A night out. Matt had two gift cards, from work, to Manny's restraint. It was a fun date night, and almost free for us! We had a really great waiter so we tipped big:-)

Here's my date! He had a lot of primping to do before I got this picture. Lots. It's like he's the girl! fixin' the hair, had to blow the nose, spiff up... it's cute and I lose patients:-p

The food was as good as my date! I forgot to take a picture of my shrimp before I ate it. So, you just get to see the shell! It was all so good!

And you just went on a date with me and Matt... how do you feel about that??

A Few Of My Favorite Things......

These are old Bibles that my grandpa gave me when we were cleaning out their house. I got them for my mom because I knew she wanted them someday. The top one is my grandma Olson's very first Bible after she became a Christian. The second one (I'm pretty sure) is my grandpa's Bible that he preached from for years. The bottom one is my great grandpa's (my mom's grandpa) Bible that he preached out of for years. He was a missionary in China. My grandpa (my mom's dad) was a missionary in Taiwan. What a neat and Godly ancestry I have!

My friend, Sarah, gave me this really good smelling oil from Bath and Body Works then we liked. They didn't have any at that store that day. She went to a different store later and got us both some. I have really great girlfriends! This same Sarah was due Dec. 25 with her second child, a girl, Eve... I am still waiting for the call:-) I can't wait to go see her and give her some fun girly gifts and take some pictures of her and the baby:-) On Christmas Eve I went and took some fun pictures of her tummy. I will post some pictures sometime soon I hope. She's a blessing to me!

Ooooo, and the candle warmer is new too! Yay, I've been wanting one and Matt let me get it:-D

Matt, doing some wrapping... Now, he is one of my favorite things in life!!!! He is so sweet, loving, kind and good to me!!!

My favorite slippers. Love them. So big, warm and fluffy. Those are some $12 little shoes. I'm trying to get some more shoes I can wear in this weather:-/ They are cute and the price was right.

Christmas candles on sale!!! I mean sale! The tall ones were $12 each and I got them for a little more then $2! The small one and jars were $1.79!! I got them all for about $11. I was thrilled! I got one of the tall ones and then my sweet husband let me go back and get some more because I was just so thrilled about the price! I love them... all these good smells in my house on a cold winter day or night.... ahhh:-}

Here's one of our little Christmas helpers! He's pooped.... from running around stealing my tape! He just had to take a nap on the tissue paper.

Brage Family Christmas...

We traveled up there at sunset, and in the cold.

A bunch of the family..

The little tree that was so pretty. The gift opening, that gets kind of wild. Grandma picked a gift bag that looked like she was dressed. Didn't even know it til we wanted to take a picture of her! Then.. some of the yummy treats:-)

It's the most fun group of people - those Brages! It is the Christmas that we always attend. It's always a great time.

We don't have electricity, just really cold temperatures!

We didn't have any electricity for NINE hours last Monday evening. I was out with a friend and Matt had just gotten off work. I called him and told him that the power was out. So he stayed in town too and just bummed around. I was cold that night, too! About -5 that evening. Not a good night to have no heat:-( I was done with my friend so Matt and I met at Perkins so he could get something to eat. We kept calling Xcel Energy to see where they were at with getting out power back. We saw almost all our neighbors out and about too.

Here is our trip to Perkins.......

When we were ready to leave the power was still not on at home....

So, we called Matt's parents to see if we could come over and crash for a while til our power came back on. This is their new furniture!

Emma in front of the fire on a cold winders night..

Neat old books that Matt's mom has...

Glowing fire.... Warms your heart... I miss having a fireplace. I never thought I would say that!

The power came back on about midnight so we went home then. Our pipes were frozen for about a day:-( It was frustrating, but that's living in Minnesota!

Matt's Birthday

My mom made this for Matt. These are pictures I took last summer at Matt's grandparents farm. As you can see, The Elmdale Farm. It's in an old window. It really means a lot to him because he was so close to those grandparents and because he spent a lot of time there with his siblings and cousins when he was growing up. Very neat gift! Thanks mommy!

The food for the party! I made a ton on Stromboli and mom made the cakes.

We had lots of fun family there. Matt's parents and one brother came, my brothers and parents and it was at my grandmas. What a blessing it is to have so much family around! This is brother Tanner, then Tyler, Then Jami and her little Pooka. Pooka was so cute that night, carrying around her little purse around!

The little family! Matt with his new pj pants and slippers. My daddy, and then mommy w/ her sweet look. It was a huge snow storm that night!

What fun we had...

Saturday once again...

This is my mommy's handy work. I love it. I love all the things she makes me, I just wish I had a real put together house to show them off in. This is a mod poge box she made for me. Love it's personality.

It is Saturday once again... that's a relief..

So far today I've watched "flip this house" on TLC... I love this show. Maybe it reminds me again what can be in my house some day:-)

Matt is out with the Fire Department delivering calenders. Remember, the ones I took pictures for earlier this Fall? They turned out really nice.

We are having a birthday party for Matt this evening!! Matt is 26... we're getting old. When we finally decide to have kids we're going to have to have them bing, bing, bing so that we're not having kids when we're 40! That said, I have a lot of baking to do for tonight. Six Stromboli and a huge salad. I should really get off the couch!

Here's to keeping it real, being blunt and honest!

{ Tea on a CoLd day }

TEA, I love a hot cup of tea on a cold day... Raspberry is my favorite. And we've had a lot of cold days to enjoy tea lately...

I have lots of different kinds.... Ummmm:-D I feel like I just can't get anything done sometimes lately because I just want to curl up with a steaming hot cup of something - coffee and tea are my favorites!

I had some "only in marriage" things take place this last week and want to know if you know how I feel...!

The other day, I went to do the dishes and there was one of Matt's lunch containers in the sink. On closer inspection, it was some fish we had had for dinner a few nights before. I see most of the fish still in the container. He has taken this to work with him already, to be clear. I opened it and there it all was, the plastic fork and all... all in that nice little package for me, just for me. I threw it all away and cleaned the container. Later, however... I had a good time teasing him about it. He said he, "didn't have time" to do anything with it. He said this in a tone that (he thought) lead me to believe he really would have done something with it had he actually had time. (yeah, right!) He puts it there, and poooof, the magic fairy takes it away and leaves him with a clean container for something more tasty next time! Pooof. I told him I want the Poooof thing to happen for me sometime......... Ahhhh... I can't wait to have about four of little Matt's running around here, keeping me on my toes.

Then I had a "Ah, ha, this is the difference between men and woman" moment. We were in the shower the other night when Matt's... Looking at me. I said, "what? " and he says, "Well, we're half way there... you're naked, I'm naked.... we're more then half way there" I said, "yeah, we're half way to getting dressed!" Does that not paint a perfect picture of a man and a woman's brain!? Ahhh, nothing like being married! I do love it, I really do. I couldn't be more blessed to have him in my life.. there are just funny differences in us and it's amusing:-)

Tonight Matt and I had a little date and went to a new place in old Onalaska that we've been wanting to try. It was pretty good. The atmosphere was better then the food. I was so hungry, though, that I didn't care. It was fun to go out with Matt. Life kind of takes over sometimes and then all you do it go to work come home and go to bed... that's it, day in and day out. It was nice..

We are looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow and just relaxing. Matt and my brother, Tyler, are going to do a guys night tomorrow night at a friends house. Jami and I are going to go to the church Christmas party. Mellow and fun. Love a Saturday like that.

more from our Winter walk...

Ice... Ice in my gutters, right along side the little trees growing in my gutter. It's been... nope, never mind, we've never cleaned them!

More ice...... I'd rather see wind chimes hanging, but.....

...it gives Matt something to do!

Brrrrr... cold door knob...

The bottles in my yard, I never did get them out of the yard before the snow flew. The grass grew up into the bottle. I'm sure the grass was trying to get away from the pending winter.

Out in my yard

There aren't any pretty red tomato's in these

Our neighbors down the ally from us have all these penguins that they put out in the winter and rearrange them all the time - it's so cute! Sometimes they'll put a Packer something or other out there and make it look as if they are worshiping it. Or, they'll be in a line going somewhere... or they'll just have like three of them out there doing something. It's fun to see what they come up with next.

~ River Street ~

Cold tree looking over the Mississippi...

ColD, gLooMy WiNter daY.....

I feel like nothing is worthy of being in "color" today, if you could call all of this snow color!? We went for a walk cause we've been sitting on the couch all day - well, since we got up at 12:30pm! It was colder then I thought it'd be:-/ haha. Joke was on me. It wasn't a.... lovely, enjoyable, sweet walk... and that was a disappointment cause that's what I wanted it to be in my head:-D

Here's my man, walking away... He starting skipping/dancing and when I put them on here I told him he looked like he was lifting his leg to pee on a hydrant! He said he was trying to give me something fun to take a picture of. lol.. thank you, thank you for that! I didn't post those pictures!

I hope he stops when he gets to the bottom..

Footprints... walking away.... to a warmer climate....

I'll be back... when it's green again.... and I can plant things.....

That will actually grow...

Can the mail man even get to that...??

I'd say the barges are done for good now.... The frozen Mississippi River