The 2008 Rodgers Family Christmas Tree.

Yesterday we went and got our Christmas Tree for this Christmas season. Amelia was still not feeling that Great, but we thought some fresh air might do her some good. It was a pretty descent day for the end of November, so we headed out Mid-afternoon to get the warmest time of the day. Matt and Felicity decided they wanted to go along with us too, so that was fun for us all.

We went to my friend Gloria's house. She has a small Tree farm across town and we go there each year. I would rather have my money to go to a friend so we like to go there. We love going to her place, you get to cut your own tree down and it's only $20.00 for any size tree. My parents pay $60 or $80 each year, so I think this is so much better....and tons more fun!

We did choose a small tree this year. With Norah's birthday party coming up and my in-laws coming to town for a week, we need the space this year....we will just have to fit to many people in the house to have a big tree.....heck, our house is small without a tree in it. On a side note, It's a cute tree....I'm happy with our choice. I think Bryan is a little bummed on how small it is this year, but I think he is happy with it too. I just love having a real tree in the house, it smells so good! We...well I had considered getting and artificial tree this year, but we just couldn't do it. The real thing is just so much better!

Just getting to the farm, Amelia ready to find her tree.

It's simple there, but so pretty.

The only "somewhat" good photo we got of the four of us. The girls were sick and not wanting their picture taken.

My brother Matt cutting down his tree....this was the first time he cut a Christmas tree down.....he usually buys it from a place where they are already cut down.

Fee and I with the girls.

Bryan trimming up our tree.

Matt and Fee with their first tree together. Cute aren't they?

Once we made our stop at Walmart on the way home last night, the girls were done for, and needed a nap. So we just decided to put the tree up today. Amelia did a great job, however she did manage to break one ornament.....yeah, one of mine from 1977, I was bummed. Oh well, it's going to happen. Anyway, she did do well with putting them on the tree though. She only did a few then was side tracked easily. She loves the lights on the tree. I hope she does ok though the season. Norah wasn't to interested with it all until right before bedtime. She pulled at the tree skirt a little....I hope she keeps away. {crossing my fingers here}

Amelia putting the decorations on.

Our cute little tree.

Holiday Movie of the Week.......Elf.

This week I picked another fantastic choice. Everyone must watch this one at least once during the holidays. It's a newer movie, 2003 I think, But the funniest one ever!

Description of movie from Yahoo Movies.....
As a baby, Buddy crawls into Santas toy bag and is whisked off to the North Pole, where he is raised as an elf. A misfit who grows to be three times the size of his elf family, Buddy ultimately heads to his birthplace of New York City to seek out his roots. Unfortunately, they turn out to be a "Scrooge"-like father and a cynical ten-year-old stepbrother who doesn't believe in Santa. Worst of all, everyone seems to have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. But using his simple elf ways, Buddy sets out to single-handedly win over his family and save Christmas in New York, hoping to at last find his true place in the world.

Check out the movie web site for much more.
http://www.elfmovie.com

Thanksgiving Day, and our First Emergency Room Visit.

We had a big day here for Thanksgiving. We went to my parents house and hung out there all day. It was nice and relaxing, but the bad thing was, Amelia was sick. She has been sick for a probably two months with this nasty cold....she just can't shake it. Nothing bad, but the meds the doctor has prescribed, along all the vitamins we have been pumping her with and the Chiropractor appointments.......not a thing is helping her. It took a turn for the worse the other day and she actually had a fever. Nothing bad, 99.7 ish and around that. Similar to when she is getting a new tooth, so I wasn't worried. Then Wednesday it shot up to 101.8 ish (In that area). I started to get worried, However,then she threw up and she actually started to act better. We just figured she needed to get that out of her.....But then again, the nasty fever was still hanging on.

Yesterday we woke up I took her temperature and her fever was 102....it was that and higher all day. I was pumping her with Chidren's Tylenol and that would lower the fever for a while, but then It wear off a bit and it would spike back up. (this whole time I was doing the temp under her arms). She napped a lot at my moms house all day, and really didn't eat much of her Thanksgiving dinner. She ate a bif of applesauce, but that was all.

Then last night we came home from my moms, I decided to take her rectal temp.....which let me tell you she loved like a hole in her head! Anyway, her temp was 104.1 that time around. I called her doctor's office and called the emergency line, and the doctor on call phoned me back. He said to take her to the Emergency room. I bundled her up, and her and I went over to the hospital. Bryan stayed home with Norah. Poor baby, she was so good, but just not happy about it all.

They checked her all out and found out she has tonsillitis. Her throat was ALL red and full of puss. They gave her a prescription to get a antibiotic and told me to keep giving her the tylenol and Motrin and pump lots of fluids into her.

We left the hospital around 11:00 last night and went to the Pharmacy to her her meds. It was kind of funny. As we pulled into the drive thru at the Pharmacy (I didn't want to get her out) she got all excited and said, French Fries Mama....she thought we were at McDonalds. It cracked me up. At that point I knew she was starting to feel a little better. I told her no, we weren't getting french fries, that we were getting her meds. She just kept saying Mama, French Fries? I told her that if McDonalds was still open when we left there we could get her some. What was funny was, she had barely ate a thing all day, It was almost 4 hours past her bedtime, she was sick and had spent the past two hours in the ER....But the girl wanted French Fries. So where did we go after we left the Pharmacy?? Yup, you guessed it....McDonalds. She was so happy and ate all her fries, then we went to bed.

She woke up this morning still pretty out of it, but her spirits are much higher today....maybe it was the French Fries at midnight....

Anyway, I will bring her to see her doctor on Tuesday and hopefully by then she will be feeling much better. My Poor baby.

We did manage to have a nice Thanksgiving though, we had tons of great food and just simply relaxed with my family.

Here are a few photos of the day.

Amelia and her Papa Papa.

Even though she was sick she still looked super cute.

Norah's first official Piggy tails.

Her latest cute, tilt of the her head. She does this when she is being cute.

Maggie sleeping. What a sweet face though.

Sleeping again....so sweet.

Norah enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. We gave her this wing to see what she would do...she loved it!

Matt and Fee.

Gracie and Fee.

Amelia's wreath we made the other day....yes, from No time for flashcards. (we again altered it a bit). Cute isn't it?

My sick girl this morning.

Reading with Daddy and Gracie's Birthday.

I shot a few photos the other night of Bryan reading to the girls before bedtime. yes, they are looking at a calender. They love the babies!

Giving love. They are really staring to love each other.

It was Gracie's Birthday on the 19th, but since Gracie was in the Hospital having Maggie, we didn't get to celebrate it. We all went to my parents the other night to have dinner (chicken Parmesan) and a Blondie (brownies). Tasty as usual! We all gave Gracie her gifts and we all just hung out and relaxed.

Amelia watching Aunt Gracie open her gifts.

After a warm bath the girls were coloring with Grandma.

Miss Maggie. Not the best photo (bad coloring) but her eyes are open...a rare thing.

The next day I shot a few of Norah. I had to show them off here too.

Maggie.

I was playing around with some of the photos I shot of Maggie. I like how they turned out so I wanted to share them with you all.

It's so funny, I have only met Maggie one time......yet she is my niece, and I love her so much already! I can't wait to get my hands on that sweet little girl again. It's so different from my own girls, but a love all in it's own. She is my first niece and the connection I have to her is so neat. I think about her a lot, wonder how my brother and Gracie are doing, in a caring loving way. I worry and seriously love her in this new exciting way that I have never felt. She is not Mine, but blood is thicker than water and that is what binds me to her. I now understand how my brothers feel toward my girls.....it's a bond that only a family member can understand. It's well, nice.

Here are two pictures that I have worked around with.

Dinner Time!

Seriously, isn't it amazing how messy a child can get while eating dinner. Norah continues to Amaze me each time she eats. This morning she had oatmeal in her ears, nose and I even found some in her diaper when I changed her later. How on earth does it get inside her Jammies and down into her diaper? Babies, they are quite talented!

This photo is from dinner the other night, we had pasta. It must of been Yummy.

Norah Belle Is Eleven Months Old!

Miss Norah is now Eleven Months old! One more month and the Big ONE! We tried to get a picture of her....but all she wants to do is move and pull at the sign. Silly girl. Anyway, here is the best one we could get of our little wiggle worm.

Holiday Movie of the week.....National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

This week I have picked an Icon of a movie....one of the best in my opinion. Even my dad (who hates most comedies) Loves this one and will watch it each year.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Yes, I know, that's all that needs to be said and your already laughing about one of the thousand Hilarious points in the movie.

If you have been under a rock since 1989, below is a description of the movie.
(description from Wikipedia)

Chicago suburbanite Clark Wilhelm Griswold Jr. (Chevy Chase) really has the Christmas spirit this year. The film opens with Clark taking his wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), son Rusty (Johnny Galecki), and daughter Audrey (Juliette Lewis) on the search for a perfect Christmas tree. After aggravating nearby motorists, getting stuck under a big rig, and walking in the woods for a long time, Clark and his family finally find the perfect tree. The tree has to be dug out of the ground because Clark forgot to bring a saw.

Upon arriving home, the Griswold's snobby next door neighbors, Todd Chester (Nicholas Guest) and his wife Margo (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) ridicule Clark for getting such a large tree. Clark breaks several windows and gets covered in tree sap setting the tree up.

Clark has invited Ellen's parents Arthur Smith (E. G. Marshall) and Frances Smith (Doris Roberts), his own parents Clark Wilhelm Griswold Sr (John Randolph) and Nora Griswold (Diane Ladd), and his Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel) and Uncle Lewis (William Hickey) to spend the holidays at the Griswold house in Chicago.

While shopping for gifts at a downtown Chicago department store, Clark meets an attractive saleswoman named Mary (Nicolette Scorsese). He makes a series of Freudian slips to her on their encounter.

Clark has been working on a project at his firm which he expects will bring in a good Christmas bonus. Clark plans to use the bonus to put in a swimming pool, on which he has already laid down a $7,500 check that his bank account can't cover yet. He's counting on his Christmas bonus from work will cover it.

As Christmas approaches, the many members of Clark's extended family begin arriving to stay with him. Clark and Ellen's parents are the first to arrive. This drives Clark to go set up the lighting on the house with his son Rusty. During the struggle to put the lights on, Clark falls off the ladder and hangs to a gutter, which causes a gutter-shaped bar of ice to break through the Chesters' window and break their stereo. Clark covers nearly every inch of the home's exterior and yard with lights -- 250 strands of lights with 100 bulbs on each strand for a total of 25,000 light bulbs. Clark becomes very frustrated after many failed attempts to get the lights working. Ellen discovers that the outlet in which the lights were plugged wasn't powered and so switches it on in a brilliant flash of light.

After the lights are up and running, Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn), her sloppy husband Eddie (Randy Quaid), and two of their kids, Rocky (Cody Burger) and Ruby Sue (Ellen Hamilton Latzen), show up to stay with the Griswolds for a month, with their dilapidated, rusty RV parked in the driveway. Stifling his disappointment at their surprise arrival proves difficult for Clark. However, Clark and Ellen are concerned about Eddie's children, as they won't have many, if any gifts, for Christmas, due to Eddie's seven year unemployment. Later, Clark fantasizes about Mary skinny-dipping in the pool he hopes to get.

On Christmas Eve, Uncle Lewis and Aunt Bethany arrive for dinner. Numerous disasters occur that evening: The turkey is cooked for far too long and dries out, Bethany's cat is electrocuted when it chews on a strand of Christmas lights, and Lewis accidentally burns the Christmas tree down, forcing Clark to quickly search for a replacement. Clark takes one from his yard and sets it up (while doing this, the tree breaks through the Chesters' window), and inside the house, a manic squirrel leaps out of the tree and "terrorizes" the family before jumping onto Margo followed by Eddie's dog as she comes over with the intention to slug Clark for the damages he caused them.

A delivery from the company arrives at the house that evening, with Clark expecting it to be the long-awaited bonus. Unfortunately, Clark's boss, a scrooge named Frank Shirley (Brian Doyle Murray), has sent Clark an enrollment in the "Jelly of the Month" club. This final insult causes Clark to go over the edge, going through several outbursts out of severe frustration. The family attempts to leave due to the events of the evening, but Clark says they're not leaving.

This situation gives Eddie the idea for the perfect Christmas gift for Clark after Clark offers to help Eddie treat Rocky and Ruby Sue to a good Christmas -- Eddie goes to Frank's house and brings Frank to the Griswold house, and then Eddie and the Griswolds help Frank see the error of his ways about the Christmas bonuses. Frank changes his mind, deciding that he will give out Christmas bonuses this year, adding 20% to what the bonuses were last year -- more than enough to cover the check Clark wrote to pay for the pool. The police, called by Frank's wife Helen (Natalia Nogulich), raid the home, but Frank explains that it's all a misunderstanding while Helen disagrees with Frank's original intent to cut the Christmas bonuses.

Outside, Uncle Lewis' cigar ignites the gas from the sewage Eddie had earlier dumped down the street drain while emptying the holding tank on his RV, blasting a Santa ornament into the sky. Everyone watches the strange but touching sight, as Clark realizes his dream of the perfect family Christmas, saying simply: "I did it."

Magdalena Luz Is Here!

My Niece is here! I'm so excited! She is ABSOLUTELY B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L!!!!

My Sister in law Gracie, (Jake's wife), Had her baby last night. Her name is Magdalena Luz (Maggie), she was 7 lbs 13ozs, 19 inches long.

We drove up to see them today....they are still in the hospital. They are all doing great! Jake and Gracie both look quite tired (you know that so happy, yet so tired look they will have for the next year or so), but they are super happy too. Maggie was up quite a bit last night until they finally broke down and gave her a Pacifier. She slept great after that they said. They said she is also doing wonderful at breast feeding too....she is so sweet, he has these chunky little cheeks and round little face. I loved it!

Of course I took a thousand pictures of her....I had to, she is my first niece! I'm going to spoil her rotten! I'm super excited!

Amelia and Norah did great with her too. Amelia was so gentle with her. She was able to hold her with my help and she was just so happy about it. She is going to really be a great big cousin to her. Norah was just so curious. She lunged at her a few times, just wanting to see her and check her out. She was so interested in her.....and let me tell you, Norah looked and felt like a moose after holding Maggie. My little baby is getting so big!! She isn't a tiny baby anymore.

Here are the photos of our visit to see Miss Maggie.

Amelia was super excited about her new baby cousin.

The girls getting to see Maggie for the first time.

Holding her...she was so gentle. She did an awesome job!

Kissy, Kissy.Norah was so interested in this new baby.

Madgalena LuzThe new little family, Mommy, daddy and little Maggie.

Getting a little mad when they un-wrapped her from her blankets.

Proud Daddy and baby.

Mama and baby.Sweet, sweet little tiny toes.

Mural on the walls...it was quite neat.

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We made a quick stop a my parents on the way home from the hospital tonight. Norah was being so silly, since I had my camera I took a few pictures. Here they are.

Norah laughing....She is such a funny little baby.

Next, she crawled right on over, grabbed this basket of my moms, and just plopped it right on her head. She thought she was just so funny. She was playing peek-a-boo with us. I grabbed my camera and took these silly pictures of her.