Wonderfully warm weekend

Winter tried to sneak its way onto the prairie in early October but November has been what we call Indian Summer. Amazingly warm. Indian Summer scared off Winter. What a gift! Today we spent the afternoon outside and were hot wearing sweatshirts and could wear t-shirts! But my plan ahead husband knows it soon will snow which actually bring smiles to a couple faces in our household.

 Hunter and Nathan think snow = snowmobiling. And to protect our baby trees we planted just this past spring, Nathan built a fence to keep the local kids driving their snowmobiles over our prairie trees. The trees grew quickly this summer with our tremendous rainfall which is a rarity in this part of the arid prairie. Now the trees will be protected from the crazy snowmobiles from the next four months. (I am thinking positive that winter will be short since we are having 60 degree days in November!)

Hunter James played in a basketball tournament Friday night and Saturday in Fargo with the Lightning. Gpa Fred and Mama Jane met me along the way to Fargo and took him to his games. Grandparent transportation is another gift for us. And Hunter loves his time with them. Plus he LOVES playing basketball. Then we met again Saturday night in Jamestown for a gourmet McDonald’s supper together and Hunter headed home with me. The team won two games and lost one game. Hunter was most excited about the game tying shot he made versus the Eagles to take the game into overtime. The Lightning won the game. Hunter is positive it is the most fun basketball he has played in his “career”.

In the above picture, Hunter helped me put together hygiene kits for a Sunday School project for church today. All the kids brought the kits to the front of the church during the Children’s message including Miss E alongside Hunter.

Miss Elissa sported her new Elmo jammies this weekend. As you can see they must have a secret sleeping potion in them that slow our Busy Bits down enough to sit on the couch and snooze. A rare sighting. This girl does not sit or slow down often or for very long. But Elmo jammies and a VeggieTales movie does the trick.

Anika Iris weighed in at 14lbs.7 oz. and 25 1/4″ in length at her four month well check appointment last Wednesday. She is our petite girl compared to E at the same age and of course Hunter who was 18lbs. 9oz. at four months and always off the charts in length. (Can you believe I actually wrote in Hunter’s baby book? That was BB. Before Blogging. ) Anika our peanut is still in the 80th percentile for her head size, 85th for length and 90th for weight. We are thankful for big and healthy babies! Anika is definitely growing and doing new things every day including her coos and singing sounds. Her latest trick is rolling all over her crib until she is comfortably sleeping on her tummy. Two of the last three nights she has slept through the night and that is lovely!

We took advantage of the balmy November weekend by decorating early for Christmas both indoors and outdoors. Solar outdoor Christmas lights are the latest and greatest we are trying this year. I was going to put them up as I hung the fresh garland that a local junior high student sold me as a fundraiser. But the lights came with directions which Nathan laughed at because he knew I wouldn’t read them! So I’m waiting for him to read the directions and hang them for me. My mom, sister and I also found the above wall hanging at our local floral shop’s holiday fair last weekend. It is now hanging in our front entry.

And the stockings are hung…on the chimney with care.

Tonight we put our new Christmas stockings on the mantle. This year we are hosting our families for Christmas in our home for the first time and now Santa can come right down the chimney to fill our stockings. It won’t be 60 degrees that day and we actually will want a little snow for Christmas. But until then we will enjoy our warm, sunny snowless days!