Pre Christmas Activities

We had a full plate of activities leading up to Christmas.  I got to attend Olivia's school Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun.  She made an ornament, played games and got a cupcake!

Steve, my Mom and I attended Chris' church Christmas show.  Olivia sang and Chris accompanied a quartet on the piano.

Tommy and Jena came home just in time to decorate sugar cookies.

Steve and I went to Branson for our annual Silver Dollar City Christmas lights show.

We took 6 of the grandkids to the zoo for the lights.  The carousel was free so they rode it several times!

A week later they all came over for our annual sleepover.  We eat pizza, look at lights and make candy & cookies.

Right before Christmas Tommy & Jena came to town and we all spent the day together.  The girls had a choir concert.  Then we went to church at Mike's church.  Dinner at Favazza's and then the Brewery lights.

Main St after eating pizza.

Edie's 4th Birthday

Pumpkin Season

I took the 6 oldest grandkids to Eckerts Pumpkin Patch in October.  First we stopped to eat lunch at Cracker Barrel.  Who doesn't love a game of checkers?

What a cute bunch of kids!

Standing amongst the apple trees.  We couldn't believe how many apples were just laying on the ground.

Everyone went racing out into the pumpkin patch to find the best pumpkin!

Happy pumpkin pickers!

Their other set of grandparents, Tim and Debbie, came into town and we headed out to another pumpkin patch called Brookdale Farms.

Everyone enjoyed the swings.  Even Dema!

Edie found an ear of corn and needed  to show it to you.

They had a really fun maze.  There were signs hidden in the corn and you had to figure out what they meant and  mark them off on an answer sheet we were given.

Playtime!

Steve and I have a tradition of taking the kids out when a new baby is born.  After the birth of Agnes we brought them to downtown St Louis to the City Garden.  Then we walked over to the new museum at the Arch.  They were all in good spirits as you can tell - very excited to have a new sibling!

Fun at the Farm

We had some work to do at the farm and decided the grandkids could come and help out.  They were concerned that baby Agnes would arrive while they were gone, but I promised at the first sign of any  movement I would race them home!  We are going to plant some grapes in the Spring, but needed to install poles and wire first.

The next item on the work list was checking the pond out.  They needed to see if it was any good for kayaking and swimming.

We had a pretty big project in the woods.  It required all of us to get on the haywagon and go for a ride. They needed to collect the tools first.

The boys had a talk about how they were going to cut down trees.

On our way.

The first of several small trees to come down.

The last thing we needed to do was pick black walnuts up out of the yard.  We made quite a haul!

Mary's 10th Birthday

Yellowstone Part 2

We had a wonderful trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons with our neighbors in August.  We took a 6am wildlife tour one of the mornings.  Way too early to get up and see buffalo!

The waterfall in the background is 300 feet tall.  It's not as captivating as the young man that I'm with though!

In Jackson Hole, Wyoming they have a town square that has antler arches on each corner.

Right outside of Jackson Hole we saw mom, dad and baby moose.  The pictures are the best you're going to get with a cell phone.

This is the Mammoth Hot Springs area of Yellowstone.  It's the north entrance.  It looks like ice steps.  Very pretty.  

This is one of the many geysers in the park.

Here we are with the Bahrs having dinner at Old Faithful Inn.