Sock Monkeys

I saw a cute tutorial about making sock monkeys and decided to make some for my kids for Christmas. Since I am rarely home without children, the twins saw my "practice" monkey and decided that their cousins needed sock monkeys too. (I had already thought of this, but wanted to see how much work it was going to be first.) Anyway, this started me on a holiday adventure of making seven monkeys. I have not taken pictures of my kids with theirs yet, but here are some of Cody, Collin, and Callie. They turned out pretty cute.

Ryan's First Gift

Ryan unwrapped his first gift at Grandma Taylor's house, but we don't have picturs of that yet, here he is giving it a whirl at Grandma Ferguson's. Hopefully he doesn't forget in the next month until his birthday. Really the box and the paper were much more fun than the cuddley Curious George. He is very soft, but you have to stop moving to cuddle. What fun would that be, besides you might fall asleep if you stop moving.

Happy Birthday Mom!

***NOTE: I am a little slow. The last time I was updating the blog, I had written the following somewhat silly post, but then it did not update, and I could not bring myself to redo it at the time. Today, over three weeks later it occurred to me that it was probably saved and I didn't have to redo it. So, here is the pics from Dena's b-day on Dec 11. ***

Dena's birthday was yesterday and Ron pulled off a surprise! While romantic is not what typically comes to mind when we think of Ron, he pulled it off with flare yesterday! I have said it a hundred times since yesterday, but I will say it again, "Great job Dad!"



So, here is the story......... :-)

Dena's original wedding ring was in the house at the ranch in Wyoming when it burned.... :'(

She had another ring that was Grandma Comstock's that she had been wearing, but Ron wanted to get her a new wedding ring/anniversary ring. He picked out a beautiful white gold ring with blue diamonds and white diamond that progress in size symbolizing their love growing through the years. (Not only did he pick it out but it fit!)

He wanted a unique way of packaging the ring, so he went to the local gift shop and found a Candy Cane teddy bear. The clerk offered to wrap it for him, so when Dena opened her present it was this bear holding this little package. (We love little packages don't we ladies?!?) The clerk told him not to forget the champagne, so he arranged for that too!

Look they match!
Happy birthday Mom!

Blogger's note....Mom didn't want her picture on the blog, because she didn't think she was fixed up enough, so if you want pictures of the birthday girl's face e-mail me! ;-)

Bath Time by Cliff

Cliff won't change a diaper, but he did give his first bath a few nights ago. We have a hard time getting Cliff to use a towel on himself, and I guess that he doesn't like towels in general, since he didn't us one on Ryan either. Ryan had fun, but when he got out with out a towel it

was c-c-c-cold!

Various Moments in our Life

Ryan's pants were slippery and he was having a hard time staying in the high chair at Grandma Taylor's



We needed a place to put Ryan to keep him out of trouble for 5 minutes......a cardboard box and a blow up light saber. Cheap entertainment!

Nice chair Nate! Can you tell we always have laundry in our living room? Anyone who likes to fold come over anytime!

Mom....hurry up in the shower, I am tired of taking care of Ryan and he is about to pull my ear off.

Can't stay awake any longer no matter how hard he tried.

Light Bulb Ornaments

The Champion Women's Club sponsored the Vision of Trees in Champion this weekend. My sister-in-law made all of these cute ornaments out of light bulbs for her tree. Isn't she crafty? It turned out very cute!

Ryan's Day with Aunt Stephanie

A few weeks ago, Ryan got to go spend a day with Aunt Stephanie because his normal babysitter was sick. It looks like he had a great time. Unfortunately he was sick too, by the end of the day, but Aunt Steph did great!

Have you noticed that he likes to chew on toes. I would not recommend letting him chew on your toes at this point because he has three teeth now. It will hurt!


Nice Jazzy!

What is this black stuff Aunt Steph? Does it look good on my face? How does it taste? It is a good thing it was a warm day because he really liked the stove.

Congratulations!!!!!

Congratulations to our South Dakota friends Amy and Erik on the birth of their new baby boy. Baby Jackson's birthday is November 21. We are so happy for them!

I got to sleep all night!!!

Ryan was doing pretty good sleeping through the night, but he got sick and started teething and so it has been months since he has done that. Last night the sweet baby slept in his own bed all night long!!!! It was so great!

One tooth, Two teeth

I was trying to get a picture of this milestone, but so far haven't. Ryan has two teeth on the bottom now! It looks like the top two are not far behind. Last Saturday he started crawling on his hands and knees. He still goes on his elbows and toes if he is in a hurry. He is also pulling himself up on everything.

Happy Birthday Stephanie!!!

Happy Birthday to my sister - in - law Stephanie! It was last Saturday, but there are more celebrations to come!!! We love you Steph!

Lost my camera

I have not posted this week because I left my camera at my parents house this weekend. Hopefully they will bring it to me today because I do have a few pictures on it. Popcorn sales are officially over except for collecting a little bit of money. Thank you to all who helped support the scouts.

Cub Scout Popcorn

Tis the season for Cub Scouts to sell popcorn.

If you are interested and we haven't talked to you already, let us know. We have to turn in orders next week and the pop corn will be here December 6.

What is this? How does it taste?

Ryan likes Daddy's belt buckle because it is shiny.

I don't think that it works so good as a teether.

Maybe Cliff's toes will work better. (Cliff's toes were freshly showered by the way!) One tooth is through and there are 3 more ready.

Daddy's Home!!!!

Yay! Our daddy came home! Josh went back to work at the NKC on Saturday morning. At this posting (Monday morning) he has already worked 3 shifts. He would have loved to stay down at Mom and Dad's to help them finish harvest, but I guess it didn't work out that way. We were sure glad to have him home. Here is Ryan "getting" him.

Ow! That really hurt!

Ryan showing off his new crawling skills for Dad. This is the first time that we have seen him travel with his belly off of the floor.

Join me in my obsesion?

If anyone would like to join me with my cloth diaper obsession, I have these nine diapers for sale. These are Velcro and we prefer snap fasteners.

Good Bye House

Praise the Lord!!! Our house in Palisade has been on the market for 16 months, and it is sold. This is kind of a bittersweet day, we liked our house, we liked Palisade, and we have considered moving back more than once. BUT......we feel like we are where God wants us. The twins are doing so good here. We have good jobs and are making more friends all of the time.

A Tooth!!!

Ryan has a tooth! Well, sort of.....it has broken the skin. This one is on the bottom, I can see two more on the top but they are not through yet. Pictures will follow when it is big enough to see.

Giggle Baby

Clifton was laying in the recliner with Ryan the other night and was tickling him. He was laughing pretty hard, but pretty soon the tables were turned. Ryan found a ticklish spot on Cliff and had him laughing too. I sent Nate to take a picture but..........Cliff had just gotten out of the shower and was in his underwear. If you want to make him mad, take a picture of him in his underwear.

Jumping brothers

The twins were on the trampoline the other night and I put Ryan up there with them for a few minutes. He loved it! He was laughing so hard. It was really cold though, so I didn't let him stay for long. His brothers spend a lot of time out there and really enjoy taking Ryan too.

Ryan's first combine ride

Grandpa and Ryan after Ryan's first combine ride. He wanted to pull all of the bright orange levers, but Grandpa wouldn't let him this time. Ryan and Daddy in the tractor pulling the grain cart. He tried to drive, but Dad said not this year. Maybe next year?

Corn Harvest

My parents purchased a bagger this year so that they can store their corn on the edge of the field and have it shipped at a later date. This makes it possible to capture some better prices and cuts down on harvest freight expenses. Here is Mom standing next to the bagger. Each bag holds about 8,000 bushels, or 8 semi loads of corn. Here they come!
Ryan's first combine ride. He was so excited to see the corn go into the head that he would not even look to the side to see Daddy in the tractor next to us. (He always looks for Daddy when we talk about him.)
Corn from the grain cart into the bagger.

Ryan 8 1/2 months old

Ryan is getting ready to crawl. He was up on his toes and hands right before I snapped the picture. Ryan "helping" with laundry. This is his favorite activity right now.
Teething on a rubber ducky that looks like a tiger. He loves the little ducky's from Dairy Queen.
Ready to chomp on that duck.

Pumpkin Patch

Uncle Jake put each of the boys in the tree to get their picture taken. Here is Cody.Collin with his prize hat from the run.
Nate looking thrilled as ever.
Cliff? Apparently the photographer didn't get the picture snapped of Cliff, but she tried!
Nate and Cliff playing tic tac toe and eating some lunch. We had a great day!