Hello! It's 11.3 below zero here right now and was 40-50 below zero with wind chill last evening. Aaah, the joys of living up north! :)
I just got back from a women's conference put on by our church. We had an excellent speaker, great music, some time to scrapbook and be with great friends. One thing that doesn't get done at those things is sleep! Our hotel was also host to an army of hockey players who chose to run up and down the halls at the oddest hours. :) God really spoke to us through our speaker and am encouraged to continue to grow and change with His help.
I walked into the house to 3 very happy children and one little sick one. Kylie has a fever and a snotty nose. It just happened today. Dan took them all to see the dogsled races in town yesterday and then they cruised over to the lake and watched the car races. They had a good time with their Dad while I was gone.
Happy Valentine's Week!

Macy and her makeup

I heard Dan say, "Macy, just what are you doing"? And then he said, "Go show your mom." I knew it had to be good! :)

Macy showed up and I could tell that she had been having a good time with the lipgloss. Thanks so much to whichever family member sent that up for Christmas!

Aaah, a snapshot into Edblad family life. :)

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!