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)!