Christmas

It was fun to have three Christmas gatherings this year. My mom and dad hosted Christmas Eve with the Maasjo's, Grandma Mac had our entire family, minus my dad and Ryan, for Christmas day and we made it to Don and Cindy's to visit on Sunday.

It was a ton of fun spending time with family and catching up with everyone. It is also exciting to watch our cousins' families grow and watch as Grandma Mac gains more Great-Grandchildren. It is kind of tough sometimes but spending time with our second cousins and nephews makes us smile and understand that God has a plan and we are very blessed with an awesome family.

 

Programs

Having nephews that are now older than 3 means I attend more programs.  It is so much fun to watch the boys perform, sing and participate. Although I am pretty sure Brendan is not a huge fan of the stage I think Carter loves it. 

The first two pictures are of Carter as a penguin during his preschool program. 

 

Lissa was the director of the St. John's Christmas Program this year and it was awesome! 

 

Baby Jesus was played by Brendan and Carter's cousin, Paxton. Paxton was so good! It helped that a former student of mine played Mary. She has several little brothers and sisters and was fabulous with Baby Jesus;) Carter and Brendan, along with Tate Camas made up the Shepard crew this year. Carter is no longer a little sheep, sad but he played a stellar role of Shepard #3.

Have not heard about Gus in awhile...

I bet you have been wondering what Gus has been up to, right?

Well up until tonight he has been pretty well behaved.

Did you catch the up until tonight part????

Yes, tonight our naughty boy came back to us in full Gus form.

Bill and I headed to the school to pump some iron to keep my rock hard bod in shape. (Insert laugh here)
Gus decided that while we were gone he would do the following:
1. Rearrange the snowmen on top of the entertainment center.
2. Move the small table my dad and I re-stained, in the process of moving it he knocked down a few frames and more snowmen over.
3. The BIG ONE: he took a bubbling crock-pot full of 3 pounds of beef roast off of the counter, spilled ALL over the kitchen and into the living room. The pot ended up in the living room upside down.

I laughed, Bill swore, Sandy licked and Gus went outside for some quality thinking time.

5th Place At State=Not to Shabby

I am so proud to be the coach of the 5th place Squirrels! 

This group of girls knew how to push my buttons, work harder than I have ever seen and play with a great deal of heart and perseverance. I absolutely loved this group of girls. Last Spring I was a little concerned about how I was going to get the very different personalities to mesh and play as a team. To be honest some of them could hardly look at one another last year let alone play together. This team was definitely the butterfly team, that flew at the right time. I am so proud of them and all of their hard work!

I love my seniors a great deal. They are an amazing group of girls who lead together and were fun to coach.

Squirrels

I snagged these pictures from the Forum and Jenna's facebook page. I will add more pictures later but wanted to get a few up!

All the hard work

All the hard work, sacrifices and dedication has "played" off! We are off to state next Wednesday:) Most people, unless they are or have been a head coach have no clue what it takes to coach a team to success. The early mornings, late nights, missing out on fun things and spending your entire day on Saturdays at a tournament. MAN is it worth it!!!!!!!!!!!! The "pay off" is amazing. To watch the kids grow, improve and win is the best feeling in the world!
I have been laying in bed for the past two hours, thinking, praying and trying to fall asleep! At about 4:30 I finally gave up and decided to get a jump on the paperwork that is inevitable. I finished a few of the things that need to be done by 9 today, I will just need to get them approved and sent.
I am so proud and excited for this group of girls to experience State VB! They are a wonderful group and I have truly enjoyed coaching them this year.
The best part of this season has been coaching with my friends who I respect more than words can state. Bridget Stowers and Chris Hahn are awesome people and amazing coaches. Between Stower's defensive knowledge and Hahn's motivational drive this team was destined for state.
Now: the work begins again. We start again today at 3:30 with practice and have three practices to prepare for Stanley. Bridget and I watched them last year at the state tournament so we have some basic knowledge of the team but are hoping to gain more today.
GO SQUIRRELS!!

Happy Halloween

We had a whopping 3 Trick-or-Treaters this year!

Gus was not exactly ready for one treater to come and scared the weebie-jeebies out of her. Luckily she is in Mr. Maasjo's class and I was able to talk to her about it and say Gus was very sorry for frightening her!

Here is a pic of our other two treaters.