Happy 2009!

Our New Year's Eve was spent across the street at the Stuffel's house. They have a little girl, Ashley who is 5 and a little boy, Cole, who is 3 that the kids just love to play with. They had invited some other neighborhood friends and we all just hung out and socialized. Carter fell asleep on Chris' lap for about an hour and Chris had lost feeling in his arm. So, I took Carter home and put him to bed and let Chris stay with the girls. I put Carter to bed around 10:30 and came downstairs to turn on Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve and the next thing I knew, Chris and the girls were knocking on the door at 12:15! Oops. Guess I'm old. Oh well.


On New Year's Day, we got up and started cooking a turkey and sauerkraut with dumplings for our "traditional" Day/Schuler family New Year's day filled with eating hankie pankies, sauerkraut & dumplings (or dough balls as Karen calls them) and playing Tripoley.

Here is proof for Grandma Schuler that Karen ate her dough balls....

Before Grandma Schuler moved to Florida (sad face) we would go to their house every year but now that they're gone, Chris and I have sort of taken over the tradition here. We've also included some close friends and a few neighbors as well. This year Texas Hold 'Em poker won out over Tripoley, but we still had lots of food and fun.



It was us, my mom, Chris' Mom and Dad, Stacy (Chris' sister) and her boyfriend and Hannah (her daughter), our friends the Arnett's, and then our neighbor Deric Stuffel and his son joined us when his wife and daughter went shopping in Indianapolis for the day. In big exciting news, Carter decided it would be a good day to start walking!

Yes, that is Papa using poker chips to entice Carter to walk. The corruption starts early around here, folks.

Before the festivities began, we met at JCPenney to get pictures taken of Morgan, Emma, Carter, & Hannah for Nana and Papa. They turned out really cute! (I will include it here when it is emailed to me!) Karen wanted to know how much I was cursing her in the morning when I had to get the house ready, food ready, and then 3 kids ready for pictures on top of that. I told her I was only cursing her a little.

Here is the "kid table" where the kids insisted on eating bread and butter....I don't question their methods.

Here is Clay trying out the kids' new xylophone!

The kids bounced in the bouncy house all day and had a great time. Considering they were up until 12:15am the night before, they were very well behaved! After the family left, Chris and Clay took Hayden and Morgan on a "road trip" to find a new Wii game that Clay wanted. So, Carey and I stayed here with the 3 little ones and then met them at their house to play Wii and eat Target brand frozen pizza (which was surprisingly delicious!)

On Friday morning, cousin Abby got here around 8:30 to stay with the kids while Chris and I headed to Castleton for my Lasik! I was SO nervous! More on that later, but while Abby was here, she took this picture of Emma playing on the computer. I think I used to be able to sit like that too. (ouch)

Wishing you and happy, healthy, and blessed 2009!