Merry Christmas!

We are all happily munching on Polish Donuts (puchki sp?). The boys were very happy to wake up at home for Christmas.

Yesterday we went to Christmas Eve mass. They ended up canceling our late mass and the one this morning due to weather! Last evening after mass, the boys baked cupcakes for Jesus' Birthday. It is good that they are learning the true meaning of Christmas.

Although we miss seeing our families this holiday, we are very glad to not have to be traveling. We hope everyone is traveling safe and that you all have a blessed Christmas.

101 Update leading into the holidays

One would think I have forgotten about the 101 list. I have not, but thought I would update at least one aspeact of it. I had on my plan to finish a certain number of doctoral classes. Well I finished them all! I may even have a shot of having my dissertation mostly done by my 1001 days deadline. I am hoping that the completion beyond my goal in classes will make up for my lack of completion on some others. I have 29 goals that have not been addressed yet, I will see how they go over the next year.

O Chirstmas Tree(s)

The Christmas tree season started with a cute little Crystal tree. It was something I picked up a science conference. The boys had fun watching the crystals grow on the little trunk.

We had a great time decorating our "real" trees this year. Yes, we do put up 2 trees, one in the family room and one in the living room. The boys also decided we should add popcorn strings to the family room tree. It was a messy process and we only ended up with 3 short little strings of popcorn. Of course Garek's method of stinging popcorn was to break half of them so he could eat them.

Gavin is intent on putting ornaments in just the right spot:

Garek is "hiding" ornaments in the center while Gavin continues adding ornaments:

Garek loves the Nutcracker he is holding:

The tree in the family room, see the small popcorn strings?

This year will also be the first year EVER that we have been home on Christmas morning. The boys are so excited, Gavin is planning our family Christmas Eve and Day activities! Although we will miss the extended family members, we feel that it is only fair that the boys start to create memories of holidays at home as well as those in which we spend a lot of time traveling!

If I wait for pictures...

It seems one of the reasons I hesitate to blog is I always want a picture to go with the blogging. I have come to realize if I do that we will never blog. You would think with all the techno savvy we have going on in our household that posting pictures would be a snap...but it seems they are always on a SD card which is not near the computer!

This past weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving with Grandpa Guy and Grandma Sue. It was a great meal and it was nice catching up with my brother and step brothers and their guests. On Friday Jody and I headed out for our annual shopping extravaganza. This year I needed to enlist Matt's help as there weer a couple of things at Shopko that were needed and he was the only person that could get there for those gifts! He did a good job, and was out of the store by 5:30 AM. Jody and I managed to hit up Old Navy, Walmart, Target and JC Penney's by 6:15 AM. It may seem like that is a lot of shopping, but there were relatively few items purchased at each stop and I am now all done Christmas shopping!

One of the reasons I am done shopping is we had our Dobosenski Christmas on Saturday. Andee and Bryan are expecting their bundle of joy at the beginning of January and traveling around Christmas will be near impossible, so we decided to move Christmas ahead by a month for this year. As Bryan pointed out, this means Christmas came early this year but will feel late next year. It was a nice to hang out with the family. We had lots of food, played games and opened gifts. We make our exchange gifts and it is always great to see the creativity and talent of the family come to light!

On Sunday we came home because Matt had Christmas in Christ Chapel activities to attend to. It was nice being able to unpack from the weekend and get laundry done! Then, when I sat down to check my email I had a pleasant surprise waiting! My comprehensive exam results were in my inbox! I passed my comprehensives. What a relief! Although I take a moment to "jump up and down" over this. I then realize I have to work on my dissertation. I am hoping to maintain my sanity and still be sociable during this time, but I truly hope you all understand when I am holed up in the house working on my dissertation. I promise to be more sociable when it is finished!

I had better wrap this up for now, my lunch break is over and it is time to work on a project with a student.

Busy with a capital "B"

I always use this excuse, but it is so true. We have been sooooo busy! I wish I had a few pics to share on here, but for now will recount October highlights:

• Finished up Nobel, Fall Soccer, and Gustavus Homecoming
• Had violin recitals- both boys did fabulous, they are turning into terrific violin players, and more importantly, confident young men!
• Went to the Lutsen Alpine Slide with the Hagens! So much fun! The boys both did great and loved it. Even Garek, who crashed at the bottom and aged his mommy at least 10 years! He was bruised, but did not scrape or break anything!
• Finished my second to last doctoral class- this means I have comprehensive exams next week, so do not expect too many extra updates!
• I traveled to CA to work with schools in Solvang and San Luis Obispo. It is a beautiful area, and although it is significantly warmer, I do miss MN while I am there.
• We took care of fall illnesses (I hope)- Gavin had an ear infection and Matt a sinus infection. Better than the Flu!
• I attended a science conference where I immersed myself in household chemistry and forensics lessons to bring ideas to my students
• Of course we also had our weekly collections of violin and piano lessons, school projects, religious ed and karate.

Good thing life is never dull at the St Peter Dobosenskis, now I just need time to share it!

Fall is here!

I should have pictures to go with this, but decided if I did not blog now, I would not, and then I would revert to being a blog slacker again!

So last week, the weather in Minnesota decided to become more fall like, I should have known the goodness would not last. I liked the cool mornings and warm afternoons we had a few weeks ago. With this cool fall like weather came rain, which was a much needed blessing. For us it saved on the water bill! We have been having to water our sod regularly. (Eventually a post may appear here with pictures, but my sod laying hubby is super busy right now!)

So since my last posting, Gavin has had 3 soccer games, we had church fall fiesta, there were more tomatoes to be picked and a Mankato Symphony Concert as well as numerous meetings and appointments for all of us.

At this time of the year I am a " Nobel Widow." You know how some women are hunting widows or fishing widows? Well, part of Matt's job at Gustavus is to work on the production of the Nobel Conference. He does not do all of this by himself of course, but it sure seems like it when he is working until the wee hours of the morning only to get up and leave the house in the early hours as well (even on weekends). I have been able to best keep track of him by the Tweets he sends out that I see on facebook!

It is okay, we both keep on truckin and look forward to next Sunday when: Nobel is done, GAC Homecoming is done and I am back from my all school field trip at Camp St Croix! Somewhere during this week we will also have time for piano lessons, violin lessons, kids homework, my homework, tomatoes to can, and the rest of daily life! So with that said, I am off to bed before 11 PM, for probably the only evening this week, gotta get psyched for the rest of the week after all!

Tales of a kindergartner

Garek and I were discussing what he might do in Kindergarten today. He says:

Mom: What do you think you will do in school today?

Garek: I know, we get to play with this metal thing on a square box that looks like a teeter totter and has cup holders on it. Then we put stuff in the cup holders and it goes up an down (he made motions with his hand of the cups going up and down in alternating fashion).

Mom: What do you use it for?

Garek: We see that something is bigger than something else

Mom: Is the teeter totter called a balance?

Garek: Oh yeah, a balas. We also get to play with a slinshy.

Mom: A what?

Garek: A metal thing that goes down the stairs- you know a slinshy (he is motioning like a slinky going down the stairs)

Mom: You mean a slinky?

Garek: Yeah that's it! Then we use managet on it and they stick together!

Gotta love it! An no, these are not typos, I am trying to spell out what he actually says! I love our morning conversations, he is full of information. I also would like to point out that his favorite subject appears to be science, his science teacher mommy loves this!