Our letter for Christmas 2007

A sweet little voice singing We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year has been ringing through our house for the last two weeks. Christmas 2007 has already been like no other Christmas in my past. Yes, we had wonderful Christmas' as I was growing up but seeing the Christmas spirit in my own child is amazing. This is the first year that Ryan really "gets" Christmas. I find myself taking mental pictures (and digital) constantly so I can remember these special moments forever. The idea of Christmas, both religiously and commercially, is so pure and fresh in the world of a three year old.

I might as well start with Ryan since he is number 1 in our house. Ryan continues to be a smart, funny and charming little boy but with age 3 came Mr. Independent. There are pros and cons to newly found independence. I no longer have to watch him like a hawk because he can play responsibly on his own or with friends but when it comes to getting his shoes or coat on by himself, it takes forever. I have been working on being patient but that is tough when you are in a hurry. I am always reminding myself to take a deep breath.

Ryan's biggest accomplishment of the year is preschool. It took a couple of weeks to adjust to the idea of preschool but he loves it now. He is doing great academically, it is wonderful to see the eagerness in him to learn. I love it. His social skills have also greatly improved. I am so glad we made that last minute decision to enroll him in preschool because it has been a positive influence in his development in the last 3 months. Don't get me wrong, he still has his 3 year old moments but most of the time he is a true joy to be around.

The farming blood runs thick through Ryan's body. He spent lots of time in the tractor this year. When he isn't riding in the tractors he is playing with his gazillion toy tractors. We have inside tractors, outside tractors, bath tractors, tractors in mom's purse and tractors in the Tahoe. We recently dug up some of Ben's tractor that he played with as a child. It is neat to see Ryan treasure the same toys that Ben got so much joy out of. There are a few other things that Ryan likes such as trains, games, firetrucks, swimming, being outside as much as possible and spending time with grandma and grandpa.

We took several trips this year. I love to travel so I am always looking for opportunities to hit the open road. In the beginning of July, Ry and I visited my aunt, uncle and cousins in southern Missouri then met up with my grandparents and headed to southern Alabama for a family wedding. At the end of July, all of us went to Colorado. We visited Ben's sister and brother-in-law in Colorado Springs, went to Pikes Peak, Black Canyon, Durango and other places along the way. My favorite part was Black Canyon and Ryan's favorite part was riding the Durango/Silverton narrow gauge railroad. I have been to Colorado lots of time but it always a place I have no problem returning too. In August, we joined my family in Omaha to celebrate Ryan and my nephew's birthdays. It was nice to have all of us together for a whole weekend. Ryan and I took our 2nd annual trip to Prairie Du Chien, WI and spent a few days on the Mississippi River. Ben's aunt has a place on the river. We go in the fall when the leafs are changing and the apple orchards are having their festivals. We take this trip with Donna but we were very happy that Lynn could join us this year. I am already looking forward to returning next year, I love it over there in the fall.

Ben has been busy farming and trucking again this year. We had a pretty good crop this year. Not as good as some years but not as bad as others. His annual "guys" trip was to Canada this year. They fished for a whole week. The 2008 trip is already planned...fishing in northern Minnesota in July. Ben says he is taking Ryan this year, we'll see ;) Ben has taken an interest in old tractors this year. He has bought and sold several. Mostly John Deere two cylinders but he just purchased an IH 1026 so that is something different. Now you know where Ryan gets his tractor fever from.

It is so hard to come up with things about myself. I continue to be a stay at home mom, best but hardest job ever. I help out in Ryan's classroom as much as possible, I joined the local MOPS group, we were also involved with playgroup again this year. I enjoy scrapbooking and stamping. I created a lot of cards this year so hopefully next year I can do more scrapbooking. I also have a secret passion for photography. My goal in 2008 is to learn all the technical aspects of taking photos. I am just starting to work with the manual mode of my camera. If I can talk Ben into getting a SLR digital camera, I would like to take a few photography classes next year.

Wanna see some photos from the past year? I don't have to worry about using to much paper or ink so sit back and enjoy.

Early Spring

Easter

New colt

Tractor Ride

Fishing

Fishing at Grandpa and Grandma Knerr's cousins Father's Day
New quad

Love riding horses

Fourth of July in MOBiloxi, MS
Durango/Silverton Steam Engine - CO
Becoming a Godmother to Madelyn MaeWater Bug - Omaha
My side of the family in Omaha
Best Friends - Jack, Maddy and Ryan

Riding Thomas the Train in Boone

Driving Great Aunt Cina's boat on the Mississippi River

My birthday

Halloween - Pirate

Playing with daddy's toy tractors before bed SNOW ANGELS! Talking with Santa I guess the best way to end would be simply...We are healthy and happy, we wish the same for you and your families. Have a great 2008! May God bless you many times over.

Feel free to check our website as often as you would like. I do a pretty good job of keeping it updated.

Surprise!

Dad's surprise 50th birthday party was a SUCCESS! He did not know about the party until moments before arriving. I can't believe he didn't find out. Growing up, dad told us many times not to hide stuff from him because he finds out everything. NOT ANYMORE! I hadn't talked to dad for a couple weeks so I wouldn't accidently spill the beans. He didn't even know that we were going to be home that weekend.

The weather was awful on Saturday. We drove down to Washington in a snow storm and it snowed all day. Fortunately, we still had a GREAT turnout. We estimated about 70 people showed up. We had yummy cake, punch and the chocolate fondue fountain was a hit. We all had a good time visiting with family and friends. I think dad had a great birthday party.

Emilee created a very touching slideshow but I am having trouble uploading it to this blog. Hopefully I can get it to work very soon.

The 3 amigos

After the party a bunch of us went to the casino for supper and played slots for a little while. Ben was the only one who walked away with more of a winning then $10. You will have to ask him how much he won.

Ryan and Myles before the wrestling began

My niece, Izzy! Isn't she beautiful?

Santa Express!

We went to Boone last night and rode The Santa Express train. What a wonderful experience. The train ride is loosely based on the movie Polar Express.

On Tuesday night we watched the movie Polar Express so he would know the story behind the train ride. Ryan really enjoyed the movie so riding the train was icing on the cake. During the 1.5 hour train ride a storyteller read the Polar Express book to the kids (we took our own book so the boys could follow along better), we drank hot chocolate, had a cookie, stopped at the North Pole, and Santa gave us the infamous sleigh bell.

Christmas is so much more fun now that Ryan is old enough to understand, participate and get excited about all the festivities. All the while, mom trying to teach the true meaning of Christmas.

Us with our adopted daughter, Maddy Mae

Jenn and Jack having fun on the train
You can't tell by the photos but the train cars were lightly dimmed with strains of Christmas lights and garland. Unfortunately, we kept losing power in our car so we were in the dark most of the time. Nobody seemed to care.

I have to share these two photos. Isn't Maddy just the cutest? Gotta love this girl, I DO!!

Maddy and I in August at her baptism

Maddy and I last night at Santa Express

Girls shopping weekend

That's right, we took a shopping trip to Minneapolis last weekend. It was nice little getaway. We shopped all day on Saturday at Mall of America. It was packed with people. I had been there one other time about 10 or 11 years ago. It seemed MUCH bigger this time. I got my exercise for the day (maybe even the whole weekend). On Sunday we went downtown Minneapolis. It is a really neat downtown, cute little shops and big stores too. I wish it had been warmer so we could have walked around more. A blustery 14 degrees was not the ideal temperature to be walking around outside. Saw my first two story Target. We didn't shop there though, we had other stores to get too. We spent over 2 hours in Barnes & Noble. Yes, we could have went to B&N in Des Moines but didn't have kids so we advantage of it. We got to sip on cappuccino and casually look at all the different books. Anyone who has kids knows how nice that was. Headed home Sunday afternoon, the trip was much to short. I did get a bunch of Christmas shopping done.

Maddy was the only kid that got to go with us. She is already the perfect little shopper. She didn't cry or fuss AT ALL while we were shopping. She loved it. I wasn't surprised because she is the happiest most content baby I have ever seen.

I would love to take a family trip up there some weekend. We saw so many things that are family friendly. The mall had an aquarium, amusement park and a rainforest cafe. Also in the area is a zoo and children's museum. Plus we saw a hotel that had a HUGE indoor waterpark.

This was the first time I have left Ben and Ryan at home overnight alone. They did just fine without me (I knew they would) and I even think they had FUN drinking coke, eating in the living room and not taking their shoes off at the door. Those are all things that mama doesn't let Ryan do. Hey, it's okay once in a while, right???

All in all, I had a great weekend. I hope to make it a tradition every year at Christmas time!

Icy weekend

On Friday, Ryan and I went bowling with some friends. Ryan really likes bowling. I like bowling but I am not very good. We used bumpers (for the kids sake **wink wink**) and I still only scored 100. Oh well, we all had fun. I am just glad we got out of the house before the ice storm on Saturday. We were stuck in the house for the weekend. Well, I guess we did venture over to Brad and Donna's but not any further than that. Our driveway is a sheet of ice.

Since we were stuck inside, Ben decided to make Kumla and Ham on Sunday. Kumla is a mixture of shredded potatoes and flour shaped into balls then boiled in the broth of ham. We both like Scandinavian food. Can't wait for fish, potatoes and lefsa that we usually make around Christmas time.

The Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a nice relaxing holiday weekend at home.

On Thanksgiving day, we went to Brad and Donna's for lunch. There was only a small group of us this year. Neither of Ben's sisters were able to make it home. Ben says we had the best turkey he has ever had. We spent the rest of the day lounging and visiting with Ben's grandma and watching a little Tom&Jerry.

Friday and Saturday we stayed home and worked around the house. No I didn't go shopping on Friday. I am not crazy :) We did go to Best Buy on Saturday night to look at new TV's but there was no crowds of people.

Sunday we made our annual trip to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree for Christmas 2007. We did this last year too. It is something I really look forward too. We go as a family, pick out a tree and Ryan helps Ben cut it down. FUN!! Last year it took Ben hours of looking to find the perfect tree. It didn't take long to find a tree this year since there were lots of trees to chose from. It is funny how picky Ben is about a Christmas tree. He thoroughly looks over each tree before picking one. Donna joined us this year so that was a nice treat. She had her tree picked out within 20 minutes.

Ryan helped decorate the tree and all his ornaments ended up on the same branch which then fell to the floor

Ryan standing by his work of art. We need a few more ornaments. We must have a bigger tree this year because with all of our ornaments are on, it still looks bare.

We're Done!

The field work for 2007 is done just in time for our first snow. The crops have been done for a couple weeks but Ben has been finishing up with discing, ripping and putting anhydrous on while trying to get some trucking done. Now in their spare time, they are doing some "olden days farming" with the John Deere 4320 and the plow. I can't imagine how long it took farmers to do field work back in the day. Ben has spent hours and hours plowing with only about 10-15 acres of black soil to show for it.

Ryan spent quite a bit of time riding in the tractor with Ben this year. He enjoys being out in the fields and seeing all the animals that come out of the corn. This year they saw lots of pheasants, a couple deer, and a hawk hunting mice. To a 3 year old that is something spectular to see. Another fun thing for a 3 year old is SNOW!! We were in Ames when it started snowing heavily. That was the end of running errands, Ryan wanted to get home as fast as he could to play in the snow. When he woke up at 7:30 this morning the first thing he said was, "Can I go outside and play in the snow?"