Winter Dairy Farm Tour

 Oma told of us a dairy farm tour near us, so we bundled us all up, and went about 15 minutes down the road to visit! Every Christmas season they open it up to everyone for an afternoon, and offer hot chocolate, cheese, and an interesting tour. (Erik couldn't wait for the hot chocolate - his thing right now - but he liked the cows and the occasional tractor we saw). This year, the farm hosted 800 people coming through. 

 This dairy had about 900 cows, but about 400 are milking cows at this time. 

 Amy was quite taken with the cows. "More cows", she kept saying the whole time, and stopped to talk to them. (or anyone who would listen)

 Love this one - Miss Confidant. 

 One of the barns. 

The whole operation is pretty efficient - neat to see it. I'm so used to the small farm where you do all the work, but here, they have scrapers that run along a track on the floor to clean the manure up, to a tracker on each cow's leg that tells how many steps they've taken, what they're milking statistics are... pretty neat. 

 Getting to see the baby calves - all about a week old. 

 And getting the yummy hot chocolate at the end. 

A neat experience for us all - think we all learned something. :) 

Evening with Opa and Oma

 Opa and Oma came over bringing Christmas presents! The girls got the cute matching aqua hoodies, and Erik got the navy hoodie which looks pretty cool on him. :) So sweet of Opa and Oma - when they have so many grandchildren...they can't keep giving to all of us forever. :) 

And James and I got hats (and me a scarf!) - not super flattering of us - but it's real. :) 

But they're real nice winter accessories - and now that we have snow, I'm going to enjoy being able to use them!

Opa doing the "guess what I'm drawing" game. :) The kid's love it and get to experience his artwork - in the quick sketching fashion. 

Her Little Faces

Weekend Fun

We got to have these three girls over for the day/night this past weekend.

In the evening we had a gingerbread house building competition...

...the first team. 

And our team :) 

Amy ended up being the unbiased judge, who actually picked our house. :) Lots of laughs over her decision - but we were happy. 

Our house - Rainbow palace. 

Playing Spot It - Camping version. 

Cara playing the piano with Amy helping. 

The little pokey face. :) 

And then James instigated this crazy intense pillow fight, which I just watched (and laughed at) from the stairs. 

There was lots of screaming and smashing. 

Quieter moment - Amber and Laura playing playmobile. 

The next day, the girls watched our kids for a couple hours (before their parents came) so we could do some quick clothes shopping for James, which was great. Sure love these three!

At Sarah and Jonathan's

Boxing Day we went up to Sarah and Jonathan's - finally... we hadn't been up there yet... which was pretty bad. :) 

We got to see their lovely house, and the kids got to go on the quads - in the forest, building a fire, and roasting some marshmallows. I got to chill on the couch visiting with Sarah. :) 

Afterwards, we adults played "Ticket to Ride" - which Jonathan totally creamed us in - poor Sarah - and she was so hoping she'd win... :) 

Then supper, and off we went, homeward bound. :) 

Christmas Day

Christmas finally came to the kids who were counting down at bedtime. :) 

Breakfast with German Pancake and smoothie,

Waiting by the fire that Daddy made. 

Opening their gift from Grandma and Grandpa Fehr

Playing with their new toy. 

Getting her first camera - and so excited. :) She wants to come on photo shoots with me. :) 

Lego! :) 

I was pretty happy, as I was able to get most of the presents for the kids at garage sales, or had in my gift bin already. 

Water bottles for everyone. :) 

James got me a silver chain necklace and kitchen towels - both of which I was thrilled about.

Erik and Laura got me candles from the Windmill, and Katy got me scissors. I got James golfing lessons. :) And we got some other lovely gifts, like dessert dishes from my parents. 

Getting his dream - a forklifter. 

The mess. 

Amy had been feeding marshmallows to Daddy which she thought was pretty fun. 

Then after a quick lunch we scooted to the chapel where we were going to have Christmas dinner with a bunch of church family that didn't have any family plans. 

I picked up Shantel, and we worked on some food in the afternoon while the two littlest slept, and then everyone started arriving for the meal. 

A bunch of us were all working in the kitchen at the end, getting it all put together - and thankfully, the dinner turned out good. My first time cooking turkey's, and they didn't burn or weren't undercooked. :) 

Erik after sweating it out in the gym playing floor hockey. 

Thinking it out during a Christmas Carol Word Unscrambler. :) 

Baby and Laura. 

Such a great time with everyone. 

A lovely Christmas.