A fun week!

We have had a busy but fun week. I am guessing maybe you did too! :-) I thought it would be fun to share some pictures of what we have had going on around here in the last week and a half.

We have a lot of snow but no real nice slopes at our place so the deck stairs got turned into a sledding hill. Safety is questionable but so far everybody has survived. :-)

Since the stairs are for going down a ladder got moved out for the going up.

What fun!

Well, it looks like everything is falling in place for buying land on the Mississippi river. Our closing is set for this week. We went over last Saturday and took another look at the land. We also did find that you could walk on the river. We were are pretty cautious about that this year though as a large snow cover made it so some ice didn't form as well as it should have in these frigid temperatures that we have been having. The picture above is of the kids on the river right by the land we are getting.

Aaron by some trees on the property. We are excited to think that not only will the river be good for boating, swimming and fishing but also ice skating. Yeah!

Tuesday we had some friends over for lunch and I also did quite a bit of baking and cooking. I made hamburger buns, little loaves and ravioli among other things. The kids thought my "bible time loaves" (their title) were pretty fun.

Christmas morning saw us with a pretty typical American scene of opening presents from our stockings.

Ken got Mara and I mushroom identification manuals. We are excited about adding a lot of mushrooms to our diet this summer. The younger 3 for the record would rather we didn't do that as they aren't overly fond of mushrooms but we oldest 3 are game.

Our traditional Vanacka Braid Bread for breakfast along with sausage, hot chocolate with whipped cream and candy canes.

Megan trying out the ballet slippers that I made for her.

 

Jonathan wearing a hat made by Mara and mittens made by me.

Around noon my extended family started arriving along with our friend  (my youngest sister's boyfriend) Benjamin. These guys decided to get a picture together wearing their wool hats. Benjamin had given Aaron his for his birthday last year. I made Aaron's mittens.

We had a variety of pasta and lots of veggies, fruit salad and jello salad for our lunch. We did also quickly whip up a carrot cake for dessert as Ken remembered that was what he had growing up and asked that we make that a new tradition.  Some of our family from Nebraska got to join us this year. In the picture above is my cousin and uncle.

Games were (as is normal in our house) one of the big things to do while together.

I am not sure just how many times The Settlers of Catan was played over the course of this week. I played it twice but it was played way more than that! It is definitely the favorite around here.

 Friday was the warmest day we had had for what seems like a very long time! The weather got up to right around freezing. It was so fun to by outside and drink in the sunshine! We went over to my parents for part of the day and most of the kids and some of the adults (me included- Ken had to work) went sledding. My parents have a large selection of nice sledding hills and we enjoyed using one in their southeast pasture.

  While out there we saw this really cool snow formations. Lots of little tubes of snow that had rolled down the hill.

 Bea and Bea (Sister-in-law and niece) going down the hill with my cousin Donna in the background. Besides sledding many of us also had fun snowboarding. My sister Anna and family had come up on Friday to join us all and brought several snowboards with them.

 Beautiful Birch trees by the sledding hill.

Most of the boy cousins had fun playing with some goats and trying to teach them how to work in a harness. I am not sure that is was terribly successful but they had a lot of fun.

 Gregory was to big to be pulled but he worked good as a brake system.

 Friday night we were back to our house for supper. While there we enjoyed some pretty music.

 I didn't join with the music making as I was busy cooking chicken curry for 27 people. I did have some very good help.

 My brother-in-law Travis with some assistance from my cousin Patrick did some tuning up on my accordion so it is ready to play again. I am very happy about that!

  While some of us were busy playing games Travis gathered a group of kids and read aloud to them. Our kids really love being read to.

 My niece Margaret had gotten a very nice camera for Christmas and she was willing to use it to take a family picture of us.

We are hoping you had a very Happy and Blessed Christmas and that your New Year is Joyful and filled with Love. May you seek to follow in Jesus steps this year and always!