End of an era, Benjamin enters his third calendar year

Happy New Year!!  Wow, 2012 ended on a sour note.  This is an aside from the usual Benjamin banter b t dubs.  In November Nana found out she had breast cancer, stage 0, ductal cancer in situ.  If you are going to have cancer of the boob it is good, early on, non-invasive, but sucky none the less.  She had a mastectomy on Dec 20 and a few complications there after that led to Hyperbaric Oxygen treatments twice a day to help with a patch that was not healing but it seems as if things have slowed down for the most part.  She is going to have to have an extra surgery as a result, but things could have been much worse.  The biopsy results are back and the margins are all clean, sentinal nodes are clean as well.  I am so thankful that we live in a time and place that we can treat these things, even if they don't go as planned, because what on earth would this world be without a Nana. 
Luckily Auntie Sarah didn't have to take the fall for ruining Christmas as is per usual during the holidays,  Nana's left boob did the trick! 

Oh, and Peefy is getting accupuncture now.

And full body massages. . .

 

Anyway, back to business.  Wee little Min and I have been cruising around between MN and WI quite a bit these last two weeks.  We headed over to Wisconsin a bit early to try to beat an impending snowstorm so we could be there when Nana got home from the hospital.  Driving at night while he is sleeping is where it is at, I didn't see any deer in my headlights like the car in front of me did so all was well. 

 

We hung out and Doctor Karen and Paige came to visit.  Paige wanted to take Benjamin home, I offered him, but Dr. K declined. :)

We hung out and played in the snow. 

Mino decided he had a new skill of feeding himself which I thought was pretty amazing. 

Auntie Sarah and Uncle Aaron drove with Gryff out from Boston and had to time it perfectly to get between blizzards to make it in time for Christmas.   They did it perfectly well. 

 

Christmas eve is when Nana found out she was having some issues so gifts and the usual routine of Christmas morning was postponed til late night.  It was nice though, we got to go to Christmas Brunch at the Paper Valley Hotel (thanks for the idea Diane!!) and eat a ton and not have to do dishes.  Poppop was confused as to why we had do drive so far for breakfast, but didn't want to go back to Clintonville so I call it a success.

 

 

 

 

 

We made it back, Sarah and Aaron made it back from Phillips where they had Christmas with Aaron's family and

 

Nana decided this was the year for a Prime Rib (because she was directing and not actually cooking so wouldn't have to take the fall if it didn't work) and Yorkshire Pudding.  We dined around 10pm.  Usual Eurotrash style for the DeWolfs :)

Following Christmas Clintonville got hit with an unexpected 6+ inch snowstorm, and after several months of looking a sled that my grandma gave to me when I was little was discovered and Mino LOVED it.  The kid has a need for speed. 

 

And a mean arm for throwing snowballs.

After a quick stop in Ladysmith to watch the Packers lose (??!!!) to the Vikings with Aaron's mom we made it back to the Twin Cities with Sarah.  I had to work New Years Eve so Sarah, Martin and Mino met me at Punch Pizza for lunch.  Mino loves him some pizza. 

 

His large head would explode if he were to eat pizza whilst being pulled in his sled methinks.