Merry Christmas!!

It's 7:35 on Christmas morning and everyone, except me, is sleeping. Time to wrap a couple more gifts for people in Mark's family, take a shower, wake up Hope (and Mark) to open a few more gifts (wait until Mark sees the best gift I got him this year....he's gonna flip!! It's an autographed 10 year anniversary Packer football. All the signitures are there. I love it!), and then get ready to head to Auntie Cheryl and Uncle Mark's for the Brue family Christmas.

Even though we're so happy thinking about what this day means (the birth of our Savior thousands of years ago), for us there's just a hint of sadness as Mark starts his new job in Appleton tomorrow. He'll leave tonight and spend the night at my Mom's in Stevens Point, then head for Appleton in the morning. Although I know this is a temporary assignment (Thrivent will move him from the home office in Appleton to the home office in Minneapolis in March or so...at least that's what they're telling us), it'll still be hard. It'll be hard for me to figure out how to be a single parent to a 2 year old during the week (he'll be home on weekends) and it'll be super hard for him to be away from Hope. We just have to remember those who serve in our military and do this, without weekends at home, for months and months and months. We can do this until March. Plus, we're just thrilled that Mark will be working for the company he worked for for 17 years. He loved working for Lutheran Brotherhood, but the company let go ALOT of people in the merger with AAL. So, he's back where he belongs, and for that we're so thankful to God.

Christmas Eve worship at our church was nice yesterday afternoon. The choir did their annual contanta. I only sang on one song because I played piano for all the others. After worship was over, Hope headed directly for the pulpit and shouted, "I'm a pastor! I'm a pastor!" I said, "NO!!!" hehehe She does have a heart for God already. You should hear her sing 'Awesome God'. It's so precious.

I pray each of you is enjoying time with family and friends in celebration of the best gift ever given: Jesus Christ. He's amazing and He loves YOU. We'll be heading to central Wisconsin to celebrate this HOLYday with my family this weekend. Can't wait to get together with them all.

Merry Christmas!
From the Brue family to yours

Hope with Santa and Mrs. Claus (aka Grammy and Papa...Mark's parents)

What the &*%^

Oh man!!! Did you happen to see the Packer "game" today?? What the bleep was that all about?? For goodness sakes!!! Home field advantage in the play offs was lost today. We live in Wisconsin. They should have been able to play in that crappy weather. UGH!!! I'm feeling so bad for the Packers right now. I take that back. I'm not feeling bad for them. I'm pretty upset with them. I'll get over it though. That's my team and I love them. But I do have to say that they better look better next week and into the play offs than they did today or we don't stand a stinkin' chance. The good news: Dallas' T.O. (Terrell Owens) got injured in last nights game (which the Cowboys barely won). So normally I'm not one who wants people to get injured, but this is football! hehe

I made it home from church (a 20 mile drive) alive today (obviously...or I wouldn't be writing this post). It was a scary ride home though. It was really windy and the snow was really blowing. I don't think it would have been so bad except I got behind a snow plow and every time he'd plow, the wind would pick up the snow and swirl it around so you couldn't see ANYTHING!! The mini van in back of me thought it would be a good idea to tailgate me and I thought for sure that eventually I was going to get hit head on by a car heading north (I was heading south) because they couldn't see either. I got into the driveway, turned the car off, and I just cried for about a minute. I don't think I've ever been so happy to be home.

About an hour or two after I got home we braved the weather to go to the ER. When I got home Hope had stinky pants (not so unusual). What was unusual though is that her "stinkies" seemed to have had a reddish tint to them. Mark and I both looked at the diaper and looked at Hope and decided it wasn't red after all. Well, not even a half an hour later she had stinkies again, so I changed her again. This time it seemed to be more red than the first one. I told Mark that we were taking her to the ER and he agreed. To make a long story short: they did a smear test (doesn't that sound like fun) and it came back negative, so it wasn't blood. The doctor said that the test is REALLY sensitive, so if there were any trace of blood in her stool it would have detected it. Plus, she didn't have a fever, her heart and everything sounded great, her disposition was still bubbly and happy and she said she didn't hurt anywhere. So we came home and were thankful that she's OK. Again, we weren't thankful at the outcome of the Packer game, but if I had to choose one thing to be happy about, it'd be Hope. DUH!

I probably won't be posting now until after Christmas, so I wish to each of you a very Merry Christmas. May you find joy in the small things: time with family and friends, your favorite Christmas carol on the radio, and salvation that came in the form of a tiny little baby named Jesus thousands of years ago. Merry CHRISTmas everyone! (Now...it's to the basement to watch the Vikings get beat (PLEASE SANTA) and wrap some gifts. hehehe)

I love the color pink, but REALLY...

So I've been fighting this sore throat for over a week now. It's finally won. It's been so sore the past couple of days that I can't stand it. I was almost ready to go see the doctor to see if it was strep, but I thought I'd wait it out. A couple of times during the night I woke up and my right eye was "glued" shut. I managed to get it open somehow. Well, at about 7:30 this morning I woke up to realize that my eye was REALLY "glued" shut and I couldn't open it. I also realized that Hope was soak and wet and, therefore, so was my bed. UGH!!! So here I was, trying to get her out of her wet pajamas, getting the wet sheets off the bed and dry ones on the bed--all with one eye. NOT a pleasant experience this morning. Mark got me a warm, wet rag and I finally managed to get my eye opened. The eyelid was really swollen, it was really tearing up (as a matter of fact, it was tearing while it was still glued shut)and my vision was blurry because of all the gunk. I looked at my eyeball and guess what color it was?? PINK!!! Yep. My favorite color...just not on my eye. I looked up my symptoms on line and came up with pink eye. I called the clinic at 8am sharp and had about 10 minutes to get there so they could see me right away. Diagnosis: pink eye. UGH!! I've never had this. I have no idea where I got it from. Of course my immediate reaction was for Hope's care. I asked the doctor if I needed to stay away from her. He told me to just not let her touch my face. Oh...and he checked my throat, too. Not strep. Praise God for that. I also asked the doctor if I could go to work tomorrow (Sunday) or not. He said that he'd prefer me to wait until Monday, but he also realizes that this time of the year is really busy for children's ministers, so he said I could go. I just have to be careful not to let the kids pile on me. hehehe I can't wait to go and find out which one of the little stinkers gave this to me. Just kidding. So I'll go to church tomorrow with my red, swollen eye, and I'll tell people that Mark beat me up. hehehe Tomorrow is the last Sunday practice for the children's program before we lead worship next Sunday, so it's a good thing I can go.

That's it from here. Time to go put some more drops in my eyes. Like I said before, I love pink, but I think it looks better on ME than on my eyeball.

2007 Sports Illustrated Man of the Year

I've added a new link to the right. Check it out. The article and the pictures are great!! If you haven't guessed by now who they've chosen for this award, it's Uncle Brett!!!

Ugh and Ugh!!

OK...so I haven't posted anything since the Cowgirls beat the Packers on Thursday night. In all honesty, it took me a couple of days to get over the sting. It's not that the Packers lost (I can handle that---every true Packer fan, although we don't like to lose, are used to losing), but it's that they lost to the COWGIRLS!!! There were many things about the game that were unfair. Basically, the Cowgirls' A-team had to play the Packers B-team because we had a couple of our key players injured. And then there was that hit to Brett Favre early in the 2nd quarter that put him out for the rest of the game. My stomach was sick! NOT BRETT!!! Now keep in mind that up until that point, Brett was not having the game of his life. He was trying to hard. Throwing passes he never should have thrown...only to go into the hands of the enemy and over the goal line for points. There are two silver linings to this loss as I see it. One is that anyone who doubted that Aaron Rogers will be a great QB for the Pack when Brett retires, well, I think they've probably changed their minds now. Aaron did an AWESOME job on Thursday night!! He showed that he's got what it takes to be a QB in the NFL. He played great under pressure (he even threw for his first 2 TDs in his NFL career). The team worked with him and really let him lead. So I have hope that the Packers won't descend to the mirey deep when Brett retires. The other silver lining is that if we do have to meet the Cowboys in the play offs, I'm pretty confident we can win. By then all of our guys will be healthy(God willing) and we can play the game we know we can play. So Cowgirls: BRING IT ON!!!

OK...enough about football.

Now on to the second UGH. We got snow yesterday. I hate winter!! It'd be great if I could stay cozied up by the fireplace with my family, but unfortunately, we still have to do the every day things in the winter. I did make it to church today, but the back roads were pretty slick at times. All of the people who have been wishing for a white Christmas got their wishes. I'm sure we won't see the ground again until mid-late June. hehehe OK...so it might be as early as April, but still, it'll be a long time before we see grass again. This is the time of the year I so miss living in the South.

Oh...and my Mom fell yesterday (there was a patch of ice under the snow that she didn't see...all because her landlord didn't bother plowing until later in the day). Fortunately nothing is broken. She, like Brett Favre, injured her elbow and her shoulder. Nothing serious, just inconvenient.

We took Hope to see Santa and Mrs. Claus yesterday (aka Grammy and Papa). She sat on Grammy's lap but didn't have anything to do with Santa until they took a break and he saw her in the hallway. Then she warmed up a little to him. I'll post pictures later. One of these days she won't be afraid of the big guy in the red suit.

One more thing. This is really exciting!! Mark got a new job. YEAH!!! He will soon be among the employed. He'll be working for the Thriven home office in Appleton, WI. When he went to interview for the job last week I was already starting to get stressed out about being a "single" parent and getting the house ready to be put on the market. For those of you not familiar with Wisconsin geography, Appleton is about 3.5-4 hours west of River Falls. It's near Green Bay. There would be definite advantages to moving there for sure, but like I said, I had NO idea how I was going to do all the every day things that need to be done AND get the house cleaned and ready to sell. The really good news: Mark will only be working in Appleton for a few months. They want to pilot this same program at the Minneapolis home office and they want him to be the lead. So we don't have to move after all. YEAH!!! It'll be really hard the next few months (especially on Hope), but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It's a great job and from what Mark knows from when he used to work for Lutheran Brotherhood, he'll probably be able to retire (at least from that company) in 7-8 years. He's really looking forward to this new job (it's some type of a research job which is what he LOVES) and getting back to work for a company he's always loved. So it's a win-win situation. Thank you, Lord, for providing for our family.

One other bit of news before I go. We'll be registering Hope for pre-school come February. Can you believe it?? Didn't we just bring her home from the hospital?? There's a great pre-school in River Falls that she'll be going to. The teachers are all so, so good and they're friends of mine. We're hoping that we can get her in the Wed/Fri class because that'll work out best for my schedule at work. I had a dream the other night that I took her to pre school for the first time and as I left I just cried!! I'm sure that's exactly how it'll happen. Now we just have to get her potty trained AND able to be with someone other than Mommy. She'll probably cry the first few days, but hopefully that won't last for long.

Have a great day!! Thanks for checking in.