Winter Wonderland

So just a few more snow pictures. These were taken after being snowed in our house for two days, December 26 I believe. It was actually quite pretty, but I don't think I ever need to see that much snow again.
Somewhere here is our driveway. Jay Dee is back behind that large drift blowing snow. It took him almost 2 hours to open is just wide enough for the vehicle to get out, and sometimes the mirrors would still hit the drifts. He would use the snowblower for awhile and then stop and knock down more snow with a shovel and then hit it again with the blower.

Taking a break for a bit. This is me.

Jay Dee completely covered and looking a bit frozen.

We got Ben to run out long enough to stand by the tallest part. That is our neighbors house in the background.

A Snowed In Christmas

After spending Christmas Eve day with Jay Dee's family at the farm, we attempted to come home during some really bad blowing snow. Not sure if it was the best decision we ever made, but we figured it would be nice to be home Christmas morning. And we couldn't figure out how to explain to Ben that Santa forgot to come to Grandma's, if we would have stayed there for the night.

So we made it home and got everyone all snug in their beds, and attempted to fall asleep listening to the howling 40 mph winds. We woke up on Christmas morning to find that we were indeed snowed in! Somehow though, Santa and his reindeer did manage to find our house. I'm guessing Rudolph and his bright red nose helped out a bit. The kids were extremely excited to see what Santa brought. Especially Ben. And he got exactly what he wanted...a Kerplunk game and a Toy Story coloring book. Maddie got a new stroller to go with her new baby. Then we had a great time of opening gifts for and from each other. Ben would open so fast and then ask where the next one was. Madalyn really got into opening too. Actually once she took a present from under the tree and opened it and luckily it just happened to be for her.

This is Ben showing Daddy all the pictures he had drawn on the wrapping paper for him.

And now for why we stayed inside for the next 2 days! This is a view of our driveway. Yes, our driveway is somewhere amongst all that snow. When it was all over, the drifts were 6 feet high just in the driveway.

The front of our house. You can see the windows were pelted with snow.

And this is looking across the street at the clinic and hospital. At times it was blowing so hard, we couldn't even see the clinic.

MCC Meat Canner

So I'm a little behind in updating the blog, and I'll get to the reasons why in future posts. But for now, I'm going to try to update a bit each day.

Right after Thanksgiving, our church is the host for the MCC Meat Canner truck which travels through the country to can meat for world hunger. It is quite an amazing thing that everyone comes together to do. This year they canned 29,000 pounds of turkey in 4 days. This is the kitchen area, where the cans come after being cooked. They are washed, dried, date stamped, labeled, and boxed.
This is the canner truck set up right outside the kitchen door. There are four men that travel with the canner for a year. Jay Dee has always thought that this would be something he would enjoy doing.

Jay Dee, and 2 other men from our church are in charge of getting everything organized and making sure the canner runs as smoothly as possible while it is here. So this means, that for a week, we don't see Jay Dee. He was leaving every morning by 4:30a.m., so they could start canning at 5 am. They aren't usually done for the day until around 9pm. This year, some people volunteered to stay later, so these guys could come home to see their families and get to bed. So Jay Dee was home by 7 most evenings. The following picture is of Jay Dee washing one of the big pans they put turkey into after grinding it.

Another highlight is that people of all ages can helpt at the canner. Ben was and still is so excited about working at the canner. We've been hearing about it since last year already. So on the day he had preschool, his teacher took his class to go tour the canner, and then after preschool, he was able to stay for the afternoon and help. So for 6 hours, he helped slide cans around to people to label, and he put them on the conveyor belt to be date stamped. He was one tired boy when he got home. But like all 4 year olds..."Mom, I'm not tired!" This being said with tears in his eyes.

This picture is of just some of the boxes of canned turkey that will be sent around the world to relieve hunger. Quite amazing!

Also, during this week, Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived in Henderson at the school to visit the children, so we made a trip over to see them one evening. This is the first year that Ben didn't cry and was excited to see Santa. Madalyn however, didn't care for them too much. That would be why I had to be in the picture.

Thanksgiving 2009

This photo was just before Thanksgiving. Maddie has seen Ben play with Play-doh numerous times so I thought I'd let her try. She did lots of watching Ben and trying to copy everything he did. However, when it started going into her mouth, we had to put a stop to it. We spent Thanksgiving in Kansas at my parents this year. We were able to go down on wednesday night and stay until Sunday. It was nice to not have to rush back. I didn't take a lot of pictures this time. Basically just this one on my mom reading to Madalyn. We also went to my grandma's for our traditional noodles. They were wonderful. Then another evening we went over to my Uncle Steve and Aunt Caroline's to see all my cousins. My aunt hadn't seen Madalyn yet so it was a treat for her. Jay Dee got pretty involved in a game of Apples to Apples with my cousins and their husbands and girlfriend. I think a great time was had by all.

Then on Sunday we made plans to stop at some of our friends house in Bennington on our way home. These were college friends that we've kept in contact with. We actually haven't seen them in almost 2 years. They just purchased a new house, and they have a new little girl we haven't seen yet! And they haven't seen Madalyn yet either! The last time we saw Jay, Angie, and Connor, I was about 6 months pregnant with Maddie and Angie had just found out she was pregnant with Olivia. So we had a wonderful time of seeing each other new little girls and visiting. We stayed and ate supper and after about 2 1/2 hours we were on the road again. It was a wonderful break in our trip, basically the half-way point. We might have to make that more of an occurrance.

Angie and her daughter, Olivia.

This is Connor, he'll be 7 in January, and Ben. They had a great time together.

Thanks again for supper Alexander's! Hope to see you again soon! You're welcome to head North at any time. We'd love to have ya!

What we've been up to

Well since I last wrote, Ben was sick with a cold/strep throat.

Then the mom, ME, who is NEVER to get sick...well I did. And it was a big one. For 8 days, I was down and out. This eight day timeframe included two trips to the hospitial for I.V.'s/fluids, anti-nausia meds, morphine for pain, and then some other med for pain. All my bloodwork was normal, but I was one sick mommy. (And no I'm not pregnant...for all those who are skeptic.) Jay Dee said he'd never seen me so sick and he didn't ever want me to be that way again. After further thinking and talking with friends, I think I've come up with a diagnosis....E. Coli. Or some form of food poisoning. It was nasty and I hope I never have it again. And here's the sad thing, I think I figured out where I got it. From sauerkraut. It is the one thing that I love that the rest of the family, especially Jay Dee, can't stand. So during harvest I always make sure I have some. Well it was the last day of harvest (the thursday before I got sick on friday), and I remembered that I had had my dose of sauerkraut yet. So I pulled out a can for lunch along with a hotdog. I thought it tasted different, but figured it was the hotdogs because we had changed brands. Well it wasn't now that I think back. I KNOW it was the sauerkraut. And that's a big bummer for me. Not sure I'll ever be able to eat it again.

And now, both the kids are sick. They both have coughs and fevers. We're headed to the clinic today to try and figure out what's going on. I think its just the good ol' winter cold, but we'll see.

All About Maddie

A little over a week ago I took Maddie in for her first haircut. I was a bit worried...this is the little girl that can't sit still for anything. So we went to Headquarters where our friend Lori works. Ben got a haircut first. (My thinking was if Maddie saw Ben sit still, she would too.) So this is Maddie before her haircut. Her hair had gotten so long in front that I had to put it in a pigtail every day just to keep it out of her eyes. So the plan was to just get a trim of her bangs.

This is Lori getting ready to cut Maddie's hair.

We were AMAZED!!! She sat perfectly still and NEVER moved! I'm not sure if she was worried about the scissors or if Lori just kept her attention so well. I also think she liked looking in the mirror at herself.

And here we have the finished Maddie! So nice to see those pretty blue eyes again!

Other things Maddie has been up to...my shoes. She likes to attempt to walk in them when I haven't put them away.

Okay so this picture needs a bit of explaining for some. This is a piano that I got for christmas when I was about 3 years old I think. Maybe 2. There are lots of pictures of me playing it wearing my cowboy boots. I have had it out in the basement for awhile now, and the other night Maddie was pounding on the basement door, so I opened it and she went down the stairs, grabbed the seat and starting crawling back upstair with it. I think she was trying to tell me to bring the piano too. So I did. And now every day we get some tunes played by both Maddie and Ben. Not sure how long I'll be able to handle it, but for now, it's okay. One more thing about the picture, it looks just like me. I should figure out a way to put the one of me on here for you to compare.

Pumpkins, Pirates, and Pretty Little Dancers

Our Halloween this year was definitely different. An almost 4 year old carving his first pumpkin, a 1 year old who could actually walk this year to trick-or-treat, and stolen pumpkins! The night before halloween we arrived home to find that our pumpkins had been stolen. It's a tradition I guess here in Henderson to steal people's pumpkins. Not a tradition that I'm at all fond of! Especially when you have a little boy who looked at his pumpkins daily, and they were pumpkins from Grandma Carol's pumpkin patch. Pretty special to him!

So that evening this mommy was a tad-bit upset to say the least and I got on facebook and made some statements about how I wished that whoever stole them would think about whose house they were standing in front of next time and who it would be effecting by stealing that pumpkin that they thought they needed so bad. (Let me interject here, that over the last 2 years or so, pumpkins have been stolen, but nothing ever seems to happen with them. Usually they get smashed on mainstreet.) So after my little rant, I felt a smidge better. However, my rant must have struck a nerve with someone or some parent because the next morning to our delight, almost EVERY single PUMPKIN was back on our front porch!!! The smile on Ben's face was so big. I'm so glad we didn't have to go through those tears again as to why someone would do that.

So here is Ben prior to pumpkin-carving: During: (I thought he would like scooping out the seeds and the "gunk", but he thought it was pretty gross and a good "mommy job" he said.)

After: I had to help him cut out the face, but he did do some of it. I think he had a great time!

And now to the pirates and dancers....TA-DA!!! Ben has said he wanted to be a pirate since last halloween and so that is what he did. And Madalyn, well, you try to get her in a costume! She managed quite well in spite of the skirt being a little big. It didn't take her long to figure out the trick-or-treating process. Pretty special Pirate and pretty cute ballerina, if I do say so myself. :-)