Groneman Family

THE CHRISTMAS SANTA CLAUS FORGOT I feel ripped. I don't remember much about Christmas as I was drugged up and apparently slept through most of it. Even the parts I didn't sleep through, I don't remember much about. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I wait all year for it then miss it. Oh flarch. I have to apologize to you all for kind of putting a spoiling factor into your holiday....and don't tell me I didn't as I know better. I'm sad that Cambrie & crew had to leave early with that cute little granddaughter of mine and I'm sad that I wasn't much of a Grandpa to those two Dastrup boys. I'm sad that I didn't get to play games and have much fun with my kids. I'm sad you had to put up with me when it really wasn't me. I feel totally ripped. I remember when your Grandpa Groneman went into the hospital for an operation when I was probably 14 or 15 and how it shocked me to see how frail he was during his recovery as opposed to...

Kiera had her baby blessing at the Nelson home last night. She had a pretty rough little day yesterday but thankfully she slept through the blessing and was so pretty and sweet in her pretty dress that Grandma Groneman made (mom definately has a talent for sewing that I don't have!!-- thank you for the dress!!). Kiera has starting making little cooing noises which are so cute. I'll have to get them on video for ya'll.

Announcing the Brett Birthday celebration tomorrow at 1 pm!!! Come one and all! We'll miss the Nelsons, but at least the rest of us will be together! (He has a date in the evening-which is why we are doing it at 1 instead of dinnertime!!) :)

Dec 27...and we wish all was well. Kim is slightly improved. Very slightly. His last coupla days have been even more miserable . He has some very weird new stuff on his back this morning, like nothing I have ever seen. I am thinking that maybe it is the beginnings of a bedsore. Kim is wondering if it is frostbite from his ice downs that I did to him about 5 days ago, but I googled up some images and it doesn't look like either. Cambrie or Brigham, can you shed light on this new weirdness? And if there is anything we should be doing about it? Kim is in the process of trying to obtain a medical leave from Novell....

Kiera's first Christmas was spent at disneyland (what a spoiled child!!!) She spent most of the day eating her christmas meals (milk) and sleeping. But she stayed awake during Pirates of the Carribian (pictured above) and Buzz Lightyear (which was a little too loud for her). It was a long day for her mommy who spent most of the day worrying about her. It was about 70 degrees and beautiful. They have special passes at disneyland for people with babies so that they can enter the ride from the exit and get right on the ride without any wait which was totally awesome. Kiera didn't seem to want to open her only christmas gifts (from grandma and grandpa) so I had to open it for her. I think she liked the ducky and the clothes, but she didn't say much about it-- she just spit up (I don't know what that means). Steve got a suit for his birthday and for christmas (very exciting eh?). We hope ya'll had a good christmas

Little Kiera is one month old today!!! I can't believe it. My baby is growing up : ( We were sad that we had to leave, but glad that we didn't join in on the flu. Sorry buff, but I think we are glad you got the flu because it validated our need to leave. We would have felt really bad if everyone would have remained healthy. California is sunny and warm-- wish you all were here-- and healthy.

Benjamin and Jacob have arrived! Yea! Play cars and play in the snow. The bad news is that Jacob is sick and Kiera is leaving :-( The only one that isn't around is Chad. Brett and Buff both stayed the night last night.

KIERA HAS ARRIVED! Nelson's pulled in about 3:30pm yesterday. What a cute little munchkin! It's a good thing they pulled in yesterday. We had a skiff of snow. This morning I've shoveled the driveway/walks 3 times and the snow is still coming down. I can't wait to go sledding with Benjamin and Jacob!

eragon Buff and I just got out of Eragon. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but far from the worst. A fun adventure...rated PG which is unusual. It was fun going with the Buffalo. Buff, what did you think of the movie? Novell gave us all two tickets. let's see...tomorrow I get toys down out of the attic, set up a crib, etc. etc. Oh the anticipation.

We hope that you are all getting ready to have some great times together! And for all of you party animals out there, Brigham and I are planning on going country dancing together on the evening of Dec. 20th. So mark your calendars and get a date! We want to have you all there with us!

I'M WORRIED ABOUT YOUR DRIVE PUNKIN Keep watch on the weather. Keep us informed. Here's a better site to see your whole Utah route. Of course look at the weather gadgets at the left

So, I am still worried about little Benjamin. For those of you who don't know, he had a fever of 103.5 on Sunday when Chad was there. With no symtons...Brigham thought he probably has the flu. I am hoping if that is so, that its the short variety. I worry that they won't be able to come next monday so say your prayers, family. Dastrups, if you have time to read this, let us know how the boys are doing.

Can I just say that someone pressed the fast forward button on time since Nov 22nd.... I guess after the biggest countdown in the history of the world (which went extremely slow) time just seems to fly now. I love being a mommy and I am so excited to show you all my darling daughter!!

Plenty of Sleeping Room Yer mom has decreed; Grandpa goes. That leaves lots of sleeping room for all.

CONFUSED? BLOGGER HAS CHANGED Duh...you noticed already. I've migrated our blog to the new blogger software. There's some nice new features as well. Let me know if you have any problems. Official countdown: 7/8 days!.....er make that 6/7 days!...now 5/6 days! HOLY COW 4/5 days! Oh yea...Brett came over WITH A GIRL last night! They cooked up some pretty good stir fry. OH! And I've added Calvin & Hobbes in the left column. I LOVE Calvin!

Another plug for Google Checkout: If you use Google Checkout, EACH order that you do through them you can use their special offer: $10 off $30 orders, or $20 off $50 orders. Yup, EACH order you get that deal. Since I'm planning on getting a Wii, I'm buying Wii games individually to make them $30 instead of $50. Here's the info from buy.com's website, but it works with any Google Checkout place. http://www.buy.com/corp/promos/google_offer.asp

I was over to my mom's today with Ann and Kathy putting up her Christmas stuff. I told Ann that Kiera has already rolled over from back to stomach and from stomach to back. At 13 days. Ann says that she had talked to Malesa about how Kiera can scoot along and how strong she is, and Malesa (who worked for a long time as a NICU nurse at Primary Childrens) said, yes, that doesn't surprize her. She says that babies that are born from mothers who had very difficult pregnancies are always stronger than babies who are not. I don't have a direct quote from Malesa but in essence she said that it is natures way of preparing an infant for what appears to be a tough life...making the infant tough in advance of birth to be strong enough to withstand what comes. She says that the babies in NICU who struggle to survive the most are the ones that's mothers had easy pregnancies. I have been telling people that I thought she was strong because of the steroids Cambrie was on for so lo...

Well, our little one is well on her way to being an olympian. Yesterday she rolled over from her back to her stomach independently. At this rate she'll be walking by the time we come to Utah! Speaking of coming to Utah, Nelsons will officially be in Utah from Dec 17th to the 23rd but steve will be working via the internet every day but the 22nd and 23rd. He has to work 10 hours every day but he can pick the hours.

FREE LUNCH - Take II Chad was the first one to actually take me up on my free lunch offer. He called me up this morning and said he was in town and asked to meet for lunch. Buff tried yesterday, but the airhe...er...cute girl forgot to take her phone with her so we couldn't communicate. Nice try but no cigar. I'm hoping to get more phone calls in the future with people wanting me to take them out to lunch.....

(mom got this posted in the wrong area so I'm reposting) Attack of the Terrible Tumbleweed! It is true, while driving between St George and Cedar City, I was ruthlessly attacked (unprovoked!) by a ginormous tumbleweed that tried to bash in the driver door of the Prius...I made a hasty get away, and have lived to tell the tale!! So, it really did scare me. It was dark and I didn't see it coming at all, and suddenly this like 5 foot wide tumble bashed into the car so hard I could feel it on the inside. But amazingly, their was no obvious damage to the cars body. We do have remnants of a smaller one that also attacked the front grill. No, no memorial is planned for it! It was quite the day. I went 2+ hours out of my way to go see Nadine, as Cambrie mentioned. I do not have the time to write it all down here. If you would like to know more, I will tell ya when you come. Lets just say, that upon her opening her front door, a total stranger would have instantly surmised that a crazy ...

DO NOT CALL If you are not on the national do not call list, you can be. If you want to verify you are on the list, you can do that too. CLICK HERE I know a few of you have changed phones recently and may not have registered your new numbers. Cambrie: Why do you have your number blocked so people can't see who's calling? When we get a call from you it says your number is blocked....which is bad because I'm wanting to set my phone to not accept blocked numbers. (I figure anyone that blocks their number doesn't want me to know who's calling for a reason....)

BRAINBASHERS: 41 Cambrie Nelson 77 Brett Groneman (I apparently misspelled it when I put my name in Dad) 111 Kim Groneman 150 Christa Dastrup 359 Steven Nelson 1009 Chad Groneman 1045 Breanna Groneman 1533 Marilyn Groneman CAMBRIE AND BRETT! You are more common than I this month! Marilyn, you are just one of a kind. :-) GO HERE to play the December round.

Here's one movie of Kiera Here's another movie of the munchkin pushing herself along.

All you Utahns will be happy to know that the mother ship has began her voyage back to frozen tundra. She left this morning about 8am, but she was going to visit aunt Nadine (or whatever she changed her name to). Pretty crazy stuff to see your sister after 20+ years. Pretty scary to have psych issues in the family. They say you get it in your 20's so Christa's pretty safe-- the rest of us still could turn out on the loco side of life. Kiera is still as sweet and wonderful as can be. She has held her own bottle up 3 times in the past 24 hours (without prompting, hand positioning, or assistance). PS-- while taking the above pictures we ended up with a little yellow puddle in the middle of Kiera's pink blanket. Oh dear- that's what we get for taking her diaper off.