My Thoughtful Husband

Looking through pictures recently, I realized that I have very few pictures of just Mike and me. So, I made sure that we got one at Christmas. We have never in our marriage been much for big gifts to each other for birthdays and Christmas. Usually it is just something thoughtful but little.  Last year, buying our house was enough! This year, we extended our gift budget just a little and Mike was so kind to me:

I finally made the switch to using the ESV. It's not as hard of a transition when the Bible is so pretty! 

I am loving this CD right now. It is a solo album from the lead singer of Sanctus Real that he wrote during a very difficult time of life when he and his wife found out that their unborn baby boy had a life-threatening heart defect, through his birth, and months in the hospital following open heart surgeries to repair his broken heart. 

We love listening to Sovereign Grace music and have already introduced a few songs to our church. Hopefully we can introduce more!

It's Been Awhile

I have to start out with an apology for having no new posts in the past few months. I could go on forever with a list of all of the things that have kept us busy, but I won't. :) In the midst of our busy time blogging got placed at the bottom of my priority list. As I try to catch up on blogging, I hope to get up some pictures of the more major events of October, November, and December. Thanks for your patience with me!

Because of Grandma...

 

...Silas had yummy treats to find. 

When no one was looking, Sy pulled these cookies out of Grandma's cooler and dug in. I think he took bites out of at least 4 of them before we caught him!

...the boys have quilts for their beds.

Thanks, Grandma!

Jonah's Early Birthday

My parents brought Jonah his birthday presents for him when they came down. His birthday isn't until November 7, but he got to celebrate early! And, the boys got a few little things for Halloween, too!

Martin's Hillside Orchard

My parents came down last week for a few days. On Thursday, we went to a garage sale and then to a pumpkin patch. I found a few treasures - a little rocking chair for the boys that is in pretty good shape and is very sturdy (actually Mike and I can just barely fit in it, too!) and the cutest set of four square shaped salad-sized plates that have little blue tulips and some other yellow flowers in one corner.
The pumpkin patch was a lot of fun. Sadly, Mike wasn't able to join us. We were the only ones at the pumpkin patch, so we had time to enjoy what we wanted to on our time. The boys had a GREAT time!

 LOVE these two pics!

Brothers

Silas at 15 months

Jonah (February 2010) at 15 months

The Pumpkin Patch

Last Tuesday, we went to Vala's Pumpkin Patch for the day. It was an AMAZING place! I got half-priced tickets from a Living Social deal which had to be used last week. We had no idea what to expect. On their website it said that they had something like 44 attractions...I don't know that we even got to half of them! Sadly, we never even got to the pumpkin patch. Strange, huh? We were so busy with the other attractions that when we finally made it to spot where the hayrides to the pumpkin patch start we had already been there for 5 hours. The man at the station said that the pumpkin patch ride took about a 50 minutes. Since it was already mid-afternoon, about 80 degrees out, and we had two tired boys, we decided to just purchase our pumpkin from the store at the entrance. Maybe we will go to another pumpkin patch later this month where we actually have time to get to a field of pumpkins! The boys loved all of the attractions at Vala's. I think Jonah could have been there for days and still not take in everything he wanted to see. It was such a fun day and a great time together as a family! Sorry, there might be a lot of pictures here.

 

Our growing boys!

 

Sy enjoying the pig races

 

Jonah cheering on his pig. It came in last. 

 

In one play area, the kids could slide and jump into piles of hay

 

Wondering if he really wanted to scare the crows

 

Riding a tricycle around the trike track

 

Sy finally decided it was cool to wear sunglasses

 

Jonah with the train engineer

 

Riding the train

 

This llama really wanted to eat

 

Sy feeding the goats - remember our trip to the MN zoo?!?! 

This experience with goats was much, much better. 

 

Watching the pumpkin-eating dragon show

 We walked through a 3 acre corn maze and got lost - a lot.

Sy somehow slept during a very bumpy ride through the corn maze

 

We ended our day with a ride in little tractor-pulled trailers.

After all of the exciting parts of our visit, we picked out a big pumpkin for our family at the pumpkin shop at the entrance to the pumpkin patch. We let Jonah pick out a mini pumpkin for himself and one for Silas. I think Grandma Nelson would be very pleased with Jonah's pumpkin selection tastes. :)