Spring or Fall?

It's cold. Neighbors are combining corn. Fields look like they have been cultivated for the winter. So, my question is, is it spring or is it fall?

We are patiently waiting for the frost to come out of the ground and the melted snow and rain water to go away! David is anxious about getting out in the field to get the crops planted. So am I!! I can't wait to be able to mow the lawn and putter with my flowers and attempt--Gasp--to plant a vegetable garden. I have to admit the recent rain and cool weather has allowed me to get some much needed work done around the house.

A few big things are coming up! Mothers Day is a little over a week away so we will be having our annual Mothers Day dinner and the following week is Braydens Baptism-YAY- Sean and Amber have asked Dave and I to be Godparents, so look for more interesting blogs to come, until then, Happy Spring!!

Laundry Room Remodel!

It wasn't really a remodel but paint, a mirror, some curtains, and a new countertop have made all the difference!! Now all we need is the new border!!

Welcome to the World, Brayden Lee Jerome!!

March 29, 2009- I invited Mom and Dad, Sean and Amber and Jamie over to play our new Wii and to have supper. Amber was feeling and looking (no offense honey) miserable. She couldn't get comfortable, couldn't eat anything but tums, and constantly had to pee. She wasn't enjoying herself but she did play a couple games of bowling and tried the ski jump. When they left, I prayed that God would help ease some of the discomfort.

March 30,2009-4am- I woke up and could not for the life of me get back to sleep. I tossed and turned, waiting for the alarm clock to go off at 6:15. At 5:45 my cell phone was whistling at me. (I cannot help it if it thinks I am beautiful ;) I jumped up to see what was up! It was a text message from Amber saying to call her or Sean when I woke up! I immediately called them back to find out her water broke at 3:30am and that they were at the hospital! They also asked if I could drive to Fargo to their apartment and get their bags and the baby things before the storm hit. So Mom and I left for GF at 7am and grabbed their list and keys, jumped into the car drove to starbucks. I can't do ANYTHING without my morning cup of java. THEN to Fargo, The whole trip down and back took 4 hours due to the flooded interstate and the longest detour known to man! Especially when you follow a combine at 15mph for 5 miles! The rest of the day was a blur!! I went into the delivery room at about 20 minutes after 6 and Amber started pushing at 20 min. to 7. I had my camera at the ready and was able to stay from start to finish. Let me tell you something. I have had a few "happiest days" of my life. Graduations, Amber and Seans wedding, MY wedding, etc. but THIS experience was by far the most awe inspiring, happy moments I have ever had the pleasure of living! I am so thankful that Sean and Amber let me stay for it! To witness Braydens birth at 8:41 pm was surreal almost! I have known since October that the little guy was about to enter our family. I had felt him kick and seen him growing or more appropriately Ambers tummy was growing. But to actually see this baby I already loved as my nephew be born was truly amazing! It was very hard to see Amber in so much pain, but knowing that the payoff is a perfect, pink, baby made it a little easier and I bawled like a toddler when he made his appearance!! I had to take one last picture of just the two of them!! Meet Baby Brayden!

Meeting Grandma Hanssen for the first time!

Meeting Grandpa Hanssen for the first time! I think Grandpa is almost crying!

WELCOME TO THE WORLD, Baby BRAYDEN!! God Bless You Little One!

School Spirit!

In honor of the Dakota Prairie Knights boys basketball team playing in the state tournament, I thought I should do a blog about school spirit.

Alot of my facebook friends are able to attend the game tonight in Minot and I will be watching at home on tv. Never fear though, I am already wearing DP's school colors in an effort to show my support. Not that my dogs give a rawhide. They are the only ones here to witness my show of school pride! I am proud of those boys because this is the first time my school (for my Jr. and Sr. year) has ever been to the state tournament as a unified school! The DP Tolna girls went to state my Jr. year. But still, this is huge! I graduated from DP 14 yrs ago! Wow, does that make me sound old. I still have school spirit.

This entire last week I have been trying very hard to remember the words to the school song. I can still sing Unity's school song!

All hail Spartans hail, we are the sons of Unity!

Stand up and cheer Spartans cheer!

Shout out yours rahs from sea to shining sea! RAH RAH RAH.

Win Spartans win! We are a team that won't give in.

A victory for Unity!

All hail Spartans Hail!

But for some reason, I cannot recall a couple lines of the Dakota Prairie song.

Go Dakota Prairie Knights, Let's win this game tonight!

We'll let our spirit lead us on to victry show your power and might (Thanks Amber)

show our power and might

RAH RAH RAH

We are proud of what we've become!

Leading on to be #1

We have what others lack

Let's cheer for the Teal and Black!

If any of you remember please help me out!! Anyhoo, I have so much school spirit that I can now cheer for Lakota! My cousins attend school there and I cheer for them! At the girls state B tourney I cheered for Fordville Lankin Park River! They took 2nd! Now I am cheering for MY old school! Ah, the memories! Mr. Reinholz yelling at Mike McBain because he heard him swear in the hallway! Mr. Schock and his sense of humor! Gay Ray Smith, Mr. Eberhardt being kidnapped by Indians, and Mr. Stovers' coffee breath! (Thorsons' please don't repeat that! ;))

Who can forget Mr. Graupe bouncing on the folding chair onto the basketball court! Or Mr. Flem banging his cane on the desk while yelling "YOU'RE GIVING ME ULCERS!" I love to reminisce about those great years of my life, though I would NEVER go back and relive them! OH one more. Mr. Boese with gum on his pants in Kansas City, or nailing his pant leg to the frame of the garden shed we helped build! Funny stuff! One of the best memories was when we the class of 1995 had Sr. privileges. Senior Lounge to be exact. We kyped cable from across the alley so we could watch sports and music videos. The guys hid cases of soda in the rafters. Good times, Good times. *wipes tear*

School spirit lost is terrible thing. It is sad really that some can't identify because of bad experiences during their school yrs. I sit here wearing Teal, Black and White, waiting for 8:15 pm to roll around so that I can see my High School make a name for itself at the state class B boys basketball tournament, humming the school song, remembering old cheers, and filled with Dakota Prairie Pride!

LET"S GO KNIGHTS!!!!!!!!

Oh and if they lose right away--GO BOMBERS!!

What do you see in this picture? The correct answer is snow. This was the view out of the living room window on Tues. March 10. We could see all of 75 feet! I say that because we could see just across our driveway and nothing beyond!

It was a north wind so we were pretty well protected right in our yard. This was the view when it first got started at about 11am. Not so nice.

Wednesday when we woke up, the storm had ended and left beauty in its wake! The snowcapped trees and the pillowy looking (not feeling) drifts! Gorgeous!

This is out of the living room looking south. The juniper bush/tree covered with snow is always beautiful!

We only had 2 inches of new snow but with the 45 mph winds, it certainly got nasty! Fargo received around 10 inches and a friend of mine had his car and minivan completely buried!

Glad it wasn't me!

Impromptu Baby Shower

Sunday March 8th, I hosted an impromtu baby shower for Amber and Sean. Mom and I had both been buying items for baby Rauschendorfer forever so I decided it was time we give them their gifts.

They received some awesome things! Grandma Hanssen gave them a set of towels and washclothes and also some matching burp cloths.

Johnsons Baby Wash is always needed to make baby smell human again after , well.......you know!

Umm.......Sean? I think THAT one is for AMBER!

I think Sean was doing a happy dance! Not really sure. I know he was excited to get the bottle rack!

OOOOOO Bottles! This is the beginning of the "themed" gifts from Dave and I. This particular gift of Playtex bottles with drop in liners is the "IN" gift.

Here is the "OUT" gift--diapers and wipes. Do you think the ratio is about right? 72 diapers to 385 wipes? That sounds about right.........

This one is kind of a you-had-to-be-there moment. Sean is holding another little something I got them. It is 3 little toys that clip onto the handleof the carseat. One of them squeaks. Buddy heard the squeaker and wanted the toy so bad! He would even hold up his paw like he was saying "I'll shake you for it!"

We had a good day filled with food and family! We even got to eat on our new dining set!

You can see how tight of a squeeze it is between the top of the china hutch and the ceiling. About 4 inches!

These are the placemats we received from Sean and Amber as a wedding gift. That is what we are using as our inspiration for the room.

Thes are our paint chips in order of our preference. Soukous Red (far left) is the Winner!

I have already started to paint.

If anyone is really bored, I do have an extra brush and roller!

Real Grown Up Furniture!

As you all know, David and I received China for our wedding. We started out thinking that we would have the best cardboard box china cabinet ever made! Then the reality set in of the possibility that the dogs would think the boxes were their territory to mark. The thought while funny (can you see the mini weiner dogs lifting a leg to pee on a box?) was sobering. We can't serve off china that has been peed on. Period. No matter how much it gets washed after. So Dave and I set out on an adventure in furniture shopping. It was the "Three Little Bears"! "This one is tooo small" "this one is tooo big" "this one is tooo light" "this one is tooo dark"! "This one is tooo expensive!" and on and on. Yesterday we went into Conlins in Grand Forks just thinking that I could show Dave a Broyhill set I had seen earlier last week. He hated it! It was very antique looking and made of real oak so it had worm holes and knot holes in it or foodcatchers as Dave called them. It was also VERY expensive. Then while walking through the store, we rounded a corner and I swear, we heard Angels sing! The Heavens opened up and a BEAUTIFUL light shone on a table and china cabinet on the backwall of the store! It wasn't too dark or too light, it wasn't too small--though a teensy bit big. It was perfect. Our breaths quickened as we hastily looked for the price. Not tooo expensive either! Could it be? Could this cherry finished table really be what we were looking for? We inquired about extra chairs. Still not bad. Our salesperson gave us a card along with the info that the set was being clearanced out by Broyhill and this china hutch was the VERY LAST one! Man oh man! I was getting shaky! David always calm and cool, said "We would like to check out a couple other places."

"WHAT!?" I thought in my head. "But its the LAST ONE!" I wanted to shout but refrained from doing so. I didn't want the other customers thinking I had touretz.

We left the store and checked out Zimmermans which is WAYYY overpriced. Oh and I am pretty sure that we were the first customers of the day there. The woman working seemed overly friendly and like she needed some human contact or she might just snap. I hear sofas aren't sparkling conversationalists. Anywhoo, we then went to Ashley where I had originally fallen in love with a beautiful dining set that was being discontinued. Dave thought the China Hutch to be too small. GREAT! Here we go again! We left the store en route to Menards (looking at lumber always helps ME make decisions). I was almost afraid Dave was so discouraged he was going to BUILD us a table, chairs, and china cabinet. He isn't too keen on wood working so that was a scary thought. Besides, he would first need to finish the meat tenderizer he wanted to make me 3 years ago. (Yep I married the pick of the litter! A homemade meat tenderizer!) He bought a little knob like thingy --yes I AM very technical ;)

Back in the car, Dave says, "Where to?" I just shrug my shoulders putting the ball in HIS court. "Should we go back to Conlins?" David asks. I calmly said "Sure". A quick check of the time put me in panic mode 4:28. They close at 5. Dave doesn't drive fast. UH OH!!!!! We got back there and Dave looked it over and said "We'll take it." I nearly fainted (but kept my composure) and gave David all of our Wedding money. This is the product of our afternoon.

When you visit, you won't have to eat off of the $15 rummage sale table! We have a real grown up table now with matching chairs and everything! P.S. The china will look like it belongs on THIS table!