Christmas 2007

I finally have gotten around to getting some pictures up! Here are some from Christmas.

Family portrait in front of the tree on Christmas Eve. Shannon and the kids went to Mass with the family, and I had to go to work.

The Ramsay Grandkids: Madeleine, Noah, and Maia

The Pucketts

Gramma and Grandpa with the grandkids.

Madeleine is so excited it's Christmas Eve!

Noah in his Christmas jammies.

Maia in her Christmas jammies with Daddy.

The tree on Christmas morning. It was our first Christmas at the Ramsay Villa. It was very nice to have so much room to spread out and be comfortable.

Madeleine's stocking (left) and Noah's stocking (right) were both cross-stitched by my mom. Madeleine's was sewn together by my grandmother in 2005, and we first used it for that Christmas. Deb Gross, a good friend of the family, made Noah's stocking for us this year.

Santa Baby Maia!

Maggie, Noah, Andy, and Maia on Christmas morning.

The next few pictures are us doing stockings, which ends up being a kind of free-for-all, especially now with the kids.

Noah and Daddy open a present. This is one of the coupl times Noah was interested in helping open presents, and actually fell asleep about halfway through.

Madeleine considered herself Official Unwrapping Supervisor.

After his nap, Noah was much more ready to play with the new toys.

Yay Christmas!

My New Year's Resolution:

GET ORGANIZED!

I'd put up pictures of my messy home, but I'm too embarrassed. Just know that it's really, really bad. Not dirty, much, really. Those two British chicks who clean homes on BBC America aren't going to bust in and start culturing my carpet for microbes and cleaning my furniture with hairspray. There's just stuff everywhere, and no good way or where to put it.

Yet.

I have resolved to get this house in shape. We will be able to store and access our hobby items easily. We will be able to park in the garage. We will be able to find our seasonally appropriate clothing quickly. I have decided to purchase one or two organizing tools with each round of big groceries (aka payday groceries) to help bust the clutter. Today, I bought a long wire shelf for the laundry room, a wall hanger for the iron and ironing board, and a pack of three large sized Space Bags. The ironing board hanger is already up and functioning. The shelf will go up in the next week. The Space Bags are for the children's outgrown clothes that are currently housed in diaper boxes, piled up in the garage and threatening to completely block our access to the rest of the crap in the garage. We are planning on clearing out the guest room and turning it into a room for the boy, which will help to clear out Madeleine's room and give each of them their own space. We are finding that Madeleine is needing a place to go and play with less than baby-proofed toys and games. We are also noticing that she really needs her own space to chill out for a few minutes once in a way, to ward off a full blown melty whiney tantrum.

When we get thing a little more under control, maybe I'll post pictures about our progress. We've got a ways to go, some more Space Bags and shelving units before we get to that point, though. I'm serious, we're in pretty bad shape, and it's going to take all year and then some.

Back from Christmas Break

I didn't really take a Christmas break from blogging, I just haven't gotten around to posting lately. I've got tons of pictures from December to post, I just haven't had the time to do it.

Stay tuned, I'll put some new stuff up soon. Currently, I'm watching our weird Missouri weather. We've had two days of 70 degree weather, topped off this afternoon with tornado watches and even a warning for us here in Callaway county. The sky looked very funny for a while, and then we got some hail and strong rain for about 20 minutes. We don't have a basement, but I was all ready to hustle the kids and the cat into our laundry room, which is our most interior room. (I swear every spring that our next home WILL have a basement). Things are much calmer now, but we're watching the next line of storms comming from the east.

The Great Midwestern Ice Storm of 2007 (insert dramatic news sound effects here)

We survived the Great Ice Storm of 2007. Actually, we didn't fare too badly, considering that as I type this, 1200 homes in our county are still without power. Our power was out for about 12 hours on Tuesday, but we were able to spend the day at Mom and Dad's. Our food was still good, and it wasn't cold enough for the pipes to freeze. Our two baby trees in the front yard to still small and bendy, so they didn't suffer any damage. Here are pictures from around Fulton and our yard. (Taken with my Treo, so they aren't the best, but you get the idea.)
Hockaday Hill.
Limbs on a power line on Market street, across from Ovid Bell Press.
Limbs snapped off at the top on Cote Sans Dessein.
More damage on Old Jefferson City Rd
Our mailbox.

My birdbath.
Grass in the front yard. It's hard to tell how thick the ice is, but it's about 3/4 of an inch on some of the blades.
Our little Charlie Brown red maple.
Icicles on the patio furniture.
Icicles on the gutter.

REA and AmerenUE are working hard to get power restored to Callaway and Cole Counties. We are expecting another front this weekend, bringing snow this time, so here's hoping everyone gets their heat back soon!

You Spin Me Right Around, Baby, Right Around, Like A Record, Baby

So the weather has taken a turn for the nasty this week, and on my way to work on Thursday evening, I had my first weather related accident on hwy 63 north. I was being careful, I was only going 45-50 mph,and I was in 4WD, and my rear wheels slipped to the right, then to the left, and then back to the right again and into a full spin. I made two full rotations across the two lanes of highway, and came to rest on the embankment of the median. It all happened to fast for me to try and correct myself, not that I could have regained control on that icy stuff anyway. Thankfully, I didn't hit anything at all. Nothing - not a tree, highway sign, or especially another car. And thankfully, it happened at a good part of that highway, too. There are lots of little creeks with steep ravines, and if I had gone off the road near any of them, I would have been seriously injured and so would my car. But, thank you saints and angels, I was only shaky, and the car is totally fine. I gave myself a few minutes to chill out, called work to tell them I would be a few minutes late, and backed of the embankment. The ditch was shallow, and I was able to simply drive out of it without any problems. The only thing different about my car was my Holy Family medal flipped completely around and over my rear view mirror, I guess from the spin and sudden stop, enertia and all that physics stuff. I am grateful I didn't learn any other physics lessons in the accident. I have never lost control of a vehicle like that and it was scary as hell. You can still see my tire tracks if you drive by that particular part of hwy 63, just south of Turkey Creek.

So, in honor of my spin, here is a video of Noah spinning to the music of the Sit N Spin.

Happy ChristmasTime!

Click to watch the Cernekas celebrate!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1190466340

NCYC

I totally forgot I got this done. I just needed to add some captions, and it's all ready to post.

We're home from Columbus and right back at the craziness that is work, ministry, family, and preschool. It was a good conference for Oddwalk. Lots of people are more aware than they ever thought they'd be of the keytar. We got the see the new CD, finally! We got to see, however briefly, ministry friends that we only get to visit with one or two times a year. We were very lucky to have Mom and Dad along to watch the kids, and we all had a good time.

The new CD!
GIA's booth.
The miniature "Santa Maria" was actually a backyard climbing play structure. They allowed people up on it to take pictures.

Erin H and Madeleine

Erin h rocks the keytar.

Noah rocks the keytar.
bMom, Dad and the kids aboard the Santa Maria.
Noah gets a ride on Shannon's shoulders.
He's got a thing for people's mouths and teeth these days. It's kind of yucky.
Orin.

bSmallfish, our next-booth neighbors, had this inflatable rainbow unicorn that Madeleine *loved"*.
We couldn't eat dinner until after the exhibit hall closed at 7:30 pm, and the kids were usually done done done by the time the meal was over. Madeleine knelt on the floor and put her head down on the bench and fell asleep here at Gordon Biersch.


Orin and Noah.

This is a little grainy because I took it through our hotel window, but those long white things are all motorcoaches lined up outside the Nationwide Arena to take the participants back to their hotels after the evening session. They lined up for 3-4 blocks in each direction from the Arena.
Madeleine helped by handing out flyers and stickers. She loved it! She was great at it, too, actually chasing people down to give them stuff.
She got a lot of traders in return - beads, candy, flashlights, stuffed animlas, etc.
Noah, once again rockin' the keytar. Orin put it in his lap and then walked away, that's why my foot is in the picture, keeping it from falling to the floor.
Saturday was Keytar Appreciation Day.

The kids celebrated KAD in their own special ways.
The winner of the inflatable keytar, who also happens to be one of Shannon's teens.
Madeleine snapped a picture of Granpa at dinner.Another picture of a sleepy kid at dinner.

...and he's out.
The girl was starting to get droopy, too.
Noah, having some naked butt time, crawled into the basket of th stroller.

Playing checkers at Cracker Barrel on a lunch break.