request for prayer

**Edited to add** Thank you for praying! Sarah made it out of a successful surgery and is now at home. She's on bed rest for the next two weeks, so please keep her in your prayers. If you know her, then you're aware the confinement will be the toughest part of this whole ordeal. :)

This is Sarah P.

She's a dear friend of our family and one of Reesie's favorite people in the whole world. In an hour she's going to have surgery on her back. At 22 years old, she's suffered chronic pain for a long time. We praying this surgery will fix the problem and she'll be back in business in no time at all. Would you please pray with us? We're believing God for a complete healing and speedy recovery. Thank you bloggers, we'll keep you updated!

my bad

Why peekaboo isn't effective at getting kids to smile when taking a picture, exhibit one:

Eventually Big Cousin figured it out.

Poor Chica did not.

love, the griswolds

While my mom had most of the family in town over Thanksgiving, she decided to get a picture for her Christmas card. It's easier said than done. Especially when three of the people were under the age of three and we had no photographer.

Josh positioned the camera while the rest of us...well, it's hard to say what we were doing.

Doesn't every family have at least one picture like this??

The storm before the calm...

when you're wrangling kids, wiping noses, combing hair...

Wouldn't it be great if everyone used an outtake for their Christmas card?

It'd be a giant leap for authenticity.

And would surely make your loved ones crack up when they opened their mail.

thanksgiving round up

Anytime I go, say 48 hours without posting anything to our little blog, Chica's fans let us know. They're loyal fans you see. And if they have to go more than a few days without updates of our darling daughter's life, it makes for one disgruntled fan club. They call, text or twitter to let us know they ain't happy about the lack of blog progress. If blog readers aren't happy, ain't nobody happy. Eventually, I succumb to the pressure of people pleasing and before you know it, bam, an update appears. They get their Chica fix and we can carry on.

Funny thing is, this past week we haven't fielded any complaints regarding recent blog neglect. Turns out Chica's people were having too much fun seeing her face to face. We returned to the homeland for Thanksgiving, and our families were so excited to see Reesie that her presence in their homes superseded her absence on the blog. Suckers. :)

This is our family Thanksgiving picture. I must say I was very pleased with Chica's bow placement for the day. It was perfection.


First we went to Big Girl's Great-Grams' house.


While most of the family played football, we stayed at Grams' house to play and watch Aunt Sandra perform in the Chicago parade. Reesie loved stacking these blocks and toppling them over.


Her father played with these blocks when he was her age. Check out that bow placement.


Danny's grandparents put an addition on the back of their house and when they did, this former exterior window became an instant attraction. The kids would take turns walking up to the window, ordering something to drink and Grams would deliver it to them through the window.


Twenty years later, and it has yet to lose its novelty. Order up!


After dinner at Grams' house, we stopped by to see a couple of Dan's aunts before heading to my mom's house. She had her entire extended family over. Already stuffed, I grazed anyway the rest of the day.

Friday morning at 3:45 A.M. I was in line at Kohls. My name is Rachel and I'm addicted to Black Friday shopping. My mom, sister and I go every year and there's nothing like it. We nabbed some incredible deals, which were totally worth the lack of sleep. (As a girl whose love language is sleeping in, there's not much that can lure me out of bed in the middle of the night.)

I wish I would have taken a picture of us in line, but we were too busy devising our shopping strategy. Plus, who in their right mind wants a picture of themselves at 4:00 in the morning??

Saturday Daniel went to the MU vs. KU football game, and we rocked those chicken hawks! Saturday night, we drove through the night and arrived safely in our driveway at 5:00 A.M. thankful for safe travel, quality family time...and appeased blog readers.

Good night!

here's hoping...

Here's hoping that whatever journey you're on is worth the bad hair you risk having along the way.


And that you're too busy enjoying the ride to notice it.

T.M.I. alert!

Warning bloggers. Continue reading this post if and only if you are truly invested in the daily/messy happenings of our life. What I'm about to share is something that perhaps only those who are parents can truly understand or share in my excitement. I'm documenting this for the sole purpose of remembering when it happened, because my memory is worse than my cooking.

(I hope you're not cooking.)

(And I really hope Chica doesn't kill me someday for over sharing.)

On Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Reesie went on the Big Girl Potty for the very first time. She told me she needed to go, I raced her into the bathroom, wrestled her clothes off and put her on the toilet, just in the nick of time. We barely made it, and I'm praising the good Lord we did. Girlfriend had two M&Ms to celebrate her accomplishment.

I know this is just the beginning of what's to come in the realm of all things potty related, but we're SO proud of her! Hope this post didn't leave you feeling queasy. I promise I'll get something new up by Monday so you don't have to look at this for long.

GO Reesie!!

behavior report card

Yesterday as I was picking Chica up from school, one of her teachers pulled me aside because she had a Reesie story to share with me.

Uh oh.

My daughter's "school" has a beautiful indoor playground complete with a huge, soft, tree slide. (Think play area at the mall.) Apparently, during indoor playtime, Chica gathered several of her classmates together and climbed to the very top of the tree slide where she proceeded to perform a little ditty for the rest of her class. Miss Stephanie said Chica's number consisted of singing, dancing and arm movements. She said the hostage classmates were captivated throughout the entire performance.

I'm sure they were.

I wonder if their complete attention stemmed from fear of being held against their will or if the performance was packed with shock value. Truly, I'd rather not know.

Since ignorant bliss is no longer an option, I must look for another source of comfort in handling this situation.

Diverting the blame.

To make certain I've played no part in contributing to my daughter's shenanigans, I will now ponder the age old debate: Nature vs. Nurture.

In one corner we have Nurture. The child does something because she's been trained to do so. Somewhere along the way she learned that forcing peers to sit through a mini-recital was a good idea. One thing in particular supports the nurture argument. Chica's grandparents came to visit last weekend.

She had three whole days of undivided attention. That will boost a girl's confidence. It's quite possible she's projecting their doting tendencies onto everyone else she encounters. Heaven help me.

On the other hand we have Nature. Genetics. Chromosomes, mitosis, and the whatnot. Inherited characteristics passed down from generation to generation. If nature caused my daughter to entertain others against their will, then she did so because its in her makeup. I'd like to end with nature right there, but I can't shake a conversation I had with my mom. When I called her to tell her the story, she cracked up saying, "I know exactly who that sounds like! She reminds me of someone else I know!" Heaven help me.

If you must know, she was referring to Daniel.