over the river and through the woods

Over the river and through the woods...

To Grandmother's house we go!

Well... It wasn't really over the river and through the woods, but it kind of felt like it since we had to make a 45 minute detour just to get about 10 minutes straight north of town (thanks to the snow still drifting). But we did make it to the farm and had a nice Christmas celebration with Tyler's mom, dad, sister and brother.

Tyler's brother, Michael, visited from Seattle (he's working on his Master's degree in Museology at the University of Washington) and his sister, Cassidy, came from Manhattan (working on her Master's in Communication Sciences and Disorders at K-State). Since we were all here together at once, we set up my camera on a tripod and took a group picture of ourselves! We even coordinated our outfits!

The look on Nyla's face cracks me up in this one.

Great photo of Grandma and Grandpa. Nice job

on your smile, Paul! ;)

And yes we have one more little video to show you.  Nyla and Uncle Mike opening a gift...

a different kind of christmas

Nyla had a lot of fun with her stocking this year. We filled it mostly with one of her latest favorites - balls.

It was an interesting Christmas for me this year. I was horribly sick starting the Sunday night before Christmas and didn't feel really well again until Saturday (the day after Christmas). Also we weren't able to make it out to the farm to be with Tyler's family on Christmas (11 miles north of town) due to the snow drifts blocking the roads. So it was just the 3 of us and this is what we had for Christmas dinner...

In addition to the Totino's frozen pizzas, we decided to go all out and have some Schwan's chicken bites along with it. ;)

That morning, we also videoed Nyla opening her gift, which took a really long time so you may not be all that interested in this one unless you really love us.

The day after Christmas we were able to get out to the farm. More on that in my next posting...

if you're happy and ya know it

I have been rather out of touch with blogging (my blog as well as keeping up on others' blogs) the last couple weeks. Actually I was horribly sick for about a week so that put me out of touch with a lot of things! I have several postings I want to make though so no worries there. :)

So to start things out...

I was trying out my new Flip Ultra camera Tyler got me for Christmas and got this little clip of Nyla dancing to her favorite song... She fizzles out after the second verse, but the first part is cute (in my humble opinion)!

~ Click here to view the video ~

Stay tuned for a variety of Christmas related postings, but as a sneak peak, here are a couple of cute photos...

the beauty of country living

In September I shared some of the beauty of Western Kansas in my garden of the west posting. Now, thanks to my Uncle Tim (he took all of the following photos, except for 1 of them), I will share some of the beauty of Eastern Kansas. These were all taken on my parent's farm.

Dad and Grandpa getting ready to herd cows

Sunset on the farm

A couple of black and whites...

frosty winter afternoon

When it snows, ain't it thrillin'

Though your nose gets a chillin',

We'll frolic and play, the Eskimo way

Walkin' in a winter wonderland.

It's so nice that Nyla can walk well now because we can more thoroughly enjoy one of her favorite things - going outside. She can even navigate the snow packed paths fairly well, so this afternoon we bundled up for a little fun in the snow.

 

 

Midway through our time outside, Nyla learned the value of soft, warm gloves. She gladly kept them on her chilly little hands.

If you're thinking her pants don't look the greatest for playing in snow, she at least has two pairs on...

Oh, and we also tried pigtails this weekend. Kinda fun!

While she loves animals (certain ones) and the outdoors, she's also a girly girl. She enjoys showing off for herself in front of the mirror. :)

this weekend - babies and deer

This weekend I co-hosted a baby shower for one of my closest and oldest friends, Amanda Hands. My mom and Amanda's mom are good friends and have known each other since before Amanda's mom and dad got married. So Amanda and I grew up together and have known each other since she was born. I can actually still remember a time when I was little and she was following me around in her walker in my mom's kitchen. I must have been younger than 3 and Amanda less than 1!

A picture of us from long ago... I was
3 1/2 and Amanda 18 months.

Here are a few pictures from the shower...

Amanda and the hostesses (my mom, Lane Bitterlin and I)

The game involved guessing Amanda's current waistline!

Lane provided the cutest baby themed

Christmas decorations.

Nyla helped herself to the "pretend" gifts under

one of the church's Christmas trees.

My mom, Nyla and I

Several ladies at the shower asked me if Tyler was out hunting deer. I said that he wasn't, that he was finishing up some baling, but then about noon I got a text message that he shot a 10-pointer! He did get done with the baling too though... finally. :)

We thought this deer had a somewhat unique rack and by his body, he appears to be rather old. May not be quite as tasty as the doe that Tyler got! He shot this deer with his rifle, which reminded him how much more exciting bow hunting is than rifle hunting. He thought shooting the doe with his bow was more exciting than this buck with his rifle. Regardless, he can now move his focus back to the birds!

Maybe an odd combination of subjects for this posting, but this is the story of our life!

good eatin'

I'm glad it's December since it looks like I was a little "blog happy" in November. I'll try to keep it to no more than 5 postings this month. ;)

My Uncle Tim took the best pictures of the deer butchering process last week so I just have to share them. Also contrary to what a lot of people believe, deer can be really yummy so I wanted to share that too!

As I've said previously, Tyler shot a doe on Thanksgiving (with his bow) so the following day was spent processing the meat. Following is a sampling of the day. You may think it's gross, but you also might learn something or find it interesting!

Tyler, Josh (my brother), Uncle Tim, Dad and Grandpa were the butchers / chefs of the whole process. The first step was skinning and gutting the deer so we'll just skip right over pictures of all that!

Cutting up the carcass... This is only part of the carcass but NOTHING was wasted.

Trimming it down to grind into sausage and slice the tenderloin into medallions for bacon wrapped filets.

The BEST part of the meat just waiting to be bacon wrapped.

Bought some hog fat to grind in with the meat for sausage.

AJ was looking a tad worried about the whole process.

Grinding the meat and fat together to make sausage...

The wrapping station

Dad fried up some test chicken fried deer steaks.

Time to cook the bacon wrapped steaks and a few left over steak/shrimp Kabobs.

Tyler was the man in charge.

Lookin' good...

The feast!