. We check in with him again this coming week. Wonder what'll change then. We also are taking Paige in to fix a loose bracket. We sure are making a lot of trips to his office!

This past week marked the end of first semester. Abby and Bryn had final exams Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Jeff and I helped by keeping them at home more.:) We don't have the results yet. Abby met with her guidance counselor to make some 2nd semester schedule changes, namely dropping an art class because it conflicts with a required Composition class, and discussing the option to drop Calculus. The couselor advised her to stay with it. She'll have a study hall now, whereas she didn't 1st semester, and hopefully Abby will use that for help with math. They're off school tomorrow (Monday).

Thursday we received a very important piece of mail: Abby's acceptance letter from Marquette! I'm happy she's accepted at her first choice. Jeff's been busy working the number to get our taxes and financial aid forms set and in March we should hear exactly how much we can expect to be paying. We're sending info to LaCrosse as well.

Abby and Bryn went Turnabout dress shopping together (with Kendal) after finals were through Friday. Abby and Bryn both found dresses they liked and put them on hold. Kendal wasn't so lucky. Abby called my cell to let me know that the store would only hold the dresses for 2 hours! So I got in the car and headed for Brookfield Square. Unfortunately, I didn't get there before the threesome left and I just wanted to see the dresses on before I bought them. Many stores, like this one, have a no return policy on dresses. I looked them over and paid the bill but Jeff and I are still waiting for the home fashion show.


Paige's basketball team, Mercury, won their first game yesterday. Close: 11 to 10. Her division is 6th & 7th grade girls and only 20 girls signed up. So the same 2 teams play each other every Saturday afternoon. The organization is trying to coordinate games with local parochial schools to mix things up, but we haven't heard anything yet. Then we took the kids to the movie, American Treasure yesterday. I love those movies. Bryn and I ate too much popcorn.

Packer game's coming on soon. Go Pack! Jeff and I tried our darnedest to get Jeff to the game, but tickets were just out of our reach. Our two good friends, John and Dave, are up there now! Lucky. It's going to be cold, but how exciting! I've gotten a lot of use out of my Packer wardrobe these past couple weeks. We're headed over to Dave & Carrie's to watch the game this week (they were here last week).

The temperatures have made a few changes at the Saunders. We've been pulling Abby's car into the garage with these subzero temperatures because her car doors freeze and won't stay shut. Because Abby's car is compact, Jeff is able to fit his car in as well. Jeff's car just doesn't like to start when it's cold. Battery. Abby told us about how she drove holding the passenger door shut the other evening. I don't like the mental picture. The rabbits have also moved indoors and Theo seems to have no boundaries in the house, but for some reason really likes to play outside a lot more. His frisbee is like throwing a hockey puck.

back in the swing

The holidays were such a refreshing and much-needed break from our busy lives. But routine is good too. And so it begins... Sunday night blogging.


A week ago, I went with Bryn to a meeting for her summer mission trip. There's lots of fundraising and coordinating to do before July. This year Bryn's group is going to Coahoma, Mississippi – a bit farther than Cairo, Illinois where they helped out last summer. At the meeting, Bryn presented her committee's t-shirt design for this year's theme "Move." Cool, huh? They'll be printed up soon, as the church likes the mission trippers to wear them whenever they do their fundraising. They're going to try a bike ride in June instead of sponsoring the kids bowling as in previous years. I'm sure many of you will know all about it when Bryn's looking for contributions.


Paige had her first Band Concert for the year last Wednesday and it was great. She was even featured in a smaller Woodwind Ensemble. Paige is currently 6th chair out of 18 clarinets in her 7th grade band. Her lesson teacher says Paige is adapting well playing with her braces.

Bryn sat down to supper Wednesday night and announced, "I have some news." That gets a parent's attention! Bryn asked a boy to the Turnabout Dance that'll be Feb. 9th. Good for Bryn. I like her confidence. (Oh! The boy, Tyler, said yes.) Bryn apparently got his locker combo from his brother and put a sign in his locker with the big question. Abby got really excited "We can go dress shopping together!" Abby asked her boyfriend on Friday. I teased her that Alex was probably worried and insecure why she hadn't asked yet. I don't have the details, but I know it involves a Packer fleece blanket she made him and a stuffed giraffe. Difficult to put that together...

Jeff and I have been delivering Christmas presents late to the girls this year. We upgraded our little iMac in the kitchen and moved it into the dining room for a little more privacy (but not TOO much!) and less interruption. The girls love it because it has a camera in it and it's fast. I love it because it has some really intuitive parental controls and the new operating system - Leopard. It's so pretty. It was delivered to Jeff's work Friday within minutes of carrying the box into the house, the girls were pressuring us to have it up and running. Lucky it was easy to set up. I've had a lot of fun starting from scratch and trying to keep things set up right so it stays organized. And today we signed the family back up for membership at the Y as another Christmas present. Bryn wants to keep training for track and Abby says she'll go with!

Jeff's company, Ring & DuChateau, held their holiday party Friday night at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Fancy. It really is a beautiful setting in that atrium. The food was delicious! We roamed from the mashed potato martini station to the crab cake station, to the chateau briand station and of course, the dessert station. Each station had the one main entree along with a variety of sauces/salsas to accompany it. Yummy! We were also welcome to view the current touring exhibit which was a little disturbing (all works were completed in a mental institution), but the drawings were very detailed and intriguing.


My company party was scheduled for the next evening, but needless to say, had to be postponed due to the Packer playoff game. My boss John is not a Packer fan so he was disappointed to have to reschedule, but that game was worth it! The beginning made us all kind of nervous, but it was just so picture-perfect with the snow coming down in Lambeau Field and the Packers just doing their thing. Since our plans had changed, we decided to make a social event of the Packer game and invite a few people. I put out way too much food. I felt bad for Abby's boyfriend, Alex, who really wanted to watch the game but the rest of the kids in the basement preferred playing Guitar Hero or badly karoake-ing to the boombox, so Alex came up and watched with us parents for a few plays.

The Girl Scout cookie sale is on and this is Abby's last year selling. I put a link at the right so you can view the varieties offered this year. They're $3.50/box. Abby will contact you for orders.

happy '08

So we came back from up North, went back to work for a couple days, then traveled south.


The most important event about being home those couple days was that Bryn had her braces removed! She looks so pretty! She is a little disappointed in having to relearn to play her trombone without all that extra stuff crowding her mouth.


I had purchased tickets in the fall to the musical, Wicked, playing at the Oriental Theatres in Chicago for after Christmas. It turned out to be a perfect time to go since the kids didn't have their typical activities during break either. We attended the Sunday matinee and it was fantastic! Abby and Bryn are very familiar with the music because they've played it in band the past couple years. The story is basically a prequel to The Wizard of Oz (link at right). We left Milwaukee at 10:30am and drove right into downtown to park. You just never know what Chicago traffic is going to be like. We walked around a bit and found a nearby McDonald's for lunch. A homeless person offered Abby some bubblegum and asked for food from me while we were dining. After that, we walked around and admired some of the famous public sculptures. The Oriental Theatre was very ornate, as a theatre should be. Abby, Bryn and Paige all purchased Wicked-logo clothing as souvenirs.


We called Craig as we exited the parking ramp. It was snowing. Again. But it was really pretty with all the Chicago lights. Clark greeted us at the door at Craig's house and we left to take Craig out for his birthday dinner: pizza. We came back and admired all the hard work Craig has done remodeling his home in Lyons. We've seen it since the beginning, so we can see the progress. Craig shared some videos of some of his toy inventions and finished up the evening with Clark's Dog Show.


The morning we were surprised with an encore performance of Clark's Dog Show. We got a little tired of it being "all about Clark" so we began joining in and dancing with Clark's animals. Clark didn't care for this, so he would stop the show, turn off his strobe light and go to his desk downstairs. He would come back with a written referral for whoever was interfering with his show. We had fun, but it was time to go by noon.

We got back to Milwaukee on New Year's Eve day by 3pm and everyone got in line to shower. Abby had plans with her friends elsewhere, and Bryn and Paige invited guests to our house. Jeff and I agreed to this as long as we got to go to a movie first. We saw "Charlie Wilson's War." Interesting and worth seeing. The guests arrived at 8pm and we got to stay up to drive them home at 1am! I texted Abby at midnight to wish her "Happy New Year" and reminded her to "Be Safe." She texted me back that she had "kissed a random drunk guy" when the ball dropped, which I didn't think was very safe. Sassy.

New Year's Day our whole house didn't wake til 11am so it was really a half-day. I just did the typical household chores and filled in my 2008 calendar with all the kid's schedules. That is a full-day task!

Jan 2 was back to work, but the kids are off yet til tomorrow. Abby, Bryn & Paige all went in to the salon today and had their hair cut. Abby blew her gift certificate from Christmas right away and got her highlights.

merry christmas

We fit 3 Christmases and 2 birthdays within 3 days.

We traveled up to the Cabin last Saturday (22nd) without Abby. It's difficult for Abby to ask for time off in December so she had to stay home and work Sunday. Jeff and I drove 2 cars and left one in Appleton for the next day. Craig and Clark drove up the night before. Kristin, Carlo, Bella and Lucy had already arrived. It was very warm out that day, near 40° and that caused a lot of fog. Not optimal driving conditions. Meg, William, Bryce, Logan, Mia and Cooper got in around suppertime and their drive wasn't too enjoyable because of the weather. But all 19 of us made it and moved into our assigned rooms.

Sunday morning, Mom arranged for us to all go to brunch for Dad's 75th birthday. (His birthday's really the day after Christmas, but we all couldn't stay that long.) The weather again was far from cooperative. It was pouring rain in the morning and as the day went on, the temperature fell, so the precipitation changed to sleet then snow. And it was terribly windy! We had the place to ourselves when we first arrived at the restaurant. We all enjoyed a delicious buffet and watched the snow continue to fall. Made it home to watch the miserable Packer game. Meg and William enjoyed a better end result with the Colts.

Then Jeff and I trekked to Appleton for Christmas at Maggie's at 3pm. Seemed OK driving there, just a little slower to be careful with the snow. Maggie and Tom hosted 25 in their cozy household and Maggie had the spread out! It's so nice to see everybody: Tony & Katie's first Christmas together, listen to Kayleigh's college experiences, relate with Debbie and Vicki, ... From there, Jeff left to pick up Abby after work in Milwaukee to bring her back up north while I left and went directly back up north. Boy was I nervous driving! The snow was blowing so hard that I couldn't tell where the edge of the road was! If there was a motel in Black Creek, Paige, Bryn and I would've checked in! It did seem to let up a bit after Black Creek, but my typical drive time was doubled.

Christmas Eve day is a day of anticipation. The kids were bouncing off the walls and needed to burn some energy. We took them outside to sled and ice skate. The ice was still soft from the warm temperatures and a bit slushy near the edges, but well worth it to get the kids outside.


We decided to begin opening presents on Christmas Eve at 4pm - especially so the little ones (Mia, Cooper, Bella and Lucy are all 2yrs old or younger) could get through theirs before they got too tired. Food preparation wasn't complete quite on schedule so we began opening at 5pm. I'm amazed at the kid's patience as we took the time to watch each present be opened. We had to take two breaks to eat and to put kids to bed, and we finally finished up about 10pm. While the adults were cleaning up the last remnants of wrapping paper, the 10 foot Frazier Fir toppled directly into the living room! Ornaments crashed and it landed with a thud! Luckily, nobody was in the room to get hurt. Mom was quite sad about losing ornaments and Dad was quite beside himself that his perfect tree was damaged: a definite flat spot on one side. It was a mess with the holder spilling water all over, but it was cleaned up by 11 and we all got into bed so Santa could come.

The kids were up early Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought. Clark was especially excited to open up his restaurant, The Hand, today. Craig bought him a variety of restaurant supply items including a neon ORDER sign, order pad, straws, etc. And Logan bought Clark a mini popcorn wagon so that was included into The Hand's menu. Logan worked hard with Clark the grand opening of The Hand. Jeff, I and the girls drove into Appleton again for the afternoon to wish Jeff's Dad and Judy happy holidays. Debbie and her family were there too. Driving conditions were back to normal, thankfully. When we returned, we dined at The Hand and everyone joined in to play Paige's Are You Smarter than A Fifth Grader? game.

Today, we packed up to leave and had Craig open his birthday presents. (His birthday's actually the 29th.) It's always sad to leave, but it'll be nice to have a uninterrupted night's sleep. And it sure was fun with all the kids.

nothin but snow

Abby and Bryn are at a Student Council Christmas Party so I have time to blog ON TIME this week.


Again, a very eventful week for the Saunders. As I mentioned Monday, Paige was rewarded with getting her braces earlier than expected. After Jeff and I went over our financial obligations with the orthodontist, he offered to put the spacers in immediately while we were there, and the receptionist noticed an opening Thursday to put on her braces. Typically the spacers are in for a week, so Paige was really lucky. Paige's appointment Thursday was in the morning, but she opted not to return to school that day. She looks great and is keeping great care of them!


Tuesday Milwaukee was threatened with an ice storm, so most school in the area closed for a snow day. Abby was already in the shower before we caught the announcement on TV. Oh well. She just rolled back into bed in her sweats and a towel on her head. Jeff and I got in to work reasonably on time. But the ice didn't seem to materialize as forecast - it just kept snowing! And it was such a beautiful snow: giant flakes that fell all day. Bryn and Paige had a great time in it as you can see. Abby spent the day with Kendal. Inside. Party poopers!


And all week long, Bryn and Abby were at Band Revue rehearsals til 9:30 at night. Having the snow day didn't help. Jeff and I got to see the production twice over the weekend: on Friday evening with my parents and my sister, Kristin, then again on Sunday afternoon with Jeff's mom and sister, Terry. Lucky I had my iPhone to check the Packer game at intermission! No worries. Abby's boyfriend, Alex, announced the score of the Packer game as he "died" on stage. While the production itself is kind of a hodgepodge of different talents, it's so endearing seeing the kids you know perform. This year, Abby danced a swing dance with Alex and then a salsa dance - not with Alex. Bryn played her trombone throughout the entire production with the Jazz Band.


I gave my Mom her Christmas present early. On Saturday, I took her to the Pabst Mansion (link at right). Dad and Jeff got to go too. This time of year the Mansion's all decorated for Christmas and it's absolutely beautiful. Mom wanted to go last year when I hosted Christmas at my house, but it just gets too much to organize with my entire family in town. So when she said they'd like to come down for Band Revue, the timing couldn't have been better. And of course it snowed another 4 inches which made it even prettier. And us 4 got to enjoy it just as adults. Ahhhh.

happy days are here again

After much talking, my co-worker, Kevin, and I were able to convince Mike to stay at Norman Design. As I wrote in my last entry, Mike quit to take a web programming job elsewhere. Kevin and I let Mike know how valuable his web expertise is to Norman Design and how we could - and wanted - to let him concentrate in that area. John (owner) gave it his all as well. So yeah!


Paige has to cook 10 dishes at home for her FACE (Family and Consumer Ed) class. She missed a key ingredient in this very burnt batch of Easy Mac! Almost started a fire in our microwave!!! And yes, Paige wants to be a chef.


Last Tuesday we received an unexpected visitor into our home, Flat Logan. Now we all like Flat Logan, but we'd really rather have Real Logan come visit. Flat Logan is Logan's classroom project where we have to take pictures of Flat Logan doing stuff with us. She's been out in the snow, to our new McDonald's, in Abby's messy room and playing frisbee with Theo. We have to get her back soon though.

I went Christmas shopping Tuesday night as all the kids had something to do. I wanted to pick out Christmas cards at Hallmark (Abby was working), but Abby said we can't have regular Christmas cards and she had an idea for our family photo. I didn't have to Photoshop a new head on myself this year, but it did take 7 pictures for me to have my eyes open. I thought that was fairly painless for everyone. Jeff put them in the mail today! (Of course, I'm not going to post this picture!)

Paige and I have had a lot of time alone with her sisters both in Band Revue at the High School this year. Rehearsals are now daily.


Paige and I baked our first Christmas cookies on Sunday while watching the Packer Game. We made peanut butter kisses. Jeff left our house at 6:30am for the game. He went with his same college friends that he goes hunting with. Lucky St. Nick brought Jeff a new warm scarf, earmuffs and gloves! It was cold!

I left Paige alone while I attended Bryn's UWAY winter concert down at UWM. (Jeff was on his way back from the Packer game and Abby had her work Christmas party.) Their concerts are so pretty to listen to. All the kids play at such a high level and the concert hall has great acoustics. I put a new link at the right about the ensemble.

Today (Monday) Bryn and Paige both had orthodontist appointments at 8am. Bryn's teeth looked perfect, so the removal date of Dec 27th is on! And Jeff and I were both invited to sit down and discuss Paige's future orthodonture ($$$$$) and asked to sign on the bottom line. Paige is equally excited about getting her braces ON. Paige got 7 spacers inserted to make room for bands around her molars and she'll be back in the chair this Thursday to get her braces!!! She says she's getting red and green for Christmas.

Bryn was honored at the Village's School Board meeting tonight for her performance in Cross Country this past fall. The athletic director introduced all the outstanding fall athletes.

back to the old routine

Back to a full week of school and work for all of us.

Abby visited the dentist Monday where I was invited in to be informed that Abby should have her wisdom teeth pulled before she goes off to college. Abby has only 3 wisdom teeth, like I did (my Dad, on the other hand, had only 1 – the one I was missing!).

Tuesday night Abby and Dana baked 12 dozen sugar cookies for our continuing Girl Scout Gold Award project with the nursing home. Of course, I ordered the pre-cut cookies from Market Day so we literally only had to bake them. I HATE rolling out and cutting cookies! Abby invited Dana to come early so Abby could get to the High School basketball game.

Jeff studied hard the past few weeks and it paid off! He passed his "Green Building" test on Wednesday so now (as he explained to the girls) gets to add more letters after his name on his business card (LEED), link at left. It's attractive to many clients nowadays.

Bryn finally got her first road session with the driving school on Thursday. The instructor commented that Bryn was good at turns, but she needs to center herself better on the road. Bryn said her teacher was eating a smelly tuna sandwich during the lesson. :( I went to bed by 9 again. Caught the cold that's been going through our house.

Friday night all the girls had social plans: Paige went to the local Teen Center, Bryn and Abby went bowling with their respective groups of friends. So Jeff and I decided to go get our Christmas tree! The weather was a little chilly, but we kept hearing what was coming so we wanted to get it done! We came home and watched "Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream Home" - an old movie that I'd never get to watch with the kids home. I also received a call from John, my boss, that one of the two full-time guys just gave his notice. Bummer. When your company only consists of 4 people, losing one is a big deal. He'll be hard to replace - we really relied on his technical expertise.

Abby, Dana and I went off to host our 3rd installment of bringing Brownies to the nursing home Saturday morning. Again, it went great! Abby and Dana hosted 20 little Brownie girl scouts to decorate cookies and paint Christmas tree ornaments with residents. Abby and Dana were kept hopping distributing frosting, sprinkles then switching to paint and cleaning it all up! All within an hour and a half!


The nasty weather started at about noon, so Paige and I got out to the grocery store right away so we could get back! We also stopped at Blockbuster to get some Christmas movies to watch while we decorated the tree. The sleet began about 5pm. We snugged in and watched Deck the Halls, then The Polar Express while snacking on popcorn and peppermint hot chocolate.

Today I chaperoned a shopping trip for 4H as our club is sponsoring a family for Christmas. We had 4 groups of 4 kids each that we took to WalMart and let them spend $30 per group being assigned to boy clothing, boy toys, girl toys or girl clothing. We met back at someone's house and wrapped everything up for presentation next Sunday. Then I cooked chicken & dumplings - just seemed like the right weather for it. Jeff was a nice guy and picked the chicken from the bones while I got to go to the Y. He also put up our outdoor lights. :)

NEWSFLASH: Tomorrow is Alex's (Abby's boyfriend) birthday!!! It's being treated like a national holiday at our house! Update next week.