Orchard

The photo challenge this week at iheartfaces this week is "Orchard."
We had a great time picking apples at the orchard yesterday. Usually we just go and buy them from the shop at the orchard, but the girls had a great time picking this year.

Falling

This is Addy's buddy. She talks about him ALL of the time. But, up until this trip she really preferred the idea of him rather than actually playing WITH him.

Carrots

We've learned a lot from gardening this summer. Things we will plant more of (like sugar snap peas) and some things that we won't plant again (like these carrots.)

Carrots need lots of loose soil to be able to grow nice a neat, and we didn't get our soil tilled enough for them to grow nice and straight.

But these carrots look dressed up for halloween!

Fall Pictures

We took advantage of a Monday holiday and a beautiful day to take some of our fall pictures.

Blizzard #2

As I took this picture the wind-chill is -28 degrees. We got a little bit of snow yesterday. Today the problem has been the wind. The "wall" you see across the street from our house is a 7 foot privacy fence. The snow in their back yard is blowing up over the drift over the fence. 

We have a drift on the south side of our house that is at least 7 feet tall as well. I had to go out today and dig out our heat pump and our furnace vents. I just dug it out a couple of days ago, but today there was at least 2 feet of snow on top of it from drifting.

Winter has definitely been very rough so far. Hopefully we'll get a little break from the cold in the next few days.

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!" :)