The Christmas frenzy has begun

I spent the past 2 evenings wrapping like crazy.  The dogs were 'helping' as you can see. 

We found some great gifts for the Kinney get-together, I know they can hardly wait.  Here is a little sneak preview of one of our finds....seashells, raffia, pottery....how can you go wrong ;)?

Impromptu Christmas program

Ben at the right with the brown sleeve....and his sheep at the bottom of the stairs :)

The Kinneys went to church this morning!  Matt is in confirmation class at McCabe United Methodist Church, and he happened to sign me up to bring dessert to the Potato Bar after church this morning.  So we took the little kids to Sunday School and went to the church service afterwards.  It ended up being the Children's Christmas program this morning, and they just so happened to have an extra shepherd costume, and it just so happens that one of the angels was sick this week, so Ben and Grace were In Like Flynn :).  They didn't have any lines, which is good.  Grace was in her glory...they sang Jingle Bells during the service, and after that got their costumes on for the program.  She loooooved being an angel, probably because she's such an angel in real life (ha).  Ben was also very good at his shepherd duties, except he dropped his sheep and it rolled down the steps.  Like a true professional he ignored it and went about his business.  We did eat the Potato Bar afterwards, and Matt and Rich stayed to clean up.  It's a nice church...the people were nice and the eatin's were good :).

Ben turns 10

Ben officially turned 10 on the 5th.  He declared it pajama day, so he is in his jammies in all these pics :).  He opened his presents in the morning, and we had pizza and cake in the evening.  Matt has been watching Cake Boss on TLC fervently lately, and wanted to tackle making the cake.  We baked the cakes and made the fondant Friday night, and Matt spent most of Saturday morning creating his masterpiece.  It is an Avatar cake, with Aang's face on the cake.....Avatar in a cartoon on Nickelodeon if you were wondering :).  He did a great job!  Next time we'll know how to work with fondant a bit better...it got kind of crumbly at the end.

Party number 2

Thursday night after a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at Ana's, we took off back to Ankeny. Friday Grace and I went down to DM and saw Princesses on Ice....Grace was in princess heaven! She loved it! It was really good, but pretty long. She got a $12 snow cone in a nifty Cinderella mug....that was the only overpriced souvenir she wanted thank goodness. Rich took Ben and Jeff to a movie and the big boys hung out with their friends. Saturday we had a party for Ben...he had invited his friends Jeff, Rachel, and Steven to come over for pizza, cake, and lots of Super Mario fun :).

Then Sunday we left early to head back to Bismarck......and it was over! It's amazing how fast the time goes. Thanks for a fun week everyone, it was so nice to be home!

Trip to Galesburg

Monday after G's haircut we took off for Galesburg to see Grandmother and Grandpa Kinney. We had a lot of fun....went out to eat Tuesday for Ben's bday, then had presents and cake when we got back. He got some Pokemon cards, 2 39 clues books, a Ricky Stanzi Iowa Hawkeye FB jersey, and Lego Indiana Jones 2 for his DS. Wednesday we went up to Randy and Ana's house, and on the way we drove through Geneseo. We took the kids past all of our old houses and their schools, then ate at good old Roy's Taco House. We lived in Geneseo for 7 years! I still miss it, it's a great little town.

We got up to Randy's and immediately the boys started in with the ping-pong. Kelly and Dan came up Wed. evening and we all stayed over night at Randy's....so much fun to be with them all! And WOW, are those Kinney-Fredrickson boys ever competitive with the ping-pong matches! Matt set up the Kinnvatational Ping-Pong tournament, and the war was on LOL!! The battle came down to John and Rich, with Johnny pulling away for the win. Rich had to take off his shirt he was so drenched with sweat :). Tabitha and Travis came down too, and we got to meet Travis's 6 year old daughter Isabelle. She is adorable, and her and Grace got along swimmingly! They had so much fun playing, and are both excited to have another girl to play with!

The big hair cut!

Monday we took Grace to my mom's hairdresser Jackie to get her hair cut. Jackie makes wigs for people with cancer who have lost their hair. She was about to start making a wig for a 10 year old girl with cancer :(. She already had one ponytail from another girl to start with, and it was an exact match for Grace's hair color, it was meant to be! I'm not sure how much was officially cut, but I'm guessing it was 8-9 inches. Her new hair is *adorable*! She absolutely loves it, and so do we.

Vacation

Wow, my last post was on Veteran's Day. The longer it is between posts the more I *don't* want to do it. Probably because I have too many things to talk about (bah-ha!).

We left Bismarck on Fri. 11/20 and headed south to Ankeny for Thanksgiving vacation. The kids missed 4 days of school, so it was a vacation for them right off the bat. After a brief stop in Moorhead to see the Peterson's, we arrived in Ankeny Fri. evening. Saturday Rich took Tyler and Matt to the Iowa-Minnesota football game...they had a great time! They met up with Barney and Kali, Randy and John, and Jim and Connor. It just so happens that Barney and Kali were getting married the NEXT day! They got married on Sunday, in the Presidential Box at Kinnick Stadium...CONGRATS to them both! We got them (well, more Barney as I'm sure Kali wasn't real thrilled with it) a big Iowa poster that we had made with pictures of Barney & Rich at various Hawkeye games.

Saturday Grace and Ben played with their best Ankeny friends, Ava and Jeff. They have really missed them. Ava and Grace were basically inseparable, those girls are so cute! Sunday we took Matt to watch his old basketball team, the Red Hawks play in a tournament at Roosevelt HS in DM. They lost, but it was great to watch them. Matt (and mom and dad) really misses the Red Hawks....they've been together since they were all in 3rd grade.

I'm going to continue in the next post so this doesn't get too long...more to come!!