Small Fry Swimming "Lessons"

Rebecca had her first swimming "lessons" last night. It's more of free swim time for parents and there kids. Rebecca loved it and even let go of me a few times. She really liked the toys ducks of course and would throw them and then "swim" after them again.

Holiday Review

A lot has happened in the last two weeks! We had a great Christmas with Dan's family and a good New Year with mine. Here are a bunch of pictures - enjoy!

Rebecca and her De Vries cousins Allison and Jessica on Christmas day.
Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa DV. Rebecca and Jessica got matching baby dolls.
The Pontier sibblings all came on the 31st to spend New Years together. We had lots of fun sledding behind the 4 wheeler and ice skating on our pond. That is Doug and Sam on the sled.
Jon and Tonya on the pond.
Rebecca liked sledding too.
Pontier sibblings - Grace, David, Jonathan, Sarah, and Rachel.
Pontier cousins.
Pontier sibblings and our significant others :)

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to say "Merry Christmas"

to all our faithful readers!

May you have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And this shirt couldn't be more true!

When the weather outside is frightful...

...we get a lot of work done inside. Going on our 3rd snow day now, we've had a lot of time to get things done around the house. (Just a few stats, we've had about 14 inches of snow, 35 mph winds, and today a -20 F windchill.)

Rebecca hasn't been to productive, but she's been staying out of trouble and enjoying her videos.

Since Dan is now self employed and works from home, there is no snow day for him. Here he is working in his new home office in the basement.I've been busy redecorating Rebecca's room. We have a set of bunk beds that we wanted to put in her room. New beds means new bedding, which means new colors and new paint. We have the beds set up and the walls painted. Projects still yet to do are sewing new curtains and bed spreads. I also have dark purple paint that I want to use on the walls somehow, but still don't know exactly what to do. I tried to get Rebecca to say "bunk beds" but she just keeps staying "two beds!".
Another project I finished yesterday was setting up a new scrapbooking area for myself. I'm looking forward to using it today while Rebecca naps.

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!