The Anderson's Blog

Robin, Ward, Cindy, Jason and I are rocking out to Guitar Hero right now.  Jason won’t let me do 80’s / early 90’s songs…. 😦

For the first time, Cindy and Robin are doing pretty good.  Jason’s showing off getting 90% on Medium level.  He must have been practicing when I wasn’t looking (or he took guitar lessons in his past).

Bailey and Sydney are playing dress up with my old halloween and dance costumes.  Bailey came out in my sister’s 1st dance costume and it fit her good.  Not sure what year she started, but Bailey is just in Kindergarten?!! Laura, it’s that bright pink and black one.   The one where you and I took our pictures together that year.

 Sydney (who is in the 4th grade) came out in my costumes that I wore when I was in my 6th grade dance recital.  I must have have been a lot shorter cause it was showing a lot of waist and was tight on her.  Back when I wore those we were not allowed to show any waist.  It was that red vest that I wore with the black boe tie and black pants during the opening song of that year’s recital.  It was the year I started doing pointe and danced with the 9th and 10th grade class.

We just got home and unpacked from Columbus for the Janicek immediate family Christmas. This was an awesome weekend because everyone got to relax and the kids were able to hang out with us. Katlynn was just starting to crawl, so she can get around, but not too fast yet. Jackson was just as adorable as ever. He’s got a lot of boy in him, but is VERY well behaved (except in church). He was prevoked a lot. Bailey was being exceptionally good during church because she was promised she could take the dogs for a walk if she was good.

We got to columbus yesterday just before noon and had godfathers pizza (yum yum). Then played wii and opened gifts. Then enjoyed sandwiches and bean soup and potatoe soup. Everyone was stinky afterwards. Laura, robert, jason and I stayed up late and played ER and CSI on the wii. Then before everyone took off today, we ate a fabulous dinner. I ate sooo much good food, and haven’t felt good since. But it was worth it.   We enjoyed dessert with Grandma & Grandpa Janicek and then taught them how to play Apples to Apples.

Our Christmas has been a busy couple of days like most.

On Christmas Eve Day, Bailey spent the entire day with Grandma Cindy helping to prepare for the evening feast.  Luckily, she opened her apron, cooking hat and hot pads gift from Grandma Cindy early.  She made her sugar cookies for Santa and was Grandma’s right hand for the day.  I think this really excited her because she was WIRED when we finally got over there.  She got to play with her cousin’s that she doesn’t get to see very often, so that was awesome!  Bob White and her really had a great time hanging out together.  We got a Money Tree!  How could you ask for anything better than that!  I hope it keeps growing!  Aunt Sandy got her a cross necklace.

At about 9:00 pm, she asked if we could go home so she wouldn’t miss Santa Clause.  And when we finally got home at 11:30 pm, she was relieved to see that Santa had not come yet.  She was super excited setting out her corn for the Reindeers and cookies & milk for Santa.  We read “Frosty the Snowman” and off to sleep she went.

On Christmas Day, I picked Grandma Charlotte up at 7:30 am.  She said “I think I’m the most excited kid in this town for today, I’ve been up since 5:30 am”.  We got to the house and got settled.  It was around 8:30 am when Bailey finally emerged from her bedroom with her crazy hair.  She looked around the room and couldn’t tell which one’s Santa brought.  She is not one to really look at the tree and study which one’s are hers, so she didn’t know that the large pile on the couch was actually Santa’s gifts.  So, note to self in future, write TO BAILEY ANDERSON FROM SANTA on her gifts.  Santa brought her lip gloss, stampers, a Barbie book, Pajama’s, wii stearing wheel, mario cart & her favorite thing that she wasn’t expecting, a SNOW BOARD.  Good thing they were planning on going sledding that afternoon.  She also got Wii Boogie from Grandma Charlotte, but we spent the rest of the morning playing the game she asked santa for, Mario Kart. 

After sledding and snow boarding, we got cleaned up and packed up to head over to Grandpa Rick’s.  The kids hung out most the night before dinner playing Mario Kart downstairs.  Then, we enjoyed a Prime Rib dinner and then sat down to open presents.  WOW, was the paper flying.  The night ended with everyone relaxing downstairs playing Guitar Hero.  Bailey mentioned she can’t wait to get the game home so she can play it herself. 

At 10:00 pm, you could see she was exhausted.  Relunctantly, she put on her pajamas from Santa.  She doesn’t think the pink and white stripes looks good on her, but luckily everyone else liked them so she lost that battle.  We curled up on the couch so she could try and fall asleep.  Finally around 11 ish, everyone started heading out so she could get to sleep.  This morning, she is waking up to her uncles care.  She is going to go to lunch with Cara & Craig and then off to a movie with them.  It should be interesting to see which movie they go to…. she told Santa she wanted the movie Bolt for Christmas, but she didn’t realize it was still in the theatre.  But there are so many other movies she wants to see…..

I have a brother-in-law and a good friend that live in Cedar Rapids.  These numbers about how the flood affected their business community are CRAZY!  Read on…

The results of a Vernon Research Group study conducted between September and November 2008 of Cedar Rapids’ small business owners are in and the assembled information is stunning. “I think everyone involved knew we would see a profound impact,” said Cedar Rapids Small Business Recovery Group (CRSBRG) President, Gary Ficken. “But the numbers are of a proportion that will surprise even the federal agencies and members of Congress.” Significant among the findings:

• Approximately 1,250 jobs were washed away by the flood
• Nearly $1.5 billion in economic impact has been felt in the community from the effect of the flood on small businesses
• The approximate loss of buildings and their contents was over $250 million
• Small business owners anticipate accumulating nearly $90 million in additional debt
• 62% of affected business have moved to a new location
• Retail and entertainment/restaurant establishments were hardest hit
• Nearly 40 small business owners lost their homes, and had to cope with both a business and a personal loss, while almost 250 small business owners employed individuals who lost their home to the flood
• The total amount of property taxes estimated to have been paid by small businesses is nearly $12 million, with an estimated $1 million lost due to the 3% of businesses which have closed and report they will not reopen
  

Bailey wrote a letter to Santa at school a few weeks back asking for an extra Wii Remote, the game Mario Kart and the movie bolt.  It was a very cute letter.  She did it in red and green letters.

On Saturday, she gave the letter to her grandpa Rick, who is a postman at the N’side Post Office.  He was to mail it to Santa for her.  Tonight, Tuesday night, when we got home from seeing the Palmers & Knutsons, there was a letter in the mailbox from Santa to Bailey.  As we read it, she asked, “how did he get my letter so quickly?  how did I get his letter back so quickly?”  I told her that grandpa had special access to Santa Clause.  She asked for me specifics.  I told her she needed to ask Grandpa Rick how it exactly works.  I hope Grandpa has a good story to tell.

Sydney and Bailey worked on art projects all day today.  Then, they brought the parents through their art gallery at the end of the evening.  They made snowflakes, life size nutcrackers, flowers & colored Christmas pictures.  It was  really cute.  They spent a lot of time on it.  She also worked hard on coloring pictures for Grandma & Grandpa’s Coupon book today.  Tomorrow she should finish up coloring Grandma Charlotte’s Christmas Coloring Book. 

She went to bed saying “I really wish this was Christmas Eve!  I can’t wait for one more day!”

After receiving 10 inches of snow overnight, school got called off and Christmas break for Bailey became 15 days instead of 14 days.  Luckily, Jason was able to take the day off and be with her.  They spent most the day shoveling at our house and at Grandma & Grandpa Knutsons.

However, during the afternoon, Bailey spent some time on the Wii while dad was doing some cleaning around the house.  The Wii offers a feature where she can e-mail me messages to my e-mail.  Here’s the messages I got on Friday… 

wit to grandmo and grandpo,s and

nowa i am tascting you and i tick

dadde is shaovling i mis you mommy i love you form bailey to mom

Then she got bored, and didn’t want to help dad clean the house.  So, she decided to write me another message.  However, she forgot that her and dad drove me to work.  So, they were my ride home.  Here’s the final message I got.  She’s definately in a mama’s girl.

pes’pss’pes cum hoaem

The word blog was first introduced to me during a YPIowa meeting.  It was during discussion of things that those graduating from college understand and things that those of us who graduated 10 years ago have never heard of.  It was foreign to me till I started posting some blogs to the YPIowa page.

Then, when Pro-Link was created, we knew a blog would be something new and different to introduce to the world.  Since I was the only one with some past experience, this became my fun daily task.  But, it’s always about business.

I’ve always wished to keep a journal, and only did a few times when I was in middle school and then when I was pregnant with Bailey.  My  life is very much an open book, so why not just combine my personal thoughts in this blog & keep my journal at the same time.

I hope you enjoy seeing the inside of the Anderson Family through my eyes.