Capturing December ~ Day 13

 It began snowing this evening before we went to our church Christmas dinner and Uncle Tom cleared a path for me to get to the car.   How sweet :)    
  The picture does not do this scene justice...snow, Christmas lights, tree in the window and a flag.   It was beautiful.  

First Snow!

 Blake & Brenna were not overly impressed with the first snow of the season.   I am sure by next year their big sister will have them convinced it is wonderful.

Snow Day

 Miss Piper and her Mommy sure do like snow days, we stay in our pj's all day and just be lazy.  When Piper saw the snow this morning she wanted to go out and build a snowman,  Mommy quickly destroyed her plans, it is way too cold to go out and play.  As I write this post at 5:15pm it is 12degrees but the windchill is -15degrees, that is just way too cold for a little girl to go out and play.   Instead we are going to play games as a family when Daddy gets home from work.  

Sure wish I had a storm door.  Here is a sneak peek of the "other" house project we have had the carpenters work on, a new front porch and door.   More pic of that later.    So tell me how do your spend your "snow" day?

A snow story.

Tuesday morning Eric, Piper and I along with Eric's parents headed to Des Moines, IA, the guys were going to a farm show and us girls were going shopping, this has become a tradition for the last couple of years. We knew they were saying snow was coming in the afternoon but they have said we were going to have a bad storm so many other times and we didn't that we were not worried about it. To make a long story short by the time we left Des Moines it was snowing pretty good but the road conditions were not bad so we stopped to eat in Pella, IA and by the time we left there the conditions had deteriorated greatly. The visibility was next to nothing, we were only going about 30mph or slower, cars were off the ditch. We stopped and picked up to stranded motorist and took then to a nearby town. After we dropped them off we got back on the highway and were able to follow a snowplow, if would have been almost impossible for us to make it through the drifts if it were not for the plow. We were able to follow the plow all the way to our town but when were tried to take the road out to the country where we live the snow was too deep, so back to town we went, by the way we were only 7 miles from our house. To make a long story a little shorter the two motels in town were full so we ended up spending the night in my Mother in laws store, so thankful we had a warm place to stay.
We later learned that we had followed some of the last snowplows, when the snowplow got to town he was headed to the shed, they pulled them off the road due to such bad conditions. We just thank the Lord for keeping us safe, many prayers were said on the trip and as you can tell God certainly answered them.
When we finally got home Wednesday morning this is what the front of our house looked like, very welcoming!
Lunch on the patio anyone? There really is a table under there, right by the bird feeder. Hope you enjoyed the snow storm story, this just goes to show that God does listen to our prayers.

Around the house...

Ice baby, Ice. Yesterday we had a big ole ice storm, what a great day to stay inside and piddle around. I did get a scrapbook page done and yes one page is progress!
Miss Piper loves her Daddy, she follows him around like a lost puppy dog. Here she is watching him clean the ice off the sidewalk.
Nana and Grandpa have been gone for a week and so they had to come see Piper as soon as they got back home. They even brought her a rain coat for next spring, it's big but she still enjoyed wearing it around.

Snow day

Miss Piper is not crying about the snow, she was sad the kitten ran away from her. It has been a lazy snowy day here and I have been enjoying it.

Sledding is such fun.

Piper & Daddy in a snow drift.

I don't know if the Sunfire can make it over that drift.

God's handiwork.

Late again...

Well I am a day late once again in getting the Day's of Christmas picture posted. I have a very good excuse this time, my husband has the camera. I was planning on posting this afternoon but he asked to take the camera with him to work. He wanted to take some pictures of the ice roads(gravel roads), he says he could ice skate from the corner of *Glasgow Rd to the shop if he had a pair of skates. We have had quite the weather this last few weeks, yesterday the temp did not get above one degree and the wind was blowing about 25 Mph. BRRR!!! Well they say we are going to be getting more snow and ice tomorrow, pray that it does not come till late in the afternoon, I have a Dr. appointment in the town about 45 minutes away. They already canceled my appointment for last week, so I probably should go this week. Well enough rambling for one evening, I will try to get the pictures posted sometime tonight.

*Road names included for some who have been here, if you would like to know where I am talking about Please come and visit.

Day's of Christmas...Day 8

Well I got behind on my day's of Christmas but I do have an excuse Prenatal Classes. Sunday afternoon we went to our first class and then back again last night and again next Sunday and Monday. They usually spread it out over a whole month but with the holiday's they are cramming it all into four sessions. We are glad we decided to attend, we have learned many things already. I really meant to have the picture posted first thing this morning but I did not sleep very much last night because of a headache, I did not get around to my photo duties. Well this little Mama better get off the computer and get some lunch for Eric and then get my dishes made for our Church supper tonight. Hopefully we make it there it rained yesterday evening and during the night and then the temp has dropped, so we now have ice and it it supposed to snow this afternoon.

Our weekend...

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow! This is what we woke up to on Sunday morning, it snowed all day but did not stick much because it was about 35 degrees. There was no chance of it melting today it has not gotten above 25 degrees. Don't any of you southerners want to come and visit?

Here I am in my coat that want button. Hope baby does not get cold.
Looking out our back window.

Having a little family time Saturday night, we had fun playing the "Farming Game" sitting by our Christmas tree.

I survived the storm...

Hello blogging friends, As many of you know I stayed a few days at Iowa-Illinois Camp. Well Sunday was as good as can be expected (we had kitchen duty). Sunday night found me spending the night alone in my in-laws camper, no big deal right. That is until about 5:30 Monday morning when the wind started blowing and it was raining(the wind was clocked at 94 mph at the airport). I woke up looked out the window and the trees were dancing, bending and breaking, the electricity went out and then things got even scarier. The wind was blowing so hard the camper was rocking and limbs were hitting the roof, I was sure a big dead branch right over the bed was going to come through, so I went to the couch, covered my head and began praying for the storm to go away and that no one would get hurt. Well the Lord is good and the storm did end but not before a tree fell on Eric's Aunt DeRene and Uncle Toms camper. It did major damage to their camper but thank the Lord they were safe. I heard someone say that we lost about forty big limbs or trees on the campgrounds. Monday we had no morning service, everyone was cutting and hauling trees and limbs. By the end of the day they had gotten four generators to run the camp but only lights, no a/c. But the Lord was good to us and keep it from getting to hot. When we left Tuesday night there still was no power. And as always I did not have my camera, I will get pictures from someone soon.

The cow's in the corn...

This morning I woke up and saw something that I don't usually see. Someones cows in the bean field across the road, a few minutes later they were on the gravel road and then across the road. And then they were in our corn field. We had some pretty nasty weather last night and I guess the fence was broke or they were just out taste testing every ones fields. Well anyway that is about the extent of the exciting things happening here. I have to get my house cleaned, we are having Rachel Clarke's baby shower here tomorrow night. Hope everyone is having a great week and I will post more of our exciting life later.

Quick update

I will give everyone a brief update on what is going on around here and I will post some pictures later. Yesterday evening we started VBS, the first night went very well, the kids were so good and we had no trouble makers. I am doing the crafts for the 4,5 and 6 year olds, the are alot of fun. Pray that we have a successful VBS and get some new families coming to church.
Another exciting thing is that is has not rained since Thursday! YEAH! Eric was able to start planting beans today. This is wonderful and we sure hope the nice dry weather continues. Bye for now.

God is Good...

After all the rain, wind and destruction we looked out and saw this wonderful sight.

It was a full rainbow and you could barely see part of another one (a double).

I think this was God's way of telling us that He will always be with us and

protect His children. We just thank the Lord that none of us was hurt and

the damage was nothing that we can not handle.

Tornado or Strong Wind...

Yesterday evening was quite scary for me, our weather radio went off and said a tornado was heading towards the area of Jefferson County where we live. I called Eric and told him about it and then I went to the basement. There was lots of wind and rain but never any noise like you hear about. When it was over and I called Eric he told me the big grain bin by the shop was gone. I found out that he was in the shop at the time it happened, thank God he was OK. We only lost some tree limbs and one apple tree at our house.

The bin and a "river" of water. I was standing in the doorway of the shop taking this picture, so you can see how close it was to Eric and Merlin.

The roof of the bin.

A wall and part of the roof were either blown away or on top of the tractor. This was at the machine shed at Merlin's house.

Here is what the bin did look like. This was taken last summer, Candice was climbing it.

Shopping again...

Well here I am again to tell you about yet another shopping trip with my Mother in-law. I love her to death but when she shops she spends all day. Anyway yesterday we drove to Monmouth Illinois to pick up some pottery that she carries in the store. So while we were there we just made a day of it and did some shopping too and had a great lunch at a "new-old" soda shop, that was very nice. I did come home with some things, my favorite was this Vera Bradley Cookbook, it has some very yummy looking recipes and lots of neat pictures.

Maybe I should have a ladies get together and invite all my blogging friends and try some of these recipes.
Well I guess that is about all that is going on here, except that we got another inch of rain this morning but Eric was able to plant yesterday. I think almost all the corn is in but no beans as of yet, the way it keeps raining I think they should just plant rice.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I have to work at Kim's tomorrow and help get some ordering done, should be a pretty fun day.

OK who was it?

Just who did not pray hard enough? We had some rain last night but just enough to keep them out of the fields this morning, they should be able to be back in this afternoon. Thank You for your prayers, I am sure that is what kept the rain from really coming down because it was looking like it was going to be a doozy of a storm.

Outdoor work

Well I finally got my birthday present from my husband. He kept telling me that I was really going to like it but the store did not have them in yet. Yesterday I finally got him to tell me what is was a garden cart, well I went right to town and the store had one in so needless to say I bought it. I also went and bought flowers and came right home and put the cart to work. I am really going to love having this handy thing around, Thank you Eric, I love you.
Here are some of the flowers I planted. I am so glad that it is nice weather, I can finally get some much needed yard work done. Like mow the grass this week. :)

Spring is coming...

Sunday when we got home from church I noticed these pretty flowers blooming on the side of our house. My tulips and daylilies are starting to come up and the grass is getting greener, I am so glad that winter is over. We are getting more rain today, we have been having alot of rain plus we had a lot of snow, it is making for a very wet spring. They should began planting in about two weeks but if it does not dry out it could keep them out of the fields for awhile. Please pray that everything goes well or else I could have a very grumpy husband. AAHH!!What do you think of my new fashions? I thought I would go back a "few" years and bring back so good styles. Not really. I am going to participate in the Midwest Old Threshers "Log Village" and you have to wear pioneer clothes, so I will be having someone make me this dress. I think it is going to be a lot of fun, Eric's Aunt DeRene and her kids and some other friends will be doing it too. I will keep you posted on the progress of the dress. Old Threshers is a lot of fun, check out the link. Come visit us and go see all there is to see. We would love to have you.

Spring or not?

Hello to everyone out in blogging world. We have not been doing much around here except hanging out and enjoying the spring weather, the last few days have been in the 50's and 60's. Payton has loved being able to play outside, playing on the swing set, picking up sticks and having Melissa chase her are just a few of the things she like to do when we are able to go out.

Here is the little trucker, she loved "driving" and honking the air horn. Eric just had to show her where the horn was. :)
Finally getting to swing, it has been a long winter and it is not quite over.
After those few days of nice weather, we woke up to this. I don't know what is going on, I think spring is just trying to tempt us by poking it's head out now and them. I am ready for this white stuff to go away for good. Well I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Spring is coming...

Well we are still alive around here and spring is trying to poke it's head out. I don't have a good excuse for not blogging in the last few days except I just didn't feel like it. Yesterday the weather was warmer in the low 50's, Payton was very happy to get to play on her swing set for
awhile and it was nice to just breath in some fresh air. Just wanted to let all my fan's know that we are OK up here in Iowa. Well got to go clean a grain truck for Eric, what fun.