Will This Ever End???

I am beginning to wonder if these late nights of working will ever come to an end. I don't know if I just need to buckle down and somehow find a way to use my time a little more wisely or I just need to stop working so hard, but something has got to give! I can't get it all done in the hours there are in a day, and I can't stay up all hours of the night to get it done either - it's just too tiring with all the other important things there are in life. Kind of a double-edged sword, I guess.

Feeling so tired tonight and wishing I had been in bed 3 hours ago ...

Happy New Year's Eve eve to all!

Some Pictures!

I was trying to upload some pictures this morning, but Jason said the camera was on the wrong setting and I just simply gave up. He figured it out tonight after some time reading the manual and such. He had switched some mode so that it would download onto his parents' computer while we were in Iowa without the software, and it was still on that mode (???). Now it's working just fine, and I thought I would upload a few pictures from the week/tonight!!!

The kids with Haley, Jason's cousin, on Christmas Eve!

Meggan and her buddy Colby, Jason's cousin, on Christmas Eve!

Meggan, Jess, and Jo Jo on Christmas Day at Grandma and Papa's!

Lily's birthday cake at her party Christmas night!

Great-Grandma watching the kids play with a bowl of pennies (who needs all those toys?)!

Four-generation picture with Jordan (we have one with Meggan at about the same age)! We had Meggan taking pictures with my camera and it obviously wasn't set quite right, so I will just hope that Mom's or Dawn & Jer's camera got a little better picture of this!!! :)

Almost home ... they were both sacked out in their seats!

So glad to be home again and play with Daddy!

Glad to be home and play some Barbies she got for Christmas with Mommy!

And this is what you get if you start the bath water and then run into Jordan's room real quick to get his pajamas (yes, he was fully clothed, socks and all)!!!

We are so happy to be home! How blessed we are...

Back Home Again in Indiana!

I have been absent for a couple days now. My cousin in Missouri has a computer with Internet and everything, but we just didn't get around to it. We were busy!

We got a wild idea to try and drive home overnight last night. We were just hoping that the kids would sleep well in the car while it was dark and that would pass the time so much faster for EVERYONE! Well, I am happy to report that it worked!!! It was so much more refreshing to not have to feel so bad for them and how miserable they were. They definitely weren't sleeping the most comfortably, but they got their rest nonetheless.

We loaded up the car and the kids and took off from Missouri at 8:00 p.m. Indiana time. We drove for about 3 hours and made it to somewhere (I can't remember the name of the town) about 40-50 miles south of St. Louis before we needed to stop for a potty break and gas and just to let the kids out. Jordan was none to happy about getting back into the car, but off we went. And we drove, and we drove, and we drove and got to our house at 4:30 a.m. Indiana time! That's really good time! We only stopped that one time, but that was because they were both back asleep and we didn't want to disturb them, nor prolong the trip any more than it already is...

Mom, if you're reading this, here's to you! Thank you for going along with the flow and making the trip as easy on everyone as we all could! I know it's so very hard on you to drive like that and not stop, but I also know you love me and the kids enough to suffer through it and push on! If it weren't for you, I don't know that we would have made it. I was the one nodding off this time and hardly able to keep my eyes open. I blame it on the late nights and not sleeping too well...

It was great to be with family this past week, but I am SO very glad to be home! Jason and I are going to enjoy our wonderful family this week and soak in every little bit that our precious children have to offer! I want to play with them with their new toys, laugh with them, just LOVE them and ENJOY them and BE with them!!! But first I have to get a little bit of sleep. :)

Here's to the holidays and long days and nights of traveling...

We Made It!

Just a real short post to let everyone know we made it to Missouri! We're having a nice time visiting with everyone so far!

Hope that everyone had a GREAT holiday! :)

Christmas Day is Here!

The kids had lots of fun opening up presents this morning - Meggan ended up getting done pretty quickly and helping Jordan open the rest of his (he more wanted to sit on the boxes that the toys were in that he had already opened)! They both loved to help Grandma & Papa open their gifts from us!

Here are pictures of the kids with their gifts - a combination of Santa, us, and Jason's parents. We are headed over to Crystal's house soon to celebrate Lily's birthday (one of my nieces) and then in the morning will celebrate Christmas with the Niehaus side. I think we will just clear the toys out of their rooms when we get back home to make room for the new ones!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Time to Think ...

As I sit here with no noise except for the sound of a Christmas choir special on TV in the background, I can't help but actually take a moment to think. I thought about getting my laptop out and getting my short job from Monday afternoon done and turned in, but I think I'm going to call it quits. It is, after all, Christmas Eve ... we've been to church, been to Grandma & Grandpa Harms's house for supper and their gifts to all, got home just in time for Jordan to completely crash out cold in exhaustion, got Meggan to bed by 10:00, and "Santa" has already been here and eaten almost all of his 2 cookies that the "kids" left for him (Meggan signed both of their names for him). And now I sit here with everyone else fast asleep just thinking, and I just feel the urge to put my thoughts into words. I don't usually do this, but here I go ...

Christmas is such a special time of year, a time when we all make an extra effort to get where we want to be and see who we want to see, and it brings everyone together and makes everyone happy! I just wish it wasn't because of the presents and was really because of the reason for CHRISTmas. I pray that one day we can re-guide and focus Meggan's thought process and teach her the real meaning of Christmas and that it isn't about "getting" everything we want but is about appreciating everything we already have. I'm just as guilty, I'm sure, as the next one about getting wrapped up in the "stuff" at Christmastime, but this year it's hitting me kind of hard. Maybe because the kids are getting older or maybe because I read other people's thoughts in their blogs or maybe because He is focusing MY thought process. Whatever the reason, it is touching my heart tonight ...

Merry CHRISTmas Eve (almost CHRISTmas Day)!

Since this afternoon and evening will be awfully busy with Christmas Eve church service followed by soup supper and celebrating at Grandma & Grandpa Harms's house, I am posting to the blog a little earlier today than usual. I wanted to make sure I got some pictures up since it's been a few posts since I put any!

Grandma & Papa let the kids open ONE present yesterday afternoon (after some convincing from Meggan perhaps), so that was fun! Meggan got a Barbie as the Island Princess toy with the little princesses sitting on elephants, so she's been playing and playing with that. Jordan got a little John Deere (what else is there?) truck that is mostly a sand toy, and he's been pushing that around too!

We've been enjoying our time at Grandma & Papa's house and are getting excited for Christmas to actually be here. Meggan has grasped hold of the concept of Christmas Eve leading into Christmas Day, Santa's arrival, etc., and she can hardly contain her excitement! Jordan is obviously carefree in regards to this, but he is most definitely enjoying catching up on some nice naps today after the long drive and not being able to get comfortable for a nice nap yesterday. He went to bed around 7:15 and woke up at 6:00, both Iowa time. That's pretty normal - he usually goes to bed between 8:00 and 8:30 at home and get up somewhere around 7:00 (we are on Eastern Daylight Time in Indiana and are 1 hour ahead of Iowa time! We woke him up after 2 1/2 hours this morning so that we could make sure he squeezed a second nap in before we will have to wake him up around 3:30 to get to church for the 4:00 service. Here is a picture of him melting down at about 7:00 last night (that's what no good naps will do to a 15-month-old that's used to sleeping away 5-6 hours a day) - poor thing!

Here are a couple pictures of them playing with all the toys at Grandma & Papa's house. Connie has every toy that Jason and Jared ever played with, I swear, and the kids love to play with them all. The first is them in the cradle and the second is them playing with all of Daddy and Uncle Jared's old Micro Machines!

Last night for supper Uncle Jared and his girlfriend, Sonny, and her two daughters came over (homemade lasagna - YUMMY!) and after that Connie had saved some of her Christmas cookies she made for them to decorate. The girls had fun doing this and especially with the sprinkles. This morning Meggan, Connie, and I attempted to put together a gingerbread house while Jordan was napping, but it was warped and the side weren't straight and didn't match up very well and, therefore, didn't stay together very well. We made it work and had lots of fun in the process, but we were pretty disgusted when MOUNDS of frosting wouldn't even hold it together! Aunt Crystal came over after work and had supper as well, bringing with her this Barbie nightgown/dress-up dress, which she wore starting last night until we were leaving for lunch today!

We went to Pizza Hut for the lunch buffet today, as is a rather "traditional" occurrence when we're in town, and then while Jordan laid down again Jason and Connie took Meggan outside to sled. It's so very cold and the wind is something else (plus she fell off at the very end) and so it only lasted about 10 minutes or so! She still had fun and was laughing at the end - with very cold cheeks!

Merry Christmas Eve to everyone and we'll try to put up another post tomorrow after the first round of toys comes piling in ... :)

Safe and (Maybe Not Quite So) Sound!

We made it to Iowa safely today (read on to find out why I don't include the other portion of that phrase)! We left Indianapolis at 6:00 Indiana time and got here at 1:30 Iowa time, so it took us all of 8 1/2 hours to get here! We did have to take it a little slower through Illinois - blowing snow and pretty slick. Lots of vehicles in the ditch to watch ...

It was a torturous trip for poor Jordan. You take a 15-month-old toddler who just wants to run and shove him into a carseat strapped down for 8 1/2 hours, and you can just about guess the outcome. He wanted to take a nap this afternoon from the I-80 truck stop at Walcott to GC, but he just can't get comfortable sitting up in those seats for the life of him and, hence, 45 minutes later he was back awake and ready to get out. He also likes to scream as his major method of communication, and quite often (just to add to the totality of fun we got to experience)!

Meggan was fine, as usual. She has gotten used to the ride and doesn't mind it because of the end result - seeing Grandma and Papa, Crystal and Jesse, Matt and family, etc. She does ask every so often if we're almost to Iowa yet, but that's about the worst that it gets! She watched a few movies and colored and wrote letters quite a bit to pass the hours by.

Just wanted everyone to know we made it just fine and survived the fun! Not so sure about this trip to Missouri and the drive back home from there, which is about 10 hours long ...

Family-Sized Roadtrips ...

It just takes a lot of time and energy to even just get a family of 4 packed up for a week of being away from home! I have decided there is just no easy way to do it. If we had more than 2 kids, we would be in big trouble and wouldn't be able to pack it all in unless we had a cargo van (or hired a better packer that might do it right). I will explain for you all the reason why.

The procedure at the Dew house for packing our stuff to go out of town basically goes like this:

1. I wait until the very last minute and then get everyone's stuff together. (For example, I am sitting here on the computer and still have to pack the bathroom bag of shampoo, soap, facewash, kid soap, toothbrushes, etc.)

2. I get everything stuffed into all the suitcases and such.

3. We lay down the back seat of our minivan (pretty thankful for our Honda Odyssey ... didn't think I would ever say that sentence 10 years ago).

4. Jason chucks everything into the back of the van with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

5. We slam the back door shut and hope for the best when we open it again!

Again, imagine if we had more than 2 kids and actually had to USE the very backseat for places to sit! Luckily for us, that is not in the cards and this is the way we plan to do it for the rest of our trips anywhere we go!!!

I will continue blogging while I'm gone but don't know for sure if I'll be able to do pictures and everything unless we download my new camera's photo program onto Jason's parents' computer in Iowa - we'll see how it goes.

For now, good night to all. We are going to try and get up early and get on the road and hopefully miss any weather that we'll be heading into... Looking forward to celebrating with friends and family this Christmas!!!

Weekend Pictures!

Today was another fun-filled day! We got up and went to Sunday school and church and then Meggan got to go and spend most of the afternoon with my mom. There was a party at her work that she wanted Meggan to go to, and so she picked her up from church and they hung out (and did whatever it is they do when they get together) until it was time for them to go to the party at 3:00. I went on a little shopping trip with Dawn and we got our mom's Christmas present taken care of. Then we all came back to our house and had some chili for supper - a very welcome idea that Jason came up with earlier this morning since it feels like -1 degrees here with the windchill today or something like that. I forgot to get some pictures of Lucas, my little nephew that's already 5 1/2 weeks old, but I will hopefully get one of him soon with the kids ... he is growing like a little weed! It's hard to believe just how fast they grow - even when they aren't even your own!

We are looking forward to heading off to Iowa come Tuesday morning. Jason has to work tomorrow and I have a job at 4:00 (I know what you're thinking - who starts work at 4:00 in the afternoon?) and then we will be home free for about a week of vacation, returning to Indy on Sunday evening (him) and Monday evening (me and the kids and my mom after heading down to Missouri from Iowa for a couple days over the weekend)!

Hope that everyone had a nice weekend! Meggan can hardly contain herself these days, she's so excited to go to see everyone! Plus she gets to go to Nancy's house with Jordan tomorrow since she's officially on Christmas break (yes, here in Indy even preschools run on the school schedule). Crazy, isn't it? :)

As promised, here are some pictures from our weekend! Enjoy! Busy weekend, but lots of fun!

Saturday night ...

Meggan, Faith & Maggie sitting on Jason's lap eating

ice cream at Old Spaghetti Factory (YUM)!

Jordan after eating his ice cream!

Maggie & Meggan at the Zoo!

And back at our house opening their gifts to each other!

Jordan and Faith opened their gifts too!

Sunday night ...

Meggan loves to play bowling on the Wii!

(please don't even ask about the outfit!)

Jordan wants to try it too (he knows exactly what to do)!

So Jason let him "help" on his turn!

And after their bath they finished the night off with some dancing!

Sleepover (again)!

We had such a great day today! Jason had to work this morning, but we're used to that. Since Meggan had ended up staying the night at Cami's house last night, it was just up to Jordan how long we might be able to sleep in. I woke up at 9:15 and he was still out cold!!! He finally did wake up at about 9:45 though (yes, from 8:00 p.m. until 9:45 a.m. - tired boy)!

Then we went to the Zoo with some friends of ours and enjoyed Christmas at the Zoo, which we had never been to before - they had such neat lights and lots of fun activities too! We didn't stay all that long because Jordan isn't really a great stroller sitter, and then we came back to our house and had the kids open their gifts to each other. Well, of course, one thing led to another and now Maggie is staying the night with us! They just laid down a few minutes ago in Meggan's bed, so we'll see how that goes the rest of the night ...

Jason got me a new camera for Christmas (yes, I opened it a little early)!!! What's the point of a camera for Christmas if you don't even open it until all the fun Christmas activities are almost over with; right? I had mentioned to him that now that I'm going to blogging that I would like to have a little camera that I could just have in my purse and not miss any cute photo opportunities! We have a big fancy camera, but I won't always have that one handy ...

Just so thankful for good friends and fun tonight!!!

I will have to post some pictures I took with my new camera during our outing this evening sometime tomorrow - I'm really tired! Until then, good night to all.

Early Night!!!

What a great day today! We had so much fun at Meggan's class party, and all the kids (and the teachers too, I'm sure) are so excited that it's Christmas break now! We had the party, ate some lunch, ran downtown to the office (I know this sounds like work, which I wasn't going to do any today, but it was just a quick trip to drop some papers off so I could send that big video job out!), and then went home and visited, played, rested (yes, Meggan took about a 1 1/2-hour nap even), and just hung out - and I didn't even have work in the back of my mind!

It has been a few days since I posted any pictures, so I thought I would do that tonight. I just took these in this past hour or so and wanted to put some words to them.

We went down to the neighbors' house (we don't get to catch up with them nearly as often as we used to now that all of our kids are busy and life is going in all directions), and what started out as just being a quick visit to give them our Christmas card and chat for a little bit ended up with Meggan staying the night there with Cami. They were both SOOOO excited (thanks again, Suzie, if you're reading this - and we owe you)!!! Meggan just loves to spend the night with her friends (this will be her third sleepover now - we owe you too, Angi, if you're reading this), and she just really enjoys it! Of course, that doesn't count when she stays the night at Aunt Dawny's house or Grandma's house. I think most of it is how big she feels when she gets to do it. Here's a picture of Meggan (on the top) and Cami in their third outfit change of the evening, I believe - and yes, they are in leotards ...

Jordan was just fine all night just playing and chasing and having fun at the neighbors' house, and then we came home to get Meggan's jammies and such and 7:50 came around and he flipped like a switch - he was DONE! We gave him a cup of milk and when he was done he was down for the count. I think he was in bed and asleep at 8:00! This was him at 7:55 (poor thing) ...

So now it's 9:00 and I'm going to bed! After countless long and late nights working, I'm hitting the sheets early and will be sleeping like a rock (hopefully Jordan will decide to sleep in a little)!!! I'm so glad that it's Friday - this should be another fun weekend!

On the Edge of Insanity!

If you just happen to glance down and look at the time that blogs are posted, you will know what I mean by the title of this blog post! It is just about 3:00 in the morning, and I am FINALLY going to bed. I am so, so, so tired!

But there's good news too. I'm finished with the other 335-page video deposition transcript that I have been slaving over!!!!!!!!!! (I couldn't even insert enough exclamation marks here to note exactly how excited I am about that statement.) Now I get to go to Meggan's class Christmas party in the morning and then probably go grab some lunch and waste the day away (and hopefully we can even include a nap in there if Meggan is tired enough too) and not even feel guilty that I should be working all day!

Good night - well, morning - to all. I am going to througly enjoy tomorrow...

I Guess It's Not Always Bad!

Well, the deposition I took today ended up lasting all day, started at 9:00 and finshed at 4:30. While I was packing my computer and steno machine up, I happened to mention to the attorneys that I would see them bright and early again in the morning. They both proceeded to say no, that deposition isn't going anymore. I was so glad that I asked!!!

That means I have tomorrow off to get some more pages done (hopefully I can get the rest of that other video job wrapped up and off my shoulders)! Unfortunately, I am still going to start working for at least a couple hours yet tonight, but I think I'm getting kind of used to this. I don't know that I could fall asleep if I laid down before midnight nowadays because it's been s0 long that I've been pulling these late nights! I am really tired, but I do need to get some pages done ... these video depositions just take so long to get done. :(

Things are looking up a little bit! At least I won't be adding another entire day worth of pages to my already large number of pages I have out to work on. It's not all so bad...

Always Something

I was at my desk working here at home today and just happy that I was going to get some pages done when I heard the dreaded sound ... the text message alert beeps on my cell phone and then the e-mail comes across my inbox - it's a last-minute job that has come on and they need me to cover it at 3:00. That means I have to quit working by 12:30 or so, take a shower (which I most likely would have skipped otherwise so that I could get more pages done), eat a little something for lunch, run down to the office (had a few papers to take to the office first, as long as I was heading downtown anyway now), and then get to my job destination by 2:40 or so. How much time does that cut out of the work I was going to be able to get done all afternoon?

So now guess what I'm doing? Settling myself in at my desk here at home again and starting to do some more work ... late into the night ... have to at least get SOME pages done. Then up and at it again by 6:00 to get myself ready, the kids dressed and fed, Jordan off to the baby-sitter's house, Meggan off to school, and then get to my job destination by 8:40 or so that will be starting at 9:00 and probably going all day!

It's always something...

So Much To Do...

So the 220-mile roundtrip down to New Albany today wasn't so bad and the job was pretty short and sweet (only about 2 hours), but it sure did take away a lot of working time that I wish I could have been working on getting some transcript pages done! By the time I got back home, I only had about an hour before Meggan had to be picked up and get heading off to dance class. Oh, well - it could have been worse. She could have missed dance class yet too...

I am getting ready to start working again and hopefully get a bunch of pages done working late into the night. I REALLY wish that I could just go to bed instead.

Seems like so much to do in the next week, so little time. Just feeling a little bit overwhelmed today, I guess...

Christmas Cards Ready!!!

Okay. As many of you may know, I am NOT the creative one in our family (myself and my two sisters and brother). I was talking to my little sister, Crystal, earlier this afternoon about how we were going to write a Christmas letter send along with our greeting cards but that I needed to go to Wal-Mart (always such a joy) and get some decorative paper to print them off on.

So Crystal ever-so-innocently mentions that I should just look on the Internet for something that we could cut and paste in the corner of a plain sheet of paper and then just write the letter and have Meggan help color them in. Again, not being the creative one of the bunch, this was quite the undertaking for me instead of just going and BUYING something I could just shove into the printer and be done with it. Nonetheless, this afternoon and evening we were busy typing, printing, coloring, stuffing, and labeling.

Here are a few pictures of the process (yes, she was wearing a tanktop this afternoon and then a sleeveless nightgown tonight - there's no stopping her!):

Jordan even got to help tonight when we were finishing labels and such (well, at least if you want to call it that). Really all he did was walk through the envelopes a couple times ... then they both got bored and started dancing instead. Most of the time this afternoon while we were doing the coloring, he was in his bed taking a 5 1/2-hour nap!!! Poor thing - and now he's in bed again and has only been up since 4:00. Guess he's having a sleepy day... Just to prove that he IS okay and is right back up and at it after snoozing the entire day away (he has this new "dance" where he walks sideways with a bit of a bend to it!):

Finally, an example of a finished product (sorry to those of you who will be getting a card and this is ruining the surprise). Actually, the photo didn't turn out very well of the greeting card itself, so you're not seeing the picture early anyway!

Just as a side note: Meggan did not personalize each and every one that she colored - she decided her hand was hurting after a while! So don't feel bad if you get a letter and it doesn't have her name on it ... there were only so many of these made. All in all, it was really fun to do and gave me and Meggan something to do together. She loves to be a big helper and feel like she's helping me, so it was time well spent (I feel like I accomplished something all on my own and didn't take the "easy" way out). Thanks, Crystal!!!

Now I just have to finish writing the addresses on the last few, and they can go out in the mail tomorrow! At least I have ONE thing I can cross off of the list of things to do! For now it's off to bed so I can get up and drive 110 miles (yes, that's one way) to my job in the morning...

Trying Something New!

I have recently started "following" people's blogs! My friend from high school, Trina Teckenburg, sent me a link to her blogspot when they had their third baby, and I've been hooked on it ever since! From there I click onto her brother's family's blog, and from there a few other blogs, and I can hardly stop myself. I find myself "checking in" on them almost every day (almost sounds like I actually do have extra time on my hands - sad, I know)!

I have decided that I want to try this. I have been inspired. Just the way these ladies put their thoughts and dreams and feelings and triumphs and tribulations into words is beautiful! So I thought maybe I could follow their lead and find my own "outlet" - and, of course, keep people updated on what our family is up to!

So enjoy! I hope to have my own "followers" who just can't get enough of what the Dew Family is up to...