More outdoor fun at Grandma and Grandpa Potts...

Ice Fishing isn't the only outdoor fun at Grandma and Grandpa Potts' house... Living out in the country has a lot of perks... Lots of place to run around. We often take walks to the creek down the road.

There is sledding in the yard and sometimes onto the lakes...
Lots of room for building snow forts... this is the start of this year's, but I never did get a picture of the finished project...And the joys of looking for animal tracks around the big yard...

Ice Fishing...

I will admit that as a girl growing up in Wisconsin, I often heard of people who went ice fishing and never did that activity appear on my radar... I can honestly say that I couldn't see what the draw was and I thought the people out on the ice were a little crazy...

All that changed when I met and married the love of my life... Chad grew up ice fishing. I once asked him how old he was when he learned to fish... he told me couldn't remember not knowing how to fish. Now each winter when we visit the Potts household in the winter, ice fishing is a part of our time there and I have learned to enjoy it... We all get out for some fresh air and fun... Seeing the excitement on the kids faces when they get a tip-up or a bite on their jig pole is fun. And when we are done, hot chocolate is always available to help warm us up...

Christmas 2009 part 3

Christmas Eve after church we drove to Grandma and Grandpa Potts' home. Christmas morning it was time for more presents and feasting!

Zeke looked around to hand out the gifts to everyone...

Then all the boys began opening things up while the adults looked on taking pictures and smiling...Favorite presents this year were legos, K-nex and games! They also got a table top foosball table that provided hours of enjoyment over the holidays...

After the gifts were open and the paper was cleaned out, it was time for a big lunch with Turkey, Ham and all the fixings!!! Yummy.

All the Potts' gathered together for the fun including Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Sherman, Aunt Colette and our gang!

Christmas Eve...

Before heading out for church on Christmas Eve we stopped for a picture in front of Grandma and Grandpa's tree.

Christmas 2009 part 2

Christmas with the Breeden Family happened on December 23. We started the morning with Pumpkin Pancakes... Grandma and Grandpa Breeden, Uncle Jim, Aunt Amy, Isaac, Samuel and Grace, and the Potts were already gathered. Later that day, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jess joined us with Carter and Ali. We met up at McDonald's for lunch and then headed back to Grandma's house for more feasting...


After the meal there were of course presents....

First the boys opened their K-nex sets from Grandma and Grandpa.

Then it was time for the Princess outfits for the girls.All the kids showed off the socks they opened...
Uncle Daryl and Aunt Becky were unable to make it because of bad weather...

After all the feasting and entertainment the kids played with their new toys while the adults enjoyed a couple of games. Uncle Jim and Aunt Amy left that evening while the rest of us settled in for the night...

First Snow...

The first snow was falling as we drove out of Fort Wayne. When we arrived in Wisconsin, the boys were excited to get their snow gear on and dig in...

Zeke and JJ got busy on some snow angels...

Chad got out to help with the creating of the snow forts for the big snowball fight.

JJ and Samuel plotted their attack...

Beware of the littlest...

Pack Attack...

When visiting Grandma and Grandpa Breeden's during football season, there is often a Monday night Pack Attack... The local television station brings in a Green Bay Packer for a half hour show and they invite the public in to watch. This time Brandon Underwood (who recovered the onside kick in the play off game against Arizona) was the featured guest.
Another guest was former Packer Johnie Gray...

Lego Creations...

There are toys that get little rest in the Potts home and legos are one of them. The boys get creative with their building toys and we can almost always find legos underfoot! From Animals to farms the creativity is endless!

Christmas 2009 part 1

Our Christmas season started this year with another Journey to Bethlehem. This is a Christmas celebration put on by our church where the community is invited in to come and experience Bethlehem as it may have been at the time that Jesus was born. There are market place vendors selling cheese, baskets, candles and spices. In addition there is a Hebrew School. This year the boys again played the part of Hebrew children in the school learning about the coming Messiah. By the end of the school day they were able to recite a few Hebrew Words and tell the visitors to Bethlehem of the birth of the baby.
After traveling through the city visitors are invited to have a bowl of lentil soup and some bread and visit with the baby all the townspeople have been talking about. It is a wonderful event to get our hearts and minds focused on the meaning of our Christmas celebrations.

Where does the time go...

All right... I am giving up. I have this goal to get caught up and I keep getting further behind. Can you forgive me for fast forwarding through the months of October and November in an effort to post the more recent fun activities of our family.

Here is a brief look at a few pictures from the past couple of months in no particular order...

A visit to a water park over the Thanksgiving holiday. One of the perks of being a home school family is being able to visit places like this during their non-peak times and therefore saving a lot while making fun memories!
Of course this fall there were leaf piles to jump into!
A lot of our homeschooling time this fall has been spent discussing the early settlers to our nation and how they lived. We just completed a unit on the Revolutionary War and the birth of a nation. One of the many colonial day experiences we have had was making our own butter... The second picture is the kids eating it!

Several of our friends have had babies over the past few months and our boys have enjoyed holding the new little ones... Below is JJ with Hannah and Seth with Josias...


We also had the opportunity to attend a Newsboys concert in October... We met up with a couple of friends from church to enjoy the show!

And finally there were many fall festivals. Here we are spending an afternoon on the farm with our neighbor Max.
Thanks for allowing me this fast forward...