Iowa

My dad took this pic outside their house today, So pretty.  The picture below is how it looked after I photoshopped it.

Christmas in Kansas

We stayed here for Christmas this year.  Brent had to round so there was no way we could go back to Iowa.  He went into work early and was able to get home around 7:30 before the kids woke up so it worked out!  We opened presents and just hung out all day.

First reaction to seeing all the presents!

Spoiled

We have been getting spoiled by Algona (the town we are moving to next summer).  The other day a box arrived from the bank and inside was a huge box of assorted chocolate items!  Then yesterday ANOTHER box arrived from the hospital and this one had gifts for all of us and another box of chocolate.  We have had some chocolate and given some away and the rest is going to have to go to work with Brent tomorrow!

Emmy's little puppy is so cute.  You plug it into the computer and program it.  So now it says her name and it plays songs I chose.

Nile is happy to have his own computer!

Christmas Party

We had the third year residents over for a Birthday Dinner/Christmas Party/ Cookie exchange the other night.  Every month we have a "birthday dinner" and go out to eat to celebrate the birthdays that month. This month is Brent's birthday and he is going to be 30! Here are a couple pictures I took while I was getting ready for the party and some pictures of out house. This is the FIRST year I have gotten Brent to put lights on the house.  I usually just decorate the front porch.  I changed ALL the light bulbs in the lights to alternate red, green, and white. 

Kiowa

Brent moonlights in Kiowa, Ks. There is ONE hill along the way and when you are at the top of it, you can see so far, I finally pulled off the road to take a picture of it.  It wasn't the clearest day, and it would have been better had I stood in the middle of the highway, but I didn't want to do that :-)
At the same time there were also thousands of geese flying over so I took some pictures of them too. 

Christmas Program

You know how there is always that one kid in the Christmas program who picks their nose, pulls up their shirt, gets bored and sits down and does who knows what else.  Well, that was my kid at this program!  Nile is attending first friends at a church here in town.  I may have mentioned it before, it's a mom's day out program, but more organized and we call it school.  His Christmas program was Thursday.  I will try to load a couple videos, I have never loaded videos before so lets hope it works.  And please excuse the TERRIBLE taping job I did.  I was taping with my camera and I was alone with Emmy.  On the first video I didn't see them move him to the other side of the stage so at first I didn't even know where he was!

I will have to try to upload the video later because it isn't working

He has no expression on his face and it cracks me up. 

It was 60 and sunny this day as well, so we played outside when Nile got home from school.  He wanted to get a little more Jeep time in before it got cold this weekend.  

Playgroup

Today we had a fun playgroup, Well I think it was fun, I planned it! :-)  Last  night Nile and I made sugar cookies and today the kids came over and decorated cookies.  We also had a little gift exchange which Nile really liked.  Most of the kids just decorated one cookie, ate it, then went and played.  Nile however, decorated about 10 cookies before he got tired of it.  Nile LOVES to cook, whenever Brent and I are doing anything in the kitchen he pulls up his chair and says "what are you cookin?!"  It is hard to cook with him, but he loves it! He has even learned to crack open eggs and not make too much of a mess. Poor Emmy doesn't get to have fun cooking, but she does like to pull all the towels out of the drawer.  Nile's apron says "cookie taker" and mine says "cookie maker"  I got to use my great new kitchenaid mixer that Brent's mom go us for Christmas.