Soon it will be Christmas day!

Which also means my mom's birthday will soon be here too.  :) 

We had so much fun skating this afternoon, and playing ping-pong, and even doing dishes!  Lauretta, Sarena, and their brother, Thaddaeus came and played ice-hockey with us and my parents even came up later and guarded the goals with shovels (as we ran out of sticks!) while the rest of us tried not to fall down while chasing the puck all over the ice.  Later, Andrew gave snowmobile rides, or rather, he gave sled rides, the sled being pulled behind the snowmobile.  Then, we all headed for our house and made some supper; played some music; ate supper; Dad, Andrew and Jacob did the chores while the rest of us did the dishes quickly; and after that we played ping-pong for about 2 hours before they had to head for home.    Praise be to God that nobody got seriously hurt during all of our adventures!

Still, still, still...

It is indeed still tonight.  I don't hear any wind anyway...

This morning/afternoon, I went over and cared for Johanna and Tracy Jo.  They are growing up so fast!   I got off early, so made it home in time to scrub the floor and make the dessert (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting) for supper.  After Jacob cut up the potatoes and I cut the carrots to add to our roast, we headed out to the shop to play ping-pong with our dad for a while before chores.  My mom was still inside cleaning the bathroom and finishing up some other projects.  Andrew sold and delivered his green 4-wheeler today, driving up to Hurdsfield to meet the buyer.  Now we're down to 1 little 4-wheeler and we're hoping Andrew buys some more to repair soon, as they do come in handy!  ;) 

We're praying for nice weather tomorrow for our ice-skating party! 

Come on, it's lovely weather for skating together with you...

We spent the morning working at home on various projects, then around 2:00, Jacob and I decided to head up to the pasture to check out how the ice was this year and to push some snow off of the ice.  I'd written to Lauretta before we left, mentioning where Jacob and I were going, amongst other things, and it "Just so happened" that she got the message right when she was by the corner where you can either turn or go straight up to our pasture, on her way home from work.  She called me (just as Jacob and I were almost at that corner) and asked where we were and if we'd like some help?  SO, she parked her pickup and hopped in with us for a snowy ride to the "Lake" (it's more like a pond).    We pushed tons of snow and then skated and played ice hockey.  Andrew made a delivery up to Steele (he sold a motorcycle), then stopped in on his way home and joined us on the ice.  We pushed off another ton of snow, making our skating area twice as large.  We had fun skating around (holding hands and skating in a line, swinging the outside person around very quickly on the corners!) and trying to play hockey (the boys even had their lit hockey-puck along) and we skated until the sun went down and the moon came out, and then each headed for our respective homes. 

We're planning to have a skating party up there on Saturday (in the afternoon), which is why we headed up to push snow in the first place....   Anyone want to join us on the ice?  :)

Jingle bells, jingle bells...

...Jingle all the way...

That's what the little boys that I was babysitting today were singing while we were coloring pictures of ducks.  :)  I babysat for the 3 children I used to babysit quite a bit for a couple years back, (Amelia, and the twins, James and Michael).  It was fun to see how much they've grown and changed!   We colored; played hide-and-seek and red-light, green light; made all kinds of things out of playdough; played catch with small balls in the basement; and drew pictures.  It was a fun day...

It was almost humorous to learn that one of our friends also slid in the ditch yesterday afternoon----at the VERY SAME CORNER that Jacob did, except she slid in the opposite side, as she was coming from the other direction.  I guess that corner was especially slippery! 

When I got home, I worked on my quilt some more and am now at the point where I need to buy some more fabric before I can finish it up.  This is getting exciting!  Its always a good feeling to finish big projects.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow...

While I'm sure Andrew is not very pleased with the way his pickup and trailer look tonight, and while Jacob is blaming himself, we are so very grateful that everyone is safe!    My dad (with the semi) and Jacob (with Andrew's brown pickup and pretty-new car-trailer) headed for our Hazelton land this morning to bring home the 2nd to last load of hay.  Jacob headed for home as soon as he was loaded up with 7 large square haybales.  He drove the 20 or so miles to the curves in Hwy. 34, then slowed down to make the corner, turning onto the Kintyre road.  Unfortunately, it wasn't slow enough, I guess, and the road was snow-covered and slippery and the trailer wanted to keep going straight, SO, Jacob went sideways all the way down the ditch, jack-knifed badly and came to a stop at the bottom.  It dented the side of the pickup pretty bad and bent a bar on the trailer.  Thankfully, Andrew has insurance on that pickup which will hopefully cover the damages!  I drove the tractor out to them so Dad could unload the bales and then they had to get a jack and jack up the pickup some and then pulled the trailer straight with the tractor.  I have pictures, but I can't post them here.  :(  If you're a friend of Jacob's on FaceBook, you can see there.

Mom and Andrew (and Lauretta) went to Bismarck today, Andrew ran errands around town while the others took care of clients all morning/afternoon.

This afternoon, my dad and Jacob went for the last load of hay and then Jacob drove the tractor home from over by Hazelton.

Meanwhile, I kept busy in the house, baking bread; cleaning my aquarium thoroughly; making meals; doing the dishes;  and sewing on my quilt.   I milked Sally this evening, as Andrew was still in Bismarck at chores time. 

'Twas a busy day.  We thank God for keeping us safe through it...

...(little) folks dressed up like Eskimos...

I was over babysitting "my" little girls again today.  It wasn't too terribly cold out but there was a bit of a breeze, so I bundled them up heavily and we went outside to play in the snow for about half an hour.  I couldn't find Tracy Jo's gloves, so I slipped my large ones over her little hands and she was fine with the plan, until it interfered with her ability to hold onto the little rake handle that she was playing with.  I gave Tracy rides down the driveway hill in a pink sled, but Johanna didn't want any part of the sledding and just wanted to dig little holes in the snow with her shovel instead.  :)

Thankfully, everyone here is feeling almost completely back to their usual, energetic selves.   What a blessing it is to feel well!

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh-ride together...

It would be just perfect....  So still and beautiful with the big snowflakes falling all around.  Unfortunately, we have neither a sleigh or a horse, but it is fun to dream of...

Thanks be to God, my family members are all feeling better today, some nearly back to normal.  It must have been something they ate while I was gone babysitting, as I never did get sick, which was a blessing, as then I was able to do all of the chores yesterday evening when everyone else was unable to do so!

Oh, and my friends' little girl has a name now:  "Amy Lynn".  :)  She is a beautiful baby, from what I can tell from pictures...

What child is this who laid to rest on ____'s lap is sleeping....?

My friend just had her baby!  It's a girl.  :)  I don't know her name though....


Please pray for my family now as certain members are dealing with some kind of a tummy bug.  Yick!

I'll be home for Christmas...

I'm pretty sure, anyway.

We had a busy house-cleaning day and fed old squishy vegetables to the goats and cleaned out the fridge a bit and separated cream and made some yummy food and played some ping-pong.  'Twas a good day!

Please, if you read this in the next few hours, be in prayer for my friend, Crystal, (pray for her husband, David too) who is having a long labor currently with her first child.  Thank you!

....5 golden rings...

Well, it was only 2, I guess...   My parents went to Bismarck today for business reasons and my dad also had the idea to take along their high-school class rings to sell them, as my parents will never wear them again and would rather have the money to do useful things with then have them sitting around, collecting dust in a drawer.    It was well worth it too, as they received a total of $144, or something close to that.  I asked if they had any other old gold rings lying around that they'll never use?  ;)  They said, "No, sadly".

  I went over babysitting for most of the day.  The girls are just getting over a flu bug, so weren't quite as perky as usual.  I feel so bad for little people when they're so sick! 
 
  The boys stayed home and worked on, well, things.  Andrew hauled a load of hay home.  Jacob worked on his schoolwork.  I don't know what else they did.

  After posting last night, I couldn't believe I'd forgotten to write about the happiest news of the day for me!   When we got our cows in the corralling and sorted them off to work the calves a while back, I'd noticed that one of my cows (a very distinguishable black/white face) was missing.  I thought maybe I'd missed her, so kept a watchful eye out for her when we got the cows in again later and poured them all and for sure, she was gone.  I marked her down in my records as possibly having died in the pasture or having gotten lost.   Well, yesterday when we were sorting off the 2 cows to take to the butcher shop, I thought I saw her, so after the cows were loaded, I grabbed one of the 4-wheelers and went through the cow-herd to see.  Low and behold-----there she was!!!!   Just as round and healthy looking as ever!   I'm not sure where she was on the 2 days that we got everyone in the corralling, but I was praising the Lord over and over for the blessing of being able to delete my last entry in my cattle-records!!!