Sick For Christmas......

I guess this year I must have been on Santa's naughty list because for Christmas he gave me sickness.

I knew on Christmas Eve morning that it was coming. It started with a tickle in my throat and then the cough started. It started out just a little cough but by the end of the night it was starting to getting uncontrollable.  So I used my inhaler and took a lot of cough drops and figured I would be able to control it to at least get though church with Rick's Mom for Christmas Eve. By the time we got home I was feeling pretty wiped out.

Christmas morning was a new day. I woke up and thought to myself you can do this! You have the day off this year you are going to enjoy the day! You are not sick you are just fine! That lasted about as long as it took me to get out of bed. I was sick :( I managed to take a shower and get dressed and pretend that I was going to go to my Mom's for the day. Then I sat on the couch and it was over, I was defeated. I knew I had to stay home and not spread my germs to everyone else. Rick and Amy went to my Mom's without me. I was so sad. I did not get to see my family last year on Christmas and now I would miss them again.  I laid on the couch the whole day with my stuffy nose, headache, coughing like crazy and feeling sorry for myself.

Friday was no better so I called my Doctor and she put me on Prednisone. Since I have asthma she wants me to get on it right away anytime I have a chest cold/cough. The only time I left the couch on Friday was to go to Walmart to get the drugs. I felt awful.

Saturday I got up and could hardly breathe. My asthma was getting the best of me. I took myself to Urgent Care in Waseca and they gave me a nebulizer treatment. Finally I could take a breathe again without struggling!

Sunday I went back to work. We are short staffed and I had already called in sick on Saturday so I did not want to do it again. I could have used another day to recover but I figured I could tough it out. I managed to stay the whole day but was wiped out by the time I got home.

Today I  almost feel recovered. I have only had a couple coughing fits and my nose is way less stuffy. Hopefully I am over the hump. There is so much stuff going around. Two of my other coworkers are also sick. We can hardly wait for the Students to start coming back this weekend and with them comes all the sickness they bring from all over the world.....

Okay I am sure that is more then you ever wanted to know about my little sickness and my pity party for one :)

I hope you all got to enjoy your Christmas!

Sharon  

Christmas Cheer

On Saturday Rick and I went to Home Free in Mankato. They are a acapella group that won the Sing Off last year. They are very good. We had a great time seeing them. We like to go to a Christmas show every year it this was a great one to go to. It was nice that it was in Mankato so we only had a 20 minute drive home. The above video is of one of the Christmas songs they sang.

 On December 14th we had Christmas with the kids. We decided that we would do brunch this year. Amy and Christa had to take there turn doing the dishes.

                               Cassie was in charge of the liquor.

                          Jese and Oliver are ready to open to there presents

                                                         Josie was too!

                  Josie got her very own bow! She was excited to shoot it.

                           Not sure what Cassie is doing here......

                                           Cassie and Nick

                  Liam using the Spirograph that Josie got for Christmas. 

Cassie and Nick gave Rick a popcorn popper for Christmas. He was was very excited to use it and even more excited that it worked perfect.

               Eli and Oliver were very excited to look over the Christmas Tree.

 On Monday I got the best mail ever, A letter for Liam! He wrote it in school and then they walked to the post office and mailed them off. It was fun to get a letter from him.



I am luck enough to have Monday through Friday off. Good thing I did because poor Liam got the stomach flu. He got to spend the day with me. Today he is here again but is doing much better. Hopefully he will be all better by Christmas and no one else gets sick.

I hope you have a Very Merry Christmas!!!

Sharon

It's a Holly Jolly Christmas......

I decided I need something to display my Christmas cards this year so I made this up. I just got some burlap and then hemmed up the sides. I used red paint and stencils the letters. I got some very tiny red clothes pins to attach the cards to it. It will work much better then taping  them to the wall like I have done other years. And it was super quick to make and cheap.

Funny story for the day...  Rick always wakes up and is usually awake before my alarm goes off in the morning. Well this morning it want off and he did not move. It was laying on his back still as can be. I let the dogs out and then they jumped up on the bed and he still did not move. Well I got in the shower and then the irrational fears started to kick in. All I could think about was the fact that Rick did not wake up. I started worrying that he must have had a heart attack and was either dead or almost dead. All these bad thought were going though my head as I was in the shower. Of course right after I got out of the shower he was up. It was so silly and irrational. I think I need more sleep!!!


Have a great day.
Sharon

A little bit of everything.....

                                               The whole Rugroden family.
It is not often we get everyone together in a picture. It turned out good.

                          Grandma and Grandpa Becker with the great grandkids

                  Amy had to sit on the kids table for Thanksgiving.

                        Thanksgiving lunch all ready to eat at Christa and Jese's house.

I took this picture at work one morning while opening buildings. It is was the first snow of the season.

After taking about 12 years off Amy has decided to give archery a try again. Rick made her some new strings and got her bow all tuned in.

                              She is excited to get back in the archery game.

I decided that I needed to make myself a new coat after finding the lining fabric last spring. I saw it and thought it would make a great lining for a black coat so I just guessed at how much I would need and bought it. It has been sitting in my sewing room since then. I finally got the wool fabric and a Vogue pattern and I was ready to go.

I am very happy with how it turned out. It was a pretty easy pattern so it did not take me long to make. The hardest part was trying to find the right size black buttons.

I made some delish  salted caramel sauce on Saturday. I made it for a gifts but I had to save a little for us to eat. It is really easy to make you can find the recipe HERE

Lastly here is a picture of the newest Rugroden family member. Stacy and Eric welcomed Liliana 2 months ago. She is a beautiful baby.

This weekend and is my annual Mall of America trip with the girls. It will be a fun weekend away.

Happy December
Sharon

Fun Times.....

                      Friday night Amy, Christa and I went to the Garth Brooks concert.

        Christa and Amy had to take a selfie of them self's drinking beer. They are so funny

The concert was one of the best concerts I have been to, it is in my top 3 for sure. We have all been big fans of Garth for years so we had to go when we found out he was going. We asked Cassie to go with us too but she went to the 10:30  show with Nick because he is also a huge fan.

It was such a fun night!


Sharon

"Grandmas are moms with lots of frosting." ~Author Unknown

 Amy got a trunk full of fabric for free. She went through it and took what she wanted. Then she brought it over to me and I took what I wanted. The rest I took to my Mom's garage sale and gave it all away.

 I saw this plaid fabric and thought it would make some cute pajamas for the kids.  So Wednesday I whipped up some for Josie and Liam and yesterday I made Eli's. I think for free fabric they turned out pretty cute. They kids loved them. Sewing them was way easier then trying to get them to pose for the picture and not be silly.

The kids spent the night at our house last night because Amy had to work her evening shift ever!  Putting three kids to bed is a lot of work! Glad it was only for one night. Rick had to get them up and get them to school this morning since I leave for work at 5:00. He tells me he got them all to school on time :)

 My Christmas Cactus is in full bloom so Christmas must be right around the corner. I was a little worried about my plant because it was my Grandma Becker's plant and I never want to kill it. It had out grown it's pot and I had to replant it. I was so nervous that I would kill it. It usually has a bloom in June/July and this year it was very small. It was looking a little sickly for most of the summer and I was getting more and more nervous that it was not going to make it. But it came back and is now looking great.

I finally got our mailbox post painted. It was painted a ugly brown that was peeling off. It had been that way since we moved in 4 years ago. I had left over red paint from painting the front door so that is what color it gets to be. It looks much better now when I come home everyday.

Tonight I am going to Garth Brooks with Amy and Christa. We are very excited!

Have a great weekend!
Sharon

It Was All Worth It.....

                    Eli in his Ninja costume. He told me I better watch out when he gets all the bad guys with his sword.

 Josie wanted to be Bell this year so of course she was. She told me she had to have roses and they had to be red.

 Liam wanted to be a zombie from Mine Craft. It is a video game that he plays that I guess is very popular with kids his age. 

 Oliver was my biggest challenge this year. He kept changing his mind and finally picked a fire truck. He was super excited to get it today. Rick painted the red on the box for me and cut out the ladders.

Every year around August I start asking the grandkids what they want to be for Halloween because I tell myself I am going to start early and get them done. This year I started making them just over two weeks ago. I was a bit stressful trying to get them all done. But it was all worth it when I see the happy smiles on there faces when they get to see there costumes for the first time.


Next year I swear I am going to start them in June.....

Sharon 

Picture Time.....

 Diane decided that we needed a new family picture. We managed to all get together last Sunday. Christa took the pictures for us since she has the best camera. They turned out pretty good.

                                                                        Me and the girls

                                                                     Mom and Dad

                                                                I love this picture.

                                                                  Me with my sisters

                                                        Christa, Cassie and Amy

Since there is four birthdays in October we also celebrated them. Christa and Dad were born on the same day so they have always taken a picture together. I am not sure how it started but every year they always take one of Christa giving grandpa a kiss. It is always a cute picture. One of these days I need to get them all out and put them up together.

I spent my days off sewing Halloween costumes. I have Eli's and Josie's done. Yesterday I took off work early and worked on Liam's. I am 95% done with it. I have to finish it tonight because he has a costume/birthday party to go to on Saturday. This weekend Rick and I are going to make Oliver's costume.

Rick finally got out hunting this week. He has been so busy making strings that he has not been able to get out. I am not going to go hunting this year. I have to many other things I want to do.

Hopefully my next blog I will have pictures of the kids in there costumes!

Sharon

It's Been A Long Time.....

Gosh I have not updated since Oct. 1. That is a long time for me. The days just go by so fast and I always seem to have 10 things going on at once. So I will try and update you on my super exciting life...Well okay it is not that exciting :)

We got to take our last camping trip of the year on Oct. 3-6. We went back to Yankton SD again to White Crane State Park. Rick wanted to shoot the last outdoor Nation Target shoot for the year. He did good coming in 3rd place. It was super windy and cold so he was not real happy with his score but still managed to have fun.

Other then shooting we took the bikes out for a couple rides and took some walks and just relaxed. The only bad part of the trip was Dexter. On Friday night he started to vomit. He was up three times that night getting sick. It was the same on Saturday and Sunday night. He did not eat anything in the four days we were there. I figured he must have had some kind of stomach flu. But as soon as we got home on Monday he ran right to his food dish and started eating and was just fine. The dumb dog was just upset to be away from home.  He has separation anxiety from me when every I am gone to much to suit him. And gets very anxious when every we do anything different. Poor Dexter is going a little bit crazy.  I am about at my wits end with him. It was like having a baby with us camping. We were up every couple hours with him every night.

Morgan on the other hand had lots of fun camping. She spends the whole time looking for squirrels to chase.

I did not take a lot of pictures since we were just there but here are a few of the ones I took.

              I got Eli and Oliver matching Carleton Jackets. They look very cute in them.

Sunday Cassie and I went to the Tiny Diner in Minneapolis for brunch. It was really good and lots of fun.

 

We also went fabric shopping. I got all the fabric for the kids Halloween costumes and also got some wool fabric to make myself a new coat. I  cannot wait to get sewing my coat. First I have to get the costumes done! I have a lot of work to do  before Halloween!

So that is about it for  my super excited life.

Sharon