My Little Doe-Doe Bird

When I was in 9th grade my sister Jaycia gave birth to a little boy that would soon become one of my very best friends. From the time Joseph was born I loved him so much and as he gets older I find so many reasons to love him more. We had so much fun together during his stay over the holidays. We played basketball, performed baptisms at the Nauvoo Temple, threw rocks into the Mississippi river, counted the number of grapes that he could put in his mouth without choking (he manged 50), laughed together on more than one occasion and most of all just enjoyed our time together. So without further introductions, here he is, my little best friend.

Christmas In Iowa

Shortly after Sterling and I were married we decided that spending Christmas together as a family and starting our own traditions was very important to us. This year we were able to start that process and were lucky enough to have Mom, Dad and Joseph here to celebrate with us.

It all started as we dug out our christmas decorations, all of them are on our small end table. Next was the purchase of our first Christmas tree. As you can see Sterling was so happy about the purchase that he gave our tree a welcome to our home hug (perhaps this was not his idea but with a little bit of coaxing from me he conceded). We decided to decorate it "old-school" style by stringing popcorn onto thread, adding some candy canes and putting the cards that we received onto the tree. In the beginning I was saddened by the fact that we would not have all of the fancy decorations that I remember as a child and yet the simplicity of our decorations was absolutely beautiful.

Christmas this year was so much more than I could have ever imagined!

A Family Full of Sleeping Beauties

Who knew, and if any of you did, why did you not inform me that sleeping can ruin a life?! Not that sleeping is ruining my life, but let me tell you how much a regular sleeping schedule has prevented me from getting things done.

Now as a little background I want you to realize that I come from a family that can sleep almost anywhere, especially if we are just sitting around. The following pictures are proof and once you enjoy those, I will explain to you how sleep has taken over my life.

On January 10, 2009 the company I work for had an annual company party. For whatever stupid reason, that I cannot yet explain, I volunteered to be hypnotized as part of the night's entertainment. I had a feeling that it might not work, especially since I think hypnosis is a hoax, so I wasn't too worried. To my relief there were 36 chairs set up on the stage and when they asked for the volunteers to come forward, I happened to be one of four people that walked on stage. This was not a good sign!

I am happy to report that I was not hypnotized and thus I did not make a complete idiot of myself as many of the others did. However I believe that a part of me was affected by the hypnotist.

At the end of the entertainment he did gave each of the participants a bit of hypnotic therapy and tried to help them with a specific problem in their lives that they were having difficulty dealing with. Many of the participants talked of relieving stress, getting more sleep, quitting smoking and one guy even said that he would like to stop yelling at his kids. This is where the curse of sleep comes into play.

Up until this point I was fine sleeping anywhere between 3-5 hours every day. After my body was rested I would wake up, make dinner, clean house, do my visiting teaching or anything else that I needed to accomplish. After the company party that night my life has completely changed. I am now sleeping anywhere from 10-12 hours every single day and now I cannot accomplish a single thing.

I work 10 hours each day, sleep for 10-12 hours each day and if you can do math at all you will conclude that I am left with 2-4 hours to accomplish whatever is on my plate for the day. Picture with me then, if you will, what my life looks like now...I barely wake up in time to make dinner for Sterling, doing the dishes after dinner is out of the question because I have to go to work, hanging up my coat before I fall into bed and fast asleep seems like such a hassle and oh so many more things. Doesn't this just sound like I'm living the dream? Well quite honestly the only reason I'm living the dream is because my life in spent in my dreams as I sleep it away.

So to that life that I once lived where I accomplished much, I say to you...COME BACK, I MISS YOU!!!

Christmas Time is Puzzle Time

The title of this post was coined in 2007 when the family got together in Bear Lake, Idaho. Justen and Sterling were fairly new additions to the Wisniewski Family and had never really spent much time together. Both of them are quite reserved until they get to know someone and so the first impressions were interesting.

As Jaycia tells the story now, Justen wasn't exactly sure what he thought of Sterling until...the puzzle was opened. That is when Justen discovered how intensely focused Sterling can be. Sterling worked on the puzzle from the time it was opened until it was finished. People would be getting dinner and Sterling would be working on the puzzle. People would be sitting around visiting and Sterling would still be working on the puzzle. I assume you can see the pattern and this is how "Christmas time is puzzle time" came to be.

This year proved Justen right. We got three puzzles for Christmas and Sterling and mom finished two of the three while the family was out here visiting. I never stayed up long enough to witness their obsession but Joseph did tell me that on at least one occasion (although it was probably more) Sterling and mom stayed up until 2:00 am working on one of the puzzles.

Thanksgiving in Chicago

This year Sterling's birthday was on the Saturday following Thanksgiving so we decided to take a trip to Chicago and celebrate. Sterling was going to be in Chicago the week previous so it just made sense to spend it there.

The preparations for the week vacation started with a detailed plan of our dining. I compiled a list of restaurants where we would be dining for the week. I planned the week around our dining experiences as that did seem like the most important aspect of the trip.

We ate at some amazing restaurants and when we weren't eating we were enjoying all that Chicago has to offer. We walked around Millenium Park and attended the Adler Planetarium, the Science and Industry Museum, the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Christkind Market and of course the best of all, Wicked.