Map Room

Jeff and I got his framed maps up in the map room. We have been calling this area the map room for a long time. He made the hanging deals out of steel and the maps are hanging from steel rods with little brackets. It looks pretty cool and I love his idea.

Yes, our steel floor is still taken over by trains, but they aren't in my way anymore.

You cannot see the maps very well no matter where I took the pictures and the curtains are closed. The glare was going to be there no matter what I tried.

There are lots of extra rods right now because some of them are waiting to go to the family room in the basement. He is still getting the hanging deals made right or or painted, I am not sure, for the family room. We are doing a collage of family photos from the rods down there. Someday......

Okay, I know you are not going to see any new pictures of the house this time. I am being picky about things being clean when I take pictures or I forget to take then when things are clean. I will get more on the blog, I promise. I do have plenty of pictures of the kids for you and I am totally caught up to Christmas now.

Game in Wahpeton

Declan's team went to Wahpeton for a scrimmage last Sunday. All the grandparents were able to go again and Declan was thrilled. Declan's team won 7-2. He is top left going for the puck in this photo.

Declan's favorite position right now is being center because you can do faceoffs. He is right by the ref.

We are so proud of him and how well he plays hockey. He absolutely loves the sport. All the pictures he draws are of hockey at school even.

You can see red number 17. They are warming up and he cannot stand to be still and wait. He either plays with a puck if he is by one or he skates in circles. He has been skating in circles forever waiting for coaches. I told him one day I am going to watch his whole practice and count how many times he skates in circles. He laughed at me. I should do it because it cracks me up.

Isaac's game

Isaac's team played during the period break of the high school game on the 17th. It was fun watching him. He was so happy to be playing a game. We are so proud of our hockey boys! Here he is after his team scored!

Isaac is the first maroon jersey on the right trying to get the puck.

Has he seen way too many Sioux games? He is working up the ice like he watches the goalies do at Sioux games. He was goalie for about a minute because they took turns. He hasn't been saying he wants to be a goalie yet, so I am still safe with him.

Being goalie

Isaac in his hockey stance.

If you look above the kids playing in the stands, you can see my parents and Jeff's parents watching Isaac play. Both kids love it that the grandparents all come to their games! My dad is in the navy coat and then my mom is the light coat. Lorna is next to my mom with white hair (sorry Lorna is makes you easy to find) and then Dick is next to her.

Old House

We have someone plowing our old house driveway for us because we could not keep up with all the snow we have. I went to shovel the front door one day and found some pretty huge snow piles around the driveway.

I don't think we have ever had this much snow piled on the curb before. It drifts pretty bad on the corner because there is some open areas by the apartments. The snow plows usually fill our driveway pretty bad.

This is standing in the driveway looking at the school.

This was the side yard by the terrace. It is just snow and it is deeper than my thighs.

This was the most impressive pile. Jeff figures it is about 8 feet tall. Our fence looks short. No, the house is not sold yet. We keep hoping and praying. The holidays is a hard time to sell and then this bitter cold we have been having doesn't help either. It has been shown here and there, so keep your fingers crossed.

Sioux- Gopher Weekend

Mrs. Ackley was Declan's teacher in Kindergarten and is Isaac's teacher this year. We have been trying to find a weekend when her and her husband, Mike, could come up to our suite and it worked out this year. They had kids in hockey and one that played for St. Lawrence. It was great having you guys up with us! They aren't really Sioux or Gopher fans, but they are fans of a good hockey game.

These two boys in between Declan and Isaac play hockey with Declan's group and have never seen a college hockey game live before. They were in awe the whole time in our suite and had a blast. They played floor hockey as much as they watched the Sioux and Gophers play. Their dad is a huge Sioux fan and he swear one of his son's is a gopher fan to irritate his father. We get a big kick out of that.

Declan was a bit tired after that night playing hockey with the twins.

We also had the Thacker family up to our suite for the Sioux-Gopher weekend. They are all big gopher fans and love coming up to the big game every year. My favoite is Dyson's hair he wears with his gopher stuff.

We also had Jeff's birthday cake that weekend. His birthday was the weekend before on Jan 3rd and we ordered the cake for then. But because our winter up here is so horrible this year, we missed the game on his birthday due to bad conditions and not wanting to drive in it. The arena people put it in the freezer for us and we had it the next weekend. It was still really good.

4 Generations

Jeff's grandfather is 89 years old and we went to visit him in his home last time we were in Grand Forks. Jeff's parents came also and we took some 4 generation photos. Here is Isaac and Declan with their Great-Grandpa Dick, Sr.

Yes, Isaac's shirt is really big on him. It was a big rivalry game weekend, Sioux vs. Gophers, and we all wore these T-shirts to the game on Friday night. Isaac and Jeff wore theirs also on Saturday, Declan and I couldn't because we got stuff on ours the day before.

4 Generations- Isaac, Dick, Dick Sr., Jeff, and Declan. These kinds of pictures are priceless!

Goalie

Declan's team played during a period break of the high school boys game and he was goalie for this game. It is his first time outside of practice that he was a goalie for a game. He did a great job and stopped some pretty good shots. He told me after he doesn't really want to be a goalie anymore, he likes shooting more. Music to my ears!!! I didn't want to be a goalie mom and hear bad things said about my kid.

waiting to go out on the ice.

Ringstad's

The Ringstads came over during Christmas break and we exchanged gifts. Here is Declan on his stomach then Kaylee who is almost 7, Becca who will be 5 in March, Jacob who is 8 1/2 and Isaac who will be 6 next month. Greta, your kids are growing up way too fast! Where does the time go?

Declan and Isaac opening their presents.

Jacob, Kaylee, and Becca opening their presents.

Misc. Christmas

Here it is the end of January and I am finally getting to putting Christmas pictures on my blog. Man, this is the slowest for me ever! The kids and Jeff and I went sledding at Grandma and Grandpa's (from the lake) house (Jeff's parents) on Christmas eve. It was very cold and we weren't out there long, but it was fun. Here is Isaac and I going down the hill together.

Isaac pulling up his sled.

Declan pulling up his sled and Juno observing. She likes to run down the hill with the sleds especially when I go down on one. She is a strange dog.

Here are the boys on Christmas morning after opening their presents.

My brother hosted my side of the family at his house. Here are Declan and Isaac with their cousins, Justin (4) and Jason (5).

Sorry forgot to turn this one the right way. Isaac with his rug burn on his forehead in a Santa hat of his cousin's. He gave himself the rug burn by rubbing his head on the carpeting. I don't know why they were doing it, but Declan showed Isaac how to do it and Isaac got the raw end of the deal.

Declan with his tractors he got from Grandpa and Grandma from the farm (my parents). They got all 4 grandboys tractors and they all loved them.

You can see my kids don't call grandparents by their last names or first names. Declan started calling them from the farm and from the lake when he started talking. It was how he knew where we were going when I would tell him we were going to Grandma and Grandpa's. The grandparents are used to this title and sign cards to the boys this way also. It is fun!

Jeff cousin (Alyssa)and family from Dallas and cousin (Tyler) and family from Madison were here over Christmas, too. We all got together at Grandma and Grandpa's from the lake. Here I am with 2 of Alyssa's kids the twins, Ashtyn and Braden. They are 4 months older than Isaac and really fun kids.

Here are all the kids. Ashtyn is holding her younger sister, Ellery who is 2, then Braden in the red sweater, Declan in the green is holding Carsten who is Tyler's 2 year old, then Isaac in red and blue pants ( he never matches) and last but not least, Soren who is 3 1/2 and Tyler's other son.

Declan and Carsten. BY this time, Declan was tired and resting in the chair. Carsten thought it looked comfortable also. Declan let him sit with him, but didn't want the picture taken. OOPS!

Isaac and Braden

Ashtyn pushing Ellery in the truck. There are 2 of these trucks and they have been used to sit in and be pushed many times. It was a popular thing to do that night.

It's been a while!

Okay all my wonderful friends and family who keep telling me I need to update my blog here are only a few pictures I have taken while we have been unpacking and preparing for Christmas. We didn't host Christmas this year so we wouldn't have to stress too much about unpacking and I am very thankful we planning it that way. We were able to enjoy the holidays and have much needed family time. I think the kids loved having all of mom and dad's attention after having us preoccupied with this whole project.

Here is the dining room with my Christmas table cloth. The buffet you see in the corner we had at the old house. Lorna (Jeff's mom) had found that for us a long time ago. It works well. We are looking for a China cabinet to put on the wall opposite of the buffet eventually.

Here is part of the living room. To the right of this picture is our front door.

The table you were looking at in the previous picture is to the right of the Christmas tree and here is the rest of the room. We have huge windows in this room and we made the smaller when we were looking at the plans. We could have gone smaller yet, but I like the bright room. The green furniture is the beat up stuff from the old house and we hope to replace some day down the road.

Here is the computer desk and the shelves behind in the office. The shelves were planned for all the stuff you need for your office. There are 4 big file drawers under the shelves and I am only using 2 of them for files. I have alot of space for stuff and it sure if nice.

The next two photos are of the library. It looks totallly different with books in it and we don't have enough books to fill it. I guess we have to find the time to start reading more so we can collect more. The library is our of our favorite rooms for its uniqueness on how it turned out.

I have Christmas stuff down now and will start unpacking some of our everyday stuff. I left it all in boxes and just set up Christmas. I will try to be better about taking pictures and posting them for all of you.

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Holiday season! Happy New Year!