My Surrender Date

I was watching Oprah a while back (disclaimer-I take Oprah with a grain of salt) and she had a therapist on helping a couple with some issues. She gave the husband an assignment. She asked him to take his wife on a surrender date. This wife is a typical wife (I could identify with her anyway). She's the household manager/planner/CEO/Controller. She plans meals, trips, outfits, dates, dr appointments, you name it. The husband has settled into this agreement and has long since spoken up to have a say in anything because they have settled into their roles, and that's the wife's role in their household. Anyway, the therapist instructed the husband to plan a surrender date. This would include arranging for the babysitter, deciding where they would go, what they would do, and my favorite part, he would decide what she would wear. The wife had to surrender ALL control on every level to her husband. This sounded like a fabulous idea to me, so I shared my desire for this type of date to my husband and he agreed to it.

I don't think my husband has planned a date for us since we were dating. It's not his fault necessarily...I just sort of took it over and never looked back. I even planned our honeymoon. I've planned every date, every vacation, every overnighter. I guess I'm a control person and I decided it was time to let it go! We were in a date night "rut" and needed to climb out of it!

So last night we had our surrender date. He informed me last week to be ready for our date at 5pm. He did share with me a few days prior that we'd be going to a blazer game. He decided it didn't need to be a surprise, he just needed to cover all details. He rose to the occasion and did such a great job that I'm hoping this will be a regular thing for us! At times I found myself butting in and asking questions and he told me he had it covered, don't worry about it. Giving up complete control was harder than I thought it would be. He arranged for child care (two different sitters were needed since it was Awana night...one before and one after), he picked the restaurant (Standfords at JB), got us AWESOME seats at the blazer game and he helped pick out my outfit the night before. He did such a great job that I told him he gets to plan our 10 year anniversary weekend :) Thanks for a fun date night sweetie!

Our seats were in the 9th row...we've never sat that close, it was a real treat!

I didn't get a full shot of my outfit, but he picked out the jeans and the hat and also helped me pick out the top...he requested that I wear something with the blazer colors!

My only action shot of the night..."LA" had a great game!

I know these guys are tall, but I never realized how tall they were...I think Greg Oden must wear size 18 shoes!

They won the game with double digits....a fun time was had by all!

Status Update-Mara has completed her dance class!

Yes, I've been on facebook, big surprise!

I've discovered (as lots of you have too) that it's hard to maintain the email, the blog, the facebook, etc etc! So something's gotta give and it's the blog....so, I'm playing a little catch up. I like how you can quickly post a status update and be done, or quickly post pictures and be done. But sometimes pictures have a story with them and it's fun to share the story! So please excuse the redundancy of my pictures on facebook AND my blog.

The cons of facebook is that it can suck you in and before you know it, it's midnight, and I'm supposed to be in bed and I'm not and on it goes! And that's why my Christmas post is a month late, but at least I got it posted!

So anyway, a while back I was tagged on my blog and I shared a surprising fact about my desire to take a certain type of dance class. Well, when my friend called and invited me to join her "book club" (it's a group of ladies that get together and don't read books) outing to "that" type of dance class, I decided it was time to put up or shut up, so how could I turn that down? Here was my chance!

So, it wasn't really a pole dancing class, but it was along that same vein. I would describe it as an exotic dance class. It was a lot of fun once you got past the initial embarrassment of it. A coctail prior to the class helped :) So anyway, we got to the dance studio in Portland and found some dancing shoes in all sizes for us to try on and get used to! It was fun! My camera was non cooperative, so I only have a couple pictures and none of me dancing, so I guess you'll just have to trust me on that one... I was sooo sore the next day. My hips are not used to that type of movement :) Anyway, it was a blast to try something new and I would HIGHLY recommend this activity for a fun girls night out!

I'm proud to say I did not fall in these shoes!

My good friend Jen that I've known since I was 14! There's nothing like an old friend!

Christmas Celebrations

What a fun month we had from playing in the snow to gingerbread houses, to baking cookies to getting to see cousins. The snow was extra special and it brought out the whole neighborhood which is a rare thing in the winter. I feel like the most special time for me was our family's advent time (I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of it, oh well, I was enjoying the moment!). All the readings and prayer time was just priceless! Here's a recap of our special moments~

Baking cookies...the girls loved the cutouts the most!

Our gingerbread house tasted as good as it looked...yes, that's right, we let them eat the candy off it, a little bit each day until it mysteriously disappeared one night after New Years!

Oh the snow days...our first snow pictures showed kids sledding on concrete since the light dusting didn't stick around for very long, but oh how the big snow did come. This one was my favorite sledding action photo!

Daddy sledding with the girls. Megan lasted lots longer then Kate, but I was proud of her for trying it!

Shoveling the drive...he missed me by inches with this large shovel full of snow

Snow angels on the deck

Our own Frosty the snowman on our deck. We used left over candy from the gingerbread house to decorate his face. The girls were genuinely sad to see him melt a little bit each day.

Going for a walk to return our neighbors wagon

After one of the many neighborhood sledding outings, all the kids snuggled in for a movie at our neighbors house

Christmas morning. I think this was the first year that I didn't do matching jammies...they are getting so big! As the snow was falling on Christmas morning it was such a warm cozy time together. I told my girls that they might not see snow on Christmas again until they were all grown up with kids of their own. I guess I can't expect a 6 and 3yr old to "get" that :)

A new Belle floor puzzle for my puzzle girl

A Barbie Jet so the barbies can fly in style!

A Barbie dress up dress. (This year gift opening was a bit of a free for all, so I didn't get as many gift opening pictures as I would have liked!)

Our Happy Birthday Jesus cinnamon roll

Blowing out the candle

The weekend between Christmas and New Years, we gathered as a family at JJ Jump for a family party. We did a gift exchange and had a great time playing together! We're turning in to a pretty big group!

And that's a wrap for the Christmas season! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Who Loves Santa??

I thought it would be fun to recap our Santa experience since Katelyn's been born. Megan has always loved the big jolly guy and I just figured her sister would too. I apologize for the poor picture quality I'm posting. I did a shortcut and just took a picture of the picture and it wasn't until I downloaded them that I realized that was a really bad idea and I should have scanned them in, but my ever efficent husband had already packed up all the Christmas stuff including Christmas pictures and I've been told in no unspecific terms that having to get the boxes back down is his least favorite thing.....so, please forgive me for the fuzzy pics!

2005 - 9mo old (my favorite one....she could not get off his lap quick enough!)

2006 - 20 mo old (Megan is completely unaffected by the screaming....this girl has always known how to pose!)

2007- 2 years 9 months....getting better but still wouldn't sit on his lap or have her picture taken without mom

2008- 3 years 9mo....we love Santa! She hugged him over and over....even when we left she walked back over to him and wanted one more hug...so cute!

A better picture with their Christmas dresses!

Mad Dash in the Dark

The plan was all set early in the week. We were going to get our tree on Friday because it looked like the best weather of the week and we'd beat the weekend rush. How great would that be....get our tree early in the weekend, have all weekend to decorate the tree and house, what a great plan!

I noticed the weather cooperated and it was a sunny day as I was going about my day at home on Friday. I made my late afternoon call to Damon....oh, it doesn't look like he can leave work early, something came up....darn! OK, we can still make it, we'll just have to hurry! He finally gets home and we're all ready to go and then comes the "put your coat on and get into the car" and that's where we stalled yet again. Katelyn, you see, does not like wearing a coat. ALL coats are too puffy. We begged, pleaded, bribed and finally just put our foot down....put it on or you are not going. She fussed and whined but gave in. Off we went to Glenwood tree farms.

It was starting to feel dusky by the time we got there so there was a sense of urgency....we parked, hopped out and off we went in search of the perfect tree. In past years we have been able to find the perfect tree in under 10 minutes. This was not the case this year. We seemed to find something wrong with each one. It was getting darker by the minute and we are literally running all over. It was narrowed down to two trees and Megan cast the deciding vote since little miss K was still fussing about her coat. We did end up with a great tree, but it just wasn't the smooth sailing we had experienced in previous years. We were loading it into the truck when we suddenly realized we told my mom and dad we'd pick up a tree for them...Yikes, it was really getting dark now. We jumped in the truck and drove to a different area of trees. We hopped out and again starting running. This time we couldn't see the stumps as well...oops, we better not run anymore! In case you were wondering, it really is possible to pick out a lovely tree in the dark!

grumpy girl with her puffy coat

cutting down the tree

quick self family portrait (notice how dark it is...this is before we found my parent's tree)

all's well that ends well (all smiles after a candycane!!)

When we got home, my parents came over to celebrate St. Nicholas day and did our advent reading together. It's our family tradition to celebrate St Nicholas Day on Dec 6 (St. Nicholas was a real person and the idea of Santa orginated from him, I believe he died on Dec 6, kids put out their shoe outside and St. Nicholas fills the boot overnight). Anyway, my mom brought over their Christmas gifts early so they could enjoy them and spread the gift receiving out a bit (very nice idea!). My parents are so thoughtful and always go the extra mile to make everything so special for the kids....thanks Nana and Poppy!

We enjoyed the rest of the weekend by decorating the house and the tree. Katelyn loved her tinkerbell ornament and both girls decided they needed a turn to put the star on top!

Last but not least, I couldn't resist adding this cute picture of my mini me!!!

Let the Christmas fun begin!!!