Blizzard of 2009

Christmas of 2009 was the year of the BIG blizzard. We ended up getting about 2 feet of snow in both Rolfe and Vermillion.

On Christmas day Papa Dan got up to move snow. As soon as Addyson saw him in the tractor she INSISTED on going along. I'm not sure who was happier, Addy for getting to ride in the tractor, or Papa for having some company in the tractor.

Papa moved a big snow pile into the back yard for the girls to play in. Sydney & Hayley carved out this cave in the snow pile.

Here is Papa who was grooming a sledding track.
This was a BIG snow pile.
Ok, so I'll admit it. I built this snowman. No one else seemed interested in building one.  But the snow was PERFECT for a snowman. He melted and fell over by the next day. 
When we got back to Vermillion two days after Christmas when the roads were finally safe again, we came home to a much different 2 feet of snow. The snow in Rolfe was very wet and there wasn't much drifting. When we got home to Vermillion there were HUGE drifts all over our yard. This is the biggest drift right outside our back door. Remember Jeremy is 6 feet 6 inches tall.

Jeremy dug a tunnel through the drift for the girls, but also so dOg has a way to get to the back yard.
It didn't take long for the girls to start trying to climb the drift.
Then Hayley went to get the sled.
Sydney was helping Addy  by trying to dig stairs into the drift.
Hayley wanted to jump from the top of the slide into another drift.
Sydney & Hayley discovered how much warmer it was in the tunnel than out in the wind.
Jeremy pulled Addy around in the sled.
I swear this is a face of pure joy, not pain. ;)

A snowed in Christmas

We started our Christmas vacation a little early this year. We knew there was a winter storm coming and Sydney & Hayley were already at Jeremy's parents' house. When we arrive, the rest of the crew was already there. These cousins always have such a good time together!

All three of the older kids got Nintendo DS's for Christmas. In this picture they WERE at least all playing the same game with each other. ;)

Most of the family was not able to make it to the Barn for Christmas Eve this year, so the girls had the bounce house to themselves.




Then Santa came. Thank goodness there weren't any other children there (besides 4 month old Jonathan) because Santa accidently brought the bag he MEANT to bring on Christmas morning.
Addy was happy to "cheese" it up for a picture with Santa.
The girls each got an American Girl Doll (Addy got a Bitty Baby)
Another of Addy's fun faces.
And the whole night was wrapped up when we were walking back to Jeremy's parents' house and we saw a single big red jingle bell laying in the snow. Hayley kept ringing it and repeating, "I believe! I believe!" :)

Christmas Pageant

I wish I would have gotten a picture of Hayley at the pageant. She had a great speaking part as a shepherd. But there were too many heads in the way. :(

Sydney was an angel. It's important as an angel to have your halo just right.

At this point she made a mistake. And rather than get really flustered she just said, "Oh, wait a minute" and went on with her lines.

Such beautiful angels
We finally got a family picture taken too. I think this might be the first one since Hayley was a baby.

Our family Christmas

The Saturday before Christmas we had our own family Christmas.

Addy loves to strike a pose.

I wonder who she learned that from...

We have a little interfamily Hawkeye/Cyclone rivalry. 

Countdown to Christmas 2009

Addy is having a particularly difficult time this year with understanding why there are gifts out that she can't open NOW.

So I first came up with the idea of making a paper chain. We'll tear one off every morning and when there aren't any left we can open gifts!

That night Addy decided she would just tear them all off NOW to save us the time so she can just open the gifts NOW!

"What do you mean I can't just tear them off now?"

And this is what happens when you tell a tired 3 year old "no"...

So then I saw a great suggestion about wrapping up Christmas books (one for each night before Christmas) for the kids to open. 

We read one Christmas book every night before bed anyway this time of year, so this is the PERFECT solution. I hope anyway...

Stay tuned to see if this solves our "my want to open Addy's packages NOW" situation in our house.

Meet dOg

I got my Christmas gift a little early (a new camera) and was trying it out this week. 

So meet my best subject, dOg :)