The 411 On The J-O-B

Today was a good day for Collin. He got to walk in to a job he HATES and quit. Although he has gotten some good experience there, the attorneys at what I like to call "Buttkiss and Wanker" (Bachus and Schanker)are not the kind of company Collin would like to keep. He decided he would drop the fancy-schmancy, well known law firm in a minute if he had the chance to work with someone he enjoys and make enough money.

Yesterday he was offered an attorney position in Colorado Springs, and very happily accepted. It is for a man who has been practicing for about 25 years and is looking to slowly get out of the practice. Lucky for us, he thinks Collin is the guy that he would like to take over for him. He is hoping to be done practicing within 5 years. Collin starts tomorrow and will be commuting for now until we get some debt paid off and are a little closer to looking for a house. When that time comes, we will probably be looking somewhere in between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs.

He is extremely excited and feels like our prayers have really been answered. We are SO excited to see where this takes us!!!

(Here is the link for an article written about the attorney he will be working with)

Great Debate

So, I am going to ask the same question I asked on my FB.

Marlee's birthday is 10 days before the cut off for kindergarten this year. She is already in her second year of preschool. Is it better to start her this year and have her be the youngest? Or, have her do a third year of preschool and start her when she is almost six? I think I am going to go ahead and register her next month, because I can always pull her before the year starts if I decide against it, but I have been seriously stressing about this decision. Give me your best advise...

Family Pics

All my mom wanted for Christmas this year were family pictures. Easier said than done. Do you know how hard it is to get 10 adults and 11 kids to ALL take a good picture at the same time? No matter how hard we tried, going through them there was at least one person in every picture making a funny face, or in Marlee's case, eyes closed (she is uber light sensitive, just like here mama. The flash was making her teary). So frustrating. If I could combine everyone's best and make it one picture we would truly have THE PERFECT family picture. Oh well...

When we got done, we snapped some of the individual families, but by that time Makenna was screaming her brains out. Needless to say, we didn't get any good ones. That being said, here are my favorites, better than nothing!

Dad's Surgery

I have had a lot of phone calls and emails the last few days asking about my dad. So, I decided to give everyone the scoop. On Monday, dad went in for surgery on a hernia. They said it should take between 1 1/2 -2 hours. When that became 3 and then 4+ and we hadn't heard anything, we knew something was wrong. A little over 4 hours later, the surgeon came out and told my mom that there were SIX hernias that needed repairing, and he also found another tumor. For those who don't remember, my dad got in a car accident about 2 1/2 years ago. He went in for surgery for some internal bleeding and they found a 6 lb tumor in his stomach, it was sarcoma. They got it all out and were hopeful. His PET scans have been coming back clean, with the last one in Dec. They say this tumor was hiding behind the largest of his hernias on the scan. Anyway, he was supposed to come home Tuesday originally, and now it is Saturday and he will not be coming home til at LEAST tomorrow. He has one large incision and at least 8 small ones that were all big enough to need staples. He looks rough and it has been really hard to watch, but he is starting to perk up a bit. He was even telling his nurse this morning some of his famous dumb jokes. I think that's a good sign. We have gotten him up and walking a bit, but he is still on oxygen and moving very slowly. Please keep him in your prayers...

Oath

Yesterday Collin became an official member of the Colorado Bar. It was kind of cool to watch him get sworn in... it is FINALLY ALL OVER!!!I am so, so proud of him and the long journey he has traveled to get here. Congrats babe, your official!!!

Special thanks to Dad (Earl) who flew down for the weekend to be here. It meant a lot.
We had a great lunch at Earls, went to dinner at Jim and Nicks and then saw a 10 pm show of Avatar. It was a good day.

New Years Baby

My BABY is TWO!!! How did that happen?? It seems like Kenna should be turning one... I don't understand how two years have already passed since we had her. She is such a sweet and silly little thing. She LOVES her big sissy, and usually runs to hug her in the mornings yelling "it's Mar-Mar, it's Mar-Mar!". She is a cuddler, which I love. She talks like she is about 15. She makes me laugh every single day with some of the things she says.

This week she got in trouble and as I was getting more serious with her and scolding her she told me "Mommy, you a stinker (actually sounds more like steenter), you go time out!" I said "you don't talk to mommy that way, you go to time out". To which she replied "no....YOU go to time out, I don't like time out!".

Last night as I was changing her diaper and making her laugh, I said "you are so cute!" and she said "no, YOU'RE cute!" and we went back and forth a few times until she finally said "Mamma, trust me....YOU'RE cute!"

She is such a funny and sassy little girl. She has changed SO much since she was an infant. I was always afraid that since she was so painfully quiet, she would grow up to be shy...yeah, not a problem. She can't wait to go to school, and she already LOVES to learn.

She got a Dora bike for her birthday (she LOVES Dora and Boots) and as I finished putting it together, she jumped on and said "gracias mamma, gracias!!" Apparently, she thinks she speaks Spanish!

I think I am having a harder time with her turning two than with Marlee, because when Marlee turned two I was already like 5 months pregnant with Makenna. We had always said we wanted our kids 2 years apart....that is slowly slipping to 3. I know the time will come, but I am just wanting to keep her as little as possible for now. I guess I have no control over it...

Happy Birthday to my sweet New Years Baby!

She was so excited about her Dora nightie, she started stripping down right there!

She got one of her favorite books, she was "reading" it to us...

Her face when she saw her new bike! It even has turn signals and a horn!

Christmas 2009

(2 new posts below...I am trying to get all caught up, but having two holidays, two holiday eve's, and a birthday all in a matter of a week when I am already behind on blogging makes it difficult! )

This was our first Christmas back in Colorado in 3 years! Two years ago this week I was in labor, and last year I had surgery so we were grounded in South Dakota for both. The year before that we were in Moses Lake. Crazy to think that in the 6 Christmases we have spent together as a married couple, we have only spent 3 with family, and 3 just with us. It was nice to be back in the mix, although chaotic. We new just what to do, it has been the same Christmas Eve traditions for years and years when it comes to the Whitmill house. Christmas Eve we went to the devotional at church. I lead the music (I love Christmas music) and my sisters, mom and I sang a song called a Manger Filled With Love. We had some Congregational hymns and a speaker and then we went back to mom and dads house. We had "slop" to eat (tradition) and the kids got to open their presents from Nana and Papa Whitmill. They always get jammies, then they get an outfit and a book. It was so cute to see them all dressed in their jammies reading stories.

Marlee got NO David as her book. She was SO excited!!! She thinks it's hilarious!

My sisters and I decided to do family gifts this year, so we opened those as well. Since I was a kid, we have always opened presents on Christmas Eve. The Monsons gave us High School Musical Sing It, and 2 mics! It was a huge hit!!

After everyone left, our girl got to open their gifts from us. Collin thinks I went overboard....give me a break this is our first Christmas with an income in a while!!! Plus....I got it all on black Friday for amazing prices. That makes it better, right?

Collin got an IPhone and Santa brought him a nice case for it. I got some new clothes (including a smokin' hot leather jacket), and guitar hero. We had a GREAT Christmas!

Top 3 favorite gifts this year at our house:

#1. Glow Doodle - Awesome! Everyone from age 1-9 fought over this one!

#2 HSM Sing It! - The kids (ok, fine me too) played it forever and cried when we had to turn it off!

#3. Life size dolls

Smarty Pants Christmas Program

Marlee's preschool put together a little performance to do for the retirement home for Christmas. The kids had a great time, and I heard the "grammas and grandpas" did too. I wasn't able to go because I was watching other kids, but my sister Angie went and snapped a few pictures for me. Daddy even took an early lunch and made a surprise appearance. I think that really made Mars Bars feel special! I'm sorry I missed it!

"Ms.Jenn" (my sister) and the "students" aka her daughter and 2 nieces

Marlee and Daddy

The kids singing Rudolph

Marlee and her cousin Sophie

Zoo Lights

Almost every year we have been here in Colorado over the holidays, we have been to zoo lights. Even before we had kids of our own. This year, we went with some friends. It was fun....but, exhausting. Makenna is at such a hard age because she won't stay in the stroller because she desperately wants to be one of the big kids, yet, she's really too small still to be trusted running around a zoo at night with no leash. Anyway, besides the cold and the constant panic of thinking you are missing children, we had a good time.

Christmas Card

For those of you who didn't get a Christmas card, please don't take it personally. We printed them late, sent them late, and ran out early. Here is an idea of what they had on them. We took some other family pics on Christmas Eve, but I am still waiting to see them.

I'm actually going to attempt to catch my Blog up from the Holidays today...we'll see how far I get...