Recipe / Memory Book

I put together a Recipe / Memory Book to celebrate my Maternal Grandparents. Let me know what you think. I was going to get one printed & look at it in person before ordering more. I want to make sure the fonts/words are clear and legible. I have kinda become obsessed with this project.

2008 Year in Review (so far)

Well, Happy Holidays! Here is the 2008 review from the Kunshier Family (connected to our Christmas card). Maybe you already noticed there were 12 pictures (one for every month of the year)?

January: Alexandra Corrine Kunshier came into our life on January 28, 2008, what a blessing!

February: Savannah does love that sister of hers as proof positive in the photo.

March: Happy Easter Smiles!

April: Alexandra loves to smile & daddy loves to catch them on the camera.

May: Savannah is a curious girl. We were out on the patio and she decided to get real close to the fire pit, (by the way...it was cold) so close in fact she had wire mesh marks on her forehead from the ash!

June: Jeremy & Savannah picking rocks on the shores of Lake Superior.

July: Our family hanging out 'Under a Shady Tree'.

August: Savannah turns 6. Sky shots of the girls!

September: Alexandra is chillin' in the pool. She kind of looks like she should have a glass in her hand. Savannah starts 1st Grade, WOW, how time flies!

October: We had a great time at Lendt's Pumpkin Patch. It's a great place (& free) to take fall pics of the kids. Pumpkins were only $3 each if you picked them yourself, any size! This year Savannah was Empress Elizabeth from Pirates of the Caribbean & Alexandra was a sock monkey!

November: Braham really dresses up the town for fall. We took the girls on a stroll downtown and posed with some various scarecrows & straw bales, again FREE!

December: I found matching dresses for the girls, not an easy task when you have a 5.5 year age span! Merry Christmas to you all!

5 miles

We did our first organized fitness activity this summer. We were in the 2 / 5 mile fitness walk / run during Isanti Rodeo Days. My niece Caitee, my sister Becki & myself are in this picture. My friend Melissa was just not there in time for this photo.Caitee actually ran the 5 miles in 42 minutes, not bad for a freshmen effort!

Becki, Melissa & myself ran at the end just for show. We walked the 5 miles in 1 hour 17 minutes.

WOO-HOO

Charlotte's Web

Grandma Ila & Savannah at the Old Log Theater in Excelsior, MN. Savannah said Templeton the rat was really soft!

Charlotte & Wilbur with Savannah!

Under a Shady Tree

My latest computer scrapbooking. I need to make more time for this!

Alexandra

Alexandra loves to smile. She turned 3 months old on Monday the 28th of April and she has been sleeping through the night for a solid month. Boy, what a wonderful treat that is. I think she sleeps well through the night due to the fact that she has found her thumb! It is so cute to see her sleep on her fleece-tie blanket and grab a hold of one of the tie edges and tickle her nose with it as she is sucking her thumb.

Savannah

We have learned a lot this winter. A lot, that is, about what our daughter Savannah is able to do by herself . Back in mid-March Savannah wanted to wear "tie" shoes to school. We had gotten a letter back before Christmas break that Mrs. Olson would no longer be tying shoes for the kids after the new year. Jeremy told Savannah to pick a different pair of shoes, shoes she could put on herself without needing help tying. She promptly told Jeremy, "I can tie my shoes!" and she did! How caught up in being new parents all over again are we? We haven't been helping her learn how to tie her shoes, but her friend Ben helped her, Augghhh!

Later that same week Savannah wanted to swing outside (I thing Spring Fever had set in.) She was bound and determined to go swing even without our pushing her. She marched out to the swing and decided she could pump all by herself, she was so proud. Now that one we actually did practice with her last summer.

I told Jeremy our girl is growing up, I wouldn't be surprised if she jumped on her bike this summer and didn't need her training wheels. Well, now that we have had a couple of nice days I can happily report she isn't that grown up, yet. I'm sure that will be a thing of the past soon as well.

Jeremy's Motorcycle

Jeremy passed his permit test on Tuesday, April 29 and drove his gas guzzling truck directly to buy a motorcycle. This should help on gas consumption. Not to mention the fun for Jeremy.

Alexandra's Baptism

Alexandra was baptised Sunday May 11th. We had everyone head on down the hall at church after the baptism to enjoy pot luck lunch. Most everyone was able to make it over to our house afterwards (we just didn't have to feed them). It was a very enjoyable day. Alexandra was smiling so big at Pastor Chronis he said if she didn't stop smiling he wasn't going to be able to finish. She had stole his heart.


This is Katie, Jeremy, Godfather Tom (Katie's brother) and Godmother Joy (Jeremy's sister) with Alexandra.


This is Great Grandma Hazel, Grandpa Ron, Katie & Alexandra.


This is Grandma Lee, Katie & Alexandra.


This is Grandpa Jim, Jeremy & Alexandra.


This picture is actually from Easter but it is Jeremy, Grandma Ila, Great Grandma Dorothy & Alexandra.

NKOTB

Check this photo out, they say some things get better with age???

Any votes??? (except the convict on the right)

Go NKOTB!

Now that I'm 30...

I received this email and thought it was funny. Instead of bombarding email in boxes with it, I thought I would post it here!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways ... yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! …With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire..Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

NKOTB

Thought this was hilarious! Did we really like these boys when we were younger?

Following two months of rumors that New Kids on the Block might be back on the block, the '80s boy band is slated to appear on the April 4 edition of NBC's "Today" show.

Lake Of The Woods Ice fishing trip

This was our Ice Fishing set-up at Lake of the Woods. The 4-wheeler on the right is mine. It is a Polaris 700. The 4-wheeler on the left is my brother-in-law Todds', it is a Suzuki 750 with his Ice house. The sled behind my 4-wheeler was another family members which we used to haul two of the five kids in our fishing group. There were 4 adults and five kids in our group. All related in one way or another. The island behind us in the picture is Garden Island on Lake Of The Woods. By GPS our spot here was 22.93 miles from our resort straight as an arrow. But, actual mileage was between 26-32 miles out on the lake from shore. We all had our own 4-wheelers and drove them out. We were up here from thursday March 27th to Sunday March 30 2008. We caught our limits of Walleye and had a great fish-fry out on the lake friday afternoon. Only one trip to the E.R was made when one of the kids in our group got a treble hook buried in the palm of his hand. Nobody else was "seriously" injured on our trip. This was my 3rd year going on this trip and I am already counting down the days to go again. The last few years I have gotten so much into ice fishing that I'd have to say I enjoy it more than summer fishing. Maybe I'll sell off all my summer equiptment and buy more ice fishing gear. Yea right!!

What the.....!

Hey Mom and Dad. So help me this picture better not come back to haunt me later in life! I can say though that I do thank you both for keeping this picture rated PG and not The Unrated version. Hey, I just noticed there is something on my head, What the....!

Jeremy dancing

Check out Jeremy here

Too Funny!

Click here to see Alexandra all pimped out

Click here to see Savannah doing the poindexter

Something New

Well, I see other people can do neat stuff, maybe I should give it a try. Sadly, this is the most recent footage I have. It was our last day at the hospital, crazy how time flies. Alexandra will be 8 weeks old tomorrow, March 24.

I still need to learn how to link other people's blogs on the sidebar--Like "My Friends" and I would also like to know how those Nelson girls posted other blogs links in their posts on their '7 things' post. (Which by the way I haven't done yet!)

One small step for Katie, maybe more another day!

Happy Easter, Say Cheese!

Savannah has been wanting to hold Alexandra more & more lately. I love to get pictures of them together. Alexandra has started to smile. She likes it when you wipe the corners of her mouth with the burp towel.

Jeremy & I sometimes wonder if Alexandra will squirm right out of Savannah's hands, but I'm pretty sure with this grip, she's not going anywhere.

We decided to buck the system this year and not go spend money on Easter outfits. I think it worked out pretty good! Savannah had this dress from last summer, we just added a pink t-shirt. Alexandra's outfit was a gift from Shawn, Greg & Pat at work, not bad for boys!

Freegan

Well, I dumpster dove today. Before you stop reading this, totally disgusted, watch this clip from the Oprah show.

http://www.oprah.com/videochannel/videochannel_player.jhtml?video=1962&category=31

I was pulling into CVS pharmacy to use my $15.00 coupon I blogged about on a previous day & I watched CVS employees pulling multiple carts out to the dumpster with boxes of food. Had I not seen this episode on Oprah, I would have wondered what the heck they were doing, but that would have been the end of that. I went in and picked up by diaper wipes I needed, used my coupon and called my husband for moral support. I knew they had just thrown away boxes. I eyed up the dumpster area, there was no lock & a privacy gate around it. I went for it & holy cow I hit the jackpot. The boxes were still in clear garbage bags, and nothing was on top of them. I reached and grabbed what I could, the bags ripped as I was pulling on them. I was even choosy with what I grabbed. There were cheese puffs & fudge covered cookies I tossed back in (none of that belongs on my or my husbands' backend)

In the end I grabbed:

• 3 Special K
• 2 Raisin Bran
• 4 Planters Trail Mix
• 7 Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs (Chips Ahoy & Oreo)
• 2 Butterfinger fun packs
• 4 Chewy Trail Mix Fruit & Nut
• 1 Nilla Wafers
• 3 Cinnamon Toast Crunch Breakfast Bars
• 6 Go Tarts

Not bad for my first grab! (At least I didn't bring home any produce for my family!) Savannah asked why I had brought all these great treats home & I told her someone had thrown them in the garbage. She was very confused, "So, we can't eat these? They were in the garbage?" I told her it was OK, we were going to let dad try it all first. When we went to WalMart tonight for Milk (again, not in the dumpster) and an oil change--Savannah was so excited to point out every dumpster we saw (even in front of the WalMart employee writing up my oil change).

Nemo on Ice

Grandma Ila & Grandpa Jim took us to "Nemo on Ice" on Saturday. I would have to say it was a BIG hit. Alexandra slept through it beautifully and when she did fuss here and there, the show was so loud you couldn't hear her anyways! I was warned by Melissa (who went to Thursday's show) of the $$$ trap they had going on. We had prepared Savannah that we weren't buying any treats there and we only bought this souvenir for her (It's a foam hat & program combo for $15). She lost her hat shortly after getting it and Daddy took his little girl back to the guy we bought it from to see if we could get another hat or not. Well, they are sold as a "combo" and HE couldn't do that, but--go talk to 'that guy'. Well, 'that guy' couldn't do it either, but go talk to some 'other guy'... While Jeremy was standing in line to talk to the 'other guy' with his sad eyed little girl 'that guy' tapped Jeremy on the shoulder and gave him a new hat! Together, Daddy and 'that guy' saved the day.

After "Nemo on Ice" we went to lunch at the Holy Land Bakery and Deli in Minneapolis. It was delicious and Savannah couldn't get enough of the pita bread, meat and cucumber sauce. After stealing mine (after I MADE her try it), Grandpa Jim had to go make her another one (which she ate in its entirety)!

Bathroom redo

Well, we finally painted our bathroom and hung our new fixture last weekend. We decided to go with a color called "Cooled Blue," however I think it looks a little more like green then blue. The accent color in the bathroom is black--wrought iron towel bars/hooks, black shower curtain (I still need to buy black rugs). I'm so very proud no one got electrocuted and it really adds something different to the bathroom. The fixture before was a lovely shade of cheap looking brass. I am so excited to have this project done! Well, it's done for the most part--we need to touch up the color by the ceiling and touch up the ceiling where Jeremy got a little crazy with the roller.

No more Mac & Cheese

Well, the vomiting has hit the Kunshier house. SO far, just Savannah. We are hoping it stays that way. I will spare you any pictures (we didn't take any, YUCK!), but we won't be eating Mac & Cheese anytime again soon. Wish us luck in keeping Alexandra healthy, hopefully this may be where breast feeding really pays off!

First Bottle

Well momma had to get out of the house because us kids were driving her crazy. So, we had a bottle of breast milk for us and we decided that Savannah should be the first one to feed her. She did a great job and even was able to get a couple of big burps

out. Actually Katie had some stuff to do at work. It is nice to get out by ones self even if it is for work and only for an hour or two. Now if only we could get Savannah to change diapers!!!!

StoryBook Creator Plus

I was playing with my StoryBook Creator Plus tonight! Fun, Fun, Fun.

CVS pharmacy deals!

I went to CVS pharmacy today and spent $35.96 on 4 packs of Huggies Supreme Jumbo packs (8.99 each this week on sale) and signed up for CVS ExtraCare Card. Because I spent $30 on Kimberly Clark products (Huggies) I received a $15 coupon for my next purchase at CVS (expires 3/21/08). Just thought I would send the info out to some diaper buying families! So, in summary 4 packs diapers (176 diapers) for 20.96 after I use the $15 coupon next time.

Sears Portraits

I have always had good luck at Sears portrait studio in Andover and I'm just as happy this time. Here are just two of the portraits. We haven't had a professional family shot taken since Savannah was 6 months old, I'm glad we did today.

Axel's Bonfire

We went out to dinner with our friends on Monday night to Axel's Bonfire in Blaine. Woo Hoo! Monday is Kid's Night-Free kid's pizza (they make themself & then they get to watch the cook put it in the woodfire grill) & Free kid's sundae (they also make themself). On the Monday we went, there was also a balloon animal maker that was free for the kids. Savannah chose to get a Monkey in a Tree. To top it off, the food was wonderful!

The Husbands had:
BBQ BEEF BRISKET - slow smoked

my friend Melissa and I shared two entrees,
SALTIMBOCCA - salt roasted chicken wrapped in prosciutto bacon, filled with fontina cheese & sage-pesto

BONFIRE FETTUCCINI - chicken, shrimp, andouille sausage & roasted peppers in a Cajun cream sauce

YUMMO!

http://www.axelsbonfire.com/bonfire/index.cfm

Tattoo

To start out the story I had went to the tattoo shop in Cambridge to price out this tattoo. They had told me $250. Holy S#% I thought. And of coarse Katie said why don't you try that place in mora that you've been to. All right I thought because now I am all depressed at the expense, and I only have $150. So we went there last Thursday and Kelly at Prism tattoo told me around $125-140. SIGN ME UP I said. So I made an appointment for Saturday morning to get the tattoo done. Now that was Alexandras' tattoo. The last few years Katie has always said that I have my name, Savannahs' name, and now Alexandras' name but not hers tattood anywhere. My biggest joke was I always tell her I 'll get her name on my neck. Well that will never happen so I decided to get her name tattood' on the inside of my ring finger. OOOOH that one stung! But now she can stop complaining about it!!!!

Web nursery

Web Nursery Photos from the hospital. Aunt Becki made this outfit for Savannah when she was born and we had her "First Foto" taken in this as well. It is unbelievable how much they look alike at 2 days with the same outfit on!

Our little peanut!

Alexandra and momma having a little cuddle time. Savannah says that "she is cute when she is sleeping". When she is awake Savannah likes to kiss her, play with her and try and get Alexandra worked up so she is tired at night and lets everyone sleep. Savannah thinks it is fun to watch Daddy change wet, stinky diapers. We let Savannah throw away the dirty diapers. Savannah thought it was the funniest thing in the world when daddy got a little bit of "POO" on his hand while changing the first poopy diaper since we got home. Savannah had tears in her eyes she was laughing so hard.

I don't like Diet Coke!!!

We took a picture of Savannah when she was little with a Dr. Pepper pop can so we decided that we would also take a picture of Alexandra, but with a Diet Coke. As you can tell she was not very happy about it. But at least we have another picture to gauge her size. Maybe it was the lime in the Coke she did not like?

Official Birth Announcement

Sisters

Everybody is still doing well. Momma and Alexandra are still at the hospital and Savannah and I are at home. Savannah had a bad earache today and the hospital so the both of us, Savannah and Dad, went to the same day clinic and it turn out the she had a infection in her left ear and the start of one in her right. Got all the meds in and now she is sleeping. Both Katie and Alexandra will be coming home on Thursday so that will be a busy day. It seems to be getting harder to remember what Katie and I did before we had kids. Which to us is OK. We could not be happier then we are now as a family of FOUR.

Alexandra Corrine Kunshier

I had to sneak a picture of these two sleeping after a long morning. We decided to name her Alexandra Corrine Kunshier. She was born at 08:30 on January 28th. She was 7lbs 14 ounces

and was 19 inches long. She also had a 13 inch head and a 13 1/2 inch chest. She seems to be a very smiley girl so far. It seems like whenever her eyes are open she is smiling. We just can not seem to get enough cuddle time with her. Savannah is very excited about finally being a BIG sister. We will post more pics when we are all home!

Ice fishing!!

Ahhh, Yep. A buddy of mine and myself decided to head out to the"Pacific Ocean" for a morning of fishing. It was slow at first but picked up after the first fish we caught was a 35 1/2 nothern. Good thing the second fish I caught was only

29 and 15/16th of an inch long. Can not take more than one over thirty inches!!! I had another 26 1/2 incher. My buddy Steve was spear fishing and had missed the first one that came through but was rewarded with a beautiful 34 incher.

We have been smoking our fish lately and was very glad that we caught a couple of nice fish to smoke. As I post this the second batch of fish has been in the smoker for 6 1/2 hrs and is almost ready to eat. Instead of putting the smoker outside I like to keep it in the garage while I'm smokin' meat so it really smells up the garage. I think if there was a deorderant that smelt like smoke I would invest in it. Can not wait till the weekend after Easter for our Lake of the woods trip. Being laid off in the winter is sure proving to be alot of fun.

Family of Four SOON

We are less than one day away from being a family of four. We are scheduled to be at the hospital Monday for a 8:30 AM cesarean section.

We aren't exactly sure what is worse:

• The anticipation of knowing the date and time of potential arrival OR


• Not knowing and having that be your prime concern.

At any rate we are all very excited and if Jeremy can figure out this posting thing, he will post as soon as he is able.