Monday, December 29, 2008

The Grandkids. . . . . . .

So its not very often that we can have everyone together for things anymore, so that's why a picture like this is worth a thousand words!! From left - Josiah, Cody, Travis, Isaac, Mike, April and Krystie.

For those of you who are wondering, baby April's court date should be coming up in January to make her an official 'Ratzlaff'. We are all very excited about this and Cody certainly loves his baby sister!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and have a safe and happy New year as well! :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Our Christmas letter

Ok, so this year its my turn to write our Christmas letter!........this is Josiah, I’m 7 years old and I’m in 1st grade!!!! I love going to school, playing with friends, being in AWANA, helping Mom and Dad with chores around the house (well, ok, sometimes I like to help them), and the best thing this year? I learned to read!!!!! I am so excited about that! Mrs. Blomgren makes us bring home small books everyday to read with Mom and Dad and I’m getting better at reading! I’m always trying to figure what words are by spelling them out and then I ask Mom and Dad what word that is (well, my brain gets tired to trying to figure all that stuff out! – there’s a lot of words to see!)

Isaac turned 10 this year. Mom said that he’ll be in the double digits for the rest of his life now! – that’s a LONG time! WOW!!! He had some friends over for his birthday and I got to invite a friend too and we went bowling! We had a blast!! Isaac likes school, playing with his friends, he’s a Webelos in Cub scouts now, he’s in Chess club afterschool and he’s gone to a chess tournament too. He’s played Dad a few times, and Dad says that he can tell Isaac is getting better at Chess cuz he cant’ beat him right away anymore! Isaac also sold the most popcorn for Cub Scouts too this year! He sold $2,300.00 – that’s a lot of popcorn! He sold enough popcorn to get himself a Nintendo DS and he won an Apple ipod shuffle!!! Lucky guy!! He was so excited!!!

Dad started a new position at Bargen Inc. as Roofing Foreman/Estimator. He loves his job! He says he’s got a passion for roofing (whatever that means) and can’t wait to help build that division up!! He’s been home a lot more this year (versus being gone M-Th all summer long last year) and we love having him home more! Dad is still doing projects around the house, and I try to help him, but his list never ends!! His latest project is the bathroom in me and Isaac’s room – its almost done, but he needs to finish the plumbing in the sink. Otherwise its painted and has a new floor so its ready to go!

Mom is still Secretary for Bargen Inc. She told me she’s been there 13 years already! (that’s a long time!) This summer she took a vacation away from us and went on a “Wild Women” trip to Glacier National park in Montana this year. At first I thought she was going to see Hannah Montana, until she explained it to me (he he). She went hiking up Hidden Lake Trail at Glacier, sailing, white water rafting and then a high ropes course. She was gone for a whole week and we missed her, but she had fun! She went with a group from church and I think she said there were 13women that went. She had to find a name for herself, so she was “Mellow Michelle” and I wonder what everyone else had for names, but oh well. She showed us pictures from her trip – sliding in snow on a mountain, rafting, hiking, and she said she was in God’s country! Oh yeah, she also said they stayed at Flathead Lutheran Bible camp there and slept outside in tents! (that is NOT Mom at all!) They were told that they see bear out there, so Isaac gave her his whistle, a compass, his flint and some lint to help start a fire in case she needed it!

Isaac and I enjoy being with Grandpa and Grandma too! Whenever Grandpa isn’t busy, he’s picking us up from school, or at our house til Mom and Dad get home from work, he’ll take us with him in the semi when he’s hauling corn, or just making the rounds in the fields when its harvest time……

Just a few weeks ago we took a trip to Lubbock, TX to see Dad’s family. We got to go on the Polar Express there! Aunt Liz got us tickets, so we (Mom, Isaac and me) got on the train in our jammies, had hot cocoa, cookies, danced in the aisle, saw Santa clause and got a sleigh bell! We had a blast!!! We had Thanksgiving at Aunt Frannie’s house and ate lots of good food there! We had lots of fun playing with our cousins, playing with Shorty, Grandpa’s dog and going to the Mudd room to paint some projects – I painted a 4 wheeler and Isaac painted a pirate ship!

From our hearts to yours~ Merry Christmas!

Josiah from all of us



You can always find us at www.thequinteros.blogspot.com

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Our Christmas trees

This is our Christmas tree. I know, it doesn't look like a beautiful blue spruce or anything, but it came about in a different way. One of our cats (who passed away last year) decided to play with our old tree and he ended up breaking the stand of our artificial tree). So Martin put a big branch in a pail of cement and ended up drilling holes in the branch for the artificial tree branches. Thus came our Christmas tree! Personally ~ I love it! :) Its original and has a lot of character. Plus its our very own tree! This tree gets left up year 'round with only white lights on it so when we're in the basement and want just a little bit of light on, we plug it in.
This the boys' tree and we let them decorate it how they want it decorated. The enjoy it and can say that it is theirs! :)

This is a new little tree I got this year because we keep our Christmas trees in the basement and I wanted something upstairs in our living room to show the Christmas spirit. Oh yes, and there is another snowman family too! ;)
From our house to yours ~ We wish all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a very safe and Happy New Year! If you are travelling over the holidays, please have a safe trip!


My snowmen collection




I never realized until last year just how many snowmen I actually have. It wasn't something I set out to collect either, I just ended up getting several of them. So now I "officially" collect Snowmen! :) Last year Martin and the boys got me the big white guy on the left of this bottom picture, and Isaac made the "tin can snowman" at school (3rd one from the left in the middle picture). And actually last year for Christmas I had bought the boys' teachers all a snowman for christmas but ended up liking them so much that I kept them for myself! (I just got the teachers something else). But here is my snowman collection, and actually this doesnt' include the snowman ornaments I have on the tree either. I think there's atleast another 5 or so there. No, its not a lot, but I'm really enjoying this collection. Plus snowmen can be left out longer than christmas decorations and that's fun too!