New Year Wish

I'm not sure if you are allowed New Year wishes, but just in case, I'm recording mine as a Rose Bowl victory for the Illini tomorrow! It worked on my birthday, so it's worth a shot again. I got several Rose Bowl items for Christmas, so I hope we win (or are at least respectable) so they don't have to be relegated to the back of the closet for a long period of time. The signs aren't looking great for the Illini. The oddsmakers have them as a two touchdown underdog, the Big Ten hasn't fared great in the bowl games so far, and the basketball fiasco on Sunday doesn't give me a lot of confidence either. It's been a great season and one more win would make it perfect. Go Illini!

UPDATE: Apparently there is no such thing as New Year wishes, at least not for me. This is exactly what I feared the most. Glad we got there, but wish the outcome was different. I know we could have played better, but USC was great. Still looking forward to next year!

Christmas Morning

It was the calm before the storm! The kids woke up to see that Santa made it to our house again this year! They didn't get up until 8:00, probably because they were pretty excited the night before and had trouble falling asleep. They had a busy day on Christmas Eve. They got one present from Mom and Dad, which were Build-A-Bears (Rudolph and Clarice). We went to the mall to have them "stuffed" and of course we had to buy clothes for them too! We checked out a couple of things at the mall and ran into the McKeown's there. From there, we had to get video tape to make sure we were prepared for the next morning activities. We went out to eat at Lone Star after the shopping (which also counted as part of Mommy's Christmas present!). We went to feed Pandy before heading home to bake cookies for Santa. By the time we registered the Build-A-Bears on the computer, got the cookies ready, the reindeer food out, got our baths, exchanged the kids' gifts, and read Twas the Night Before Christmas, it was quite late. The anticipation of the visitor overnight was too much to quickly fall asleep. You can check out some of the pictures of the BIG day here.

Turner Tradition

In honoring a Turner tradition that we have been doing for the last 4-5 years during the Christmas season, we took a trip to East Peoria to see the Festival of Lights. We picked Brandon up from school and headed up to Peoria on Friday. We started off at the FOLEPI's Village where the kids got to play some games and ride some rides and Santa was there with one of his reindeer!

From there we headed to Avanti's Restaurant for dinner until it was nice and dark to go see the Festival of Lights Winter Wonderland. Brandon and I had the Gondola sandwiches, which are our favorites! (Special thanks goes to Tim Britton for introducing the restaurant to us!)

After dinner, we drove back to FOLEPI's Village and watched while they attempted to inflate a hot air balloon in the parking lot and then headed off to drive through the lights. The pictures don't do it justice. It is a great time and there were a lot of new displays this year. Looking forward to doing it again next year!

Frosty the Fireman

We had fun in the snow all weekend. We played in it Saturday afternoon and we had a fresh layer of snow to start again on Sunday. To cap off our snow day activities, we built Frosty the Fireman in the front yard. After taking the picture we went to Aunt Marilyn's to feed Pandy and brought back two fallen limbs that we added for Frosty's arms. Of course in between we had to go out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings to satisfy Angie's craving from the night before.

Silent Night, Holy Night

"Silent night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright"

No, I didn't forget to remove the lens cap, this was our view for six hours last night! The night was silent and calm (except the sound of a generator running off in the distance), but it wasn't very holy or bright with no electricity when the temperature is in the 20's outside and 6-8 inches of snow! According to Ameren, we were one of about 200 households that were without electricity from about 8:30 pm - 2:20 am this morning due to power lines being down from the winter storm. I could have tested out the generator that my Dad had bought me a year ago, but I really didn't want to go outside to fire it up and I figured we wouldn't be without electricity for that long. It was 65 degrees in the house when the power finally came back on. I guess it could have been worse.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

You can get a sneak peak at our 2007 Christmas card before it arrives in the mail. We just picked them up yesterday and hopefully we will get them in the mail by Christmas. If not, consider this your card this year! We woke up this morning to a white blanket of snow on the ground. They are forecasting 6-8 inches today and it is still snowing into the evening. Since we got the new cards, I decided to dig out the old ones to see how the kids have changed:

2006

2005

(Special Collector's Two Card Edition!)

Created by our friend, Nancy Knauer, who is a great photographer. Check out the creations at her website. (Brandon and Brittany are on there too in the Galleries!)

2004

Check Back Soon For Image!

2003

2002

2001

B.K. (Before Kids) Pictures

Kirby is really thankful that we have kids now so he doesn't have to go out to see Santa!

Smelling Like a Rose

I watched Saturday night's football games with a lot of interest knowing that Illinois had an outside shot at falling into the Rose Bowl. Thanks Missouri (and West Virginia too)!!!!! I know we will be huge underdogs, but how sweet the smell to make it to the Rose Bowl after several years of difficult seasons. GO ILLINI!!!