South

The kids and I, with Opa, went south last weekend. All the way to central Kansas. It was not warmer than Minnesota; in fact, it snowed rather nicely on Sunday morning. We were right in the spirit, as Anna (and at least two of her cousins) coughed and hacked up a storm all weekend long. Ramont (blissfully) stayed home and waited for Gracie's calf, whose due date has now been pushed back a month. The photo here is not of Gracie (our new Jersey cow), but of Elias' 4-H steer.

Oma had gone down a few days earlier and had helped butcher roosters one day (before we came luckily).

We spent most of the time visiting and drinking mate...and keeping baby Maria from overrunning her older cousins.

Our kids had SO much fun with both their littler cousins (Maria and the twins Andrew and Annalise),

and their big cousins (Elias, Amos and Reuben), who are such accommodating playmates. Here they go dancing 'round the couch while we ate dessert.

Here we are out at Willmar and Hannah's ranch, fu-reezing our toes off.

And then there was this...

Kiddie photo dump

It's been a while since I updated you on all the minute details of our kids' lives, so here we go!

It snowed a few weeks ago, so Ramont dug out a tunnel/fort.

Literally hours of fun.

Anna's been noting the passage of time by putting stickers from Grandma Schrock on each calendar day.

Much to my delight, Legos have become the main indoor sport this winter.

My favorite hospital set from childhood is still very popular, but usually with strange variations (mainly having to do with motorized vehicles).

The kids now have free access to the tub (to which we added some Legos that were kindly left in the house), and so more often than not, the dining room table is covered in the colorful bricks.

In a foretaste of things to come (i.e. celebrating commercial holidays in ridiculously material ways), Jonathan was required to bring Valentine cards/treats to preschool. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I actually quite enjoyed making them, and he helped write his name on them and attach gummy fruit candy. Needless to say, his were the only non-Disney character ones from a class of 12 (also needless to say, Ramont-the-eldest-son was a bit embarrassed for him).
 

 I'm enjoying having just Anna at home three mornings a week. Here she helps stir milk for yogurt or ricotta.

 Luckily for her, she actually gets a few hours of playing with all the toys uninhibitedly.

And making more Valentines - kind of the story of our month so far.

Blanket Blitz(es)

February is evidently the time of year to make warm blankets en masse. This week the women in our church will help finish comforters to send to MCC for distribution. Last week an eclectic, I mean ecumenical, group gathered in our church to cut and tie a huge pile of soft, warm fleece blankets. These will be given to a homeless shelter in the Cities for distribution to individuals to take with them.

A group of students came from the Christian school and another group came from the Elmendorf Christian Community. So there was some good visiting, and of course, some very good eats.

As usual, our kids had a grand time playing in the church. The project for this day was collecting blanket scraps for all kinds of projects, real and imagined ("mommy, when we get home can you sew me a dragon costume from these pieces?" ha!). On this day there were even a few other small ones their age.

In the end, about 80 blankets were made. Not bad for a day's work!