It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...

Michael, Leila and Emma with Teddy

Well, it's still November and we're all set for Christmas. Jon and the kids picked out a tree the day after Thanksgiving. I spent the next two days putting away fall stuff and getting out the winter / Christmas stuff. It's a lot of work and a big mess during the transition, but I enjoy changing things around in the house. It's like getting a "new" house without spending any money! I always find a couple of different ways to try the furniture. This year I followed Emma's suggestion for furniture arrangement in the living room. Her and Leila are quite the little decorators in training.

Daddy's girl

For the first time ever, Emma hunted with her dad. They hunted on the Hurlburt family land in Ruby with some of her uncles and cousins. Nobody got a deer that day, but Jon shot a doe when he was out alone (on a different day), hunting at our neighbor's farm. It was a big deer so we should have plenty of venison for the coming year. Jonathan did a little hunting with his dad too, this year, and we were sorry he didn't end up with a deer of his own. But we'll probably pass some venison on to him. It was kind of a tricky hunting season because much of it was warm and snowless. You would think "warm" would be good, but not when you're wearing layers of gear!

No, you can't hunt, Leila

What else? Well, Jon's new job has him working in Independence, WI, which is only about an hour away from where we live. So he's been driving home and staying with us every night... like a normal family! He's home by six every night, and this particular project they're working on is expected to last 2-3 years. So this is just incredible news for our family. Jon has leisure time; I have help with the kids. And the paychecks are enough for us to maintain our home and way of living. We feel very, very fortunate.

Lindsay, Jack, and Jonathan

Jonathan, Lindsay, and Jack came over for Thanksgiving at our house. As you can see by what they're wearing, it was unseasonably warm that day... I think in the 60's. Jack LOVES to play outside with balls, and it was fun watching him play fetch with Teddy. I'll end this short blog with some other pictures from that day... along with more "Christmas scenes" from our house.

Sweet big boy Jack

Jack and Teddy love fetch

Big brother Jonathan tosses Leila a ball

Did you know Littlest Pet Shops are magnets?

This picture of Leila requires more explanation than a caption will allow. Today Leila was delighted to discover that Littlest Petshop toys, with their magnetic bottoms, work as ice skaters on our magnetized musical skating pond. She took the little ceramic skater off, put her Petshop character on, and it skates around the pond's magnetic path while Frosty the Snowman plays. Fun!

Some of my snowman collection

Baby Bear (Leila calls me Mama Bear)



A November to Remember

Cute but scary

Leila's starting to resemble me more and more...

Just kidding. Leila's wearing a wig and costume from our box of Halloween stuff. This is one of several outfits she came up with during October's Halloween festivities.

I took Emma and Leila trick-or-treating in Colfax this year, along with a couple of their friends. For the first time ever, Michael decided NOT to trick or treat, since he now considers himself too mature for that activity. He was still interested in the candy, though, so luckily Emma and Leila shared.

12 years old!

Emma celebrated her twelfth birthday recently. Her and Michael are both busy with basketball and band. Michael had two games last week, and Emma had a tournament in Black River Falls this weekend. Both kids participated in their school's musical program for Veteran's Day last week. Emma started choir this year and is also working as a crossing guard at her school. Busy girl!

Put me down, Grandpa!!

Jonathan and Jack came over to Grandma Jane's for a small family party for Emma. We sure enjoy seeing little Jack, though Jack wants to stay very close to his Daddy (as you can see in this picture).

Garrison Keiller would approve

Yesterday we went to a Norwegian "Kaffe Lag" in Cornell, at Jon's family church. Jane said this annual event is one of the church's biggest fundraisers. We had never been to it before, and are glad we went. The meal was served family-style and included baskets of rolls and freshly made lefse, mashed potatoes and meatballs in gravy, corn, coleslaw, pickles, and cranberries. Coffee and milk was included and there was a generous selection of pies for dessert.

After the meal we browsed the craft show in the church's basement, but apparently that's something you should get to right away when it starts. Most things were already sold, but what was left was 50% off. Leila and I picked out some small decorative items, Emma scored a nice lap-size afghan for only $2.50, Michael bought a tray of chocolate peanut candy, and Jon stocked up on lefse for the holidays. All in all, we had a great time. Jane said the whole thing is a lot of work for the ladies involved, but it really helps the church out and people love the comfortable folksy aspect of it. It was very well attended. While there we saw Jon's brothers Phil and Brent, along with lots of other friends. Jon even got to see his fifth grade teacher.

Macy has friends!

Last time I wrote that we had moved our horse Macy to a different neighbor's house so that she could be with other horses. I'm happy to report that Macy is now integrated into the herd and getting along fine with the other horses.

Susan the professional

Susan was recently featured in an article by her local newspaper. They wanted to interview a young professional about her career, so they talked to Susan about her work as a Physician's Assistant. The article was about 3/4 of a page long, so I couldn't scan the whole thing all at once, but you can get an idea of it here, anyway. She said that she likes "being with a patient from beginning to end to see them get well. It's gratifying." She said she enjoys assisting in surgeries because, by that means, the doctor is able to stop the problem at its source: "You're able to cure the problem in surgery. Say, if a patient has a kidney stone, then you can just take it out."

 

 

Susan the blushing bride

Here's another clipping of Susan... this one from our Colfax paper. We finally got wedding announcements out for Susan's June wedding. The Colfax and Cornell announcements came out last week, but we're still waiting for the announcement in the Eau Claire paper. Of course, we're saving copies for Susan. Fun stuff!

 

 

Bill, minus his appendix

Here's my brother Bill, who recently had his own (unexpected) experience with surgery. Bill began suffering from what he thought was food poisoning Thursday night. His symptoms and pain got steadily worse, until finally at 3 in the morning he had to go into the hospital. They determined that his appendix was ready to burst. When I found out about it, Bill was already being wheeled into surgery at the hopsital in Menomonie. He had an appendectomy and spent the night in the hospital. The next afternoon Scott brought him over to our house and he stayed the night here, recovering. He was actually in pretty good shape by the time he arrived in Colfax, but will be taking a day or two off from school. It's scary how suddenly something drastic can happen to a healthy young body. I'm glad to report, though, that Bill's doing fine now.

 

 

Sweet Leila Jane

Well, I'll close with a picture of Leila, taken this morning. We had a warm, rainy weekend but last night it got cold and this morning we got a second dusting of snow. Leila said, "It's Christmas!" and had to go outside to make a snowman. The powdery snow was pretty hard to work with, though, so I put the little snowball she had rolled into the freezer and had her come in for a hot cup of cocoa. She's got a cold and is recovering from pink eye, so I didn't want to leave her out there too long.

Happy November!