Holiday Pictures

Here are the rest of our holiday photos. This is in reverse order. If you are a blogger, you understand the process of putting your pics in and how they can easily end up in reverse order of what you would like but stay with me and you will get the gist of our holidays.

We went to the Fenton Jubil'Eve New Years celebration. It is a family friendly, no alcohol event that takes place throughout downtown Fenton. Fortunately, Keith's cousin Nicole lives downtown not too far from Kurt and Erika (they spent NYE in Las Vegas, lucky). So we began our night at Kris and Nicole's house to watch the fireworks. They have two children; Kristian is the same age as Lauren and Morgan just turned one. They also had some friends over with their two kids; Keegan who is 3 and Payton who is almost 2.

At the end of the night, we took Lauren to look at the spotlights. To her, this was way more exciting than the fireworks!


Part of the Jubil'Eve festivities took place at St. John's Catholic Church. They had a bluegrass type of blues band upstairs with some crazy woman that I am pretty sure would have danced even if the music wasn't playing. Downstairs, they had four large inflatables. The kids were really a little bit young for them compared with the average kid there but we still managed to have fun.

Payton (Lauren is on the left) in the moon bounce.


Keith holding Morgan.

A blurry picture of Keegan, Kristian and Lauren's head in the moon bounce.
Morgan, Kris and Keith watching the kids in the moon bounce.
Lauren in the moon bounce.
The slide. This was overwhelmingly huge for Lauren. That is Payton sliding down on the left and her brother at the bottom of the right slide.

It not only took one helper to get Lauren to the top, it took the second helper, as well.


She was unwilling to do any climbing on her own. The "steps" were a little too spread out for the the little ones.


When she finally got to the top, she froze up. Just look at her face; you can see the fear.


The helper had to climb up and try to coax her down. I think Lauren was trying to climb back over to the "safe" side but the girl pulled a Christmas Story ho, ho, ho on her and kind of pushed her, gently down the slide. When she got to the bottom, she seemed like she enjoyed it but there was no way I was going to put her or the helpers back through that.



Lauren, Keith and Lilly with the Fenton Jubil'Eve snowman.



Prior to going to the church, the kids enjoyed Kristian and Morgan's toys, a little too much. Lauren did not want to leave. You would think she didn't have a single toy to her name!

Kristian, Payton and Lauren
Payton, Kristian and Nicole
Kristian and Nicole
Lauren
Poor Payton. I didn't really catch her at her normally good moment.

Morgan with Lilly.

Lauren, Lilly and Keegan with Krisitan watching the fireworks out the window.
Lauren and Kristian watching fireworks. Lilly really didn't care about them.
Monday, we became one of the thousands of people in Michigan to lose power. We are almost always lucky, in that we hardly ever lose power when everyone else does. I did my neighborhood duty and called Consumers' to report the outage. (I think my neighbors all know that I am going to report it so they don't.) C.E. said that we wouldn't get our power back until Wednesday at 6 p.m. Everyone I told said, "But it is Monday." They all seemed awestruck that we would be without power for 2 1/2 days.

Here the girls are enjoying the lantern-light and jumping on the chair. Huggy sisters.
More jumping.
Lilly and her snowman hat that Grammy made.
We drove down to Terry and Lynn's house to borrow a generator for the outage. During the time we were gone, our basement flooded despite Keith bailing out tens of gallons from the sump pump before we left. Luckily, the power was restored by the time we got home. I guess they said Wednesday so that when they turned it on quicker we would think they have God-like powers.

While at Grandpa and Grandma's I took some pictures of their new additions. Here is the upstairs family room. Actually, I should say the third floor family room because there are family rooms on all floors! This is the girls' corner. There are some toys, an antique chalkboard, chairs just their size and other items that aren't in this picture.

Grandpa's huge tree. I had to stand on the landing to get a full picture of it. This was actually on Christmas day.
Cooper opening his present with Grandpa.

Cooper checking out the gifts.
Keith and Lauren.
Grandpa and Grandma's beautiful new dining room. It is huge!
Christmas morning at our home. Lauren found their new doll house.
Lilly was way too little for any of the inflatables at the church so she found her own fun by walking all over the gym.

Welcome Lili

Lili Marie Kohlman, daughter of Andrea and Garth, was born Monday, December 29th at 8:31 a.m. We always love Lilis!





Congratulations, Kohlman Family

Maybe Not the Last of the Christmas Pics

Here are a couple of pics I wanted to share.

I didn't get a chance to print this picture, yet, but here is Santa visiting Kurt and Erika's house.



Lauren and Lilly on Christmas Eve. Santa's elves had dropped off a package for us to open that night and it was Christmas pajamas for the whole family! Santa knows we love our jammies! I thought this was a great family tradition to start. I am sure Santa's elves will be back next Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas - Santa Was Here

Just after everyone went to bed, I couldn't sleep so I got up for a glass of water. I discovered that Santa had showed up at our house. Being the ever ready picture taker that I am, I snapped this great picture of Santa unloading his toy sack under our tree. Thanks, Santa! Merry Christmas everyone!

Proof of Santa - ALL MOMMY'S MUST READ!!!

I found this tip from my college roommate's facebook page. If you are a mom, you must check out this site. www.capturethemagic.com
This site allows you to upload a photo of your house, Christmas tree, chimney, fireplace, whatever and choose one of their many pics of Santa... couple of clicks later, you are downloading proof of Santa visiting your house. AWESOME! I know Lauren and Lilly are too young to completely comprehend this but I am going to do it anyway. I think it would be great to have proof of Santa every year. I think I am going to "get" a picture of Santa eating the cookies and milk in front of our Christmas tree. What did you catch Santa doing at your house? THIS IS SO COOL! QUICK -- PASS IT ON!!! I am so excited!!!

aaaaahhhhh

I have had the greatest day. Last year, Keith gave me a gift certificate for a spa sampler package at Serendipity Day Spa in Linden. It expires tomorrow. I finally had the opportunity to use it today. Now, I did not purposely wait until the last minute; the stars finally aligned. It was soooo wonderful. I started with a pedicure and moved on to a manicure. After I was properly dried, I went upstairs to the zen-like massage rooms for a 30 minute massage that turned into a 45 minute massage just because the masseuse felt like it. She said, "I'm not doing anything right now so I thought I would start early and give you extra time. Is that alright?" Um, YES! Then I slipped into my soft robe and slippers and glided into the next room for a facial. On top of the relaxation massage, I had a massage with the manicure, the pedicure and the facial. I was in such a dreamy state when I left, I swear I floated to my car. I didn't even care that the roads were horrible. When I got home, Keith and the girls were all tired from dancing and playing all morning. Lauren is finally buddies with Keith again. Yes! Lillie went down for a nap while the rest of us had lunch and relaxed. Now, Keith and Lauren are out shopping and it has been the most relaxing day I have had all year. Santa can't possibly have anything in that big ol' bag of his with my name on it that is any better than today.

That's What She Said

Tonight I was changing Lilly's diaper and she was playing happily. Then she said, "Mama, where are you?" Yes, she could see me and no, she did not have a clue what she was saying (I think) but she hears Lauren say this a million times a day. She is a little parakeet!!! It made my night.

Fa-La-La-La-La: It's a Frank Family Christmas!

Sung to the tune of Jingle Bells....
(Everybody now, all together)

Driving through the rain, on a warm winter's day
North on 75, fairly quiet most the way.
But then we hit a bump and Lauren was a grump
Lilly slept, Lauren wept and Keith's hair is turning gray!
Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to drive to Tawas for the day.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to guess how long Mama will be sane!

Sunday was the Frank Family Christmas party in good ol' Tawas. We had a very difficult time getting out of the house. Keith was dragging his feet, as usual, but who can blame the guy? He just returned from driving to Minnesota and back in a large truck. Not comfortable or fun. On top of Keith being his usual slow self, the girls had both had horrible nights which means Mama had a frightful night. The drive to Tawas was quiet most of the time but the drive home was so miserable. Lauren screamed from Bay City until, wait, this is almost unbelievable...
Fenton! That is right, about an hour worth of screaming! It really upset Lilly so she started to cry. Keith, besides wanting so badly to do otherwise, managed to keep the car on the road and not into an overpass! We need earplugs for the car! Everyone was dead tired when we got home. The party, itself, was very nice. This is the one time of the year that we get to see most of the many, many, members of the Frank family. We always have a good time and look forward to our tradition of watching the Lions lose. It wouldn't be a Frank Christmas party otherwise. Lauren and Lilly loved playing with their cousins and gobbling up every m&m that was given to them. Although we didn't get to see everyone, it was really nice to spend time with those who did come and enjoy the yummy food that is also a Frank family tradition. It is still hard not having Grandma there. Every time I go to Tawas, I feel like I am going to be seeing her and then reality sinks in. We know she was there. She wouldn't have missed it.

Here are a few pictures I took.

Lilly found a happy place. The step leading to the living room was just too much fun.

Katie and Flynn with Katie's bored boyfriend, Matt.


Aunt Cheryl, Aunt Angela and Aunt Mary

This is not a very good picture but you can make out Aunt Kharla, Aunt Regina, Mr. and Mrs. Look, and Aunt Cheryl.



Uncle Denny, Aunt Mary, Uncle Bob, Jennifer and Alie
Keith

I caught them kissing a second earlier! OOOOOOHHH!

Uncle Kirk, Ryan and Flynn

Ryan, Flynn, Todd and Nicki with Wesley in the front

Uncle Chet and Uncle Bob

Lauren and Shianne

Aunt Anglea, Aunt Kharla and Mom (Dad went hunting!!! It was HIS family.)

Santa left gifts at Aunt Kharla's house for all the little kids. Lauren must have been pretty good because she got a Cinderella dress and crown. She was happy about it despite the frown on her face. She was pretty unhappy yesterday. However, she wants to wear her "rella dress" all the time.

Rockin' Round the Christmas Tree

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Kurt and Erika's Travel Adventures Part Deux

Erika was kind enough to email me the pictures from their trip to the real house from A Christmas Story. I guess it is in a bad neighborhood of Cleveland but the guy who owns it has bought other houses in the surrounding area and is trying to restore it. More info and more pictures can be found at www.achristmasstoryhouse.com. Check it out. Now, here are Kurt and Erika's pics. They forgot their camera when they toured but just recently got these pics from a friend that was with them. Enjoy and thanks, again, Erika.