Only 2 Weeks Left

We (meaning Chad mostly) have been packing like crazy. Chad has done most of the major packing and moving of the big ol' things we have. He and Jamey moved out the furniture on Saturday except for our kitchen table and beds. Our house looks so sad! It is funny how messy it looks right now even though 90% of our stuff is out!! Just a tour of the current state:

Our room (the door had to come off to move my GINORMOUS armoire...Chad still complains about the size of furniture I just had to have LOL)... As Aidan says, we are "camping" on the floor. He is totally loving it and thinks it's hilarious that all of our stuff is gone...

Nothing but a bed, tv and plastic drawer set...

The mess is contained to the living room

We are moving more stuff this weekend. We have a storage unit and are filling it up!!

On a side note, we are supposed to have 12+ inches of snow tonight!! Lordy, get ready for some MAJOR shoveling!!!

Movin' On Up

Chad and Aidan workin' hard at moving our stuff today...

The Beauty of Health Insurance

I don't think I have ever actually appreciated my health insurance. I more often find myself complaining about various things that are covered or not, or only paid at this amount, or blah blah. I have to say today that health insurance is amazing. My breast reduction surgery cost $14,700. That is a chunk of change, my friends. The amount I have had to pay out of pocket??? Well, roughly $100. AMAZING. So as of today, I take back the nasty things I have said about my insurance coverage LOL. I am glad to have it and appreicate the fact that they pay for what they should!! The surgery was the best decision I ever made about myself and I am so thankful that I had insurance to help me out with it. It was very much a medical issue and my life has never been more "comfortable." So today? YAY HEALTH INSURANCE!

Worst.Weekend.Ever.

It was a LONG weekend for us! Thursday evening I ended up at the ER with Elin as she was having trouble breathing and was coughing like a maniac. They tested her for RSV and she was positive. Her oxygen sats were below 90%. They put her on oxygen for a while and that helped, but as soon as they took her off, her sats were drop again. Soooo, that bought us a night in the hospital. Elin was so happy the entire time (besides when they were sticking things up her nose!). Chad and I clearly did not sleep that whole night. He got the couch bed and I found out that I can actually fit on a hospital crib with Elin LOL. My sister THANKFULLY came to the house to stay with Aidan and get him to school, etc. THANK YOU ELIZABETH!!!
We got released Friday late afternoon and went home. Well Aidan started running a fever and it only got worse. By Saturday his temp was over 103 and that was after Tylenol. It was awful. He had the "wet" cough and was miserable. Sunday his temp got to 104.7 so we took him to Urgent Care. He had RSV too!! Luckily it just seemed like a nasty cold and he was breathing okay. He stayed home yesterday as well since his cough was so awful.

Thankfully we are all back to normal today and functioning!! We are down to the wire for packing up the house so you know where to find us if you need something!!!

Texas!

This weekend we headed to Dallas, TX for my grandpa's 80th birthday. It was the first time Elin would be on a plane and 2nd for Aidan (though he doesn't REALLY remember the first time). We headed to KC with my mom, dad, Lizzy and us. It was freezing in Missouri this week. We had snow and it was like 10 degrees. ICK. BUT!! Dallas was a balmy 56, haha. It felt pretty dang warm to me!!! We had quite an adventure. It was a really great time. I am happy to report the kiddos were rockstars on the plane, too.

Grandpa and Aidan in KC "McPhee" and Elin (thanks, Nanny. We appreciate the help!!)
Chad and Aidan heading to the gate

Lizzy and Aidan at the airport Burger King (PS...REALLY GROSS, even for Burger King)

Our plane

What do you do while waiting to board? Play with trucks of course

Or if you are Elin, you sleep...

Once we were there we met up with my dad's family. It was great to see them all again since we don't get together that often. Uncle Mike and Deb gave Elinthe most adorable zebra and hot pink outfit ever. It was so sweet!! We had a great time catching up and were happy to be at the hotel. Sunday was grandpa's party. We all went to church and then followed up with a party.

Chad, Elin and Aidan

The cheeser

McPhee

Sisters

My cousin Garrett and his gf, Jill

Me and my cousin, Danielle

Me and my buddy

McPhee and her little buddy

Grandpa giving a speech

A really fuzzy pics of dad's brothers and sister (Kathy isn't in the pic)

Deb, Uncle Mike, cousin Cara, Aunt Mary, cousin Zach, Aunt Trish, Uncle Rob

Grandpa and Aidan

The photographer of the party. He ran around taking pictures of everything (including his shoes if you were wondering). Future owner of Bodnar Studio:

Grandma and Aidan (dang plant in the way!)

Monday morning we headed for the airport. Aidan was beyond excited to fly again. He was so excited in KC that his shoes had to be swiped for bomb materials LOL. He didn't know that was the reason. He has those light up Skechers and they have wires in them so they have to be swiped. I told Aidan that they were cleaning his shoes. He was so excited to have them "clean" his shoes (seriously, like I need to explain to a four year old about bombs and planes)

Elin at the airport going home

Oooh, Dallas has moving sidewalks. You think Aidan had fun??

Uh, yeah

Waiting to board

We all made it back to the frigidness that is Missouri. It rained all the way back to Columbia. We got home and were POOPED. Aidan and I began to pack up my closet and shoes. Oh Lord. That is quite a task. Yes, I have an obscene amount of shoes. I get it. Needless to say, Aidan and I packed 7 full size boxes of my shoes alone :) Chad needed one. small. box. Our evenings for the next month are to be spent packing!! Whew!!!

Christmas (Finally)

It took forever, but I finally got the pictures off of my camera from our Christmas. Here are a few pics from our family Christmas at home...

Chad and the kiddos (and Lacy)

Me and the babes (we didn't even attempt a full family photo LOL) OOOH, cash from Grandma and Grandpa!! He also got a super snazzy yellow sweatshirt that he wears EVERYWHERE, but the adorable pic I had was fuzzy

Elin loving her wrapping paper

Presents!

Aidan wanted to pick out a present for Chad all by himself this year. What did he pick? Well this Mighty Morphin Power Ranger t-shirt of course :)

That took a long time for me to post these. Sheesh. Anyhoo, there you have it. Our low key home Christmas.

Best News of 2011 So Far...

WOO HOO!! That's right, people. SOLD. We got a contract on our house back in November. However, those people needed to sell their house first. Well, that has happened. We close February 18. For the next month we are going to be packing like crazy.

If you recall, we will be building a new house on our farm... Our builders are going to tear down the creepy, haunted house in the next week. This house:
And I hope to be seeing this at the end of the summer from our front porch...

We are so excited! First we have to get through packing and closing...then we will be able to relax a bit!!

Stay tuned for our living arrangements for the next 5 months or so :)

Fun with Mark and Bec

Friday after work/school, we loaded up and headed off to St. Louis to hang out with Mark and Rebecca. When we got there, we met up for some dinner at O'Charleys and went back to the house for a really late little Christmas. They gave the kids the cutest things. Elin got her very first purse filled with the girly essentials. She hasn't stopped playing with it. She is saddened that she made the cardinal mistake of leaving her keys and mirror at Bec's. She is very upset that she is now stranded with no way to escape us :) She was also lucky enough to score a couple pairs of VERY snazzy boots. First, the leopard ones (my favorite OF COURSE...we know I love some leopard!!)... And of course, Daddy must be happy to. Hence, Elin shall be rockin in her camo boots as well...

They are the cutest dang things I have ever seen. Thanks again guys :) Aidan was beyond excited to see the goodies from Mark and Bec. He got some awesome "dress up" stuff (I don't know if that is the right word for boy-dress up, but that is what I would call it LOL). He got a vampire cape and teeth (though Aidan says it is definitely a Darth Vader cape!), a knight/king costume ("Just like Flynn Rider, Mom!!" if you have seen Tangled you know), and the fireman get up complete with axe, radio, hose and hat. He won't take it off. He asked to wear it to the mall on Saturday, but clearly I would not let that happen ;)

After the goodies, we spent the evening hanging out. The boys were amazed with Uncle Mark's new toy, his TV. They spent their time with the 3D glasses and the Xbox. Of course. I believe Mark is reviewing and demonstrating all the "features" of the new TV (which PS I am completely jealous of)...

Testing out the 3D glasses

Putting out fires

Elin enjoying her girly things

Bec and I got some excellent girl time in on Saturday at the mall. We took a little visit to the humane society with the kids. OMG. Chesterfield has the fanciest Humane Society I have ever seen. It was nicer than ours FOR SURE and definitely nicer than any pet store I have seen. It took everything we had not to bring home some surprises :)

We had a great time with them and headed home Saturday as they had plans to go out that night. We spent the rest of the day at home. I used my "Tabatha Coffey skills" and assisted Dawn with her Kardashian hair. Success I must say! And we made plans to take the kids to a movie on Sunday.

Sunday, my dear hubby let me sleep in until 1o! Woo hoo!!! It was great. Well, until I realized that our movie was at 11:40. That is a major time crunch for a shower and the beauty routine!! We were 90% ready when Dawn and the kids showed up. We meaning me. My hair wasn't done, but it was just going to have to work for Yogi Bear! We saw Yogi Bear and it was so cute. I defintitely suggest you see it. We did not see the one in 3D. I refuse because A) it is like $5 more for the dumb glasses that you can't ever use again and B) 3D gives me a headache! Aidan got the Wii game for Christmas so he was all into the movie (and for me, it made the video game make a whole lot more sense!!).

Aidan went over to Cooper's house after the movie and I went home to Elin and Chad. Elin has been sniffly all weekend and Chad was going hunting. I hung at the house with baby girl and watched hours upon hours of Sarah Palin's Alaska. I now wish she would do another season of it. It was the coolest show I have seen in a while. When Aidan got home, it was still on and he was totally into it. I guess you wouldn't like it if you weren't into hunting, fishing, nature, etc. But my boy LOVES that stuff and it was awesome. It was chillaxing from then until bedtime. We had a GREAT weekend! I just wish it would WARM UP sooner than later! We are supposed to get hit with some major snow tonight and tomorrow so we will see!!

Go Team Pole Dance! hahaha

Pole dance fitness class started up again last night. This session Teena was awesome enough to make a private class for our girls. So there are just 7 of us and we all know each other. It is so much fun this way!! It was a blast. The class is normally an hour, but we are her last class for the night and we were there over an hour and a half!! I know my muscles are SORE today!! Let the bruising begin!! I must say I can tell that it is getting a lot easier. Still one of the best strengthening workouts I have done. This time around she is doing individual videos of our skills so we can watch ourselves progress and see what we are doing right/wrong. You may think to yourself that you would NEVER do something like that, but you should definitely try it before brushing it off as "stripper class." It is NOTHING like that. Well I guess I can't say NOTHING, there is a pole involved LOL. But you get the point. Can't wait until next week, ladies!

Christmas in Jeff City

First, let's take a look at two of my favorite Christmas presents this year:

1) My new Baroque Vera Bradley bag...courtesy of Southbank Gifts!! I never win ANYTHING. However, I saw that Southbank was doing a week of giveaways the week of Christmas. Well I saw that they were giving away a Vera bag and I had JUST went in search of a new one the day before and couldn't find one that I wanted (and would be okay with paying full price for!). I entered and SURPRISE SURPRISE...I WON!!! Made my day!!! 2) My gold herringbone Toms. I have been wearing them nonstop since my parents gave them to me. The most comfortable. shoe. ever. I think everyone needs a pair. And like I told my dad, hey you are saving kids feet in Africa (for every pair you buy, they send a pair to a kid in need...though I can't actually confirm it's Africa, but you get it)

Now on to the Christmas recap...

Last week we celebrated Christmas with my family in Jeff City. It was a great night and the kids had so much fun. My family was very generous and we all had a blast. Lizzy rode up with us. We had a dinner made by mom and then time for some presents. Please excuse some of these pics as I forgot my camera (duh!) and had to use my phone. Grandpa and Elin... Getting ready for some fun!
Aidan and Rico

Elin and Aidan with the bounty

Elin was so excite by this giant bow. She wouldn't focus in the camera because she was jumping around so much!

Grandpa and Aidan with their new guns

Chad's present to Grandma...the gift that keeps on giving ;)

Aidan tearing into another present

Elin exploring

Looks like Chad is going to his favorite store, Bass Pro, again soon!

Not sure what that face is about ;)

Rico was so into Elin that night. It is funny because when Aidan was a baby, Rico wanted NOTHING to do with him. I think he learned that if you want some love, you better be nice to the baby! Elin was absolutely giddy with Rico. He kept rolling into her for her to scratch his belly (which was really just her excited slapping and grabbing lol). She would get so excited and grab a hold of him. It was hysterical.

Aidan and Grandma

Elin

Mom and Elin

The kids and I had to come back to Jeff City the next day to pick up all of our gifts since they wouldn't all fit in the car that night. It was crazy! It was such a beautiful day on Friday. I believe it was close to 65 degrees!! Aidan got to play with his new guns a bit

Elin loved watching Grandma and Aidan shoot their darts

The "unicorns" as Aidan said (his idea)

Before we left for the day, Aidan and Grandma had to go check out the trains and the big Christmas tree. It was soooo windy down by the river, but such a nice day!

Elin at home later with her new activity table from grandma and grandpa...

Aidan recovering with Dad from all the fun

It was a great start to a really fun weekend!