Merry Christmas to those of you who read my blog:

Last night as I lay in bed trying to recoup from a severe sinus infection I was thinking of something profound that I could leave you all with during this Christmas season to say thank you for being there this year. This is what I came up with:
Lose Your Feathers?

Several years ago I took my granddaughter's Kenzie and Madison down to Fountain Lake to feed the ducks. As soon as we pulled up, the girls were out of the car chattering and laughing, and of course leaving the doors wide open for grandma to close. Madi who was 3 at the time, loved ducks. She raced back and forth the shore line of the lake picking up handfuls of feathers. All of a sudden she yelled out "Hey duckies, one of you losed your feathers"! I'm sure if she would have had her way and those ducks would have come to shore she would have helped each and everyone of them get their feathers back on. Instead she closed her eyes tight, took a deep breath and as her eyes opened again she blew those feathers up to the sky giggling with delight watching as they floated down. My wish for you this Christmas is when your "feather" load gets to heavy, close your eyes and give it all up to our "Protector". Help those whom you can, be good to yourself and remember the magic in a little girls heart to let it go when you know it's too heavy. May God bless each and everyone of you! Love ya! Rita

6 days until Christmas ......

Our weekend was filled with the sounds of little girl giggles and high pitched squeals. The high pitched squeals are when grandpa is chasing the girls through the house playing "catch me if you can". He hides and jumps out at the girls when they go by him. They never tire of this game. On Saturday, we picked up my niece Jessie and I took the girls to the new Chipmunk movie, it was a hilariously, cute film and the girls loved it. The theme is great. More than fame, wealth or having things, having family means the most! McKenzie has started playing the flute and is really picking up on it fast. She could play us a couple of songs. Guess the flute is not the easiest instrument to play because of the way your lips form to blow in it. I put notes on the piano for Madi and she learned to play a song over the weekend too. So, it was fun to hear them play a little duet together.

Six days until Christmas and it is really interesting talking with people. Half of them say they are ready and the other half said they would be putting in some long hours this weekend. I have just a few last minute things to pick up - it is Madison's birthday on Christmas day so we try to set aside an extra special time for her to celebrate her birthday so I am looking for some fun figures to put on her cake. Madison will be 9 on Christmas day!

Kenzie Sings..............

Our granddaughter, Kenzie, was selected to sing twice at the Cancer Telethon in January on our local tv station. She will sing one of Carrie Underwood's songs "Don't Forget To Remember Me" and then she and a friend will sing another song that is still to be determined. She tried out for the telethon in October and found out the results last week. She loves to sing and we are very proud of her.

Today we have our chilli cookoff for the United Way. We have 10 brave chilli makers and they are vying for the "Golden Ladel" which gives them the title of the "best chilli" maker for the next year. My boss has a secret recipe that he brews up, we'll wait to see how he comes out later today.

Christmas is fast approaching and the girls (Kenzie and Madi) will spend the weekend with us. I have a fun filled weekend planned for them. I have some last minute Christmas things to get done but will have all next week to get them done.

We are hoping that Angie and Barry will be able to come home for Christmas, considering baby Saeger could come at anytime, this might prove to be quite a feat.

The Shower ..........

I spent the weekend in the cities at Barry and Angie's. We spent some time visiting, and putting baby's room together. It is cute and definately looks like a boy's room! Angie's shower was on Sunday at Barry's aunt Julie and Uncle Bill's. Angie has some special memories and we had a lot of fun and were able to see family and friends that we hadn't seen for awhile. Barry's mom, Sue, had some really cute baby games for us to play and we had a few good laughs while playing them. My Aunt Carol, Mary Sue and Jack also were able to come. Jack is caring well beyond his years, when I went to say good bye to him, he gently said "your mom is looking down from heaven on you". His 5 year old words were so touching! Michelle came and this is the first time we were able to see her pregnant! She looks so happy!

Roads were great when I left the cities on Monday so I decided to stop in Owatonna and do some shopping. I was able to pick up a few things I was looking for.

Last night I went with Brandy and Kailey to Brayden's Christmas singing program at the high school. The kids are so cute and put everything into their singing.

Tonight I have confirmation and we will have just 2 sessions left until Christmas break and then we start the New Year. I have an interesting group of 9th graders this year and have had some interesting high and low sessions with them. We start the group with prayer and then go into the good things and not so good things that have happened since the last session. A couple of them really go in depth on things troubling them so it leads us to some really good conversation topics and how God works in our everyday lives.

For those of you reading my blog, please keep my cousin Nicole in your prayers she is preparing for surgery on the 14th of December for a tumor on her adrenal gland, if all goes well it will be done by laproscopy and she could be home in one day.