Santa

My favorite (above)

pretty cute still!

Last year, Hayden went right to santa and even managed a smile in her picture. This is was a whole new story! A friend's father volunteered to be santa and a professional photographer took everyone's pictures. If Hayden would have cooperated a little more, they would have turned out fantastic! She did NOT want to sit on Santa's lap~ no matter how many candy canes he tried to briber her with!! :) Had I known I was going to be in everyone of her pictures, I would have done my hair and make up and maybe dressed up a little nicer! ;) Oh well...maybe next year!

Great Grandma Ester's 97th Birthday!

Great Grandma Esther turned 97 on Monday November 23rd! Her health hasn't been the best lately, so it was nice to get to spend some time with her and celebrate such an awesome mileston with her and just a few of her many family members!

Grandma and a few of her grand, great-grand and great-great grand children!

Hayden loved this dog statue...goofball!

Dick's Tree

Dick had ordered a tree to be planted at the lake property. He and mom had talked about where to plant it the same weekend he died. They had so many landscaping ideas and plans! Well, last week, the tree that he ordered arrived at the brewery. Mom knew exactly where it was supposed to go and put together a tree-planting party. Sunday we went out to the lake cabin to plant it. It's bittersweet being out there- everything was built by Dick and he loved that place- it almost feels wrong being there without him! :(

Halloween

Dick was going as mom's gladiator :(

Just realized that I haven't updated here much lately. Under the circumstances, my camera hasn't been out much. But- we did still celebrate Halloween. Hayden was a ladybug and we went trick-or-treating at Grandma Lori's Halloween party. She was going to cancel, but because Dick wouldn't want us to not have a party because he wasn't here, the party was still on.

We had a good time and it was fun to see everyone in their costumes.

Goodbye Papa Pepperoni

Today was Dick's funeral services. They turned out really nice. Travis drove Dick's Harley with my mom on the back and a huge procession of all Dick's Harley friends to the funeral home. The service was good- the pastor really captured Dick in his words. The video played was a tear-jerker, especially the pictures from mine and my sister's wedding. The link to the video is included- it takes awhile to load and the music isn't the right song (Dick's favorite song by the Dirty Birds was played with it at the funeral home). It was a packed house- no clue how many people were there, but it was standing room only, with a lot of people overflowed into the lobby where they couldn't even see anything! As the pallbearers (The Dick's Brew Crew) loaded the casket into the hearse, the bikers all revved their engines- that was SO sad! Then the Harley's all followed the hearse with Mom & Julie riding on bikes right behind him. Then at the cemetery, Dick was laid to rest next to his father and sister. We all tossed grain (for making beer) into the grave and onto the casket. Mom dropped a Dick's Beer coaster with a love note written on it too. People didn't want to leave. We weren't ready to say goodbye, that's for sure! Then the procession of Harley's and cars all headed to the brewery for food/beer/storytelling. We didn't get home until after 6pm and we left this morning at 9am! Thankfully, a good friend was able to watch Hayden all day so we wouldn't have to worry about her. I'm so exhausted...it's been one hell of a week. Thank you to everyone who was able to attend today and to those who weren't but still sent their condolences.

http://www.mem.com/apps/movie/ViewMovie.aspx?id=17580317

~Heart Broken~

http://www.chronline.com/articles/2009/10/27/news/doc4ae72c04d6f8f534136003.txt

Some of you may have seen on my facebook, but my stepdad (he and my mom weren't married, but they dated for 11 years, so all things considered, he was my stepdad) died on sunday. My mom is devastated and traumatized. She was with him, gave him cpr and in the ambulance as they tried to save him. She wouldn't leave him at the hospital until the coroner arrived and had to take him to do an autopsy. I've never seen her such a wreck before. My sister and I have made sure she's never by herself, especially at night. So far, nights have been the worse for all of us. And Hayden keeps saying "gama sad." She saw pictures of Dick yesterday and kept pointing to them and saying "diiiick" - he loved how she drug out the "i" sound in his name. I'm sad that she's too young to remember her "papa pepperoni" (he had a deli that made yummy pepperoni and all his grandkids called him that!) We're all just so sad and still in shock. Last night we (mom, nic, derek, jake and I) went up to the lake cabin to watch the sunset and it was beautiful (and there was the biggest,prettiest rainbow all the way there), but hard. It's just not the same there without him. It just doesn't seem real...

THEN...(because when it rains, it pours) my great grandma (my mom's grandma) had a heart attack yesterday morning! The last thing my mom needs is to worry about her! She's okay, but Jeez...

Our Lil Haydie-bug!

For Halloween this year, we decided Hayden would be a lady bug, since it's her nickname - or pretty close to her nickname "haydie-bug"! Although not terribly cooperative for pictures, She'll make a pretty cute bug!

Lattin's Cider Mill

Today we went for fun fall festivities at Lattin's Cidermill & Pumpkin Patch! They have all sorts of farm animals, yummy fresh apple fritters and apple cider! Last year, Hayden was still pretty little and just looked at everything, but this year, she was much more interactive! She LOVES animals and makes all the animal sounds! She also likes pumpkins and went to sit on them all by herself!

She was relaxing on a pumpkin drinking her fresh cider! :)

Notice her nasty pants...she took a fall right into some pumpkin-goo!

Don't mind Hayden's balloon that Jeremy's holding! ;)

Goats!

Buggy loves her Grandma (gama) & Grandpa (papa)

Awesome self-portraiture!

Peacocks

Bunnies

Giving the bunny a kiss!

she's so gentle surprisingly!

HUGE pumpkin!

picking out her pumpkin!

Fence is FINALLY done!

After cleaning & pressure washing/ Before stain

Half done

ALL DONE:

Our gate vs. Neighbors (her's is what our fence looked like before we clean/washed/stained)

We had planned on staining our fence this summer, since I don't think it was ever done in the last 10 years! But, with Jeremy back in grad school with saturday classes, we were very limited with time to do it! After cleaning & pressure washing, we finally bit the bullet and got it started. Thankfully, Neal & Angela were visiting this weekend so Neal & Jeremy were able to get it all finished! Who ever invented lattice - has never had to stain it! I will NEVER have lattice again! :)

No more highchair!

It's official: our baby is gone. She's been replaced by an opinionated, short-tempered, stubborn toddler with no patience! :) The latest: we are too big now apparently to sit in the highchair/booster. We must sit at a regular chair on our knees to eat now. She also climbs up onto the barstools too! Monkey girl I tell ya! Anyways, since we are rarely using the booster seat for it's designed purpose, it is now a highchair so hayden's stuffed animals or babies can eat dinner at the table with us!

Goofy "cheese"! She now will point to my camera, say "cheese" as in "take my picture some more please mommy, because you don't do it often enough"!