Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving we made the trek up to Hills, MN again to enjoy the holiday with the entire Pontier family. We had a great time!

The entire gang, including Rachel this time!

We had Christmas in November since my parents won't be back in December. The grand kids all got Alaska clothing from mom and dad's cruise this fall. The adults all got quilted tree skirts or quilts - mom has been busy! Can't wait to put the tree up so we can look at the beautiful tree skirt.
Rebecca had a great time with her relatives and gave them all goodnight kisses and hugs each night. She also loved grandma's donuts and taking a bath with Joanna.

First Haircut

Other than trimming a few stray hairs when Rebecca was an infant, she hasn't had a real haircut. Today after school she went with me to my haircut appointment. She was very interested in the whole process and couldn't stop asking for her own haircut. So after supper I gave her an official "first haircut" and Dan took plenty of pictures.

She had a hard time keeping her head still, but I think I got it pretty even after a few tries. She helped clean up her hair clippings with the vaccum hose. When she was done she wanted "more haircuc" (that's not a typo, that's how she says it). Sorry kiddo, not for a few more months :)

Dress up and stuff

Rebecca was sort of playing dress up the other day. She got into the closet and found her snowboots and a bike helmet. She wore them around the house for about an hour.

Rebecca also loves her Elmo that she got for her birthday. Here she is reading to Elmo and sharing her snack with Elmo (notice Elmo's mouth). She loves to watch Elmo too. So thankfully our local library has quite a few Elmo videos.

It's been a while since my brother Jon visited, but I don't think that I ever posted this picture. Thanks for visiting Uncle Jon!

Costumes

Curious George and sidekick The Man in the Yellow Hat.

Dan had to dress up for work on Friday so I decided to make two costumes that went together. We didn't officially trick-or-treat, but we did make a few stops on Friday night to show off the costumes to some neighbors and family.

I actually had a lot of fun making these. I thought about them a lot throughout the week, but didn't take action until Thursday night. We took a trip to the thrift store and Wal-mart and got all the supplies. I dyed the pants and tie fabric yellow, the shirt was already that color. We also spray painted the hat yellow. For the monkey suit I found brown leggings and a shirt with brown sleeves and bought brown fleece for the hoodie. I didn't have a pattern, but used one of Rebecca's hooded sweat shirts and a guide. I actually surprised myself at how well it turned out.

Lots of fun for all!

Fall Fun

Here are just a few pictures from the last week. I love FALL!We had fun in the leaves when it was beautiful weather outside. And when it is rainy, we stayed in and made pancakes and popcorn.

Choo-Choo

This past weekend we celebrated our birthdays a little early. Last year Dan planned a surprise over night trip for our birthdays and this year he planned another outing. We took a ride on the Boone & Scenic Valley Railroad. I'll have to agree with Rachel that the train is the way to travel, but only if it includes a fine dinning experience.

We had a great time. Here are a few pictures.The train has two dining cars and we rode in the Los Angeles, which was the nicer of the two, we thought.
We dined on shrimp cocktails, salad, rolls, pork tenderloin with steamed veggies, and cheesecake for dessert. It was "BYOB" which we did not do, but our table mates were generous and shared their wine with us.
The tracks over the Des Moines River.
There were great fall colors to see, but the back platform was crowded when we went over the High bridge and I couldn't get a very good picture. We don't know that couple.
The tracks at night. The trip was about 2 hours long and we traveled about 10 miles per hour. It was very relaxing and I would recommend it to anyone.

New Home

Congrats to Andy and Carol for closing on their first home today! Rebecca talks about it all the time, "Andycarolhome" (all one word). Thankfully yours is a lot nicer than the one we built. We pray your new home will be filled with love and laughter for many years to come.

Coincidently, 5 years ago today, Dan and I closed on our first home.