Merry Christmas!

I guess I shouldn't be complaining about Mom not posting! We're going to visit Aaron's family in TN for Christmas and it's possible I'll post before we leave...but if not, Merry Christmas to you all! I'll try to take lots of pictures while we're gone to share when we get home.

The above picture was taken on Thanksgiving -

Esther all dressed up to go with me to the Ladies Christmas Tea!

It's hard to get her to lay still and smile for a picture...

Esther and I in front of the church Christmas tree

We thought, since Esther and I were dressed up anyway, we'd take some family pictures, but we didn't like how any of them turned out - mostly because Aaron has jaundice and some swelling in his throat and felt he looked almost as sick as he really is.

For those of you that don't know, Aaron came down with a fever about 3 weeks ago - eventually we went in to the hospital and they told us he had mono and strep throat! The fever is gone, but if you look up a list of the symptoms/results of mono, he's had almost every one of them in turn. So please pray that he'll heal quickly and completely!

Esther in pink

Even though Aaron's not feeling well, Esther seems to be doing just fine - we weighed her the other day and she was 9 lb. 10 oz. and she's getting more aware all the time :)

Someone gave her this jumper that says "little shining star" and I thought that was cute because the name Esther means "star".

Sorry these pictures are so dark...they're just a few of her kicking and making faces.

Baby Shower

On Saturday, the ladies from our church and some of my relatives and people from my parent's church had a baby shower for Esther and I. It was all very nice.

Hosanna made the cake - I thought she did a great job!

A creative decoration idea :) This is the crib from the nursery. Some of my little cousins sang "Jesus Loves Me", my aunt did a shower game (guessing which "old wives tales" meant the lady was expecting a boy, or a girl), and an old friend of our family's did a devotional.

Some of the guests - There was over 50 people there in all. My cousins from SD came up, so it was fun to have them there! No, Aaron did not attend the shower...but he did help with some of the setting up.

People brought so many nice gifts! Esther will have lots of pretty clothes to wear and blankets to keep her warm (that's a good thing, because the snow is really coming down today) and everything else she needs to be a proper baby :)

Rachel, Elizabeth, Priscilla, Abby, Alexis, Victoria

Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!

Esther: Our New Family Member

I never did like pictures of babies moments after they were born, but just in case you do...

Sorry it's taken me so long to post about Esther, but I wasn't in too big of hurry because other people have been keeping you up to date - so thank you to everyone who's posted pretty pictures of Esther on their blogs! Also, I'd like to thank everyone who's been praying for us and who has brought us meals and things - we're blessed with wonderful family and friends!

For those of you who are interested, here's the basic story. I'd been feeling a little achy on Saturday and Sunday, and I woke up a couple times Sunday night, and somewhere between then and when I got up Monday morning about 8:30, I started having contractions. About 10 I started timing them and they were between 3 and 10 minutes apart - not really painful, but they also wouldn't go away.

About 2 or so, I went into the clinic and the Dr. checked me - I was at about 3 1/2, so she recommend I go to the hospital (about 20 min. away). Anyway, by the time we got there and got all settled in, (about 4:30) I too was convinced that this was the real thing. Everything went as well as can be expected - it could have been much worse, it was only the last hour or so - and the pushing (about 45 min.) - that I thought was really bad. She was born at 10:24 PM.
 Our family :) A wedding and a baby in 10 months - it's been quite an eventful year!

Since we didn't know if the baby would be a boy or a girl, we brought a green outfit to the hospital.

We named her Esther after Esther in the Bible and because it's Aaron's favorite girl name. We talked about a few others, but it wasn't a hard decision. Her middle name is Joy - like me, my mom, my sisters, a cousin, Aaron's sister, and one of Aaron's sister-in-laws.

She makes so many cute faces and expressions!

With the recovery and getting used to taking care of a baby, it's been a challenging couple weeks, but Esther has been a good baby so far - she normally only cries when she has a good reason, and she's been eating well.

Although, she hasn't learned to sleep through the night yet - we're getting better though - at first she was up every hour or so, but now she's down to two or three times a night.

It's hard to believe she's two weeks old already! She had her one week check-up last week and had already gained some weight.

We love our little girl very much! She truly is a blessing from the Lord!

Beautiful, Busy Fall

Hello! I won't even bother to apologize for taking so long to post...I guess once every couple weeks is going to be normal!

In September, some of the church men got together for a prayer breakfast.

Aaron's been spending some time in Badger helping a church with some construction.

This church bought an old house next door, and is remodeling it into a nursery, classrooms, and guest apartment.

Aaron also went with one of the kids from our church to the youth conference in Ill. with my parent's church. He had a good time - they got to go to our friend's corn maze and in spite of some van trouble, made it home safely. He was also at a Pastor's conference last week, so I'm very glad he's back!

The whole group that went - you can't see Aaron very well - he's in the blue shirt in front of the red door.

While Aaron was gone, I worked on our wedding album a bunch (maybe I'll post some more of those pictures one of these days...) and helped out at the corn maze some since a lot of their regular help was gone.

The baby still seems to be doing fine - I'm due two weeks from today, but that's a little hard to believe. We went to the hospital one day and toured the "birthing wing" - it was pretty nice and I'm glad to be able to picture it better. Also, we ordered cloth dipers and I've been trying to wash the clothes we do have and things like that...

As far as the garden goes - we've canned as many tomatos as we could handle, froze some of the sweet potatos in puree form, pickled some jalepenos, as well as some beets, and are trying out some sauerkraut.

One day, just for fun, Aaron and I went out to the state forest and while we were there we couldn't resist taking a bunch of pictures. The fall colors were so beautiful!

I really like the mix of the yellows/oranges, with the dark green.

This was a couple weeks ago though, now almost all of the leaves are gone.

Aaron was out visiting a church family, and he stopped to take these pictures on the way.

If you look close, you can see a deer jumping off into the woods.

Hope you have a great fall!

The Last Garden Pictures

We took a break one day and took this picture out in the church yard - most of the trees are your usual brown and yellow, but there's this one bright red one.

The day Aaron's been waiting for all summer.....Digging sweet potatos! With frost in the forcast, we decided to harvest everything that was left in the garden - in one day. We were pretty sore that evening!

We planted 3 different varieties, and they took definite first, second, and third places. A few of the potatos were huge, and we got enough to last a while - at least in my opinion. (I was of the persuasion that sweet potatos were for Thanksgiving only, but I have a feeling that's going to change.....) Aaron was pretty happy with how they turned out!

The whole pile of stuff! We're slowly getting it processed -the tomatos are the only big thing left and we'll do them a few at a time. I don't think very many gardens have been the object of as many prayers as ours was - and God answers prayers.

We spent one whole day harvesting, and Aaron spent pretty much another whole day pulling up all of the dead or about-to-die plants. I only helped him a little on this project...
Funny how in the spring we look forward to things growing, and this time of year, a bare, empty garden is a beautiful sight! All that's left out there now is the winter squash - so I guess I can't promise this is the end of the garden pictures, but we're at least close :)
Some of the plants we put on our compost pile, and some of them we took to the farm and gave the cows.
Cutting up garlic for jalepeno salsa - we've made about 6 different batches of salsa and each one has been a little different. If we experiment long enough, we'll find what we like the best :) Actually, this salsa is probably at the top of our list now - it has an equal ratio of peppers and tomatos, but it isn't so hot you can't eat it.
Due to our late May planting - or maybe the fact that this is a ways north - this is all the okra we got - but it was enough for one meal for the two of us and so we enjoyed it anyway.

Maze, Garden, and Museum

Hello! I look fat in this picture for some reason....but we need a share in the corn maze pictures too, right? Aaron and I went over one day and helped set things up.

We also took our Sunday school kids (I think it was 8) to the maze one day - they had a great time and we wore them out! They were a little afraid of the calf and they really enjoyed jumping off the tractor tires. We weren't sure about putting pictures of them online, so this was one of the only ones with no faces in it. On top of the bridge -

Aaron and I went fishing at the Northwest Angle with a couple from church. We didn't get many fish (I did get one though - like the first fish I ever remember getting...), but it was a beautiful day to be out on the lake! We saw loons, deer, pelicans, a golden eagle, and a fox, and got to hear a lot of stories from the history of the area.