Sunday, January 27, 2008

Date Night at the Palace

That's right.....a date night! Last night Nathan and I enjoyed a wonderful couple hours together...no kids, no babies, just us! Thanks to my live-saver Jen (she's the manager of the apartments here and lives next door) we were able to go see a movie that was playing at the Palace Theater right here in Luverne! That is one of the reasons why we were okay with leaving the kids here (even the baby) was because we were 2 blocks away (no kidding!) And, of course, I had my phone with me in case mommy was needed, but there was no call from Jen and she said the boys did great! She put them all to bed around 8ish (even Tiernan!) and that was it! THANKS JEN!!!

So the movie was supposed to start at 7pm....well, we got there a few minutes early to get some goodies and settle in before it started. Well, the palace theater is an actual old-time stage theater that was opened in 1915. It has both plays and shows plus a screen they have to play movies. It does not always have a movie playing, actually, this is the first movie we've seen advertised playing here since we moved to Luverne. So anyway, we got in the door and I only saw a handful of people at the consession stand, but no place to buy tickets. Thankfully one of those people there was our egg lady that brings us eggs every week so I asked her where you buy your tickets and she said right at the concession stand! Ok, so I'm thinking 'We're not in St. Cloud anymore, Todo' :-) We have to keep reminding ourselves we are now in a small town atmosphere... So we got to the front of the line and ordered two adult tickets and a popcorn and pop. Well, another thing that was different is that you don't actually get a ticket, you just pay and if you ever would have to leave and come back, you just say 'oh, I've already paid'....which again is different from what we are used to. I love this town!

So we are seated and it's about 5 to 7pm. Finally at about 5 after 7, the lights go down and the previews start. WAIT!....NO sound!! Uh oh.... So after about 30 seconds of a movie playing but no sound, it shut off and the lights came back on again. We waited and waited...then the lights went down again and the movie played..this time with sound! yay! After about 30 seconds of this...it shut off again!! Again, the lights came back on.....oh man! So now it's about 10 after 7. We waited and waited and waited and at about 7:15, I decided to call Jen to tell her that the movie hasn't started yet so we would be home a few minutes late. So we waited some more and then at about 7:30 the movie came back on but the picture was cut in half and the bottom half of the screen showed the top part of the movie and the top half showed the bottom part (so for an example, if there was someones faces on the screen, the bottom of the screen would showed from about their eyes up and the top half would be from their eyes to their chin) so then the movie shut off AGAIN!!! Ugh... then briefly after that it came back on, again cut in half and then they fixed the frame and it worked!! Boy, did we clap and cheer when that happened!! (Didn't I just say I liked the small town atmosphere?...well, I like it but it makes you work on your patience :-) So, we were able to enjoy the rest of the movie without any glitches! (By the way, the movie was The National Treasure: Book of Secrets....it was good, Nathan said he prefers the first one better, but this one was still very suspenseful!)

Other than our date night....Caedmon got his first hair cut the day before yesterday. Yes, his hair was actually long enough to cut! If you saw his hair in the light just right, you could see that the back of this hair was actually a few inches long, it was just so fine and light that it was hard to see! But we did cut it so he doesn't have any 'wings' anymore :-)

Nathan is working today (Sunday) because of all the time they missed last week with the weather so the company is giving the guys today to work to make up for some. He was off from the previous Thursday to this past Thursday (Friday was his first day back) because they shut everything down with the freezing cold temps! Tiernan's favorite day of the week is Sunday b/c he can go to church, he LOVES church and asks to go about 5 or more times a day. Therefore, since Nathan is working, I think I'm going to try to take all the kids by myself with me to church! I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to have the hands that I need to carry Brayan and Caedmon and still have a hand for Tiernan so he doesn't run from me! I haven't exactly figured it out yet, but I'm willing to try!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Eliana & Family

Here are some more pics of Eliana and her family!



Eliana being held by
both of her moms!




Matt, the Biological Dad





The complete McKeever family
Darren, Sara, William, & Eliana




Dani, the Biological Mom





What a giggly 2 week old!




Smiling at Grandma Barb



Awake!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Musical Children & Anniversary

No, I'm not talking about my kids actually being musical...I'm talking about the game that you play with the chairs where you go from one to the next! That's what it felt like last night!! Of course it happens right after I post about how Caedmon always sleeps though the night! Well, last night he was up about 5 times! We think it might of had to do with the fact that his little heater in his room never shut off automatically like it usually does so when Nathan went in there to check on him it was about 100 degrees in his room! Poor guy...so we shut that thing off but he was still up after that. Then when we started getting comfy again, Brayan was up! He just wanted to be fed though and he went to sleep shortly after, but it was definitely up and down and up and down last night!

Last weekend Nathan and I got a night out to a get-together at a couples' house from church. My parents came to visit and to bring us the rest of our stuff from our house that sold so they were able to watch the older boys while we went to Sioux Falls. It was so nice to visit and not have to worry about entertaining the kids at the same time! I did bring the baby with me but like usual, he was very content and everyone loved him. I'm not sure "Gamma & Gampa" (as Tiernan would say) had as much fun....Tiernan got sick after he went to bed! He gave Grandma lots of sheets and clothes to change and I had some 'not so fun' laundry to do when I got home! Sorry Grandma!

Well, Brayan is offically in 6-9 month clothes! He is growing just too fast!! He will be 5 months next week. I went though the 6-9 mo. bin last night thinking just a couple things might fit him and nope!...almost all of them will!! Pretty soon he will be sitting up and scooting himself across the floor. Seems like just yesterday Caedmon was doing that (this time last year!) and now look at him! Tackling Tiernan, running around, climbin' on stuff...

Well, speaking of Caedmon, I think he is finally awake so I better get going.

Oh yeah, it's our anniversary today too!! FOUR YEARS!! Whew! Can you believe it?? Where has the time gone?? We got married in 2004, had Tiernan in 2005, Caedmon in 2006 and Brayan in 2007...what does 2008 hold? We will just have to wait and see! How exciting! In our previous 3 years of marriage, we have also moved 3 times, so does year 4 mean another move? Probably :-)

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Monday, January 7, 2008

Here she is!!



I'm sure I'll post more pics later! This is the only picture I have of Eliana so far!!

New Addition to the Family!

No, it's not us...not yet anyway :-) Our kids have a new cousin!! As some of you may know, my brother Darren and his wife Sara were planning on adopting a baby that was due Jan 11th...well she was born this morning at
9:16am! Her name is Eliana Danielle and she was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 20 inches long! What a little thing! Much smaller than William when he was born (he was 10, 1!) Darren and Sara are very excited as they have wanted another baby for quite a while! They are letting the birth mom have her time with the baby this morning. The birth mom fed the baby her first bottle (which was Sara's breastmilk...yes, I said Sara's...she induced breast feeding a few months ago so she coould nurse the baby that she's adopting). As soon as the baby gets the doctors "okay" (I'm thinking in like 24 hours or so) the baby will be discharged with Darren and Sara. So...so far so good with all the plans and they are very excited to bring her home!! I'm sure as soon as I get emailed a pic (that's the bummer about living far away, I have to wait to see her...) I'll post it on here so you can see her!

Other than that news...nothing too big going on with us. Tiernan has actually been sleeping in a little these days until about 7:30ish which feels SO late compared to his usual 5:45-6am ish that he's always gotten up at. I'm not complaining though!! Also, Brayan spent his first night a couple nights ago in a different room away from me, so that was weird for the both of us! He woke up for about a half an hour crying but then went back to sleep and slept until 8:30am! He was ready to eat when he got up...and I was ready to feed him!! Last night went just as well. Nathan commented yesterday morning when we woke up and were laying in bed that it felt like we didn't have any kids with the baby out of our room and Tiernan sleeping in!! (Caedmon has always been a great sleeper and will go to bed about 7:30pm and wake up about 8:30am and NEVER makes a peep in between! I can count on one hand, with a couple fingers left over, of how many times Caedmon has gotten up in the middle of the night) So we are hoping that doing the same thing with Brayan that he will follow in Caedmon's lead!! Now, if we can just get Tiernan to quit waking up and getting out of bed in the middle of the night, we'll be happy!!! Let me know if you have any suggestions!! :-) I'll post pics soon!!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

More Christmas pictures!


Brayan sportin' his new outfit from Grandma Barb!

Memorized by their movie!!


Tiernan looking through his new binoculars!

Kids busy with their gifts.


Brayan interested in his new barn!


Caedmon LOVED this box!! (William on left)


Tiernan helping Daddy open his present!


Can you see three car seats in here???

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Pictures to go with posting below!! :-)

Caedmon the reindeer

The Three Stooges


My little Santa

Tiernan helping Caedmon open his gift

Tiernan happy with his gift


Snugglin' with Uncle Jeremiah after a long day!

Messy boy Caedmon!

Daddy with the three boys plus two cousins!


Cute Brayan



Brayan eyein' up the presents!





We're Back!!

Whew!! We made it back!....barely! :-) After that long week in St. Cloud, we are glad to be home!! As I mentioned in the last post, we SOLD our house!..so everything needed to be packed up that was still at our house. Since we've been living here in Luverne since May, we didn't think very much stuff was left back at the house, but boy were we wrong!! We started going through stuff and packing up on Saturday morning and didn't quit until the next Wed, the day before closing! There was SOO much stuff we could hardly handle it! Nathan made 2 huge truck loads of stuff to the dumpster and we were thankfully able to sell some stuff as well! We are storing a few boxes of things at our parents house and then the rest of the stuff is here with us.

We were going to close on Thursday morning but then Wed night late, I got a call from the title company saying that there was a problem with our survey not matching the legal description of the land recorded at the county...big problem! We had to track down the 80 yr old man who did our survey and had to have him write a letter saying it was fine. After twisting his arm, a lot, he finally agreed to do it, but only a $150 and a day later! Therefore we didn't close until Friday at 2pm....but at least the papers are all signed and we don't have to deal with that house anymore! Yay!

The rest of our "vacation" was pretty good. We had Christmas Eve over at Nathan's parents house with a handful (6 of the 11) of his siblings and families. We ate supper, read about Jesus' birth in the bible, sang songs, and then opened gifts! The boys had a great time playing with their cousins!

Christmas at my parents wasn't until the 29th b/c my parents were in Arkansas celebrating with my sister and her family. Over there we ate the traditional 'fondue' meal with steak, fish, and shrimp, and then opened gifts. Ugh, my kids got way too much stuff!!...but they sure enjoyed it! (Nathan didn't really enjoy hauling all the stuff back to Luverne with us though!)

We packed as much stuff from our Foley house as possible in our van and my dad will make a trip in Januray with the rest of it! You could hardly tell that we had three car seats with three little boys in the car b/c of all the stuff!! They were good troopers though! Speaking of troopers....

We were 10 mins from Luverne when we were driving back and all of a sudden Nathan pulled to the side of the road. I asked 'what are you doing?' and he said 'I'm pulling over!' I thought something had fallen from the top of the van b/c we had a couple totes up there and he said 'No, I'm getting pulled over!!' I looked in the review mirror and sure enough...a cop. Well, to make matters worse b/c it had snowed so much in Luverne while we were gone, the shoulder was covered in snow with a major drop off into the ditch. So when Nathan pulled over for the cop, our van sunk into the snow and we got stuck!! Ugh! We got off with just a warning (I think the cop felt bad for us) but Nathan did cover the cop with snow as he was trying to get out (by accident) but it made me laugh!!

Well, we are looking forward to this year and what the Lord has in store for us!! Knowing our past, we are sure it will be exciting! Until next time, Goodbye!!