Bowling Dec_09

When we were in Ohio Grandpa took The boys to a bowling alley so here are a few pictures 

View Full Album

Jonas bored as bored can be.

  Javan  Pitching.Javan PitchingJavan Pitching.Jesse waiting Jesse Pitching .Jesse Pitching.Grandpa Pitching Jared Pitching Javan&Jared waiting

Riley Christmas

I did a terrible job taking pictures this year at Dad and Mom’s on Christmas Day, so I will just post a variety of what I took. I am trying to post at least one picture of everyone, but some are better than others!

Left ~ Uncle Mark with some of the children.

Right ~ sadly, this is the only picture with my mom in it on Christmas day.

Left ~ Johanna in her new sleeper.

Right ~ Jonas with his tractor and trailer. Perfect match for this little guy!

Javan and Jolene both playing with Jubilee’s Gyroscope.

Left ~ Jesse and Javan opening a gift.

Right ~ Jubilee with her new purse. It holds crayons on individual little pockets and a crayon book inside. I think there were some stickers inside also.

Dad and Cori

Left ~ My brother Mark with his daughter, Jordyn.

Right ~ Marks son, Dr. Nathan

Not many pictures of Ben either, this is about the best.

There is a reason I don’t have many pictures of Jared! He interprets “say Cheese” to mean “BE Cheesy!” If he knows you are aiming the camera at him he just about always starts cutting up.

View Full Album

This is the first toy Johanna ever played with and I caught it on camera! Notice the tongue action going on. It hasn’t stopped since!















Note to self: Make list of desired photos for special occasions and reference it often!

Ed Plattner Family Christmas

Christmas Eve was the annual Ed Plattner (Grandpa) Family Christmas which is traditionally a chili supper.  We had a great time with fellowship and a nice evening discussion planned out by Aunt Mary.  Sorry the pictures aren’t so flattering, I have many more, but I decided to just stick with pictures of Dad’s siblings to keep it short and simple.

Uncle Joe and Aunt Julie with two of their daughters, Janelle and Emily, and their future son-in-law Elias.

 

Uncle John and Aunt Tarry

Dad, Mom, Jolene, and Johanna

 

Aunt Marlene and Jodi

Aunt Mary, Dan, and Leann

Thank you for hosting Aunt Mary, it was a lot of fun.

We left Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary’s around 8:30 PM and headed to Ohio.  It was a great trip.  The children slept most of the way.  I drove the first part and enjoyed the quiet time to sing and listen to a CD and really focus on the words and have a heart of worship.

Two draw backs ~ when we got to Mom and Dad Riley’s around 5:30 AM their time (4:30 Central) most of the children were awake for good!  We had a Christmas service at our church at 10 AM which meant not much sleep for Chad and I.  On the other hand, it made sure we didn’t stay up late every night because we needed to get caught up on our sleep.

Stay tuned for more pictures from our Riley Christmas!

A few slide shows by Jesse & Javan

Here are a few slide shows Jesse & I put together.

Riley 2009

Jamaica



Backpacking trip

(made in tremont)

A bit of chill in the air

I like to sleep with a bit of chill in the air, but last night we had a bit much!

Last night Chad and I went to bed and snuggled into our new fleece sheets - wonderful!!! I was feeling quite nice but noticed that as cold as it was outside (-5) the chill was coming off the window and making my face cold - I was directly under the window. I mentioned to Chad that it would be nice to get our blinds back up (we need to finish varnishing the windows) to help keep the chill out of the house on really cold days. He said he noticed the chill too and decided to inspect ~ come to find out SOMEONE, don't know who, opened our window and it was not closed all the way, so we really were feeling some of the outside chill but with no barrier in between! No WONDER it was so cold in our room! Chad shut the window and it was a lot more comfortable to go to sleep. I don't sleep real well with my face under the covers!

When God sends the snow...

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
When God sends the snow, make Ice Cream!!!

Our good friends e-mailed a recipe for ice cream, we enjoyed it tonight and thought you might enjoy it too!

1 cup cream
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

mix together and pour over 1 gallon "clean" snow!

Mix thoroughly and enjoy!

Christmas with the Plattners

 

Grandpa reading Luke 2

Skype with Kirk’s family in Jamaica ~ Grandpa projected it onto the wall so we could all see them. The lower corner is who is currently on their screen.

 

Chad talking via skype

   

Jared, Javan and Tyler        

 

Chelby

View Full Album

Jonas LOVES his new truck and horse trailer!

A day doesn’t go by that he isn’t playing with it!

 

View Full Album

Jubilee really likes her car seat / stroller combo she got for her babies.

It’s just like a real one ~ well, almost!

View Full Album

Jolene’s gift ranks among the top 2 gifts of the year! A teaching cash register. It has a credit card and a coupon card. When you swipe something across it’s scanner it gives a random price and then totals it all. It teaches about money including adding and subtracting! All the children love this one! A bonus is that it also reads real money, so when they lose what came with it they can use their own money! HaHaHa

View Full Album

Jared also received a truck and horse trailer and really loves it!

Jonas and Jared play together much better now!

View Full Album

This has to be tops of the year!!! Jesse and Javan have been wanting their own camera and finally got one!

This is also the only gift that they don’t have to share with all the children!

A different sort of field trip

This week is Precision Planting's Winter Conference. The boys mentioned to Chad that they wanted to go so Chad asked his dad if he was available. Dad and Mom both wanted to go, so they braved the snow and headed this way; knowing this Chad took the three older boys with him to work. On the way Dad decided the roads were to slippery so they went back home but the boys were already with Chad so he got them in a group and they sat through the entire conference. Chad couldn't be with them because he is working on a project that is time sensitive.

Jesse and Javan enjoyed the entire day and said they weren't bored at all. I haven't heard Jared's perspective yet, he and Chad went out to plow the lane before it gets too dark. I'm sure all the junk food sitting around and the steak lunch kept him pretty happy!

The conference is geared to educate the farmers, so the boys got a bit of educatin' today too.

Here on the home front we decided to have a day off school and had a bit of fun ourselves. We did a bit of cleaning up this AM and then we made bread and each of the girls made individual pizza's with some of the dough. We read a little and played a couple games together.

All in all ~ it was a good day. :)