Two Blue Eyed Cuties

Brock's sister Erika and her husband Chris were in MT for Christmas. Who can resist taking pics of these two adorable cousins - Hannah & Finn (only a couple weeks apart). I also love how he has the truck and she has the doll (not planned at all - they were busy playing and I grabbed them quick for some photos)

This picture cracks me up, you can almost hear their "Ahhh . . . was that supposed to be funny?"

"Okay, finally something kinda funny - now can we get back to playing?"

The Stockings Were Hung . . .

As we were putting up our Christmas stuff we were really missing our fireplace. Hmm . . . where should we hang our stockings?? Brock had a bright idea to make a fireplace so the work began. As you can see everyone (except me who was to busy taking pictures) was helping - even Hannah. Although in this picture Isaac is off in la la land instead of coloring, he did make it back to reality here and there and do some coloring :-)

The finished results - we wrapped it around our sofa table and voila - a fireplace complete with a mantle!

The kids wanted to warm up by the fire right away and Isaac being the clown that he is decided he needed to try to make us laugh by warming up his back side. I think he got a bigger laugh out of it than we did :-)

He is probably still laughing at himself :-)

I guess I got to take a picture of the kids by the fireplace after all!

Christmas Cookies with Grandma

The kids had fun making tons and tons of cookies! They made quite a variety and some very creative ones too! My favorites were the buckeyes (on Isaac's first few attempts he called them "big butt eyes") I suppose the first part is quite accurate if you eat too many of them :-)

Isaac really wanted to make a bear - he is really intent on getting that circle just right

Hannah has been caught sneaking dough . . . . looks like it wasn't quite what she expected.

And Still More

We spent a lot of time at Paul and Rachel's, visiting, playing or eating :-)
Madison and Micah playing horses and Madison, Micah and Alika

Isaac the pirate and Anna the army girl

At Espe's eating ice cream - Abby (she came with us), Madison, Alika, Tiana and Isaac. Madison was lucky enough to get to stay the night there! She had lots of fun. Abby and Madison also had a sleepover with their dolls. Madison had so many sleepovers - Andi's, Victoria's, Alika's and Abby's! She should be good for sleepovers for a long time now :-)

More Visiting

We went over to the Johnson's for dinner and of course a makeover for Amos :-) Look how cute he is in the little stroller! Madison and Victoria have fun dressing him up every time they are together - it is just as funny each time I see it too!

Isaac thinks Ethan is so great - he talked about him for days and kept wanting to go back! It is so nice of him to play with Isaac and show him all his cool boy toys! Hannah was pretty interested in what Amelia was doing - she was glued to her side the whole time she was at the piano and was trying to play herself.

Of course we went to see Kristen and Rogue! It was really cold out so Madison just rode him around the barn a little bit. Look at Rogue smiling for the camera in the second picture (click on it to make it bigger) So funny!!

Madison saying goodbye to Rogue and Isaac to Manly. For some reason out of all the horses there Isaac really likes Manly. He wants to pet him, feed him, talk about him and of course ride him! He did get to sit on his back and be led around the barn last time - I had some pictures but they were accidentally deleted (AAAHHH) As you can imagine, he was grinning from ear to ear :-) We were treated to a "how to bake lefse" while we were there! I had never seen it made (imagine that!) and it was fun to see the process. We sampled it also and it was delicious!! Look at the kids watching the griddle - just waiting for it to be done! :-) I felt inspired to make it myself after watching them and was able to help Brock's mom and sister make it last week. It turned out great and was a lot of fun.

A Visiting We Will Go

After Thanksgiving, Brock headed home to get back to work and the kids and I continued on to MN to do more visiting. We stayed in our house (since it hasn't sold yet) and enjoyed being there again. We had only been gone one month and it felt like it had been so long since we were there. It was so fun to see everyone! We stayed for 1 week and did a couple weeks worth or stuff :-) Every day was packed with activites and visiting, I was exhausted at the end of the visit (in a good way) :-)

Our night at Val and Sheldon's was complete with ice cream, of course :-) Madison and Isaac went with Sheldon to a hockey game and had so much fun! It was Madison's first high school game and Isaac's first ever. They had so much fun - they came back completely thrilled.

Madison was so lucky to get to spend a couple days with Marcy making cookies and ornaments. They were very creative and delicious :-)

We also spent a couple days at Strege's - one big sleepover :-) It was so nice to be there again and of course the kids had so much fun playing. They also had a new little puppy - Lola - that was adorable. :-)

Berlin had fun sharing her food with Hannah :-) They seemed to get along pretty good (although according to Jesse they fought the whole time Denise and I were in town - we're not sure if we believe him ) :-) Madison and Andi with their little turtle - isn't it cute?

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in ND with my family. It was so nice to see everyone again, even though it hadn't been than long since last seeing most of them. We had our meal at the church so had lots of space for everyone - 38 of us!!! We invited two other families for dinner so in all there were 22 kids (that includes several babies) and 16 adults!! It was alot of fun - good food and fun games!

Maggie and Lyrik (my sisters Nicole and Laura's daughters); the three musketeers - Kiaran (Laura's), Isaac and Eli (Levi's); the girls side of the table; Madison and Lily (Laura's daughter)

The baby crew - Jen and her baby Xavier (5 months), my sister Bekah and her baby Georgia (5 months) and my sister Nicole and our nephew Judah (2 weeks)

Hannah loved to push the baby around in the stroller

The two youngest grandchildren - Georgia and Judah (Bekah's and Levi's) Quite a size difference in these two :-)