Our new baby!

Truly Gifted Blue Birth Announcement

Birth announcements, Valentine's cards, & invitations by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Boone arrived 5 weeks early and surprised us all for Christmas! He was born in Red Oak, but was transported via LifeNet helicopter shortly after.  He spent almost 5 five in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Omaha and was able to come home on Christmas Day.  He is doing great now.  It was definitely a Christmas our family will always remember!

M-I-C-K-E-Y .....

Question: Why are these two kids SO excited that they're jumping for joy?

Answer: This picture was taken the night before we left for DISNEY WORLD!!!!!

Yep, we just got back from a 6 day vacation to Disney World.

Yesterday, we left warm, sunny Florida with all of it's beautiful palm trees....

....and came back to a very cold Iowa and it's beautiful snow-covered trees!

Yes, of course we got to see Minnie!

Obviously, I took a couple more pictures....just a couple.  I'll post as soon as I get caught up on everything.  We have several fun memories to share!

New Sleds!

We had SNOW much fun today!!

Even Dad joined in the fun!

I'm ba-ack!

So, you've all heard of a 'fair weather friend'?  Well, I've decide that I must be a foul weather blogger.  It's just a lot easier to keep up with blog posts when the weather is foul and I'm stuck inside more.  I haven't posted since last JULY!  Just like everyone else, we got busy with the garden, the crops, the cattle, the kids...ya know, life in general.  Anyhow, after Quentin left for school this morning Maci and I looked out the kitchen window and saw all of the beautiful snow on the trees.  'Beautiful snow' is not exactly the phrase Ryan uses when referring to it, but we shared our hot chocolate with him so he sweetened up a little! 

 Maci and I decided to bundle up, get our cameras and head outside.

 We caught Ryan strolling by--he was working on his semi truck out in the driveway.  Hmmm, maybe that's why he's not so fond of the snow!

 So, off we went for our snowy day adventure.  Here's a few photos we took:

Hope everyone out in blogger-land is doing well!

Fixin' Fence

Fixin' Fence with the Slater's

1.  Load up your fencing supplies.

2. Load up your kids.

3. Pound in the posts.

4. Cut the wire.

5. Wire on the barbed wire strands.

6. Have a little fun with the kiddos!

There you have it!

It's sweet corn time!

Signs of Spring Adventure

The kids and I went Easter clothes shopping the other day and found these cool flowers.  Okay, so we got a little off task--but we did get Easter clothes too.



We thought they were a sign of spring and the kids decided we should go on a 'signs of spring' adventure.  When we pulled in the drive we saw our first sign of spring.  Ryan had brought the planter home to get it ready! It had been stored in the shed at the other farm.

We walked around the yard and found daffodils getting ready to bloom, tulips starting to come up, strawberries starting to show some green and some trees budding out.   Then, the kids decided that no adventure was complete without a trip down to the creek.

We had lots of fun looking around.

The biggest sign of spring for Mom came when we got home--- a couple of fresh cuts from walking around in the timber. 

HAPPY SPRING, EVERYONE!

Chicken Fund Hero Party

It is finally starting to seem a little like spring around here.  We didn't have to wear our coats today.  It was beautiful.  Maci and I took the tractor to go move some hay again when we noticed that my sister and her kids were at my mom and dad's house.  Their house is three miles from ours and only about a half a mile from where we were getting the hay.  So, we decided to give her a call and see if Cousin Brody wanted to come help us in the tractor.  He did, in fact he took the job very seriously...

After we got all of our hay moved and Quentin got home on the bus we decided that we would drive our Ranger (ATV) to take Brody back.  Quentin and Maci are trying to save money to buy 6 more chickens.    In Iowa, pop cans have a redemption value of 5 cents.  So, on our way they collected pop cans from the ditches. 

As Quentin was walking he stopped and looked kinda funny at something.  Then he said, "Huh?  A cell phone.  That's weird."  WHAT!?  A cell phone?  THAT'S MY CELL PHONE!!!  I lost my cell phone about a month ago.  The same night Ryan got his tractor stuck and I had to take him a chain.  I stood along the side of the road and took a few pictures for my blog post that night: 10 Great Years!  It must have fallen out of my pocket when I was taking pictures!  Great job, Quentin!

I had an old cell phone that I had hooked up, but it was several years old and didn't have any of my contact's numbers in it.  I thought they were all lost.  Now, what are the chances that this thing will actually work?  There was a ton of snow on the ground the night I lost it, it's snowed twice since then AND it's rained twice.  Well.....I plugged it in.....and it's charging!!!

Quentin, you're a hero!  So, we had a Hero Party for him.  He got to pick anything he wanted for supper.  He chose tacos from the Mexican resturant.  Sounds good to me!

Oh, and after we got home the kids counted out their "can money" for the chicken fund.  The total came to: $7.15 and one cell phone!  Not bad!!!

National Agriculture Week - Class Visit

Last week was National Agriculture Week and Maci and I visited Quentin's 1st grade classroom to talk about farming.  We told them about the things we have and do on our farm.  We brought along a duck and a chicken egg.  The duck egg brought lots of questions and so did the brown chicken egg.  We also brought some of our farm toys.  We brought a tractor, round baler, mower/conditioner and a semi with a grain trailer.  The mower/conditioner really stumped them.  One little boy knew what it did, but he couldn't think of what it was called...pretty good anyway. Then we read them a story about farm animals and gave them all a kids farm magazine.  The magazine was Little Green.  Quentin has a subscription to Little Green and he really enjoys it.  The people at Little Green were so kind to donate enough for his whole class.  They were all SO excited when they got their magazines.

We had a great time!

Clover Kids

Last night Quentin attended his first Clover Kids meeting.  Clover Kids is a 4-H club for kids that are still too young to join 4-H.  They have a booth at the county fair where they display their projects (that aren't judged).  They also have a carnival booth that they have to work at during the fair to raise money for their club.

I have just begun my term on the Page County Fair Board this year.  I explained to Quentin that I go to meetings about the fair and that I would be helping with the fair.  He has been bugging me ever since to let him join 4-H so he can be a part of the fair too.  Last night was the first meeting that he has attended and he had a ball!

One of the projects they did was to make snow.  They put a tiny bit of 'snow' in their containers, then added some water.  Then, the snow grew and grew and grew.

After the projects they all got cupcakes for treats.

Quentin can't wait for the next meeting!