I'm Back

It's been a long time. I will try to catch up today and this could be a very long post with way more pictures than you want to see, but I am going to post them anyway. What a great year we had in 2009! Most of you have heard by now that we are expecting a baby in the spring! I thought I was done and I got rid of all my baby stuff after Kate was born, but about a year ago I decided I wanted another baby and we are so thrilled to be due in June!

Other than that exciting news, we had a wonderful fall full of raking leaves and building a fire out back.

Kiley practices her fire starting skills

Will helps bag leaves. He got paid for every bag he filled. He was saving up for an Ipod. He finally earned enough money and bought his ipod in November. He lost it about 2 weeks later. Still hasn't shown up yet. We keep hoping. Poor kid.

Will and James working together to rake leaves.

Our back yard was beautiful this fall.

Kate enjoyed playing in the leaves.

We had to cut down one of our beautiful oak trees because it had oak wilt (diseased) and the city comes through and inspects the trees. Tells you which of your trees are sick and most people pay to have a tree removal service take the tree down and cut it up, but not Jason. I think he was secretly excited to get the news about our diseased tree, because he has this new chain saw that he has been dying to use. So one Saturday, our whole family spent the day outside cutting down this huge oak tree. Hauling the wood and another Saturday burning the branches. It was a huge job. I can't even explain how tall this tree was and how probably dangerous this was for all of us to be in the yard when it fell, pulling on the rope tied to the top so it wouldn't fall on our fence or trampoline. Hmm. Could have gone badly, but it didn't. We saved a ton of money and Jason was happy that his new toy paid for itself in the first year. What a guy! While I don't have any pictures of us working on taking the tree down ( I was a little preoccupied with trying to keep everyone alive), I do have this picture of what the oak looks like now, all wrapped up for a year until I think we can burn the wood.

We had a nice Halloween and a great Thanksgiving. We told the kids about the pregnancy over Thanksgiving dinner. That was fun and they were all very surprised.

Then for Christmas, we got to have Jason's parents come for a visit. Their flight was delayed for several hours in SLC and they had a long day of waiting, but they made it to MN in time for Kiley's choir concert that night.

Are you thinking what I am thinking?

Why in the world did they put her on the back row? Turns out, they didn't. When all the kids got up on the stand, the choir director looked up and mouthed to Kiley, "Why are you standing on the the back row?!?" Poor Kiley has not come to terms with her shortness yet.

Kiley is participating in three choirs this year. For the other two performances, she found her place on the front row with the younger girls. She was not happy. She wanted to stand by her 8th grade friends. What a cruel world!

Then on the 23rd we took Jason's parents up to the Lighthouse Resort (in Northern Wisconsin) where the company owns some cabins on a lake amd let us use them.

We had such a nice Christmas, full of gifts, good food, loving family, scripture stories, puzzles, snow, ice skating, sledding, snowball fights and everything that makes up a great Christmas.

The kids got new pj's and we took pictures of them on Christmas Eve. Kate was being very silly and posing like crazy for us. She loves having her picture taken.

I managed to surprise Jason with this gift. For months I have planned to refinish the cushions on this Morris Chair. This chair use to belong to Jason's Grandmother. It has been in her family for over 100 years. Jason inherited it, but the leather cushions had worn out and been replaced with some green terry cloth cushions. I had an old picture of what the original cushions use to look like, and had them remade. Jason was shocked and so happy with this surprise. It looks beautiful and sits in our bedroom.

For Christmas, Jason surprised me with the GPS I've been wanting and the sonic care toothbrush I have been hinting about.

The day after Christmas, the kids played out on the lake.

James got Will good with this big chunk of snow.

He planned a quick get-away after the attack.

Jason was equipped with a shovel when the fight really got going...

And Kate got involved too. She was pretty brave and got her brother good...

Kate helped Jason shovel off an ice rink for skating.

Then she tried on her new ice skates ...

Grandma helped her learn to skate while Grandpa watched the excitement. Grandpa had shoulder surgery recently and had to stay out of trouble.

Will pulled Kate around the rink to help her get the hang of it.

She got pretty good!

When we got back to Minnesota, Jason's parents had to catch a flight back home and Jason had the week off to work on the basement. He loved that and even talked the boys into helping him build the walls for our storage room. This is what our storage room wall looks like and now the framing is done and Jason is going to start electrical this weekend.

This basement project is much smaller than our past projects. It basically consists just of this storage room and the main room that Jason is going to make into a small family theater for his projector system. The boys had a great time helping and Will made a stool and table for Kate over the vacation too.

Then on the 30th we celebrated Kate's 6th Birthday. She is growing up so fast. Here is a picture of her showing off her shirt she got, advertising that she will be a big sister. She is such a character and always keeps us laughing. We are so happy she is part of our family.

We had a nice New Years Eve and played games with friends. We rang in the New Year with the kids and look forward to this new year and all the life experiences 2010 will bring.