This week, the fall decorations came down and Christmas started to take over.
Since we will be gone all of Thanksgiving weekend (and bringing home a new puppy) we wanted to be able to enjoy the decorations for the whole month of December and focus on things other things during that time! So we decided we'd better get a head start!
Before the Christmas goes up, I wanted to document want our house looked like for fall this year. I still need to read how to take good pictures inside, so these will just have to do for now - and it's so fun to see how it changes from year to year regardless of the quality of the pictures.
This is my favorite part of the living room. These drawers came from my mom's newspaper office and I love having both sides of our family sitting in the same place so I can see them every time I walk into the room!
These pictures of our family room and kitchen also show our new paint color that we painted with the help of Trent's parents back in August. The color makes such a difference from what it was last year.
Now all those pumpkins have gathered on the dining room table and by the end of the day they will make their way to the basement for another 10 months!
And now the tree is up and waiting to be decorated, by the end of the day, the outside lights will be up and waiting to be turned on after Thanksgiving, too!
I'm so glad that I get to spend her birthday with her again this year. Last year, we were working hard preparing for the big Birthday Bash, but this year there's a lot less work involved as we're headed north to see Garth in concert!!!
I am thankful for all of the fun times we've had over the years and all of the things I have been able to experience with her and because of her. I know that having her as my mom has made me one of the luckiest kids in the world. She works so hard every day and is such a blessing to everyone around her! She has done so much throughout in her life to make mine (and my siblings' lives) easier!
She really is superwoman and I'm glad she got to spend the past week relaxing on vacation!
In honor of us going to Garth tonight, this is a new song by Garth called "Mom" that I think is pretty great. Especially because my mom is pretty great! You can listen to it here. It's a pretty good one, and these are my favorite lyrics
And when she's talking to you make sure you listen close She's gonna teach you everything you'll ever need to know Like how to mind your manners, to love and laugh and dream She'll put you on the path that bring you back to me
I love you, Mommy.
Thank you for all you've done for us and for helping me become the person I am today!
I've been in Okoboji since Wednesday night on a little mini vacation. My ended up renting this week's use of my Great Aunt's time share from our CJD fundraiser auction last year, so her and some other members of my family have been up here on and off this week to spend some time relaxing with this nice view.
It has been just a tad cold, but that just made it even better for having an excuse to relax inside! We've watched back to back Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel the past two nights (I may or may not have stayed up until 3 in the morning last night watching them..) and I am really loving it! Yesterday we went out and got manicures and pedicures. It was Grandma's first time getting her nails done, so that was a lot of fun! She said she needs to be careful or she might get addicted to it!
More family is coming up late tonight and then we are taking of for Minneapolis tomorrow afternoon so we can go to the Garth Brooks concert tomorrow night!!! Ahh!!! I can't believe it's finally here! But more on that after it happens :)
TWO.
Yesterday I got to take advantage of being in the area and I visited with my friend Grace for a while in the afternoon. This was the first time I've seen her since the summer of 2011 and this was also the first time I met her son! (And I got to meet see her adorable baby bump) It took him a little while before he was okay with me being there, but after a while, I think he decided I was alright! It was so great to see Grace and get to talk to her for a bit - oh how I wish I could see her more often!!
Here's us (along with Lauren, of course) back from our college days! Such fun times!
THREE.
We now know what puppy will be coming home with us in TWO weeks!! The one with the red collar is our new family member!
This is her!
And here she is at 4 weeks old at 1:30 in this video.
I can't wait to meet her and love on her and snuggle her!!! I'm looking forward to get our little family all together and start working on our new normal!
(In case you were wondering - the puppy talk is just beginning!)
FOUR.
Since we painted our bedroom last weekend, I now need to get serious about hanging things up on our walls FINALLY! I have a few ideas including using what I hope will be a great family picture we will take after we pick up our new puppy and this quote below. I am also on the search for a few other things and hopefully it doesn't take me two and a half more years to get them up on the walls :)
FIVE.
And with it being cold... I think this is genius!!!
Back on the weekend before Halloween, my mom and sister, my aunts, and my girl cousins all came over to our house for a Hocus Pocus Halloween Party! It was a beautiful fall day and a perfect day for a party!
After everyone arrived, we got right to work carving pumpkins around the dining room table. Everyone got creative making different faces, animals, letters or designs in their pumpkins.
A few weeks before the party, I came across this blog post on Facebook titled "How to Carve a Pumpkin in 15 Minutes" and she was giving away a Rockwell Sonicrafter F30.
I immediately sent the post to my family and said we needed some power tools for our party! I then entered the giveaway and kind of forgot about it. Lo and behold, a week or so later, I got an email from the author of the blog saying I should check out who won and it was MEEEEE!!! I was probably way more excited than I should have been when I saw - jumping around all giddy at work because of it! It showed up at our house the day before the party. It was fate! :)
I didn't use it to carve my whole pumpkin, but I did use it to make mine and Kenzie's openings so we could scoop out all the guts. It was pretty crazy and definitely added some excitement to the evening!
When it was all said and done, here's what everyone's pumpkins looked like. It's a pretty good looking bunch if I do say so myself!
After the pumpkin carving, we all ate some Chicken Tortilla soup and sandwiches and Jocelyn also made some "Mummy Halloweenies" to get everyone in a festive mood!
When we were done eating, we all gathered in the family room to watch Hocus Pocus to finish up the night! I don't think that movie will ever get old! It was the perfect ending to a successfully fun day!!
Those of us who have lost a loved one to CJD miss them every day, but today is a day when all of us who are missing that person (or people in some cases) can join together to honor the memory of our loved ones and advocate for global awareness and education.
CJD is a rapidly progressive, degenerative, always fatal brain disorder. It is a disease that our family saw firsthand when it took the life of my dad in September 2012.
There are a lot of doctors around the world who have yet to see a case of CJD and some may never see it in their careers. This makes diagnosing someone with CJD even more difficult because they don't have prior experiences to utilize. CJD is often initially misdiagnosed and it may ultimately never be diagnosed if the doctors don't come to that conclusion before CJD takes the patient's life.
Some of the diseases that CJD can be misdiagnosed as are Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and Huntington's, just to name a few. The symptoms of someone with CJD can be very similar to these diseases, but are typically more rapid in their progression. The similarities of these diseases can be a benefit, though, as research that is done on one of the diseases may help lead to a cure or treatment for one or several of the others. This is another reason that awareness is necessary - if those links between these "similar" disorders are known, researchers can work together toward the goal of eradicating all of these diseases.
As those of us who have been affected by this disease band together and make our voices louder, we can drum up support for awareness and research and, one day soon, a cure for this disease. A cure may start with a test to detect, in its early stages, that it is CJD the patient has, giving the family more time to become comfortable with what they're dealing with, it may be in the form of a way to treat or reverse the symptoms, or it may be the ability to pin-point what it is that triggers the symptoms. Any of these options would be such a positive step forward and it is these types of things the researchers we're funding are working toward with passion!
Last year at this time, our family was preparing for a large Birthday Bash Fundraiser in memory of my dad. We raised over $50,000 to help aid in research and help start a support program for those families who are affected by CJD. We funded two research grants through the CJD Foundation in my dad's name, and, this year, we hope to fund another! We are continuing to do what we can to spread awareness and help to fund the research that is vital in curing CJD by setting a goal to raise the $10,000 needed to fund another grant. Again this year, our $10,000 will be matched with another $30,000 from the CJD Foundation, making the grant equal a total of $40,000! We are hoping to do this with the help of our amazing family, friends, and community who made our event last year so successful, except, this year, they all get to help from the comfort of their own homes!
You can help us work toward curing CJD by clicking here and donating any amount you can that would go towards a research grant in my dad's name. 100% of what you donate will go to the research - none is taken out to go towards administrative expenses or anything of that nature. Last year we sold tshirts, served a great meal, raffled off prizes, carried out silent and live auctions, and collected free-will donations. Everyone went above and beyond to make the huge event a success, and we hope that you will help us make this effort a success as well with a cash donation!
Thank you so much for being a part of a cause that is so important to our family!
I missed the boat last Friday to post my randomness, so I'm just going to do that today!
ONE.
We handed out candy at our house for Halloween again this year. It was quite chilly, so we did it from inside the house rather than sitting on the front step, but it worked! We were open for business from about 6:15 to 8:00 and counted around 179 Trick-or-Treaters. It was about 100 less than last year, but that could have been because of the weather or because we closed up shop around 8. We got rid of the majority of our giant box of Peanut Butter M&Ms, so it was successful on our end. I did the candy-handing-outing while Trent was the tally-er of the Trick-or-Treaters and Mattie just wanted to get outside to see what everyone's costumes looked like!
TWO.
On Halloween night, we left our house around 8:30 and went to Ankeny, so I could go to the annual craft fair there with the girls bright and early in the morning. Trent and his dad went hiking in the morning and then watched some football in the afternoon.
Here's our one picture from the day! The kid taking it really didn't do a very good job (like, really, dude, back up a little bit!), but we'll take what we can get!
Here's one of my purchases that I got at the craft fair from a little business called Summer Snow. I can't wait to hang it up this winter!!
THREE.
Last Tuesday was the last of the nine-week Beth Moore Bible study on 1 & 2 Thessalonians that I was a part of at Christ Community Church. I am SOOO glad that I chose to do it! I met some of the most amazing women that I am so thankful to have met. It's amazing how much life can happen in just 9 short weeks and how relationships can blossom in that short of a time! There is another Beth Moore study starting in January called A Woman's Heart that explores the building of the Old Testament tabernacle and most of us are planning on doing that one as well, so I am already looking forward to that!
On the last night of our study, Beth asked everyone to take a pen and write on the palms of their hands - On the left hand "For not all have faith" and on the right "But the Lord is faithful". (As we were doing that - I said "My dad would NOT like this!") Those phrases are taken from some of 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3. She then gave a list of about ten scenarios where something bad may happen like: a bank is robbed, someone we love is sick or hurt, someone says something unkind to us, etc. We then could answer that scenario with the words "For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful!" It's so true that we can not put our trust in the things of this world, because those things may fail us, but the Lord never will! The Lord is always faithful!
FOUR.
We painted our bedroom on Saturday. FINALLY! It's crazy how just a coat of paint can change the way you feel about a room. It's pretty much just a lighter tan than what was in there, but it sure did brighten up the room and make it seem more clean. Much better than the flat, gross tan that had been on the walls for the past 8 years that the house has been standing!
We painted it a color called Hopsack by Valspar. It's the color that is one shade darker than what we have in our Living Room/Dining Room/Hallway, so it goes nicely!
One of our big motivations for getting the painting done was so we could rearrange the furniture in our room at the same time and make a space for another dog bed/crate that will be in there at the end of the month!
FIVE.
Speaking of another dog! Our puppy is now 5 weeks old!! We are still getting updates in the form of pictures, videos and emails each week and the puppies are getting cuter and cuter every time we see them! We will be going the Saturday after Thanksgiving to pick up the new member of our family and I'm getting more and more excited as the day comes closer!
There were 5 girls in the litter that our puppy is in and two of them have already been chosen, so after the next family picks out their girl, which will hopefully be before the next update, we will know what two puppies are going to be in the Fredericksen family (because Trent's sister's family is getting a female puppy from the same litter) and know that one of those two will be living with us!! YAY!
Here's a picture of one of our puppy's siblings at 4.5 weeks (it's not ours because it's a male) and a video of the puppies from this past weekend!
