Thursday, December 18, 2008

What I Love About Small Towns




I was thrilled to receive a Christmas card from a good friend, Emma... even more so because the card actually made it to our house without an address (at least a complete address)! It didn't even have one of those yellow stickers listing the corrected address. Nope, just the Howards in Hettinger!

Friday, December 05, 2008

Christmas Party -- Down Under Style

For social studies this week the boys learned about how Christmas is celebrated in Australia -- sun, surf and Christmas pudding. So we cranked up the heat, put on our beach-wear, decorated the living room, learned how to say "Merry Christmas" Aussie-style ("Merry Christmas, Mate!") and had a Christmas picnic on the "beach!" We listened to Beach Boys, and Wade gave the kids surfing instructions -- it was a stellar time!

Our little surfer dudes.





Levi took his surfing very seriously!



Picnic time!



More serious surfing from Levi.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Isaac turned 7 on November 17! He requested a space cake, as you can see below. In addition to opening presents from grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends, his choice of family outing was the swimming pool in Dickinson, which also provided an ideal opportunity to redeem the boys' Book-It Pizza Hut gift certificates (alas the closest Pizza Hut is an hour from here!).



He was hoping for "some spacey presents" and was not disappointed -- space seemed to be the theme of this year's celebration!



We've had some interesting wildlife in the yard during the past couple weeks -- two families of deer have made their way through my flower beds, nibbling at the little bits of green sticking through the snow. One night after being tucked into bed Luke called out, "Mom, there are five deer outside my window!" Sure enough, there were five deer walking right up Seventh Street in the light of the street lamps!