Rebecca's First Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This was obviously Rebecca's first Christmas and I think she enjoyed it pretty well. She actually took an interest in the presents and helped unwrap a few. She especially loves her new toys that talk and play songs.

Hey Buster! No, it's a hay buster.

Tis' the season for feeding hay to the cows. And tis the season for disguising poor quality hay amongst better quality hay by grinding it together like chopping veggies with some brownies. We hired a man to custom grind some hay so the cows wouldn't be able to sort out the lower quality hay. It turned out really well. Scott helped me haul hay last week and borrowed his skid steer to move them to the grinder. It has knives in the bottom and the round tub rotates to move the hay over the knives. The conveyor hauls the hay out the bottom and up the chute to make a pile. Amazing or not the grinder can grind one per minute. It has a small 500+ horsepower engine on it. Saboss!

Do I need to apologize for not including pictures of our child this week? I am sure many of you log on just to see Rebecca and not see the exciting happenings on the farm. Christmas pictures will be posted someday. Stay tuned.

Dozer

Dozer! I don't even know her!

As some of you know we have a bull named Dozer; give credit to Sarah for the creative name. Get it. We have a bull dozer. He has a story he has not told us. Not about the fun he has had and we all know that bulls have fun, but about how he lost his nose ring. Yes he had a nose ring, but tonight when I showed Sarah this picture she noticed he didn't anymore.

I am curious how many of you out there in blogger land know why bulls have nose rings.

A. To rattle against metal objects like bale rings or gates to tell his cows he's the bull

B. To be used as part of his bit when they are rode as bucking bulls
C. To keep from getting their noses in the wrong places, like you know where

D. To be tied up and led around like a pet

Send us your guess as a comment.

Ice, Ice, Baby

Ice

Ice

Baby

That pretty much sums up the last two days. Monday into Tuesday we had an ice storm. Dan stayed home from work on Tues. and we stayed huddled inside trying to stay warm - literally. We lost power for nearly 12 hours. Rebecca didn't seem to notice much, but she did seem a little more cranky at night - probably confused by it being dark at 5pm and by all the candles all over the house. The roads weren't too bad by 6pm so we decided to leave the cold house and go out to eat and do a little shopping. Just after we got back home, around 9:00 pm, the power came back on. I was so thankful because I was not looking forward to trying to sleep with Rebecca in our bed. Hope this finds all of you warm as well.

Finally!

I'm sure that is what many of you faithful viewers are thinking by now - "finally!" Well I'm glad to be finally blogging again also. The long wait has been due to a combination of being gone over the Thanksgiving holiday and computer troubles. But I think we finally have a good working computer that we can rely on for a while. So here are some updates on what we've been doing.

For Thanksgiving we traveled to Orange City to be with my family. It was the first time since last Christmas that we had all been together. Rachel was home from Nicaragua and finally got to meet Rebecca.

Whenever my family gets together we like to take a family picture - it's great to see the new additions year after year!

Since this was Rebecca's first Thanksgiving we thought we would have a little fun. Here she is with my mom's 19 pound turkey. Rebecca is only tipping the scales at 14 pounds.

Here is Rebecca looking super cute in her dress and shoes. I still can't get over how cute baby shoes are!

The most recent family update is that Rebecca has a new baby cousin. Dan's sister, Debbie and husband Greg has another baby girl on Sunday, Jessica Lynn. Here is Dan holding Jessica with big sister Allison and Debbie.

Toys

It's been a pretty quiet week around here, which has been really nice. During our quiet afternoons I've been trying to engage Rebecca a little bit more with her toys and books. But I finally gave in and decided it would be more fun to take pictures of her with her toys and books.

Rebecca's latest craze is trying to fit her whole fist into her mouth. It's pretty cute except that she makes a slobbery mess of herself. I don't know what it is about cold slobbery hands and cheeks, but I just can't deal with it. I'd take the dirtiest diaper over massive drool any day.

All Smiles

Happy Birthday Dan! Since meeting Dan, I've had to share my birthday celebrations with him since mine was 2 days ago. Normally this wouldn't be that big of a deal except that I love birthdays and Dan is a little "ho-hum" about them. He usually rains on my parade a little. This year, with our new little addition to the family, everything is different - even birthdays. I always loved a little birthday flare to make my day special, but after having Rebecca you realize quickly that everything in your life becomes secondary to everything in theirs. That's the order of things I guess and I wouldn't change it for the world!

Here are a few pictures to keep you updated. Rebecca is smiling all the time now and almost on command. Just make sure she is in a good mood, usually after eating, and give her a big smile and she will smile right back!

This past weekend we drove up to Orange City to visit my parents. This was Rebecca's first road trip and she did really well in the car. Both on the way there and on the way back she slept soundly. It messed up her sleep schedule a little, but she got back on track soon enough. We had a great visit and Grandpa loved sitting and reading to his two youngest grandkids.

Thanks to two of my fellow ISU grads - Jen and Beth, Rebecca is decked out in her ISU gear ready to cheer on the Cyclones to another win. She makes a pretty cute fan!