Dad out of surgery

My dad is out of surgery and in recovery. He will sleep the rest of tonight. He has to be on a ventilator until at least tomorrow. Thanks for all of your prayer.

Here's some pics I stole off Tori's Myspace page of her and Chad. Aren't they cute together?

This is a pic of their little turtle. He is so tiny and sooo cute!

Christmas pics

My Christmas Chicken Wreath. It was really yummy!


Getting ready to go to Christmas Eve Church Service


Jordan and Daddy ready to go to church


Such a little ham


Jordan's Santa present


Lucy loved her new toy


Jim being silly. Jordan said he looked like Rudolph


Kelly enjoying her Christmas treat

Jordan with her Barbie from Grandma Diane

Jordan with her "Your Big Backyard" magazine. Grandma Nancy got her a subscription for Christmas

Don't they look cute together?

I love this picture of Riley with his Christmas treat.

Update on my dad

I talked with my sisters today and they are going to do open heart surgery on my dad on Monday. He will be in the hospital until then so they can monitor him and then he will be in for about 5 days after the surgery. Please continue with your prayers.

Urgent Prayers Needed

My dad is in the hospital in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and the surgeon is evaluating today whether to do another open heart surgery. My dad's health is very poor and his medical history is very extensive. Please pray that the dr. can help him. My sister Shannon from Seattle is headed over there today and my sisters Crystal and Angela are in Spokane. I will be going out there when we know more of what will happen. Please pray that my dad makes it.

Time for an update

I know it's time for an update. A few things have happened in the last week or so.

Tori is Finally Married!
Jim went down to Florida last weekend but the wedding didn't happen. The kids missed their appointment time at the chapel. But they did get married yesterday so just a week later. Jim was upset that he couldn't go back down for it. Tori and Chad now have their own little apartment and Tori is loving the warm Florida weather.

Courtney is Doing Good
I talked to Courtney a few times this last week. She now has a part time job, is still going to North High School and has been accepted to Morningside College in Sioux City for the fall.

Jordan's Brownie Troop Went Caroling

The brownie troop went caroling at one of the local nursing homes. The kids did a pretty good job. I think they were a little overwhelmed at the condition of some of the people.

Jordan Lost a Second Tooth
Jordan lost her second bottom front tooth yesterday. She's really excited about it.

Christmas Cookies and Candies Made
Jordan helped me make Mexican Wedding Cakes, Chocolate Cake Cookies and Chocolate and Vanilla dipped pretzels rings. Jordan loved putting the sprinkles on the prezel rings. Jim loves the Mexican Wedding cakes so this is actually the second batch this season I have made :)

Christmas Eve and Christmas Plans
Tomorrow we are going to church service at 7 pm. Jordan will get to open one present tomorrow. She discovered that I put her present from Grandma Diane under the tree and she has been dying to open it. I have not put our stuff for her out yet because it is going to go in gift bags (because I have no boxes) and I know she will be peaking :) I'm going to make a Chicken Christmas Wreath tomorrow for dinner. I got the recipe in an e-mail. You make it with cresent rolls, chicken and green and red peppers (other ingredients too but I can't remember them off the top of my head). I have a cheese ball and crackers for us to snack on tomorrow. For Christmas dinner I have a ham, that we got from someone at church a month or so ago that I had frozen, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, corn and rolls. I alway make monkey bread for breakfast on Christmas day too. It will just be a quite day at home on Christmas. I have tomorrow night off but have to go into work at 11:00 on Christmas night.

That's about it for an update from us. Hope all is well with everyone and you all have a great Christmas!

Prayers for safe travel

Please pray for safe travel as Victoria and her friend Jen leave tonight to travel to Florida with the moving truck. The girls are planning to drive straight through and get to Jacksonville Sat. morning in time for Tori to get ready for her wedding. With the wild winter weather lately I really hope they don't run into trouble. Best of luck to you girls!

Winter Program

Jordan's school program was today. The kids all did a great job! The kindergarteners were the last class to perform. Each class did 2 songs, the band and strings had pieces they did and then the whole school and the audience sang 4 songs together. It was so fun.

Her Christmas dress from Grandma Nancy


I braided her hair last night after we washed it so it was wavy today. She said she didn't want the waves to go away. I think she will be disappointed tomorrow when she gets up. I can't imagine they would last 2 days.


Jordan's class.

Remember on the halloween post where I said Steven from her class was a handful and was the one who roared in the mic when Jordie went up to say what she was for halloween? Well that's Steven on the left in the top row. He kept hollering "hi mom and dad!" and trying to walk down to them. All his parents did was laugh at him. It's no wonder he's a handful.


The kids all watching Steven and trying to keep singing

Here's a video I took. It's not the greatest but you can see the class. This was at the end when everyone one was singing. I tried to scan over to see the other kids but it was too dark. I wasn't sure how to cut that out to put it on here so just excuse the few seconds of blackness. :)

Christmas Changes

Since money is really tight and we are choosing to cut alot out so that Jim can go to Florida for Tori's wedding we have decided not to make our trip to Kansas City for Christmas. We will just have a quiet Christmas here at home. We were going to stay at a Marriott on the plaza for free since it's during the employee trade out time but that's ok. It still would have taken money for gas and food and any spending we did so we are just cutting that out.

Why all the violence?

A 20 year old gunman shot up a mall here in Omaha yesterday. The violence is senseless. He killed 8 people, wounded 5 others and then killed himself. Omaha has been getting more violent lately. Please pray for peace. It makes me just want to run away to the woods and live in seclusion.

The tree is up

After all the chaos last night we did end up getting our tree put up. Jordan loved decorating it.


Jordan helping daddy put the branches on


Lucy looked so cute laying in the branches on the couch


Decorating the tree


She was all into bowing last night. I'm not sure what that was all about


Victoria and Kelly


Jordie loves her big sissy.

Victoria's Getting Married!

Victoria and Chad are getting married on Dec. 15th. Chad is in the Navy, based in Jacksonville, FL. Tori leaves for Florida next week. Jim will be flying down for the weekend to give her away. We wish them the best of luck!

Can't we all just get along?????

After another heated argument last night Courtney has moved out. She's staying with some friends for now but is supposed to be going back up to Elk Point with her mom and getting into counseling again. For 10 years now I have tried to hold this family together and bring everyone to love each other again. I know now I can't do that and I am done trying. The kids can do what they want and Jim's parents can not speak to us if that's what they choose. All of them know our house is open to them whenever they want. But I'm not going to be the peace keeper and mediator anymore. I'm done. I can't let myself be so worked up and worn out with it anymore.

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty good thanksgiving here at the Leland household. I used alot of the food we had gotten from the food pantry at church and from people at church who had "adopted" out family last month and gave us groceries. I bought just a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey. We still had plenty of left overs even with just the breast. Jordan and I had turkey for dinner last night and then tonight we ate up the last of it with hot turkey sandwiches. Our Thanksgiving menu was:

Turkey Breast

White Corn

Asperagus

Yams

Stuffing

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

Deviled Eggs

Sweet and Dill Pickles

Green and Black Olives

Mini Carrots

Rolls

Cheese and Crackers Tray

Pumpkin Pie

Pecan Pie

It came out being a whole lot of food for not doing anything fancy. I bought my pies at Walmart .

Jordie helped me put all the food on the table

Getting ready for prayers

Long over due update

A Day Off
I have finally given myself a day off! I've been working overtime for so long now. Some nights it's only a few hours but it still drains me to pick up work 7 days a week. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my time--except sleep! Wednesday I was only able to pick up 3 hours so it will almost be like having 2 days off.

Jordan is Starting to Read
Jordan is really into sounding words out lately. She finds words everywhere and tries to sound them out. She was reading everything the other night from the words on my t-shirt to the words in her work books. They haven't learned any word blends but she can do the individual sounds for most letters. At night when we read a bedtime story she picks out the words she knows like: the, one, to, a, at, but, can (there are some others but I can't think of them right now). It's so fun to watch her sound the words out but also sad because I know my baby girl is growing up.



Courtney Has Decided to Move Back to South Dakota

Courtney has decided to move back to SD at semester. She is going to help take care of her great grandmother. Her grandma is not doing well health wise and she needs someone to stay with her so they don't have to put her in a nursing home.

Halloween

Another Halloween has come and gone. Jordan was Jasmine this year. We had a Jasmine costume left from daycare stuff. We just added a crown and some princess shoes. Her class had their party in the afternoon. All the kids got dressed up and went down to the gym. Each class got to go up on stage and then the kids got to walk up to the mic and say their name and what they were. My camera battery was on the fritz when they were up there so I didn't get any good pictures of that. Jordan was scared when she got up to the mic. One of her classmates (who is handful) had run up to the mic and roared in it because he was a dragon, all the kids started laughing and I think Jordie thought they were laughing at her because she was walking up to the mic. After the halloween parade in the gym all the kids went back to their classes for snacks and games. The PTA provided juice and cookies. The kids had brought in different snacks to hand out. The kids ate their cookies and juice and brought all the the other snacks home. We played hershey's kiss relay, the kids had to hold a plastic spoon (one for each kid--no sharing) in their mouth and carry a kiss from one side of the carpet to the other and drop it in a basket. Then they had to unwrap it as fast as they could, eat it and run back to the end of the line for the next person to go. The kids had a great time.

Last night we went to Benson Baptist Church for trunk or treat and then we went up to our old neighbors the Gollibits and went trick or treating with them. Jordan got tons of candy! I had bought 4 bags of candy to hand out here but Jim said there weren't any trick or treaters. After we got home I had 3 kids come by but that's it. Guess we'll have enough candy to last us for a while.


Jordan's class waiting to go up on stage



Hershey's Kiss game


I love her smile in this one. She thought she was hot stuff with the glittery lip gloss on.

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got our pumpkins done on Monday. Jordan has been asking me for a week if we could do it. We've just been so darn busy that we haven't gotten it done sooner. Here's a few pictures from the event.


She liked digging in the gooey guts


Jordan working on her little pumpkin, Courtney working on the big one and me sorting the seeds for roasting


Ta-Da!

Brownies Hay Ride

Jordan's girl scout troup had their hay ride and hot dog roast tonight. They kids all had a eat time. It was at one of the leader's parents-in-law's farm.

She liked the tire swing

And the tire horse

Courtney had to try it out too.

Up on top of the playground equiptment

Everyone roasting hotdogs and getting settled in for dinner

It was really toasty near the fire.

The lady next to me lives a few blocks from us (I don't know her name) and her little girl catches the bus with Jordie.

Jordan, her friend Mia from her class and one of the older brownies

I brought a chair for her too but she wanted to sit on the ground near Mia

Ready for the hay ride

Sorry so dark. My camera was on the wrong setting and by the time I got it figured out the kids were doing their silly pictures

They always do one serious pic and then one silly pic when they do group shots

Pic with brothers and sisters sitting with the brownies

We had gone to a Halloween "safe night" at the police department this afternoon and that's where she got her face painted

Waiting patiently for the ride to start

Tayla--the little girl that catches the bus with Jordie

Jordan and Tayla cozied up with Tayla's mom