Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We have had a beautiful Christmas. Hope it was the same for you! Ours was not the Christmas we planned for but it was nice just the same.



We had planned to go to Colorado for Christmas with our families. After looking at Dan's vacation time, it would have been an extremely short trip. We decided to stay in Minnesota. It would be our first ever Christmas without extended family.



Christmas eve, we went to some friend's house and played outside and rode their snowmobiles. We had some chili and great appetizers. Then, it was time for our Christmas eve service at church. Our family lit the Christ candle and read scriptures. I was suppose to sing but didn't feel up to it since I have been fighting a cold. We came home and fixed some fun food. We let the kids open one gift - they were all wound tight! :) We put them to bed and sat by the fire listening to Christmas music.



Christmas came with great enthusiasm! The kids opened their stockings from Santa and then we made our way through the mound of presents! Let me say that even though Dan and I didn't buy our children one present, God worked through our family and friends and our kids had an incredible Christmas! I am still in awe of how much He loves us to provide such a fine Christmas!



I made an incredibly tasty ham and we had a very relaxed Christmas Day.

We are incredibly grateful for the wonderful gifts from family and friends. Maybe one of these years we will be able to reciprocate. We love you all!

Thankful

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted anything. Sorry, but with the move, things have been crazy. We are into our new house and getting things settled. Although our circumstances haven't been the best, we are so thankful to God for his goodness. We have a fireplace now, and we've both wanted that for a long time! The kids rooms are larger and we have great carpet/tile/wood flooring throughout. We just started decorating for Christmas and the loft area with the log banister looks awesome with lights and garland.

We had Jill, Matt, Mikayla and Zane up here for Thanksgiving. They were here for several days and we just had a blast! We talked and reminisced, played games, ate, and ate some more.

Friday night we went to Nisswa to see them light up the town and watch the fireworks. It was a nice night, not even too chilly. We drank hot chocolate and had some hot dogs. The kids each talked to Santa. It was a nice evening.

Backing up a bit, Shelby celebrated her birthday in Minneapolis this year. She was a flower girl in her cousin's wedding. She had a great time! Her birthday was on Friday and she had rehearsal dinner that night. Rachael and Wes made the evening special for her. They had a birthday cake at the rehearsal supper for her. Her hair was all fixed up at a salon and she had a beautiful dress! Her ninth birthday will be one of her favorites!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are so thankful for friends and family, God and his goodness, a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.

Love to you all!

Great picture

Hi all! Just had to share a great picture I snapped of the kids when we came home from church this past Sunday. Remember the picture of the kids that I took with them on the front porch in Dan's boots? That was last year..they have grown so much. Just thought you would enjoy it!

xoxoxo from all of us!

early fall

Well, we've been catapulted into fall! We had temps in the 90s on Thursday and today we are in the 50s and it's rained since about 1 this afternoon! Quite a difference! I am excited for fall but am not quite ready to give up on summer. We need a few more warm days on the boat swimming and and having fun!

We accomplished something huge today! We finished putting the playhouse up at church!!! Except for a few finishing touches, landscaping, and the swingset, we are all done! We went over there about 1 today and we spent until 7:30 this evening working on it. Yes, it started raining about the time we started working! :) We put on the porch, put the slide on and put the stairs on! What a job! It looks absolutely incredible sitting there on it's legs with the forest behind it. The slide off the side just looks so cool!

Kylie and Macy started dance class this last week. They were incredibly excited! They got new ballerina outfits that they wanted to wear every day until class. Here's a couple shots of them in their leotards!

Levi and Dan took the opportunity to shoot their bows while we were gone. Levi is becoming very good at hitting the target and he loves the time spent with his Dad. I'll get some pictures of that soon!

We spent the Labor Day weekend with Dan's sister, Jill and her kids. They came up to visit and we spent one day on the boat swimming, playing and having fun! It was so good to spend some time with them!

Love you all!

camping

Our camping trip was successful and fun this time around! We left for Lake Winnebegosh after Dan got home from work on Friday afternoon. It takes us about 2 hours to get there from here so we didn't get there until about 9 p.m. We sat up out tent in the dusk and ate some supper and sat around the camp fire until midnight or so.

The next morning the kids got up early because they were so excited! Yay! We basically stayed around the camp most of the day swimming and sitting by the fire. The kids played in the dirt and invented all kinds of things to do. We wrapped up the evening with chicken terriaki, rice, corn on the cob and smores over the fire.

We packed up by lunch the next day and then took the kids fishing off the dock for an hour or so. Shelby and Kylie caught fish, everyone had so much fun!

We didn't get any rain but we did have biting flies and a few hornets to contend with.

It's been a really dry summer for here. All the lakes are down "inches" and that's a big deal, here. We did have a wonderful thunderstorm in the middle of the night last night and we did get some rain out of it. There was lightening and thunder that rolled around the sky. All of this at 2 in the morning so, needless to say, we had 3 of 4 kids in our bed for several hours last night. It was a cramped night! :)

Please keep us in your prayers as we make some important decisions the next few months. We love you all!

summer fun

We have been having such beautiful weather this summer! Lots of sun and warm days! We have lots of friends who live on lakes so we visit them and play on the hot days. The kids are getting so brown. Levi and Macy both have really olive skin and they don't seem to burn, they just get darker.

We met 2 different families from our church on the Whitefish chain yesterday. Between the 3 families, there were 18 children! Now you know what we do here when it gets cold in the winter! :) Anyway, the sun was warm and we had a blast! The kids are completely unafraid of the water and will jump in and get their faces wet and even go under without freaking out. Macy is still a bit hesitant but she is coming along. I don't want any of them to have to learn to swim so they can graduate from high school like I did. Anyway, we spent a good portion of the afternoon on the water swimming and jumping off the boat! Thanks, so much Dave and Jo!

Summer goes so quickly doesn't it? I need to begin getting things in line for homeschooling. We will not begin until after Labor Day, though. We have to milk as much out of summer as we can.

We have had Dan's parents visit and his cousin from Colorado stop by this summer. We promise that if you come, you'll have a good time so come on up!

The church playhouse is almost complete. Dan is hoping to get it installed this week. This is what it looks like right now. We have one more coat of stain to put on but it really is gorgeous, isn't it? The kids are going to be sad to see it leave but will see it at church and be able to play there. Once it's up, Dan will get a website up and running and some brochures done. If you know anyone with kids and some money :), send them our way! Dan had his first boo-boo associated with building the playhouse. He sliced open his thumb over the knuckle and it kept bleeding so we made a Friday night trip to the emergency room to get it stitched up! He took his stitches out the other day and it is healing nicely!

We are planning a camping trip next weekend with some friends. Hopefully, we have no rain as our first attempt this year was cut short but huge amounts of rain and one very leaky tent! Isn't that what camping is all about! :)

Softball fun

Shelby's softball tournament was today and the end of the season. She had 4 nights of softball this week and then 2 tournament games today. She's one tired girl tonight! She seemed to make great strides this year with batting and catching. It sure is fun to watch her! They took 3rd place in the tournament and won both games today. She was so excited! She got a medal and an award for being "miss spirit". I bet you can't imagine why she got that! :)

I am going to try to post to this blog once a week and add pictures as I can. I know, I know, I will do better this time!

Hope you all are having a great summer!