"It's the most wonderful time of the year!" I was truly ready to bah humbug this year. When Thanksgiving came, I just was no where near ready for the Holiday season to begin. That changed quickly as we got busy with the things that make Christmas, well Christmas. Our pastor preached the the 30th of November about how even though we may not be ready for Christmas, God has always been ready for Christmas and had been promising a redeemer, a savior since the before time began and we traced the journey through the old testament. Even though I knew this information, it blessed my heart. So as we began to do the outward preparations, inside we have been preparing our hearts to celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ!

Someone has to sleep with the Elf hat, it's tradition!

Alan and Hans' school program for Christmas. The 4th graders are in a play and the 1-3 are the chorus. Hans had a role and got to wear a very cute costume!! You can hear his song on youtube

Those of us far from "home"... Hans was part of a precious song in his school Christmas program called "Place Like Home". You MUSt listen to the end, Hans' closes the song and if you enjoy a boy's unchanged soprano voice listen. It's precious... OK I'm mom, but still!

I'm driving home work and look what I see, 2 doggies not in their yard looking at me!!!

It was cold enough outside that we made a nice chicken soup for our colds!

Looking outside at the Christmas lights I was surprised to see icicles on the icicles!Brrrr...

The first snow of the season left me seeing strange things in the yard:
The children recreating Stonehenge like ice sculptures (yes, on purpose)

and Chris creatively getting wood up to the house without lugging the wagon through the snow. Not sure if the seat was wet or not, but it gave me the giggles! Maybe not as much as work boots and shorts, but...Wrangler butts drive me nuts! (o;

Ice "skating" on "Lake Dill"
In the middle of one of the wheat fields that we farm called the Dill place (the owners of which built the house we live in) is a large frozen puddle the kids found. What fun they had on a bitter cold Saturday sliding and playing around on the ice. Lacy had fun as well and I made the long walk out there to photograph it!

My biggest problem with this was the muddy snow suits afterwards!

First snow! The kids head to school amidst the first snow of the season! It was a hoot trying to find boots, gloves etc for everyone. I know this happens every year, but I inevitably someone outgrows their boots or loses their gloves or something!

The dogs and I were out for a walk as the bus arrives in the afternoon...

Lacy greets Alan enthusiastically!As usual the next few days warms up and Hans is outside building a snowman without a coat!

Have you ever read the book "I Love You Forever" by Robert Muench ? Well we were reminising: "I love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as you're living my baby you'll be!" Of course rocking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth!

Ah motherhood!

Reminising...Photo number 1 is taken in 2003 when we bred Abby and Remington. It was one of the photos we took to help sell the puppies. Having Mike and Staci with us made me nostalgic. I decided to take a more up to date photo of the 2, they never really did like each other. We had doggie treats for the first photo...

this is how close they would get without treats... separate sides of the yard, just like an old married couple sleepin in separate beds!

At least they don't fight like they used too!
One more before I close, a very protective Abby watches over the pups. She was such a good mommy.

Pie?
Hans helps me prepare pies for Thanksgiving. We decided to try our hand at homemade crust and had lots of fun with that. Thank you Staci for telling me your recipe! Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad A's. Chris, Bill. Mom & Paula are in charge of carving the birds! Dad and I were in charge of supervising and pouring drinks!

Grandma's apple and my pumpkin were Collin and Erin's choices... hmmmm!

So many things to be thankful for this year, but I'll recap that later in our Christmas letter. I am thankful for dear family to share the Holidays with.

More from our visit with Mike and Staci, here we are lovin on Remmy who came to go hunting with the guys. This was a special surprise for Brody who has been missin his doggie. Actually, I'm sure it was sweet for all of them! Barrett loves the piano!

Collin shot his first duck, although the dogs were not able to find it. He is holding this on e in it's stead.

More wrestling... I love the reflection in this one!

Oy, my couch!!!!!!!!!!! Can you tell how many boys are on Mike here?

Fun times!

Mike and Staci and the boys arrived Saturday evening and there was quite a bit of excitement! They came the weekend before Thanksgiving for some good hunting before the big T-day! Here we are getting everyone settled into their beds! There was a little wrestling involved.

Sunday after church before hunting the nerf guns came out for a friendly game of shoot em up!

and of course fun on the trampoline!

Monday the kids went to school and the guys went...hunnting! They brought home some honkers!

Staci and I went to the Lyons Rec to work out where she used to work and she was very hard on my muscles!!! I got her back the next day doing my Billy Banks Bootcamp advanced...we were both a little sore. Me more than her, I'm sure!

Hunting. The long awaited pheasant/ quail season opened up this fall (along with water fowl). Bill, Chris and Collin geared up early and headed out for some geese. Unfortunately not far from them were hunters that were sky blasting the geese (ie. not letting them land before shooting). Frustruated with that they headed out for some pheansant/ quail. They were not going to be long, so Hans, Alan and I tagged along. We took the rear behind each hunter to stay out of the way! This picture says so much for Collin's first hunt.

The grass in the fields gets really thick. Alan and Hans are taggin along behind, butyou can't really see them...Earlier Alan and I went scouting for geese, we "shot" many more than the other guys did! There were just a few in this field and they let us get pretty close before they took off!

Candas and Snow geese