Fall Family Visits

This fall we were blessed to have Sophia visit for a long weekend.  Dad and Sarah came up and visited us also.  We went on a Christmas tour of the Mayowood mansion.  It was so much fun.  While Sophia was here, I helped her create a little house out of a shoe box and we made little furniture for it too.  I had so much fun crafting with her! The girls had fun making gingerbread cookies with Sophia also.

Halloween

Halloween this year was spent at Nate's parents. His sister, Cyndi put a lot of work into a haunted forest.  Elyana was a minion and Mikayla was a gypsy.

Chloe's costume!

American Heritage Girls

I am having fun co-leading Elyana's 4th grade group of American Heritage Girls.  We worked on making some cute reindeer hot cocoa packages and some turkey packages to sell at a church fundraiser.  As you can see in the photos below, the group of girls that Elyana is with have similar personalities.  I love seeing them encourage and support her.  AHG has helped her grow and to make friends from a variety of churches and schools.

This semester we are mastering a theater badge.  We learned about different types of genres, interviewed a local actor and actress, wrote and performed their own skit, and toured a costume shop. The costume shop owner closed the shop and let us try on anything we wished. It was such a blast. We are still hoping for a backstage tour of a theater.  In the spring, I will be leading a fun cooking badge.  Mikayla's group will be doing something similar, a gingerbread house decorating badge.

Elyana picked an Elsa costume.

My Birthday!

I celebrated my 40th birthday this year.  I agonized over this day not because I was the big 4-0, but because my sister was 40 when she passed away and because we share the same birthday.   I decided to make my birthday fun and something to look forward to.  I invited a few friends to the Mall of America to try their high ropes course and to zip line across the mall.  It sounded fun until I started climbing up.  I do have a fear of heights, but man, it was intense!  I did okay on the obstacles where you can hold on to a rope on either side.  I did okay with the zip-line until that moment when  you just have to jump off the ledge into oblivion.  It helped having a good friend behind me and my children who had just gone before me.  After the zip-lining, we went to my favorite restaurant, Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory in the mall.  More friends joined us and we had a great time.  I like that we celebrated a birthday doing something fun, active, and challenging.

My niece, Lindsy and Mikayla.

One of my besties, Michelle Basket.

One of the best presents that I received on my birthday is from Maureen Johnson. She made string art in the shape of Wisconsin.  The heart of the string art is in the location of Appleton.  My thoughts and heart are so often there, thinking of where my sister rests and where my beautiful niece still resides.

Fall is Here!

We had a very long fall this year. Our first snow wasn't until Christmas. Temperatures were way above normal for several months.  On my birthday I planted some bulbs around the tree in the front of the house in honor of my sister's birthday.  My mom came over and helped me.  I love doing that because when spring comes I remember my birthday, I remember her, and I remember that spring always comes after the long dark winter.

When the leaves finally fell from the trees, we had a lot of raking to do.  The girls always look forward to playing in the leaf piles.  I had about 25 large bags full of leaves.  Since we don't have a truck or a trailer, I called a guy I found to haul it away.

Elyana was proud to be able to handle a real rake all by herself!

Here are all of the bags and brush waiting for pickup at our back gate.

Here is a neat terrarium  I got at a summer garage sale that I decorated for fall with some fake leaves, pine cones, lights, and a candle.

And here are some neat photos of a nice family walk along an abandoned railroad track we had. We collected some iron rail hooks that I later turned into recycled art for Nate's family this Christmas. The track ran along some property that Nate's family just sold.  Nate wanted to see his deer stand one last time. There is a funny story about these tracks that runs past the Jones property.  When Nate was young (about 12), he took his 6 year old nephew, and a friend to explore the abandoned train cars. One train car led to another before Nate was in the next town and his mom frantic.  She was about to call the police.  

Also this fall, I finished an ongoing paving project.  In the spring I will add one more row, some pea gravel, and potted flowers. It will be a nice area to put lawn chairs and soak up the sun by our little pool.

This fall we have also spent a few weekends heading to Appleton to visit Sophia and watch her perform at her choir concerts.  The girls enjoy checking out the pool in each hotel we visit when we head there. 

Relationships

I love our family so much! We have so much love and laughter. We do sit down to dinner together each night and chat about our days. Every day when Nate gets home, the girls run to get hugs.  Elyana is still small enough to jump up for her hug. She's always was looking forward to her daddy coming home.

It is so important to have one on one time with the girls.  It is so easy to get busy and not do this. Lately, I have done this with Mikayla because she has been growing so fast that we often go shopping more shoes and clothes.  However, I took her to her first rock concert. We went with our youth group to see Toby Mac at the Target Center in the Twin Cities.

I realized I hadn't spent one on one time with Elyana so I took her to the mall. We had ice cream, looked for some winter boots, and I let her ride on these motorized stuffed animals.  She had so much fun!