Happy Holidays

Well, Christmas has come and gone-whew!

To start off the Christmas holidays I began my trip at Grandma Lewis's, that was the weekend before Christmas. Of course Michigan had a Blizzard-basically all weekend! We played games and cards, drinked and laughed good times, good presents, good people! Trying to get home was fun, again a blizzard but with ice this time yipee! Chris joined me this year at Grandmas so that was nice beign able to spend time with him, his famly actually got to take off to Flordia and enjoy the beautiful weather and Phil and Tabs company! :)

Chris also got to join me for midnight mass at our church-he is methodist and needless to say he didnt understand why all of the stand up sit down keel stuff. Or why the choir sang so dang long but at least he made it through all right! We came home from church-lo and behold-Santa had come Horray!!! So we did stockings had some snacks and then off to bed.

Christmas day was wonderful!!! We woke up had breakfast and waited for Grandma Lewis to join us for presents. Ryan and Alissa and the fam were also coming over for presents. While we waited for them, Ryan sent us some pic messages of the boys and their gifts then we got a call about 12:15-30ish, it was Ryan, he todl mom that they were heading in to the hospital-ALISSA WAS IN LABOR!!!! :) Well, Ryan and Alissa brought over the boys, and the gifts and away they went.

While they were gone having a baby, we opened gifts the boys were SO funny! One gift then on to the next as quick as possible, it was great. We finished opening gifts, ( all the while the phone woudl ring here and there, we thought it was Ryan with good news, but it was other family members seeing if she was in labor yet!!) Todd and Erica(Louies sister and brother in law) came over for dinner. Ben and Britta and the kids joined us too.

So 6:45pm rolls around and we got THE PHONE CALL!!! It was Alissa, She and Ryan had a baby girl, MYKENNA AUDREY!!!! She was 7 pounds 5 ounzes, 19 1/4 inches long and was born at 6:06pm!! She is beautiful and looks liek Cayden did :)

The boys ended up staying the night with us, which was so great to have them here, I just love them! So Congrats Ryan and Alissa on the addition to your family! :)

Chris and I went to see Alissa and Mykenna on Friday, we were on our way back to the thumb, Chris has the Leipprandt christmas party at his Aunt Deb's on Saturday.

All in all the holidays couldn't have been any better, I got great stuff for christmas including my niece!!!

check out some pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/Christmas08?feat=directlink

Katie and Dereks Wedding

December 6, 2008 Not only is my big Brother Ryan's birthday, but it is now the anniversary of Katie and Dereks wedding!! Congrats you two!!!

Their even started off with Rehearsal at the church in Pewamo and dinner at the Oakwood. The girls got our jewelry for the wedding and a cute purse that matched our satches for our dress. I had a horrific head cold so I missed the decorating of the hall-which turned out so gorgeous! Saturday was the big day. We started it off at the next level salon, where Katie works, we got our hair done and had the option to have our make-up done. It was nice being able to all be together the morning before to get our hair done! On the way to the hall Katie lost her veil somewhere to mother nature and Big Kate would NOT allow her daughter to get married without one so while we had someone running to Becker's to get another veil, Katies future brother in law Tyler found it!!! So great now she can get married. It was a beautiful ceremony followed by the CRAZY TRAIN bus for bar hopping and then the reception which was awesome! I went home early because my head cold was so bad that I was actually holding the bridge of my nose to stop it from hurting so bad, but I had a great time and I couldn't behappier for my friend Katie and her now husband!! -Derek!

They are now in Aruba warm bastards!! :)
Check out my pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/KateWedding#

Thanksgiving and Florida

Alrighty!! Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, I know this is a little late but I have been a very busy girl! I spent the day before Thanksgiving at the Oakwood, bice little time kinda liek a class reunion for P-W and Portland!

We hadThanksgiving at home with the family Chris was with me as well, in fact he was with me for quite awhile!! :) We had a nice dinner and then looked through ads at Aunt Sams until way too late!

On Friday Chris and I got up way too early! We went to Younkers, Dunhams, Menards and Wal-Mart all before 7:00am! Yeah I am training him pretty well. Later on that night Chris and I had a wedding in the Detriot area, we were both really tired and kinda snippy toward eachother, but we got through it! The wedding was for Dave and Lynn Jarasomething (I think its Polish) anyways it was a very beautiful wedding. We headed home that night and got some sleep before we were off to FLORIDA to visit Phil Jr and Tabatha (Chris's brother and sister-in-law). Our flight took of at 9:30am so we were tired for a along time!!!! Phil and Tab's house is beautiful and it was so nice there. Well, it rained one day and it was about 60's for temperature, but still it was better that being in Michigan. I really didn't take hardly any pictures but I did manage to get a few while we were at the beach one day. Unluckily we were only in Florida for a few days then we had to fly back :(

But check out the pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/Florida#

Updating the Upstairs

Ok so I got one of the upstairs bedrooms done with the help of my sister Katie and mom! I bought really dark paint and painted it one time and knew nope this wasn't gonna work so mom helped me fix this situation with a quart of white paint we finally got the color we were looking for!
check out the pictures by clicking here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/UpdatingUpstairs#

Also I want to update the hallway Jenny and I were thinking a cream and then putting balck and white or sepia pictures throughout the hallway. I will keep you updated!

Catch up!

Isn't Damian cute??? We found that in the dollar store!!! :)

Loads of things to run through sinc ethe last blog, lets see.....Oh Halloween was long and over doen this year because we celebrated it the weekend of the 24th and then again the weekend of the 31st. Still fun, but long!!! I was ready for it to be over! Aunt Sam and Uncle Bob had their Halloween party at their house this year. I was Oktoberfest, basically a german sexified! Ha yeah, I wore my uncles leiterhousen( they were too big but still nice to wear!) The leiterhousen were a great hit! Ben wore then the weekend of the 17th for a party him and Britta had, i wore them the 24th and my cousin Mattthew had them for the 31st! I have to say that I pulled them off the best, partially because my extremely high upper thigh was not hanging out like the guys' were! I am waiting on a picture of Matthew in them so I can post the three of us for comparison! :)

With Halloween out of the way, I thought hey we can finally get into fall-WRONG! First of all it was 70 damn degrees out this whole week! Which sucks because Chris had been harvesting beets for the past month, I haven't been able to see him and he still isn't done with beets because they were shut down for a couple days due to the heat! AHHH!

My Aunt Noelle had a baby shower for her grand daughter-Regan(Josh & Kate) so we did that, it was so nice getting to visit and see my aunts and cousins. I just don't get there enough! Regan is quite the little chunk!!! :)

I cleaned my room and winterized it, I am now working on the girls' room. I bought paint and will post the 'new' room when it is finished-its my sewing room!

Oh how coudl I forget, Obama became the newest president of the USA, and both freakin proposals passed what the hell?? Anywho, what will be will be I suppose!!!

Well goodness, that should be good for awhile now, I do have some Halloween pictures to check em out just click on the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/Halloween2008

Katie Thelen's Bachelorette Party 10-11-08

I had Katie's bachellorette party last weekend, yes she doesn't get married until December, but hey we had a great weekend and great weather!!!! We started off at the Radisson hotel in downtown Lansing. There we had some pre-dinner drinks and we played some games. One game was so fun, each girl brought along a pair of panties for Katie. We put them into one bag and Katie had to pick out one pair at a time and try to guess who brought what panties to the party, veru funny!! In the pictures you can see some of the choices that Katie had!! :) Then the stripper came in!!! -Just kiddin' Off to dinner we went at Clara's I had never been there before, it was a great time good food too! After that was Rumrunners which is where Katie and Sharon(Derek's mom) got onto the piano and were sang to by some guys, they sang, 'you've lost that loving feeling' by the righteous brothers! Funny stuff man! After that it was either time to walk to the Firm or take the taxi, I walked it, so my feet felt like 'hoves in heels!' anyways we made it to the Firm and danced our butts off. Tara, Jenny and I found some glasses and took some good shots with them on until the guys who left them on 'his' table had a fit!! HA! good times. ANywho, the night was coming to an end, but didn't stop until around 4:30am because we got back to the hotel room, has some pizza watched teh stripper dance some more-just kiddin!!

All in all it was a great time with wonderful people I couldn't ask for better peopel to be friends with. I love you Katie!!! Thanks for such a fun-filled night!! :)

Check out the pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/KtBacheloretteParty101108#

Josh and Kates Baby!!!!

My cousin Josh and his fiance Kate had their baby September 30!!! Everyone was surprised because we thought they weren't due until mid-October but SURPRISE!!! Weighing in at 6 pounds 13 ounces and measuring 20 inches (hope thats right Josh and Kate) is Regan Marie!!! She is absolutely perfect and congratulations to the both of you!!!

Loosing teeth

My Damian has lost TWO TEETH!! I can hardly believe it! The first tooth he lost, he actually LOST it in the grass! Never found it, but the tooth fairy must have because he got a whole doallar!!!! The second one he lost, he was showing it to Uncle Brendan and lost that one in the grass! But I guess they found that one!!! So wow good for you Damian!! Getting those big boy teeth in!!!!

Holy weekend!!!!

(Hope thats how you spell baptism anyways)

Ah anyways, quite the eventful weekend. I had my neighbor Nicki Arens turn 30!!!! Congratulations Nicki... her family and friends had a surprise party for her at her house I believe she was surprised!!! From there off to My cousin Mark Owen and his new wife, Renee (deuce) had their wedding reception.-They got married two weeks ago in New York, they were nice enough to have a reception for the people that were unable to attend their wedding. Very fun thank you Mark and Renee and congratulations!!!!

Sunday though man that was the best! Miss Raina Sue and Lauren Christine were baptised at St. Patricks Church. My sister Katie and Brittas brother Rex are Lauren's godparents. My brother Ryan and Britta's friend Andrea are Raina's godparents. While the girls were getting baptised, I took the boys (Louie, Barrett, Damian and Cayden) outside to play because asking four boys to sit in an empty church is almost impossible so outside we went while the girls did their thing! After baptism a bunch of us headed over to Britta and Ben's house for food, cake, and fun!! Ben got these tackling bags from MSU and the boys had a RIOT!!! Gwen, Britta's neice, even got into the fun!!! The boys ran into those for hours and wrestled with eachother!! From there it was fishing time!!!! Louie caught some big fish!!! and if you notice Damian cought a tiny one!! He caught som big ones though too!! In fact, my man caught the first one!!! :) I don't have any pictures of it, but BEn did get out the Kit Kat snowmobile that he got for Barrett out and teh boys rode that around the yard. Barrett-fearless as he is, jsut took off!!! Ben, Ryan and Toph had to SPRINT to catch him before he went into the pond. Sorry, no pictures of that my camera died!!!

All in all a good weekend, however I did catch a cold so poop!!! Back to work blues with a head cold so not fun! :(

check out pitures from the weekend click on the address!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/Baptism#

Bridal Showers and Eagle Days!!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/9908#


YEEEEEHAAWWWWWW!!!!

Yeah it was Eagle Days last weekend!!! But before we get to that...My lovely friend Katie Thelen (who is getting maried on Dec. 6th) had a Bridal shower this weekend. Tara Hengesbach, Lindsey Wirth, Sarah Thelen and myself put on a shower for her. A big thanks goes out to Tara for allowing us to use her home and for Lindsey and Sarah for providing food for us to eat!!!

It was a nice group of people there. Katie got lots og great stuff that she registered for- bet her and Derek can't wait to use it! Congratulations Katie can't wait for the big day!!!

Off to Eagle Days... Jenny, Katie (my sister) and I left the shower and headed off to Eagle Days-to the beer tent. Well believe it or not, that was my FIRST time ever going to the beer tent @ Eagle. And to my surprise its not a beer tent at all but a beer BARN!!! WOW! We met up with Louie (Jenny's boyfriend) and Roger (Louie's roommate). We had a good time and ran into more people as the night went on. When the beer BARN shut down, Katie and I headed over to the Eagle Inn for one beer and had mom come pick us up-THANKS SO MUCH MOM!!!

Saturday morning Katie and I woke up and headed of to MSU for tailgating. It was a noon game so it was an early tailgate! Aunt Sam and Uncle Bob had my quilt out that I made them for Christmas last year and MAN!!! I got a ton of compliments-I think people really liked it! :)
We left around 11:30am because the farm was chopping corn and we had hungry men to feed. So we made them some lunch and Katie and I took off to pick up my sewing machine from Julie (with whom I work :) ) THANKS JULIE! From there over to Heather's -my cousin now!! and helped pack up some garage sale stuff-Oh and I found my Halloween costume-yeah I can't wait until Halloween now!!! :) Packed up some garage sale things and off to Ben and Britta's for Barrett's birthday party- he turned TWO Monday Sept. 8th. He's such a big boy! The party was nice and chill. Louie, Jenny and left there and went BACK to Eagle-just couldn't get enough of it I guess!! Not a bad time, nice night and great people watching!

Sunday morning Jenny and I got home only to find that the chopping is all done and it was time to cover the pile. The family had half of it covered up by the time we got out there but by God we helped cover it with plastic and threw tires on it to keep the plastic from blowing away. Monday I woke up and thought I was having severe chest pains-come to find out it was just my chest muscles!!! They were so sore from throwing tires!!! Yeah what a farm girl huh?? :)

All in all, it was a great weekend. The only downfall of the WHOLE weekend was that Chris was home and I was home. So we didn't get to see eachother, we talked on the phone at least!! Miss you hunnie!! So until next time people, don't for get to click on the web address above to view the slideshoe of the pics from the shower, tailgating and Barrett's birthday party.

Damian's FIRST day of School

Quite a monumental day in history!!! My little guy went off to Developmental Kindergarten(DK) today, the bus picked him up at 7:30 this morning and he did great-Cayden was a little sad but I'm sure he did great! Alissa did surprisingly well, I didn't see her cry-but I was close to it when I was telling the ladies at work about it and showing them the pictures!!! :( He looked so grown up I jsut can't believe that Damian is already off to school!!! Congrats Alissa and Ryan!!! Your first child off to school! I have a call into him tonight to see how his first day went-he hasn't called back yet though!

Labor Day Weekend

http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/CharityIslandAndTawas

My Labor Day weekend was spent in the thumb. Friday we celebrated Chris's birthday. Saturday mom, dad, Jenny, Louie and I spent the day over to Sherry and Phil's house-they live on the water of Huron bay it was beautiful!! Sunday was a day of adventrue though!! Cody, Chris and I took off on the jet skis adn headed to Charity Island, about 10 minutes from shore by jet ski-I think! we were able to get right up to the shore and walk around a bit. I took pictures of the light hosue that has been there for many years plus the hosue that its attached to. The house was recently updated and people can stay on the island in the newly renovated house!! Wouldn't that be fun??? After that we headed back to home. Our friends, Tim and Shannon Stafford came over with their son Gavon-7 months-such a chunk!!! :) We chatted with them, but the weather was tooo perfect, the water was so calm so Cody, Tim Simecki, Chris and I made our way to the boat and headed off to Tawas-across Huron bay- it took us about an hour to get there! Not a bad ride either! While over there we went to a couple of bars, looked around and ate at G's pizza-that was my favorite part!! It was the best pizza ever!!! We got back to the house around 9:00pm, we watched the sun set over the water, it was really pretty. Chris and I got back to his house, cleaned up, did some laundry then watched Nanny McPhee-funny! Then to bed. Long days on the water sure do make you tired! As for Monday, back to Sherry's we went. I laid out all from noon til 4:30pm. It was windier but still nice-had to be out there though b/c it was the last hurrah it you will for summer so live it up!!! :) I got some nice sun, we had dinner, adn around 7:00pm I took off for home-made good time too!! i had to get home for Damian's first day of school :)

Chris's 26th Birthday

http://picasaweb.google.com/Kimsinanutshell/ChrisSBirthday

Chris's birthday was August 30th. I got out of work early to head up north and plan his surprise birthday party on August 29th(which was starting at 7pm!). I got up there around 3pm. Chris's dad Phil came by the cottage to cut up fruit and put together over 100 ka-bobs!!! We had fruit kabobs, chicken and pineapple kabobs, chicken and veggie kabobs and of course steak and veggie kabobs!!! I had planned for around 40-50 people!!! Cody and Phil brought over Chris's grill that hsi parents got him-absolutely awesome!!! and Also picnic tables for us to sit on. Phil and I finished up preparing food around 5:30pm. We loaded up the 'burb and headed to Chris's house. He was golfing with Brian Simecki. My parents, Jenny and Louie were there when Brian and Chris pulled into the house by 6:10pm!!!! OH NO he was early!!! Oh well, he really didn't know what was going on until he walked to the back of the house and saw all the tables and chairs set up. I told him surprise!!! I am throwing you a party-and its a big one!!! Sherry-Chris's mom brought salads, so did his Aunt Kelly, Grandma Shirley and Grandma Doris- (Sorry if I forgot anyone else who brought a salad!! It was a long day :) ) Anyways he had a great time, I had a great time and by the looks of the keg teh next day so did everyone there!! A big thanks goes out to everyone that helped me plan the big day and keep it a surprise!!!!

Just Started This :)

So I decided versus facebook or myspace I was gonna blog. Just a way for people that I don't always get to see a chance to see what I have been up to. So keep a check for new blogs and pictures that I will post as updates!!