Thanksgiving '09

Happy Advent!!! Who can believe that Christmas is almost here.

With Lindsey's help, I've included some recent pictures. Two are from Brian and Darci Weiser's wedding in Nov. Brian's older brother from Topeka is in the orange shirt.

We had a divine Thanksgiving. All arrived on Wed. night so we had plenty of time to play and eat-what more could we ask for? Each of the kids took a meal so I got to relax as well as enjoy gourmet meals. Daryl, Kim and David joined us on Fri. night for cream cheese stuffed pork loin with cranberry chutney, grilled asparagus and sauteed new potatoes/brussel sprouts prepared by Lindsey, Michael and Paula Dean. The best was lots of laughing and stories. Karis, Kellen and Chad went international with taco soup, layer dip and brownies topped with raspberry-fudge topping. My meals were quite ordinary!!!

Lindsey won the pitch session and Karis won Apples to Apples. My greatest feat was Uno!!!!

Chad flies to Chicago tomorrow for a medical seminar to work a display table. Kellen seems to have her new bank established well enough for the time being to get away for several days. This was not the case when she first started. Lindsey was busy studying for a test on Mon. She knows that her hardest semester starts in Jan. but then she will be able to move to Texas for at least the summer and maybe clinicals in the Dallas area as well. Michael's project gets underway in January-they'll officially break ground in late Jan. Up to this time it has been all the preliminary planning-he is SO ready to get going on it. Karis is busy at the Alco distribution center in Abilene and enjoys the fast pace-her days fly by.

Dick has been retired a month now and is really enjoying it. He spent about 20 days on the farm in eastern Ks. helping with harvest-his first in 34 years. It is so relaxed knowing that he does not have to be up at 4:00 to go to work. We have had several ice/snow days already where the UPS guys could not go out west so he is relieved not to have to worry about it. Lots of long overdue jobs at our house here are being taken care of too.

We are taking a Christmas trip for the first time in 34 yrs as well. We are going with Jerry and Lois Schippers to a time share in Fort Lauderdale Dec.18-24. This will be unusual for a UPSer.

All of ours will be home over New Year's for Christmas and Stef Gasper's wedding on Jan. 2.

I guess this is my Thanksgiving and Christmas card-Hooray for the blog!!!!

Harvest is almost over!

Hello! I loved all of the cute halloween pictures. Not sure how to do that yet, so when I get some extra time I'll mess with it. We had family pictures taken on October 30th. What a mess that was. It was gorgeous the week before and the week after pictures, but we froze our rumps off that day. Kansas weather is great! Ha! Kevin is almost done with harvest and although he is tired; he is in a great mood. He celebrated his 30th birthday on Friday in the field. Alex stayed with Grandma Vicki and I hired a babysitter for Shawn so that I could surprise him with a six pack of beer and adult conversation! We talked about the kids the whole time anyway! I took Alex to a pediatric urologist last Tuesday to fix a little problem he has. I told him on the way to Kansas City that a doctor was going to look at his wiener so he wouldn't pee all over mommy's wall anymore. He said, "otay mommy" and acted like it wasn't a big deal. We were still okay when the doctor came in and asked Alex to look at his "tallywacker", but when he started touching it Alex started yelling, "my wiener, my wiener, he's touchin my wiener". For one of the few times in my life I was speechless. The doctor must have seen my embarrassment because he just started laughing and said he gets this all of the time working with kids! I definitely need to write that down in a book! (Alex will probably be mad at me someday for sharing this story!) Shawn can now roll over and scoots everywhere. He also has the nickname chunky monkey. Maybe we should have put him in a Bears costume for Halloween and MaKenna could be cheering for him! He would have to be on the O-Line. Lol! He is weighing in at 16.1 pounds. There are no meals missed by this little guy! Alex only weighed 18 pounds when he was a year old compared to Shawn at 3 months!! Yikes! Well, I had better get back to work. XOXO, Lisa

Heins Kids

Here are some Halloween pictures. The one with Kinley in the basket is from Travis' church. They had to dress as someone from the bible. Kinley was Moses, Marley carried Kinley in the basket (I know I am very brave), and Darren was a soldier. We had a wonderful Halloween, I hope you all did too! Love, Stacy and Family

Here a few pictures from the weekend!!

What a beautiful day it was today. November is starting out good. We spent the weekend in Kansas City with the kids. Gary had a meeting on Friday, so we stayed through through Sat. and Sunday. We went trick or treating with Briggs and Lydia. Lydia liked getting the candy, and would say Happy Ween to everybody. Briggs didn't get too excited about it. Saras neighborhood goes all out for Halloween. She had 200 or more. We are getting ready to watch the Yankees tonight. Johnny Damon saved the game last night. Happy Fall to all. DONNA

What a beautiful way to start November!

The weather was awesome in Kansas today a little breezy but still 75! Makenna is now a little over three months old and growing like a weed. I call her my little chunky monkey! She is a little young to actually have fun on Halloween but we knocked on a few houses anyway. On her first Halloween she was a Chicago Bears cheerleader (dad's idea of course)! We have started cooing and smiling. Every once in awhile dad can get her to chuckle! I will be 29 this month! Where does the time go???? Monica is still working on finishing up school and can't wait to be done! she should be done on dec. 18th and then she will student teach for her last semester.

Brad, Monica, and Makenna