Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving… spent at my Uncle Dean's home  

Where the "kids" ate 

A handful of the cousins

Pingpong! Thanksgiving tradition 

Family Gathering

Kromminga Family Gathering November 15, 2014

The Grandkids all ready to eat! 

A happy Jack in the midst of the many shoes! 

Gabe, Landon, Caroline, Nathan, Jack

Family picture!

The original seven brothers and sisters 

Story time with Brant! :) 

Silly Nathan! 

Operation Christmas Child

About three weeks ago our church had our shoebox packing party! It was for Operation Christmas Child, an organization that puts together shoeboxes to send to needy children all over the world, ages two to fourteen. 

     We set tables up to organize the toys, hygiene items, and school supplies for each age group and both genders. 

 After each person went through the tables filling their shoebox,  they had to get through Lydia and I who inspected the boxes making sure they had the basics; like soap, toothbrush, pencils, candy, etc.  Abe and Esther then put the labels and rubber bands on the them.  It eventually got so hectic that we were literally up to our ears in boxes, tape, and labels!  Actually, no... not labels and tape, just the boxes, since we ran out of labels and tape almost immediately!  It got so chaotic that we all ended up inspecting and putting labels on, plus we had a couple other people help us out! 

All ready to inspect!

This is the place where they made their cards or letters to put in the boxes. 

When our evening was through, we ended up with 100 boxes!! Yay!!! :) That will be100 very happy kids who will receive them. 

Halloween Dance

For the first time in my life I counted down the days until it was Halloween! There was a dance that night that we could dress up for if we wanted. Yay!! I had fun caking on the makeup, and putting on big jewelry for my costume.  If you can't tell, I'm a gypsy. Lydia is a German girl ( her grandma actually made her outfit! ) and Esther is a girl from the Civil War era.

all ready to go!

   

The Waldos 

Costumes 

four friends dressed as the four seasons 
A black cat

 Hobbit girl

 Laura Ingles 

Elsa from Frozen

Super Man

A lumber jack

A vampire

Cowgirl (Emily)

Waldo and Wendy (Ruth and Josiah)

Gypsy (Your truly!)

Cilvar War girl (Esther) 

German girl (Lydia)

Leaf Looking

Our annual leaf looking trip, this year in Guttenburg! 

October 12th

pretty!! 

Highlights

* Walking through the little town and peeking into shop windows

* Seeing the pretty leaves

* Taking pictures at the lookout 

* Stopping for ice cream 

Leaf looking, just the three girls at Backbone park

October 19th 

reflection 

Spiders in the cave?? Hoods up!!! 

Highlights

* Each having our own personal bag of Cheetos

* "Duck Walking" through a cave     

* Stopping at the Cone Shop
* Climbing around on rocks

Weekend in Centerville

Last week Mom, Dad and I went down south to Brant and Jessica's house! As it is the tradition, we packed lots of yummies for the the four hour trip, made complete with fruit gushers! 

     When we reached Mount Pleasant we stopped at the McDonalds that we usually stop at.  There was a bus parked across the road at Taco Belle, who we had been following for a fair distance. We thought that was kind of funny, but forgot about it as we stumbled into McDonalds. While we were still trying to decided what to get, two boys ran in and asked Dad if he was in line. "Yes!" He responded quickly as he rushed up to the lady who would take his order. In less then a minute, there was a roar as about thirty boys came rolling into the building.  Boy, were we glad that we got in there when we did! (no pun intended ;) 

      When we got to our destination, we were greeted heartily by Brant's golden retriever, Rivers. 

The boys were still down for their naps, so it was pretty quiet when we got inside. Landon looked quite bewildered when he got up!  He has never seen Mom or Dad in his house before except for when he was a few days old,  but he wouldn't remember that now would he! 

     When Nathan got up and after he lost his sleepiness, he piled me high with his toys! "How's Christina going to get up now?" Brant asked him.  Nathan, looking very concerned, started to unload my bounty.  "You can get up now Christina!" he told me. 

     For supper Jessica made a very tasty potpie for us. We also had salad!  When I finished the salad in my bowl, Nathan, who was sitting beside me with the salad tongs in hand, asked me very sweetly if I wanted more salad. "No thank you!" I told him.  Just the same, I ended up with more salad. ;)  After I finished that he asked if I wanted more. "Nope! I'm stuffed!" 

     "Oh. Christina? You done?" 

     "Yep!" Nathan's face brightened as he spotted a lone pea on my plate. "You have a pea!!"

     "Should I eat it?" I asked him. "No, I'll take it." and with that he grabbed the tongs and put it on his plate.  Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is funny, but I thought it was so cute that he was being a little host! 

     The next day we went to town to eat our lunch at The Garage. That was interesting. We had oil changing cloths for napkins, never used by a car, of course. Or at least, I hope!  I had a tenderloin and fries, then we went to an old fashioned ice cream place that was also in the square.  I had a Hercules.  It was huge, but  I wasn't sorry I got it though! ;)

     When we got back we all took naps until Brant's parents Ernie and Merla came to visit for a couple hours, then Brant showed us his model trains. He did a great job making them look real and old.  He even puts grass in the cracks of the cement!  Most impressive. 

     Sunday morning we went to their church. Brant taught Sunday school.  He did a good job too! 

After church they had to leave for a pie party, so we headed home. We didn't eat out, just snacked on our munchies, but we did stop for ice cream! 

Nathan loading me up

     

setting the table with a little help

Poppy playing with Landon

Landon!!

I was sad this one was fuzzy, but I did my best to fix it up! 

Tagging Monarchs

 

Its Monarch season again!! For many years now, when it gets to be late September or early October, we grab our butterfly nets to be ready for the monarchs to stop by on their way to Mexico! We buy 'tags,' which are like little round stickers that have numbers on them that go on the butterfly's wing.   The organization called Monarch Watch that sells the tags keeps track of how many there are, and where they came from.
     You can tell if the butterfly is a boy or a girl by opening the wings to see if there are two black dots at the base of the bottom wings.  If there are then its a male, like the butterfly below.
 The caterpillars like to eat milkweed, so a lot of times thats where we find them. Sometimes I will put them in my little cage thingy and watch them grow, and sometimes get to see them change into a chrysalis and hatch out of it.

monarch caterpillar 

the chrysalis 

The male monarch butterfly

migrating butterflies

tagged and ready to fly!

as you can see, we really have been doing this a long time! 

My 15th Birthday

Yup! I'm fifteen now! At three o clock on Wednesday afternoon of last week I was officially able to say that I am half way to thirty! My birthday was pretty much a normal day at first. I actually forgot about it, and kept being pleasantly surprised at my brothers, sisters and nephews ;) birthday texts. Mom put a status on Facebook about my birthday. Bless her heart! Ben and Lauren called me too! :) 

     In the evening Emily came and I opened my gifts. Mom said that pretty much every gift that she had planned on giving me already, I suddenly had a light bulb go off and asked for it. Oops! ;) 

     I felt quite grown up this year with the gifts I was given, but in a good way. My favorites were probably the purse, apron, Jamie Grace CD, and huge hoop earrings. 

My birthday pie! 

Jessica and Brant sent a box of goodies for me! :) 

pretty package!

dress apron from Jessica

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

On Saturday evening we had Abby Diffonzo and Jo and Joel Carter over for supper, games, and a bonfire! They all got here around 5, and we ate chilly, garlic bread, (with jelly on top of course!) and chocolate pudding for dessert. 

On Sunday my brother Josh came to our church to do a talk about his month long trip to China. He also came home after potluck, as did Abby, Emily, Daniel and Andria. My favorite part about Sunday was playing Dutch Blitz with Abby, Ruth, Andria, and Josh. (if it makes you feel better Lydia and Esther, I lost!) 

Abby, Ruth, Caroline, Andria, Josh, Me

On Monday we watched my niece and nephews, Caroline, Gabe and Jack.  It was pretty cute when we would here them chattering about something and laughing. It always makes me happy when little people have fun together when they are just by themselves. :) At dinner time we fed them chilly, that was left from our night with Abby.
     After dinner I played with the kids outside. I pushed Caroline and Gabe on the swings, and retrieved Jack from both the parking lot and the slide.
     The whole day went quite well considering how it could have gone with three kids all four and under with no naps the day before! :)

(#3) On My Trip To Wyoming...

     On my trip to Wyoming I saw lots of animals that you don't just see everyday in Iowa!  In South Dakota, or maybe it was Wyoming(?) we went to a place where you can feed peanuts to prairie dogs.  Some people who were leaving gave theirs to us, bless their hearts. You had to approach the little critters pretty carefully, or else they would dive back down the hole, although I was actually able to pet one! That was probably stupid of me, since I wasn't sure if I should or not, but I still have my hand, so it must be ok!  There was one who seemed to be on the old side that came waddling up to me!  He even grabbed a peanut from my hand.  I'm thinking that he must have been experienced considering how fat he was! 

This is one animal/reptile that I'm glad that I never did see! These signs were everywhere in the Badlands.  I was a little nervous to be actually camping there! But we slept in the RV, so I think we were pretty safe.

 This buffalo gave me quite the story to tell!  We were going on a nature drive in the RV, but besides a lot of deer we only saw this one lone buffalo. After awhile we decided to turn around, and when we drove by the buffalo again it was almost on the road. We drove by very slowly and it started to buck up onto its back legs! It did it over and over and then started to chase us!  Everyone was freaking out except for Thomas and I.  I was on the opposite side of the RV, but wouldn't it have been so cool to have been on the charging buffalo side! 
     Later, when we were horse back riding, Jenny was talking to one of the guides and he said that people sometimes leave with holes in their cars from buffalos ramming into them! Glad we weren't one of them!

We saw so many elk on this trip that it became boring to see them!  We stopped to take pictures of this one because there was a whole line of cars, and people with cameras, so we wondered if it was a moose or something really different. Nope! Just an elk! ;)

 We also went to a rodeo!  My very first one!  It was kind of nerve racking in some ways, since  I would just die if one of the guys was my brother or my dad or someone I knew.   It was amazing that some of those guys could stay on as long as they did! 

There was one animal that I'm very disappointed to say that I didn't see, and that would be a bear. I came close, but… its not the same. We were were hiking up a mountain when we saw a guy and a girl who looked like serious climbers! They had big ol' backpacks, hiking boots, poles, and they just plain looked serious! They said that they had been out since 1am (or maybe it was two, can't remember but it was ridiculous.) and they said that they were an hour behind, because there was a bear in there path!  I was hoping we would spot it, but sadly we didn't. :( When I called mom to talk for awhile, I told her about it, and she wasn't disappointed for me! I wonder why? ;)