Beautiful winter

Kind of an anomaly, isn't it?  We woke up to beautiful frosty trees this morning.  Everything was white...it was so pretty!!

Thanksgiving + Ben's birthday

We went over to Heidi and Joel's house for Thanksgiving this year, despite the terrible weather.  We left a day early so we'd beat the snow....North Dakota is extremely unpredictable from November to, oh, May?  We met Mom and Don there...it was really great to be together!  Heidi cooked her little heart out and everything was excellent.  While we were there we had a little birthday party for Ben. 

Watching the jack rabbit through the downstairs window

Heidi the wonder woman :)...making mashed

potatoes and looking fabulous doing it!

Joel cutting the turkey in his prisoner outfit

We had another birthday party for Ben on his actual birthday date.  He got some great stuff from Grandmother and Grandpa and an ipod shuffle from us...let's hope this one doesn't go down the toilet.

A quick post of pictures

Not a lot going on, but I'll post some recent pics!

                                                    Grace buzzing up to a door...notice
                                                                 she lost a shoe in the 
                                                                            frenzy :)                                         

Tyler's first day of work at Dan's Super Market :)

Tucker enjoying our game of Chutes & Ladders

Sweet girl with her dog

Our good Tucker-dog



Broken arms, pirates and snow

It's been a long time since I updated here!  It seems like Facebook sort of takes control of things these days.  Last Monday, Grace lost her other front tooth and an hour later Matt broke his arm :( .  After spending the night in the hospital, he went to surgery Tuesday morning to have it set.  It was not a pretty break.  That night Ben was in a musical at school, which unfortunately I had to miss because Matt hadn't been discharged from the hospital yet.  Rich went though and he said that Ben did a great job! 

                                                                                             

Last weekend we met Roman, Lynn, Allison, her husband Steve, and daughter Evy for supper at Texas Roadhouse.  Evy is the same age as Grace, and those girls became fast friends!  They were a little shy at first, but after awhile they were making plans left and right...playdates, trick-or-treating, meeting at the American Girl store :), you name it.  Unfortunately they live south of Minneapolis :( .  They really hit it off, and it was so great to see Allison...the two of us used to play together when we were little!

 

Today, unfortunately, it SNOWED!!  We had a blizzard warning last night and today, and ended up with about 3 1/2 inches of snow and terrible winds.  The kids loved it though, and made a snowman the second they got home from school!  Mr. Snowman is wearing Grandpa Kinney's hat and has a Nerf dart for a nose :).

What a great fall weekend!!!

Fall is in full swing in North Dakota!  We had a gorgeous weekend full of sun, cool temps and cousins!  Joel, Eli and Noah came over for the weekend while Heidi visited with her friends for her college homecoming.  We had such a fun time!  The kids adore each other, it's so fun to see them play together.  Saturday Joel and Rich ran to the mall and enjoyed a visit to Yankee Candle (really, they truly love that store LOL!).  When they got home, we ate a quick lunch and went to the pumpkin patch.  I believe that every other person in the greater Bismarck/Mandan area was there also :).  It's a cool place though, and the kids will be picking hay out of their parts for days!  After the pumpkin patch, we came home for a drink & a snack, and went back out to the zoo.  The Dakota Zoo is small, but works out well for little feet who get tired of walking.  We headed back home &  Joel, Rich, Tyler and Matt went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Iowa-Penn St. game.  They only stayed till halftime, then came home for the rest...great victory Hawks!  This morning they headed back home.  Thanks for coming guys, we had a great time!

Fall is here in ND

Just today I noticed how pretty all of the trees are all of a sudden!  Probably by this weekend they will be at their peak.  The weird thing is, 99% of the trees here are yellow.  No orange, no red.  Maybe the hard maple tree doesn't grow well up here?  Sad.  We went for a Fun Fall Family drive after supper this evening.  Ben & Tyler said they weren't getting out of the car.  Rich wasn't real thrilled with the idea, and Grace and Ben ended up fighting most of the way. 
Ben:  (whispering) stupid
Grace:  (yelling) He's calling me stupid!
Ben:  (yelling)  She hit me!
Grace:  (screeching)  He called me stupid under his breath!
You get the idea.
We did stop down by a lake and -everyone- got out of the van so I could take a pic.  They were so happy and smiled like angels.

My best friend Adrian Clayborn

Yes, that's right, Adrian Clayborn IS my Facebook friend.  And I'm quite proud of that :).  Someone posted this pic to his page today:

He's so awesome!