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?"

Our weekend in Washington

Friday night was the annual Whitetails Forever banquet that my dad has helped coordinate for the last 11 or 12 years. My whole family (23 of us) attends this event so it was always pretty fun. We didn't have a babysitter this year so Ryan got to go with us. He really enjoyed it. I was prepared to leave as soon as he got antsy but he made it until the end which was 10:30pm. He liked playing the raffles and games. They have a live auction after the meal so the auctioneer really kept Ry's attention. Loud, fast talking is right up Ryan's alley. Ben had an enjoyable evening. For some reason, my dad and brother kept buying him drinks. We never did figure out why they were doing that but Ben was not feeling good when we got back to Dad's. We had to sleep with a bowl beside the bed. Ben is funny when he has drank too much.
Gun winners in our family this year were ME, dad, my step-brother Doug (won 2 guns), and my uncle. Ben and dad purchased a fishing trip to Northern MN during the live auction. So they have their annual trip planned for 2008 already. The resort looks nice and is family friendly so Ry and I might get to go this time...that is a big MIGHT.
Saturday night we had our Thanksgiving gathering while everyone was in Washington for the weekend. Great food, great family, quality time, and lots of fun pretty much sums it up. Ryan on the other hand was a little pistol. We were out late Friday night, no nap Saturday afternoon combined with LOTS of people packed into a house equalled an overwhelming environment for Ryan. He was frazzled, tired and kept throwing fits. We had to take him upstairs to the bedroom twice just to get him calmed down. He fell asleep while watching a movie and slept from 6:30 to 8 then went to bed at 9:30. On Sunday we got back to SC around 11:30am, Ryan asked to go bed! He slept for 3 hours. Then he went to bed at 8pm and slept until 8am this morning. He was one tired little boy. He is not used to so much excitement or so many people.
We had a great weekend. No pictures because I forgot my camera. This was the first time that I have forgotten it when going to Washington:(

The new tractor arrived

What is the greatest gift you can give a 3 year old (or a 29 year old) farm boy? A new tractor! It isn't a brand new tractor but it is new to us. Ben traded in the 1996 John Deere 8100 for a 2004 New Holland TG285. I know, I am as surprised as you are about the choice of New Holland since we are a John Deere farm. As Ben says, "you gotta go with who will give you the biggest bang for your buck." I think Ben and Ryan are enjoying the new tractor even though the tractor had a few little kinks.

Like father like son!

Fueling it up so we can go see how much power it has

Hookin it up to the disc...let's go dad!

Bye, 8100