I know many don’t do their Christmas cookies until after Thanksgiving, and then some like me will do them earlier. I’m making my cookies now because then I can take them to our family gatherings and share now, rather than just have them all here to eat by the three of us.

I am making a rolled sugar cookie with cream cheese, and naturally we’ll use a cream cheese frosting with it. (Yes this we all like cream cheese in this family.) The ones I made last year seemed to have gone over well with the extended family, but I couldn’t remember which recipe I used. Therefore it could be a new recipe this year, but most of them seemed very similar so it should be close if not exactly the same this year.

While I was searching on www.food.com for the recipe, I came across a recipe for a cream cheese cookie that’s completely sugar free. It’s what I would call a pinwheel style cookie and uses preserves. Since my dad is watching his sugar intake, I thought I would give these a try as well. For the preserves I choose Smucker’s Simply Fruit in Seedless Strawberry which does not have any sugar either. So these could easily be one of the healthier desert choices available on Thursday.

You might want to ask me how these cookies taste, but the truth is I don’t know yet. Cookies with cream cheese in them need to be chilled before they can be rolled out, so we’ll actually be baking them tomorrow, Though I have tried each of the doughs (naturally) and they both tasted good to me.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post

I can tell I haven’t checked our website in a while, when I look at page and find the last update was in May, and now it’s already New Year’s Eve.

Apparently we’ve been too busy with the day-to-day living of life to take the time to update this blog.  Or too busy with the changes to write about them, and then when things settle down it would slip our minds.  Who knows, all I know is that lots have changed in the last 7 months.

One of the first changes from the last blogs, was that Shane is not working for his former employer.  There was a parting of the ways due mainly to a misunderstanding.  Apparently the boss thought that as Shane’s employer he should be in control of when and IF Shane should have free time.  Our family plans didn’t apparently mean much to his idea of deadlines and launch dates, even when notified well in advance, or when it was the weekend.

With that change it became more difficult to complete the trailer in a timely fashion like we hoped.  One of the things that really needed completing before we could work on the interior was the roof.  Well, CraigsList helped us out there with finding the right sized trusses and a wonderful price  for them to redo the roof.  Unfortunately there was several rather heavy rain storms before we had a chance to start on the roof, and with other hold-ups as well we weren’t able to complete the roof soon enough.  What do I mean about not being able to complete it soon enough, well simply that things took too long and the interior became very heavily mold infested.  Too much so, for us to feel safe to complete the trailer or move in.  Therefore the project was abandoned.

In September we moved out of Karen’s.  Instead we moved in with Shane’s brother, Scott, and his wife, Charity.  So now we are living in Arcadia, WI.  We had thought/hoped that with Ashley Furniture and Golden Plump here in town, there might be job opportunities locally.  Unfortunately we are the wrong ages and have the wrong skill-sets for those employers apparently.

December 13, my cousin, Brandi Lynn Allen, was fatally injured in a car accident.  It’s hard to believe that such a bright young woman of only 19 is no longer with us.  She will be missed by many.

Allyssa made out well with Santa this year.  She received some Thomas the Tank things, TinkerBell items, a couple of dolls, and a few other things as well.  It took her about 30 minutes, I believe to open all her gifts and she enjoyed every minute of it, and then became busy playing with her new gifts.

Unfortunately the 26th we seemed to have a bit of a flu bug around the house.  Allyssa seemed to have it first, during the late night of the 23rd, but Shane and I seemed to have a bit of it on the 26th.

Remember that post back on the 6th of December titled Moving Again that made you think we were moving? That one was just about our blog moving off of Blogger and onto our own WordPress installation – like that really mattered to you, right?

This time, the title “Moving Again” means we are physically moving, south, past our hold home in Trempealeau, past La Crosse, heck, even past the state line. Though we don’t know exactly where we will be living as we are in the process of finding a place now, I will start working for Verizon Wireless in Schaumburg, IL on January 12th, and we will be moving during the first week and a half of January.

There is a fun story in this for all of you to enjoy. Originally, the in-person interview for this position was set for the morning of December 29th. Then it appeared the person who was supposed to interview me was going to be traveling that week, so they asked if I could come down on December 22nd. We made arrangements to stay with Laura’s cousin Jean Ann in Lake Villa and ventured south on December 21st – with terrible road conditions the trip would take us over 8 hours. It was hoped that the trip would be worth it.

Monday morning we set off for Schaumburg, IL for the interview, and after getting caught in traffic we were unable to make the interview, which was rescheduled for Tuesday morning. We had already planned to meet my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Bob for lunch so we kept those plans, then went shopping afterward. Joanne was having so much fun with Allyssa we offered to make room in the car so she could spend more time when the rest of her party headed back home. It was nice to see Allyssa take to Joanne so well that Laura and I could go and do some last minute shopping.

Tuesday morning we left an hour earlier and arrived almost an hour early, having no problems with weather or traffic. All was looking well until I received a phone call that the person interviewing me could not get out of his subdivision and could not make it. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and decided to head back home to spend the holiday with family. We again met with Joanne and Bob for breakfast at Walker Brothers, the world’s finest pancake house. During breakfast, I received a phone call wanting me to agree to meet for an interview on Christmas Eve, which I was just not going to do. I had family stuff planned – so I declined and we headed to Holmen, WI.

On the drive home I again received a call asking if I could come back down on the 29th for the interview – the day it was originally scheduled for. I agreed and we made plans to stay in Lake Villa Sunday night and drive in to Schaumburg on Monday morning. This time, everything worked out well and the interview started on time, but went long. I left the Verizon office around 11:30 thinking the interview had gone well . Laura and I spent some time around Carpentersville, IL where I grew up, and even stopped for lunch at the Village Pizza Pub, home of my favorite pizza as a child – and it was just as I remembered it.

After leaving and getting on the highway to head home, I received a phone call shortly after 2:00 informing me that I was being offered the position, and that they wanted me to start on January 5th, but also gave me the option of January 12th. I chose the later date to give me time to finish up work I had back home and give us plenty of time to pack and move.

So that’s where I am at today – finishing up the work I started before this 1600+ mile trip during the holidays and planning how we will make the big move – yet another one in the winter. You probably won’t hear much from me until we get settled in the new place in Schaumburg, so I am wishing you all a Happy New Year – I know mine should be a little better with a full time job and steady income for a while.

It’s been way too long since we were able to drive our car rather then the van, but as of today, we can! Those of you who know about this will want to hear about the hassle with the DMV I have dealt with this past few months. It seems our tax dollars, which are used to pay those idiots at the DMV, are being wasted. I will elaborate:

We bought the car on August 4th, 2008, but due to an accident I had back in 2004 when I did not have insurance, I was unable to register the car until I paid the damage judgment against me. This started a search for the person I owed the money to. Ironically, the DMV nor the court systems could help me find him, and any old contact information I had was long outdated.

After nearly 3 months of trying to find him, I suddenly remembered where he had worked, and thought to call there to see if they had current contact information. Fortunately, he still worked there and he eventually contacted me back. Problem was, he wanted all the money up front before he would release the judgement. I worked it out through family and friends to be able to pay him the full amount, but informed him if he wanted his money he needed to meet me at the court house in La Crosse and sign the satisfaction of judgement. He was more than willing to do that. This is where the fun began!

I received the satisfaction of judgment on November 13th and called the DMV the following Monday. The yahoo that answered the phone told me that he sees the judgment is satisfied and that I now need to file SR-22 insurance and pay a $110 reinstatement fee. This really frustrated me because when I called the DMV back in October to find out what I needed to do, that person said nothing about insurance or a fee, nor did the notice the DMV sent me when I tried to register the vehicle. If I had known about the SR-22 requirement back in October, I would have done it. Turns out it only added about $25 to our policy – not bad.

Then today I called the DMV to make sure the SR-22 filing was on record, and was told it was, BUT, the satisfaction of judgement was not. I flew off the handle – yelling at this poor woman, Mary, who quickly calmed me down and told me what I needed to do. I scanned and emailed the satisfaction to her, and she immediately called me back to get the payment of only a $50 fee. The $110 the other yahoo mentioned included the $60 to reinstate my license, which I didn’t need to do today. She then transferred me to someone in the registration department who expedited the filing of the satisfaction, and told me we could get temporary plates so we could use the vehicle. FINALLY, someone at the DMV who knows what they are doing.

To make this long story short, now that you’ve waded through the whole thing, Laura made a trip with the van to River Falls to get our temporary plates and we can now drive our more fuel efficient vehicle again. So, for those wondering, we will be back home for Christmas, though we will once again spend Christmas Day here at home as a family.

Here we are, Mother’s Day, 2008 and Laura’s second as a mommy. So far it looks like Allyssa is enjoying it, with a big grin – must be a good dream – or maybe she knows that daddy is taking her picture. She is such a ham.

Anyway, on to the real reason for this post. As you probably know if you’ve been checking we haven’t posted much since Allyssa turned nine months old. That’s just stupid, because we have pictures and we want to share them, but time slips by and they don’t get posted. Until I realized that WordPress allows me to back date posts! A blog like this is not only a great way to keep family and friends up to date on the family, but also to keep a historical record of our lives as a family.

So today and throughout the next month I will be adding posts and back dating them to when they actually were taken. This will allow me to get my memories down somewhere while they are still somewhat fresh in my mind, and let you get up to date on our life so far in 2008. So if you see me I don’t want to hear, “Geez, I must not have visited your site in a while, I never saw all those posts!” because you know now that it was my fault and not yours. So enjoy them as I get them up and share your thoughts if you care to. For now, Happy Mothers Day!

A world of firsts lies ahead of Allyssa and our family as she approaches her first birthday next month. We’ve already had so many, the first Thanksgiving, the first Christmas, her first booster shots. Here we have another first, her first Easter – and there she is on the easter egg hunt with dad with her first easter egg – imagine that, it’s purple! We are at Grandma’s today with the rest of the family for easter, even if it is only Saturday. We’ll spend tomorrow with Laura’s family.

And Allyssa is really getting into it, reaching out for eggs that she finds. Ok, daddy found it and pointed it out to her, but she was having a ball trying to get it. It was also fun to see Allyssa find all of her eggs first (with daddy’s help). At mom’s, she has these plastic eggs filled with money and candy, and each grandchild gets the same number of eggs, each with their own color. It’s not really a contest to see who finds them all first, but NYAH, Allyssa won!

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games, she also took some time to hang with her cousin Heather. Look at her expression – “we come all this way only to have you ignore me and talk on the darn phone?” Come on Heather, hang up the phone and have fun with the family. Your friends will see you on Monday!