Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We had a pretty quiet holiday, but every enjoyable. We opened gifts with each other after church on Christmas morning, took a little nap, and then spent the rest of the day with Dan's family at his sister's house. 

This picture of Rebecca was taken on Sunday morning before her Christmas program on Dec. 18. She looked so cute! Sadly her hair does not hold curls for very long!

One of Rebecca's favorite gifts was her Leapster 2. 

The other day when we were driving home and Rebecca was playing with her Leapster in the back seat, she said to me, "Mom, I was just working so hard to be good, but I didn't think that Santa was going to bring me a Leapster because I was really being naughty. I'm just so glad he brought me one anyway, so I'll try and be better." She makes us laugh so much!

Here are all the De Vries cousins with Dan's parents. 

We are still anxiously awaiting the arrival of baby. I'm 38 weeks and counting. I'm finding this time of waiting to be long and tiring. Knowing that baby could arrive tonight or could take another 3 weeks, is hard. But above all we are trusting that God will provide for our needs and praying for a safe and healthy delivery when the time comes.

Thanksgiving Recap

I know it is closer to Christmas than Thanksgiving now, but I have yet to post about Turkey Day and still want to do that. For Thanksgiving we traveled up to Hills, MN to my sister's house to spend the weekend with the rest of my siblings. We've done the same thing the last 2 years, but this year my parents were unable to make the trip from Canada. Here is a quick recap in photos.

We decorated the table with style.

The men fried the turkey, which was the tastiest turkey I've ever had.

All 18 of us sat around the table and thanked God for our many blessings!

And of course we attempted the traditional family photo. This is not the best one, but at least everyone's head made it in the frame. It was a great and memorable weekend!

"Quick, find the yellow brick and break a window."

I found the following post on a website I visit from time to time. I love the logic behind it and concern for the budget of their city. But I question how often they need such a brick.  Any guesses what the brick says or the sign on the wall?


  

In the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, the Public Transport Company replaced the emergency-use hammers with pairs of yellow bricks on all city buses.

“The special hammers are expensive and people were always stealing them,” explained a spokesperson from the Harbin Public Transport Company. “We don’t think anybody will be interested in stealing bricks.”

Hauling hay

I spent a day this past week hauling hay home to where I overwinter my spring cows.  As I was hauling my last load I thought to myself, "I think I have a pretty nice looking rig.  I should take a picture to share."  

This is my 1086 tractor with a gooseneck trailer hauling seven bales.  It can haul two in the postion over the tires but I rarely do it.  This can be pulled by a pickup and is normally. 

I put a gooseneck ball on the top of my bale carrier and can do the work by myself of loading and unloading. I pull the trailer to the field with the tractor, then load the trailer with the tractor/loader.  Then pull the load home and unload it.

31 Weeks

Believe it or not, these are the first "baby bump" pictures I have taken with this pregnancy. The second time around is much different than the first. What hasn't changed, is that we are so thankful for another healthy pregnancy and can't wait to hold this little one in our arms. So for those who are curious, here I am at 31 weeks.

Better Late than Never

We have some catching up to do here. Going back a few weeks...Rebecca had a Fall party at school and was able to wear a costume. She chose to be a fairy again this year, which was great because we still had the wings from last year. She had a lot of fun showing everyone how she could "fly."

We also made a few Halloween treats for friends and neighbors. I got the idea off another blog of course, but now that I am looking for it again, I can't find the blog back. They turned out really cute!

How to: Dip Nutter Butter cookies in melted vanilla almond bark (I thinned it down with Crisco). Let it harden and then drizzle additional melted almond bark over the cookies (I used a paper decorator bag with the tip cut off). Add melted dark chocolate eyes with a toothpick.

A Little Organization

When life is crazy busy and I feel like I have no time to even pick up the dirty socks on the bathroom floor, it feels great to get a little corner of that crazy life organized. So, yesterday I did a tiny thing - hung up our photo cork board that we had up before we remodeled the kitchen. Months ago I spray painted an old frame white and framed the fabric covered cork board with the intention of hanging it up, but never got around to it. We like to hang Christmas card photos on it each year and I also had baby announcements piling up on the counter and side of the fridge so I got out the hammer and nails and got it done. Beautiful.

My other little bit of organization was inspired by my favorite blog Young House Love with their similar project found here. When I saw this project the other day, I though, "I can do that! And I even have all the supplies already." So tonight I got out the supplies and set to work to organize this corner of the kitchen.

This is the counter that our microwave used to sit on. Now that we have the microwave over the stove this counter is free to become the "dropping zone" for things that come into the house. I hate clutter and therefore hate this counter, so I wanted to try and organize it a little bit more.

So for this project you need the inside of a cabinet door, cork board squares, utility knife, glue, and a ruler. All of which I had on hand. I think I picked up the cork board about 5 years ago at either a thrift store or garage sale. There are 4 thin squares of cork in the package.

I started by measuring the inside of the door, cutting a sheet of cork, and dry fitting it in the opening.

Perfect fit. The other perfect fit was that 2 sheets was exactly the height of the door so I have minimal cutting to do. The cork did come with double stick mounting squares, but when I tried to use them I knew they would not hold up. So I just used hot glue. Yes, that will be a real mess if I ever want to take the cork down, but I don't see that happening.

YEAH! for a great place to pin up coupons, schedules, and recipes I want to try. I love it and it makes me feel a little bit more organized!

I also worked hard at finding a better home for most of the stuff that was collecting on the counter. I know that this will always be the "catch all" place in the house, but it feels good to clean it up for a while. I still don't like the phone charger cords "hanging around." Still looking for a good solution to keeping those under control. Please share it you have a good way to do that.