Decorating for Christmas....Worth it???

So, anyone knowing me well enough to read this blog knows that I am a very practical person. Given that, each year I wonder if it's actually worth it to put up all the decorations for Christmas when it's just so much work to take them down and store them in a few weeks. Seriously, you have to set aside an entire afternoon just to UNdecorate! However, I decided to go all-out this year. Figured it may help me actually feel at home in my new home (isn't working yet). Plus, Julianne is at the age where she gets so excited about all this.....although I know she will make herself scarce when it comes time to take it all down.

Anyway. Yesterday's tally included TWO trips to Hobby Lobby, one trip to each Walmart and Target, and trips to a couple other stores because shoes were on sale. I ended up buying a second tree for our family room. It's full-size: 7.5 feet tall. Our other tree we've used is small because our old house is small. I put it up too, though. I went with RED on the big tree. If your Christmas tree could tell something of your personality, I wonder what this one says. Seriously, it's entirely RED.

I also decorated the banister with garland and then decorated the garland. I couldn't figure out how to hang the garland without putting holes in the wood on both the banisters and fireplace - so, I did the usual......I googled it. Once again, the love of my life (google) came through for me. Surprisingly, I already had what it suggested. I used the 3M strips that you can use to hang light pictures on the walls. It worked perfectly. I did have to get more when we ran back to the store though.

I bought new Christmas placemats and a Holiday bowl to put in the center of the table with RED ornaments in it.

So, Julianne and I started our adventure about 11am on Black Friday. The stores really weren't too bad. Target was a little crowded. Hobby Lobby wasn't bad at all. We didn't go to Walmart until the evening, and it was almost empty! It took us until almost 10 pm to get it all done, including cleaning up our mess.

So, is it worth it to do all this decorating for Christmas? Honestly, I don't know. I guess if you truly ENJOY the act of decorating, then sure. I'm not sure I actually enjoy it. I don't mind it. Maybe now that I have a good base of decorations to work with, I will be more inclined to get them out next year....adding a few decorations each year until my Holiday Ensemble is complete. I would like to find a wooden train set to go around the tree.

When I was little, my mom decorated for Christmas like nobody's business. We had a dozen old fake trees that she would take the branches off of and use them for garland to decorate table tops, chandeliers, etc. We strung popcorn every year and made paper chains. 90% of our ornaments were homemade. It was amazing. Our tree was always real. Anyway....

So...here are some pics of our hard work. I will dress the little one up one day soon and take her picture with the tree. We may include Fred, the guinea pig, in photos this year. :)

Big Day Around Here!!

Julianne lost her first tooth today. I am so thankful I was here for it! I was on the treadmill when I hear her yell "daddy, my tooth came out"...I about fell off. Sure enough - her tooth was gone. It's been loose for a few days. Evidently, she was chewing on her shirt collar and it must have caught on the loose tooth and pulled it out. She didn't even know it happened until she went to feel her loose tooth and it wasn't there. Then she noticed the blood and looked for the tooth. Sure enough - found it on the chair.

Not sure if this is a big deal, but Jim and I felt like it was. So glad it wasn't one of those traumatic tooth pullings - like when it's hanging by a string and the kid won't let you pull it out. So, she assumes the tooth fairy will be visiting later tonight. She drew a picture of the tooth fairy a few days ago and hung it on her bed. I read a news article not too long ago that teeth are a big business nowadays for kids...getting $5.00 and up! Do they not make quarters any more?

So, you can see the pictures below. Will also post some on my facebook page. I had to turn some to black and white because the blood was all over her face and it looked pretty bad.

I don't know whether to be extremely excited or to cry....She's getting so big!

Julianne and Lainee

I took Julianne and Lainee to the Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, MO last weekend. These photos are on my facebook page, but I thought I would put them here too. I'm not sure they were very impressed with the cave - but they were certainly impressed by the number of bats we saw flying around in there. The tour takes about 45 minutes or so. We spent the night at Aunt Denise's house (Aunt Nee-Nee, or Grandma - which ever). There, the bonfire got rained out, so smores were done in the microwave. The picture of the two of them in the tub is the next morning after the smores - and I am ashamed to say....that really is slept-on-smore on their faces. They crashed the night before while watching Hannah Montana and there was no way I was going to wake them up to go wash up. Anyway. Lainee is about 14 days hounger than Julianne I think. Both started kindergarten several weeks ago, and both are sick of talking about "how school is going".

Jumping Rope!!

Picking up Julianne from sitters yesterday. She's been working on her jump-roping for a week now. Hopefully the video will play!!

Our First IOWA Football Game!!!

Today we ventured into the land of the completely unknown....We became Iowa Hawkeye fans!!! We decided a couple of days ago to try to score tickets and had no problem. Then, I (Linda) decided we can't do anything if we don't do it right - so we went and got our Hawkeye apparel. Each of us picked out a shirt and, of course, Julianne got pom-poms, a necklace, and some tatoos. A friend offered to let us park at his place - which is only a couple blocks from the stadium.

So - Our first IOWA football game was a blast! Our seats were good and we were surrounded by people who weren't total knuckleheads. Julianne got to stand and cheer whenever she wanted without anyone becomming annoyed.

Not sure if we will be attending any more of them - as Jim would rather shoot things on the weekends - but I would love to go to another one. Wondering if the tailgating thing may be something to try next time....not sure.

Julianne's First Day of Kindergarten....

The day finally came - Julianne's first day of kindergarten. She chose to wear a Hannah Montana shirt with some cute pink sparkly shorts. Of course, she was also armed with her Hannah Montanna backpack and folders...oh, and Hannah Montana socks too.

I think she was excited, but we couldn't tell. She was aware that I was semi-not looking forward to it, so she may have been holding back on it. She understands why it's kind of a sad day for me. Anyway, no tears until she begins to march from the playground up to the school with the rest of her class. Then I pretty much cry all the way home. I took the day off today because she gets out early...okay - the real reason was so I could sit home, cry, and eat ice cream. Just kidding. I wanted to be here when she went to school AND when she came home.

We ended up taking her this morning and I'll pick her up - but, tomorrow - she will ride the bus for the first time and that will be another hard day. I can see her throwing a fit if there are no seatbelts on the bus.

So - after we drop her off at school, I realize that I can't find my phone. I look everywhere thinking that with lack of sleep and the drama of the morning - it literally could be anywhere. I'm even checking the trash, fridge, silverware drawer - you name it...I looked there. I called the school to see if anyone had turned it in. Finally, I drive to the school to retrace my steps around the playground to see if I'd lost it. Nope, no luck.

Yes, I finally found it....................................You will never guess where I subconsiously put it (okay - Sarah guessed it - but she and I share a mommy-brain)....................................................................................................................................................................

I found it in her backpack! I don't even remember carrying it around when we left, but at some point - I put the phone in the back pocket of it.

WOW - I am such a blog-slacker!

Okay - so since my last post - which was in JANUARY, a LOT has happened. We sold our house in Kville, moved to Iowa, both took new jobs....let's see...what else????

Let's start with the move....Those of you who know us well are probably familiar with just how long Jim and I have live in Kville. Jim came to college there in 1988 and I've there since 1994. Needless to say...we've accumulates some - uh - stuff. Our 30 x 40 building we built a few years back was FULL of crap. I had started to pack things back in January (maybe that's why I didn't blog very much!) and those boxes began to pile up out in the shop as well. We planned on having a sale of some sort, but ended up giving a bunch of stuff away and simply taking a lot to the dump. Without going into too much moving-hell-detail, I will just tell you that we are glad it's over and we are NOT looking forward to doing it again in 2 years!!!

So, our new house.... We love it. It's more room than we've ever had before and made us realize that we really don't have too much stuff! There are cabinets that have nothing in them! Not every single closet is full! However, our house is VERY new and we don't want to tarnish it.....so, I've not hung one single picture! We've kept a lot of stuff packed that we don't need - so we won't have to just pack it again when I am done with my fellowship. Ok....SO......THAT means that the garage has unpacked crap in it! Yes, it does! It is also filled with Jim's decoys. So, there is only room enough for my car in there and I'm not giving up my parking spot.

Julianne's room has a loft-bed and her art stuff is situated underneath it. Her loft is a full-size and is huge! It's from IKEA, but I bought it used from a lady here. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how big it is.....so, she can't turn on her ceiling fan or she'll whack herself! Her room is decorated with Hannah Montana stuff and butterflies.

We finally have an actual kitchen table. Yeah, seriously, a real one! We ordered it when we first got up here and it took about 5 weeks to get it, but it finally came 2 weeks ago. I no longer have to stand up while eating dinner. The sad part of this story is that there was no place for my beautiful kitchen island that I loved so much and I sold it on ebay.

Laundry - we bought a front-load washer and dryer and they are seriously the BEST things I've ever purchased. They can do HUGE loads of laundry and it's cut our laundry time by at least half!

Since we have an extra couple bedrooms, I was able to use one of them for a designated gym. My treadmill and eliptical are down there and I even put up a flat-screen for my 4am DVDs! I have mirrors for weight training, but they aren't actually up yet - just propped against the walls - because of the "afraid to put holes in the walls" syndrome I mentioned earlier. The surround sound I used in the old house sounds so much better in the smaller room.

The area.....wow... where do I start? It's nice having options. It's nice having a place to go besides walmart (but we find we are pretty brand-specific and still do most of our shopping at walmart!). We discovered the downtown IC ped-mall this past week and have been there twice. Wish we would have known about it sooner. There are miles upon miles of trails for me to run on, and it's easy to get in 8-10 miles without having to plan it all out and not do loops.

So, I am now a critical care fellow at the University of Iowa in the surgical ICU. It's actually an anesthesia fellowship, not an internal medicine one - so, I'm seeing things I've never seen before in my life. New people, new ways of doing things, new everything. It's overwhelming, but good. You all know me and you know that I am extremely uptight.....that's probably not going to change. So, my adjustment period may be a bit longer than usual. So far, things have really been going well at work. I'm not TOO far out of my element with the things I've been seeing. The people I work with all seem to be way smarter than me (but I would probably think that if I were flipping burgers somewhere!). There's been a few frustrations, but overall - I think I'm settling in well.

Jim's job is going well. He really enjoys the positive atmosphere he has up here. He enjoys being in the office and has gotten off to a really good start. He even learned how to text!

On August 20, Julianne will start school. I've already taken the day off! I'm not ready at all. I'll try to let everyone know how that goes.

I've got tons of pictures to post on here. I'll try to get around to that - but there are no guarantees!

My Journey Across America

Here is a map of my miles across America. I'm keeping track on FitnessJournal.com
So far, I haven't made it out of San Francisco! Mileage has gone way down since Jim and I started P90X.