Little Gibson!

Look at these cute pictures of Gibby laying between my legs on the couch! He is so adorable!

Our Christmas Newsletter!

Those of you who will read this on my blog will most likely be getting one in the mail soon! I just put our Christmas cards in the mail today! So if you don't want to read this long post now, then you can wait until you get your card! And yes, I know it's ridiculously long!

Mueller Time Christmas Newsletter 2008

2008 has been a very busy year for us! At the beginning of 2008 we were newly college graduates not sure about where we would end up. We stayed and lived in Seward, Nebraska for the first half of the year until we knew where we would end up moving to. In late April, Jon received a phone call to interview with Lutheran High School in Metairie, Louisiana (New Orleans). Two weeks later, we found out that he got the job! Jon is serving as the Athletic Director, P.E., and Computer teacher at Lutheran High School. We were so excited to get the news and couldn’t wait to finally move out of Seward!

At the end of March, Jon became a Godfather to Charli Nicole Niemczyk! She is the daughter of Jon’s good friend Jimmy Niemczyk and his girlfriend Jamie. Charli is a beautiful little girl and we are so glad to have her in our lives.

In May, Jamie’s sister Laurel graduated from Lutheran High North in Houston, Texas. We went down for the last 2 weeks of May to help celebrate. We had a joint graduation party for the three of us and had a great time! We are so proud of Laurel; she now attends the University of Texas in San Antonio and is in their nursing program! Good luck Laurel!

Over the summer Jon’s brother Aaron married Katie on June 28 so we were in St. Louis for the entire month of June to celebrate their wedding and just spend time with the Mueller clan! We had so much fun at their wedding! Katie and Rylee you looked beautiful and Aaron you looked handsome! The day after Aaron’s wedding Jamie dislocated her shoulder for the 4th time! We were planning on moving down to New Orleans that week but this stalled our move 10 days. On July 9th we made the 10 hour drive from St. Louis to New Orleans. Jon’s good friend Billy Niemczyk was a tremendous help in our moving process! We have two cars and since Jamie dislocated her shoulder the week before she was not allowed to drive, so Billy drove her car down and came to help us unload our storage unit since Jamie couldn’t lift anything either. We used the PODS company to move from Seward to New Orleans and we recommend them if you’re moving-they were great! A HUGE thank you to Billy, we couldn’t have done it without you!

On July 21st we celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary!

It wasn’t until the very end of July that Jamie found a job-or should we say-the job kind of found her. Jamie is working as the Athletic Director, Computers, and Spanish teacher at
Atonement Lutheran School. Atonement is a PreK-3 thru 8th grade school and she teaches every single grade! Jamie is really enjoying teaching and loves being around the kids!
Coaching is a big part of our lives and probably always will be. Jamie was the coach the Junior and Senior girl’s volleyball teams this fall and had a blast! She had two senior teams and one junior team. Her 8th graders got 3rd place in the senior’s tournament while the 7th graders made 5th! Jon wasn’t the coach, but helped out on game days for the football team. Jon is the head boy’s basketball coach and as of now they are only a few games into the season. On December 10th, the boy’s basketball team has the opportunity to play in the New Orleans Arena which is where the NBA New Orleans Hornets play. This is such an amazing opportunity and we feel very blessed that Jon gets to coach on an NBA court! Don’t worry, Jamie will be taking plenty of pictures!

In September we became a family of 5! We got a new kitty Gibby from a family at Jamie’s school! We got him when he was 8 weeks old, and he just completes our family! Gibby traveled in an 18-wheeler tire well from Houston all the way to New Orleans. He was covered in oil when the family found him and they helped nurse him back to health. They asked Jamie if we wanted to adopt him and we discussed it and decided we couldn’t turn this kitty away! He is a great little cat and full of personality! We can’t wait for everyone to meet him!

On October 2nd, our nephew Xavier turned 1! That was a big milestone! We can’t believe that he is 1 year old already! Matt, Rachel and Xavier live in Parker, Colorado so we don’t get to see them too often. Every time we see Xavier he is doing a million new things! Christmas will be fun seeing all the new stuff he’s up to!

On October 15th, while preparing to scrimmage with her volleyball team, Jamie dislocated her shoulder once again making it time number 5! She was once again stuck in a sling and finally made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. This last dislocation made her shoulder pretty much worthless. She had no other option but to get surgery! Jamie had to do physical therapy for 3 weeks before she could have surgery. Finally, on November 20th Jamie had ligament repair surgery to stop this dislocation madness! Originally the doctor’s thought she needed a bone graft. They didn’t have to do a bone graft, but her ligaments were in really bad shape according to the doctors. They put 3 anchors into her shoulder to hold everything together better. Jamie will be stuck in a sling for 6 weeks (no movement at all) and then can start physical therapy after that 6 weeks is over. It’s going to be a long recovery but we feel
blessed that she was able to get the surgery over with and begin the healing process. Jamie’s mom came down for the surgery and was a huge help those first few days! Thanks Mama!

During Thanksgiving Jon’s Dad, Mom and sister Erica came down to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with us! We had such a great time and had a Cajun Thanksgiving! We had Cajun turkey, jambalaya, potato casserole, and pecan pie! It was so delicious! As for Christmas, we will be in Houston from December 23rd-26th, and in St. Louis from December 30th-January 4th. Those dates may change, we’ll keep everyone posted!

We welcome anyone who would like to take their vacation in New Orleans, we do have a guest bedroom to share and would love the company!

We would like to wish everyone a very blessed Christmas and New Year! Hopefully we get to see everyone but if we don’t get to, we’ll be thinking of you over the holidays! As always you are in our prayers and we hope your Christmas is a blessed one!
We love you!
Love,
Jon, Jamie, Ozzie, Izzy and Gibby

DONE!!

I am finished with ALL of my wrapping for Christmas! I finished shopping on Saturday and on Sunday I wrapped every present that needed to be wrapped! WOO HOO!! What a great feeling to be done (sorry if you get mad after reading this if you're not done) Love ya'll!

I also added a cute picture of Gibby with a Christmas outfit on!

SNOW in Louisiana!

Well I thought we had more far enough south to get away from the snow. But I woke up this morning and was proven wrong! Check this out I can't believe it!

N.O. Arena

Lutheran High School Boys Basketball is playing in the New Orleans Arena tonight! This is where the NBA New Orleans Hornets play their home games so the boys are really excited! It will be very exciting to watch Jon coach on an NBA Court! Hopefully this event helps promote Lutheran High School to get more kids interested in attending! There is a Hornets game following the game tonight at 7, so it should be a good turnout! I will be on the court taking pictures so look in the next couple of days to see pictures!

Kitty pictures!

Here are just a couple cute pictures of my cats!

Izzy and Daddy


Ozzie's feet

NO WAY!

These pictures are of an actual house decorated for Christmas! This house is the house of the owner of Copeland's (a huge restaurant franchise in New Orleans). It's ridiculous how many lights there are. They actually have tours that you can take and cops watching the house at all times for the Christmas display! WOW!

New DECOR

We went to another Lutheran grade schools auction on Saturday and won some pretty cool stuff! Check out this wall decor we put above the bar area!

Wrapping

I'm not even halfway done with wrapping and I still have a couple people on my list to shop for! But I was able to get some presents wrapped this weekend, which is actually helping the cats away from my ornaments! I'm really digging our paper for this year!

Basketball Girl

As soon as Jon put his basketball bag down, our little girl decided that it would be the best spot to lay in!

Congrats card!

Jon's cousin Matt and his wife Stephanie are pregnant and we just found out! It's their first which makes it really exciting! Made them a congrats card the other day and I think it turned out really cute! I don't know what they're having so I tried to make it gender neutral! Let me know what you think!

Shoulder Update!

Here is where I'm at after week number two! I started work again, which has been more difficult than I thought it was going to be. By the end of the day my arm feels like it's dragging on the floor. In the morning when I wake up, my shoulder is super stiff and I can't move it (even more than I normally can). My wounds are looking better each day and my bruise is becoming smaller each day.

As you can tell by the pictures (that I took last night) my bruise is a lot smaller than it was and my scars are looking much better! I took my last pain pill this morning. I don't take them all the time; I take one before I go to sleep because it's still uncomfortable to sleep and I take one in the morning before school. I called my doctor and left a message with the nurse so that I can hopefully get more just to make it through school! It's getting really difficult to constantly be in a sling! UGH! I hate being confined and dependant on others to do things for me! I'm sure Jon is sick of doing my hair every morning too! : ) Thanks baby, I love you! Other than that, I think I'm doing well. I have a doctor's appointment scheduled on December 22, so I'll see how I'm doing then! Love ya'll!
Jamie

Two new wreaths that friends ordered!

Here are two new wreaths that people at my school ordered!

New craft table!

When Jon's parents came for Thanksgiving they brought our new kitchen table! So my old table became my craft table! I added the fabric colored cork board squares to give the wall a little color! Let me know what you think!