It's A Boy!

We have known for some time there is a little baby Smith due in March. As a Christmas present to the families Kimberly and Tillman told everyone that they are expecting a little boy. His name will be Bennett Roenfeldt Smith. I might have been the happiest person to finally!! know what they are having. The last time they didn't find out the gender and they didn't tell any names. I'm not sure Tripp realizes how his life will change when the new baby arrives...

Merry Christmas!

All Dressed Up and No Place To Go

Well that's not really true. We had wedding to go to tonight so I thought we needed a new photo. Since we were both in the picture I had to put on the timer and set the camera on top of the fridge, a tall enough place to get the top of DJ's head. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and you have your Christmas shopping complete.

A Trip to the Beauty Parlor

Today Trice made a trip to the Beauty Parlor (aka - groomer). She loves to ride in the car so it's not hard to convince her to hop in the back of the car. She gets to ride all sorts of places - the vet, the river, Mimi & Papa's, Charleston, Iowa. When we pulled into the parking lot she started to whine - noises of excitement. I'm not sure if it's the other dogs, the other smells or the staff. She loves the vet's office and we do too! [Notice the Santa scarf...it came immediately off after the photo :)]

Early Christmas

Christmas came early for Trice. I finished wrapping presents yesterday and decided Trice could open her present from DJ's parents. It meant one less present that I'd have to wrap and Trice loves her new squirrel. This is her first squirrel. She has quite the collection of ducks but has taken to this new toy/animal. AHHH what a spoiled life she leads!

70 Degrees

Yes Midwesterners and Northerners you read this correctly...it was 70 degrees today in Columbia, SC. A little overcast and drizzling but no sleet, snow or ice. It will be a little cooler tomorrow - expected high 56 degrees. We wish you were here to enjoy the nice temps - especially you Casey! Weather.com says the temp in Minneapolis is 9 degrees but feels like negative 1 degree and snow expected tomorrow!!

Going Green

When we were in Iowa a couple weeks ago we saw lots of these windmills between Des Moines and Omaha. They are windmills that collect energy. In these big groups they are called wind farms. Farmers can lease their land to the power companies or they can purchase these

$40k windmills to provide their own electricity or at least cut their costs. There are currently over 600 of these in Iowa that create enough power for 140,000 homes. The ones in northern Iowa cannot be more than 100 feet tall but I'm not sure how big these were. I found this photo online. You can see how little the cars appear to be - so they have to be huge! We all need to find at least a few things we can do to be more environmentally friendly...I'm on the hunt for a few things we can do!

More Football

We received our Christmas photo cards on Thursday and I am procrastinating. I need to write our annual Christmas letter and address them - but instead I am sitting on the couch watching another football game. We watched the Florida vs Alabama game this afternoon with my parents and brother-in-law - GO GATORS and Coach McCarney! Now we are watching the Big 12 Championship game - not sure who I want to win this one. While my parents were here we took a photo of them for their Christmas cards...at least we are ahead of them! I think their picture is pretty good, if I do say so myself.

We're Home and Settling Back In

We made it home safe and sound Saturday mid-afternoon. Unfortunately in time to see the end of the USC vs Clemson football game - it didn't end favorably for us! We enjoyed spending Thanksgiving in Iowa but are happy to be home. We haven't unpacked all of the luggage, maybe by the end of the week. But we did get all of the Christmas decorations down from the attic, put the holiday wreath on the door and put up the Christmas tree. DJ helped assemble the tree but left the hanging the ornaments to me. I hope to get the garland on the banister by the end of the week.

I'm posting several pictures from our IA trip...