Crazy, Busy, Life

Since another three months has come and gone, I'm just going to try and get this over with and then TRY to keep up after this (I say that every time though, so don't hold your breath!) Life around here has a way of being beautifully busy, which also makes it hard to keep up with at times :)

Since last time I blogged...

 Our cat had kittens and Lane and Maggie kept sneaking them inside to play with them,

The kids were cute as ever,

 The kids and the horses had a stare down,

And we got our first (and second, and third...and fortieth) snow--that's how long it's been since I blogged.

We celebrated Halloween the Disney's "Tangled" way. I was Mother Gothel, but I will not allow any of those pictures of me to find their way here, sorry.

We enjoyed the simplicity and beauty around us. Fall is by far my favorite season.

Then I played Dorothy in a Young Women's skit; though I'm not sure how or why I got nominated for the lead roll.

 I made a chocolate lovers cake,

 and several more nest necklaces for Christmas orders.

Since last time I blogged, fall came and went and then we all tried not to freeze when the weather never got above zero for a week, and never above freezing for who knows how long.

I made a bracelet out of all my souvenir pressed pennies so that they're not sitting collecting dust in a box somewhere.

I endured a few tantrums. (Most of them over really ridiculous things like his Cheerios being round and the milk being cold.)

 I burned the cinnamon rolls for Thanksgiving, and then remade them,

 I found a killer deal on a silhouette machine, so now I can cut vinyl and do other fun crafty things.

Then I made another chocolate lover's cake because the first one was such a hit.

 We started feeding cows, and have been feeding for quite some time now.

 I went to temple square during Christmas time with the youth.

 We "built" a snowman out of the mountain of snow that had been pushed out of our driveway.

We got spoiled by Santa and had a merry Christmas.  He upgraded my KitchenAid for me and now I'm a happy baker.

 The kids were given these cute "Pasture Bedtime" pajamas from my parents.

We traveled to South Dakota and attended church in a tiny tiny branch that had about 20 members--the chapel was probably 1/4 the size of our primary room.  

We got to stay in a super nice pheasant hunting lodge, and had it all to ourselves.

We kept this part of our trip to Minnesota a secret until now because at the time we weren't sure what was going to come of it.  We were offered a very tempting job on a ranch out there and went to check it out. For the record, we're doing fine here and not really looking for anything, but this was a good enough offer that we had to at least look into it. Everything about the job was right, but for some reason neither of us felt good about taking it, so for reasons unknown we turned it down. Anyway, the owner put us up in his hunting lodge for the night after we interviewed and toured the ranch. Sorry to everyone we kept in the dark.

Then we went to Minnesota to visit my sister Lori and her family.  Our kids stayed with Jonathan's parents.

 We toured the St. Paul Cathedral, which is insanely huge!

And we toured James J. Hill's house, who made his fortune through the railroad in the 1800's.  The mansion was very ornate and even included servants quarters, sewing rooms, etc. like in Downton Abbey if you ever watch that show. The wood work and detail in the craftsmanship of the house was amazing!

Then we met the Jolly Green Giant on our way out of Minnesota. Minnesota was heading into some record lows right after we left, so we escaped right in time, because really, it was plenty cold while we were there.

We came home to lots of cuddles,

 and built a snowman.

 Then I made a Star Wars cake for one of my young women,

 drove the tractor some more with my little buddy,

 sewed a few baby quilts for cousins.

 and found the first sheds of the season.

After that, we loaded up the car and travelled to Nebraska to look at Loosli's bulls and a tractor for sale.

 We stopped at Winter Quarters and went through the visitors' center.

 The temple there is beautiful (but which temple isn't?)

Then I confused the bulls by letting them look at and sniff my cell phone...

and the kids.  (Before you call child protective services on us, this pen of bulls is very gentle and docile and we were keeping a very close eye on them just in case.  They were very curious about the tiny people walking through their pen, you could almost see the confused look in their eyes. Oh, and you probably noticed that Lane likes to steal Jonathan's hats even though they don't fit and he cant see out of them.)

 and made the mandatory pit stop at Cabela's in Sidney.

 Everyday since the last time I blogged I fell in love a thousand times over.

 I tagged along with Jonathan while he worked,

 saw one thousand more deer,

 and Jonathan watched two eagles take down a Canada goose in flight and then eat it.

Jonathan also had to get stitches in his finger after a horseshoeing accident. He also broke his pinky toe while he was playing with the kids, chasing them around the house, and accidentally kicked the couch. The couch won. Jonathan is not usually the one that needs to go to the doctor, especially for an accident, so it was way out of the norm to take him twice within a month.

The kids have grown like crazy!  It seems like Maggie gained ten pounds and grew four inches basically over night, and Lane's not too far behind.  

Now we're just gearing up for all the adventures to come. Hopefully it's not another four months until I blog again :)