A Family Gathering :)

Well this is a bit late but better late then never I always say!
My mom's side of the family got together a week after Christmas this year for our Christmas gathering. We all brought food and ate like kings! I believe there was 75 ish people for the meal!
Grandpa =1
My mom has 2 brothers and 5 sisters = 8
The in laws (affectionately call the OUT LAWS)  =8 which totals = 17
There are 29 grandchildren which = 46
19 of the grandchildren are married (or equal to that) which =65
There are 39 great grandchildren which makes a totally of 104!!

Some of the Great Grandchildren sitting at the table to eat. I believe there was about 22 of the 39 there. Rough count! 

L and his creation! He made it all by himself and it was awesome!

Lined up for food. This is at my aunt and uncles AWESOME house.. I love her kitchen. I love that house! 

Great Grandpa giving all the kids chocolates.

My cousin Steph and her 15 month old little girl. She was eating a chocolate from Great Grandpa.

I know her name but I'm not going to try and spell it :) 

My brother Tom watches my brother Danny get mauled by about 9 or 10 kids. I thought I counted 11 when I was taking the pictures but now I only see 9?? There may be more under the others :) 

We teased Great Grandpa that it was all his fault :) What a great bunch of people! Love you all! 

Car? What Car?

The load of snow that was hanging out on the roof for roughly 2 months came CRASHING down the other day! The right side came down at about 5:30am and woke me and Baby J out of a nice sleep! The trailer actually seemed to move when the almost 2 feet of snow on our 70 foot long roof.. and there is about 30 feet of incline! Which makes for a LOT of snow! Here is that side. The snow pile off the roof is higher then the floor level on this side.

That morning the boys went outside to play with a strict talking too about staying out of the snows way! The girls stayed inside as we realized they didn't understand where the drip line was.. never mind to stay out of it! Before the boys could get out side the front of the play side went! BOOOM!!! Good-bye car! LOL. Papa went out and only had to shovel a tiny bit to get the car out.

 The black thing in the middle is all we could see of the car from the top!! What a lot of snow! 

The view from the back! 

The car after Papa drove it out! 

 The boys on top of the pile and the indent where the car had been! They had a great time jumping off of the hill! 

Baby J's 1st Fry!

He LOVED it. A few nights later we had them again, Papa's homemade fries!!, and I put some ketchup on his.. WOWZER!!! He LOVES LOVES KETCHUP!! I could not put them in fast enough! He got so mad that I was 'so slow' (read as fast as I could shovel it in) that he started screaming.. and that was the end of ketchup for the night!

Jed Turned 7........

And he's out to kick some Miller BUTT :) Watch Out Blair Man!! 

(We miss you COME HOME SOON!! ) 

We had a GREAT PARTY!! He wanted a lion made out of smarties and that's what he got!! He also picked the candle.. didn't want to blow 7 out.. I think he's afraid of girlfriends!  Thanks Mrs B and Mrs T for helping out!! What would I do without you two! Go crazy I expect! 

7 Crazy Monkeys for a very special 7th Birthday!!

Yes that is store bought ICE CREAM.. my chickens are not laying and I refuse to make ice cream with store eggs and I ran out of time to buy farm eggs.

He got a cool Narnia book from T's which he can read!! He did his term 2 book report on it! 

Holding a card from Grandma and Grandpa Fehr.. with the promise of a tackle box inside!! He got a neat card from Gramma and Grampa G as well.. with $10 inside!! Very exciting stuff!! 

New lights :)

Above the sink. Very bright! 

Above the door. 

Papa had some free time over the holidays and put in some new lights in the addition! LOVE THEM!!! The fan works amazingly to move the heat into the trailer! He also put a light outside over the milking parlor which is WONDERFUL as I'm milking nights while Papa is on evenings. I hate the dark. We also took the window out between the living room and the addition and are enjoying the extra space to leave crap.. Oh wait I mean "We're enjoying the extra flat surface and the nice view into the new addition and the heat that moves so nicely now and the extra space to leave crap. Yes I'm rolling my eyes! Oh and really it isn't crap it's 'stuff' but every time I have to put it all away I can't help but wonder why we really need another flat surface!! All the REAL crap stays OUTSIDE on this little farm.. at least as much as is possible while living with Papa :) HAHAHA!!! The American in him INSISTS on wearing his boots in the house. Which is why you sometimes find him with a rag in one hand on his knees washing the floor! Wow did I ever get off topic!
That green thing in the 1st picture is our meat saw and no I don't have Christmas stuff anymore. These are old pictures.

Smashing The House!

The Gingerbread House that is :) This was the fun that happened after the work with the T's on New Years Day! What a BLAST!! All the kids had a turn to hit the house and several of them 'moved' it. I actually can't remember who smashed it but we all had a blast! The kids got a limited number of candies that night and we spent the next 3 weeks eating them out of a bowl!  Here they are WAITING for the men to finish up and drooling on the table.

 I love L's look on this one.. 

 Baby T with his big smile! Baby J slept through this part.   

J got to smash the tree! I think it hurt pretty good.. but he was very brave about it! 

                            

 Mr. T wrestling with the 4 boys! He had them all 4 pinned!! 

The baby boys sitting side by side. Baby J is the drooler :) 

Cutting up Bindy!

We spent the afternoon of New Years de-boneing the beef that was Bindy which we'd brought in late the night before. It actually went really fast and we ARE SO THANKFUL FOR THE GREAT HELP!! :) T's came to help us and the kids played well together and watched several movies while the 4 adults were busy with the beef! Even the 2 six month old babies did their best to behave! We took NO pictures of the work part of the day which is a pity but we did take some pictures of the fun! I don't recall the exact number of pounds of burger we got out of her but it was over 200! Some pieces we didn't bother to take meat off because there was so little on them. The ribs actually went right to the dog food pile! Chip loves it! Her fat was a beautiful yellow and we were surprised at how much of it she had. The hamburger is wonderful and isn't dry at all like we thought but even a bit fatty! Amazing.. that old beast taste pretty good! :)

Baby Quilts!

Every grandchild on my side is blessed with a baby quilt made by all the Aunts and Grandma. This New Years day when most of us were at my folks house we gave 2 of them to the children who they'd been made for. They are only a few months apart in age. This was the most of my family that managed to be under one roof this holiday season! We were only missing one family. So out of 34 of us there was 6 missing. One family of 5 and 1 married in :) Just to clarify. This is my sisters and brothers and their families.. not my aunts and uncles :)

Ashley on the far left is the 2nd oldest grandchild at 10 (in this picture, she's since turned 11). All the other grandchildren in this picture are 6 and under. Is it any wonder at least one of them would act up while we took pictures :) In this picture the ages are 10, 6, 4, 5, 4, 4, 2. In the bottom picture R is in the pink dress and is 2 and the 3 little ones are (in the plaid shirt) 1, white shirt 2, and pink with overalls 1. Both 1 year old's will soon be two. 3 of these kids had birthdays already in January. Missing that day were L who is just 9, A who is 7 and K who is 1.

 Justin holding Baby J. The oldest grandchild holding the youngest grandchild. I had to boss him a bit to get the picture but it sure is a nice picture! :) Hard to believe my parents have 16 grandchildren 13 and under.

3 more quilts to go! 

A Griggs Christmas :)

 Papa's sister and folks send us a package or 2 for Christmas. This year we got it a few days late.. which was really nice! We enjoyed opening gifts more then one day!

The boys enjoying their 'bug eyes' :)

 The girls trying them.. J just pointed out that R's is backwards :)

 I love E's face on this one!

 The girls trying to get their gift out of the box...Papa had to do it and they pestered him the whole time :)

 L opening up his Lego gift! Awesome!

The boys admiring some of the Lego they got!

 The girls trying out their new play shoes.. they LOVE THEM and actually figured out how to walk in them in no time at all!

Papa got to open the last one! I actually don't have a picture of the best one.. and I so far can't open the disk that she put it on. Papa's sister Ruth gave us a photo album that starts in 1976 when his parents got married and ends in 1998. Very cool!! I may have seen some of the pictures before but not all of them. It is really neat to see my husband growing up through pictures :) LOVE IT!!!!

New Years :)

We spent New Years with at my sisters A's house with a fair showing of my family! The kids played with their cousins and friends and the adults chatted and ate and ate and laughed! Baby J stayed up HOURS passed his bed time and was still having fun when we left! My brother D and his wife A were here from Ab. with their 2 kids and it was really neat to see them again and see how much their kids had grown since we'd seen them last summer. My sister S and husband D were also here from Ab with their 2 kids and it was awesome to see them. I think the last time we saw them was Dad's 60th and I was amazed to find my nephew J is now taller then me at 13 years old!! He's also got a bit of peach fuzz going on there!! Their daughter A spend a part of the night giving 'horse rides' and the kids totally took advantage of her! She's such a sweet kid she couldn't say no!! My folks were there too.. so we were only missing 2 families. That's not bad out of 7 families!  K had some of his family there as well. It was fun to see them as well as we don't see much of them. Out of 6 they were missing 3. Fun full house!   We had a wonderful time and stayed until almost midnight.. we actually started out 2011 in the truck on the way home! After we put the kids to bed Papa and I went out and got the beef Bindy who'd been hanging for a while inside ready for hamburger-ing the next day.. this proved challenging as it was -25C ish and she was frozen solid! Papa ended up taking the chain saw and cutting her into 6 chunks.. The only other thing we could have done is wait for it to warm up. Even then it would have to be warm for quite a while to thaw a whole cow! We set them on tables by the wood stove over night and she was pretty soft by morning! I told Papa I felt like a sneaky person cutting up a beef in the middle of the night with a chain saw!! He referred to it as 'the chain saw massacre!' The little birds like chick-a-Dee's and woodpeckers loved it :) It wasn't until we were half way done that I realized that we were RIGHT by our wonderful neighbor Mike's bedroom!! Chain sawing like crazy people in the dark in the middle of the night! I felt better later on though when I remembered it was New Years after all and I'm pretty sure he wasn't home :)

Gingerbread House Creation!

We had a lot of fun making our Gingerbread house this year. As you can see candy was VERY plentiful and that helps :) Papa ate almost all the lego candy before we even got to creating but we had enough for a dog and a snowman! We did a tree this year as well. Papa decorated it. I put icing on the house and did a little bit on it but the kids did the rest.. Of course we had to EAT some candy too. 

That blue thing is the dog.. the snowman is on the other side.. these poor people didn't have enough snow to cover the ground so some of their grass was showing.. They also had a lot of weird stuff, shrubs? Flowers? Dog mess? all over their yard! 

It's tradition to do it all together! Normally we do it Christmas Eve but this year I think it was boxing day! 

Christmas Day!

The 1st thing we do every Christmas morning is read the Christmas Story out of Luke. Here is this years picture of Papa reading it :) 

The kids listening to the Christmas story and trying to not look at their stockings behind me :) In their new PJ's. Baby J slept thru Christmas morning.. and got to open his gifts later on with the crew helping out. 

 
Having hot chocolate later on in the morning. We'd done over half the gifts and we needed a break! We actually took almost no pictures of gift opening this year.

Floor Hockey... we got them 4 sticks and 2 nets for Christmas this year. They love it!! The sticks and nets stay outside now :) 

Baby J in his new, but very drooled on, PJ's.. 8 month size, with one of his new toys! 

He's so cute.. was fun to have a 'first Christmas' with a baby again! 

E out playing hockey.. or at least enjoying the new sticks. She holds her stick all wrong and no matter how many times Papa showed her she kept holding it that way! 

R with a hockey stick in one hand and a bucket in the other. She HAD to have a bucket? I still don't know why.. but she looked HIGH and LOW until I found her this one.. an old egg bucket. Then she was happy! 

Papa showing L how to hold a stick properly and hit a ball. 

J took to hockey like he'd played before.. here are him and L fighting for the ball. We are going to do a unit on hockey for school soon but for now Papa gave them a few rules to follow. 

Papa at net with R in front looking on. Chip in the background. They cleared part of the driveway to play hockey on and he was NOT allowed on it.. very confused dog! He REALLY wanted the ball too.. but was pretty good about leaving it and staying out of the way. 

We got several inches of snow Christmas morning and it was perfect for a snowman! Here is R rolling up a head! 

The boys debating where the buttons should go on him while the girls look on! It was pretty warm out. 

J placing buttons. 

The happy crew and their finished snowman. Notice the snowball in his hand? Our snowman is ready for some fun!! 

The rest of the day was spent being lazy, playing with new toys and games and watching How to Train your Dragon :)