The Wilders: January 2009

The story begins on a nice day in Michigan. Some construction workers decide to install some trusses on a building despite the high wind warnings for that night. That night, all of the trusses blow off of the building and are destroyed. So, the truss fabricator re-builds the trusses and ships them to the job site. It is decided that to save time they would unload the trusses from the truck all at once instead of one bundle at a time like they are supposed to............

OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

They bent all of the bottom chords.............

and pretty much folded the trusses in half.........

These are 60' trusses. They should be straight, not bent!

So instead of fixing them or replacing the damaged material, they decide it would be a good idea to install them on the building.

So yeah, that was a fun repair! We ended up repairing a total of 35 trusses! Hopefully they told us about all of the damage! My advice.......... never go into this building! NEVER!

We hope that everyone had a fun and safe New Years! Chris had to work New Years Day so our New Years Eve was pretty low key.

But, we thought we would post some pictures from Christmas.

These are Tiana's professional pictures we had done in her Christmas Dress. She is such a diva. The first one is her naughty picture and the second is her nice one!

We celebrated Christmas many times this year, and this was probably the most nontraditional Christmas I have ever had. Chris had to work Christmas day, so we had to work around that.

We went to 4 work Christmas Parties, 2 for Chris and 2 for me. Both had one with kids and one without. I have to say that my "Adult" party at work was much more mellow than the one Chris had. But that is all I will say about that! Tiana had a great time playing with all of the other kids at both parties she was allowed to attend.

Tiana and Chris at his Fire Department Party. We actually got her to sit still long enough to get a quick picture.

Santa showed up at that party so this was her first opportunity to give him her never ending list. She would add something new every day. I think at this point it included: Princess toys, Barbie toys, Jungle Book toys, and Tinkerbell toys.

Here is a picture of Chris and me at my work Christmas Party.

We celebrated our first Christmas with the Kloers. They are pretty much my adoptive family. Tiana got a bunch of Moon Sand. We had seen it but never actually played with it. It is pretty cool stuff. Tiana loves playing with it and it really isn't as messy as you would think.

Tiana by their Christmas Tree doing her signature pose.

Tiana playing with her moon sand. She got it all over her dress, but thankfully it brushed right off.

We took Tiana to visit Chris's Great-Aunt Eleanor. We try to get over there around Christmas time every year. She of course thought Tiana was so cute.

That same night we had our friends Kyle, Reenie and their 1 year old son Carter over for dinner and for a visit from Santa. Carter got Tiana a small Ballerina Barbie doll, and Santa brought her a Ken doll and some Ken Clothes. This was her last chance to get any last minute requests in before Santa came on Christmas Eve.

Chris had to work on Christmas this year so we celebrated with his family on Christmas Eve. We had dinner with his parents and siblings and their families, opened gifts and played some games. Tiana had a great time playing with her cousins.

Tiana just loves to get dressed up. She was so excited to wear her dress and she got to wear one of her nice necklaces. You can't see it in this picture but it is a cross with a small diamond. Everyone would ask her if it was a cross and she would reply: "No, it is a diamond!" I also curled her hair and it stayed in so well. She looked so cute!

Tiana with her cousin Dougie

Brooke, Jordan, Tiana and Dougie. All of the girls got some animal pillows so we were taking pictures of all the girls with them, but Dougie wanted in too.

We let Tiana open all of her gifts from us that night when we got home so we wouldn't have to get up quite as early Christmas morning in order to get it all done before Chris had to leave for work.

The next morning we got up super early to see what Santa brought. I don't know if Tiana quite knew what to think. I think she was a little bit overwhelmed. Santa brought her a ton of Barbie toys, A princess carriage with a Sleeping Beauty and a Snow White doll, Jungle Book toys (Santa Delivered on that one. We weren't sure if he was going to be able to!), and a ton of stuff in her stocking.

Tiana checking out all of her toys. It was 5:30 am and she was so tired. (Look at the branch of the Christmas tree and the cluster of ornaments. That is how our whole tree looked. She did such a good job of decorating it!)

Tiana and I spent Christmas morning at my Grandma's house. My parents came by her house too, and we had a nice relaxing morning. We went to the firehouse for dinner with all of the families of the firefighters that were working that day.

The day after Christmas was a relaxing one. Tiana finally got to play with all of her new toys. She got a pair of roller skates and she wanted to try them out. It was really windy so we let her try them out in the kitchen. She did pretty well for her first time. We of course held her hands, but she was doing the hard part of making herself go.

Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my family at my sisters house in Colorado Springs. Tiana got to play with her cousins that she doesn't get to see very much. We had brunch and pretty much just hung out. My nephew got Guitar Hero from Santa and had been practicing all week so he could beat Chris. Of course Chris didn't let that happen. But I do think he may have beaten my dad!

(Yes my family takes a lot of pictures! We also had gotten a new camera the day before so we were trying to figure it out!)