Dietrich was actually pretty into the whole gift thing. Not so much the opening, but he did like the new toys and books.
Uncle Paul found a metal Tonka truck for Dietrich and even painted his name on it.
Having a little Christmas breakfast:
Opening presents at Great-Grandma Bonnie's house. 
Here are all the Great-Grandkids in front of the tree.
And here is everybody! 29 family members all together in one space at the same time.
A good time was had by all and now we are resting up and trying to get this house back in some sort of order!
Yes I am aware there is not a stocking for Dietrich yet. He does in fact have one, it will be beautiful and hand-made by this Mama, maybe by the year 2020. In the meantime I will be buying him one that hopefully sort of matches these and will puff paint his name on like the rest of us. Here is our GIANT tree! Everyone who comes in comments on how big it is. 12 feet tall to be exact. I have to stand on the "this is not a step" step on the ladder to reach the top. It took me three days to decorate. I think that my mom and Grandma have some of the most beautiful trees, they load them with gorgeous decorations. I'm trying to learn from them. I think this is my best tree yet, although I know this style of tree isn't for everyone. I received the greatest compliment from my sister-in-law Sarah last night, she said that she would have never thought to pick out a tree with so much space between the branches, but she loved how it looks. You can get so many ornaments on it and you can see through the tree to the ornaments in the back. I love that about the tree too, I'm glad she noticed :) (Side note: please ignore the pile of baby toys on the floor, we were playing).
Look I got a sort-of artistic shot of some ornaments:
I love how a tree looks when you lay on the floor and look up through the branches, here is a picture of my view:
I was teasing Bryce about how whenever we decorate the tree he is so excited but then only hangs up "his" ornaments. He told me "I get burned out." I told him I do too, but somebody has to finish the tree because it would look silly only partially done. This year he went to open up "his" box of ornaments (it has his name on it) only to discover that I have reorganized the way I pack them and "my" ornaments were in there too! HAHA!! He had to help me hang them all! It was a great strategy that I didn't even mean to have!
I am sure that in the 23 years since you built this oven you have learned that a zillion nooks and crannies is not a good idea on something where food is cooked, spilled, and burned. It is impossible to clean out these crannies. Trying this sort of deep cleaning will most likely result in deep cuts and near-serious blood loss. Now, why would you put sharp straight edges around the areas I want to clean? I am sure that other men and women who try to clean these appliances have shared this problem with you and I am sure that you no longer make ovens that are so lethal to those trying to clean them. Why, you might ask, do you continue to try and clean this man eating oven? Is that really a question that you should be asking of someone who still has blue Formica counter tops that were in style in the late 80's and are peeling off in several places? Of course I still have this monstrosity of a crazy child eating, thumb removing, oven because the blasted thing continues to work. Even the weird rotating clock continues to tell the correct time, and dinner is rarely even burned. Also, ovens are not cheap and as everyone here can recall we had to remodel our bathroom which took all the money we have. We will now have to wear jeans with holes and eat nothing but rice and potatoes, and hike 7 miles up hill in the snow. So GE, if you are feeling the least bit sorry about building this terrible, ugly, finger slicing, dirty cranny, monstrous oven, you can fix the issue by sending one of these my way:
Thank you, On Wednesday night Dietrich was able to have his first bath in the new bathroom. The tub is in, the tile is sealed, everything is caulked and we can finally use our shower! Dietrich loved it, he can finally play in the tub instead of taking a sink bath.
Bryce and I both agreed that our first shower in here was the best shower we ever had. The new shower head feels like it's raining and the bathroom is so bright and wonderful. I was going to go take some real "after" pictures for you, but when I walked into the bathroom I changed my mind. We don't have towel racks yet so towels are hanging on the shower curtain rod. My niece is here so there is a potty chair and stool in the bathroom. And Dietrich's blow up tub that you see here is leaning up against the wall. Oh to heck with it, here it is!
I love this new shower head. We raised it up quite a bit when we had the wall open so that we giants can stand under it. It feels so good! Check out those corner shelves, I love not having one of those hanging shower things that falls off all the time.
Here's the new handle and spout. Bryce had to do a little plumbing work to make this new handle work, it was of course more difficult than using a more plain model, but this one was so pretty!
This is our new light/fan. We didn't have a light or a fan in this bathroom before. Now the extra light is great in the shower and we no longer have a steamy mirror when we are done showering.
And this was our 2 year anniversary present from Bryce's family. We did not plan on replacing the toilet, because it still works and we really couldn't afford it right now. But it was gray, and was going to stand out in our new pretty bathroom. So Bryce's family bought us a gift card and we were able to buy this dual flush toilet. One flush for small things, another flush for big things. We like to be green and save water too :)
Now I need to pick out some new paint colors and new towel racks for the bathroom. I loved my teal walls, but they really don't go in this new pretty bathroom. I told Bryce he can have a break from house projects for a while, but after Christmas I am hoping to put in a new counter top and back splash, then we will be free of all the gray in the bathroom!
so that he can take a break from working to eat something (for once). He would also write about how I take care of this little guy all day:
Who by the way decided to get a tooth over the weekend. Bryce took last Friday off to start tiling. Our wonderful neighbor came over to give us a few pointers, and so that we could make sure we knew what we were doing (okay so that I knew that Bryce knew what he was doing). He tiled for 10 hours on Friday and 13 on Saturday. I cannot believe just how hard he can work. No way could I go all day the way he does. On Monday night he came home from work and did the grout in the shower until after 10:00. I am in love with the glass tile in the shower and I am really glad that we decided to do this pattern with the tile.
We also got a great deal on these shelves that we put in the corner. We paid for three and got one for free! So we were able to put two in the front and two in the back, no more crazy hanging thing that falls on your head during every shower.
On Saturday, Bryce was getting ready to start the floor and asked me if I wanted him to do accents with the glass tile like my mom has in her bathroom. I told him I had not planned on it so he could decide. I took a nap and when I got up, he had started the floor and had decided to do the glass tile accents. It made way more work and took much longer, but I think the floor is BEAUTIFUL!
Bryce is busy with Church stuff tonight so he is taking a break from the bathroom. Tomorrow he plans to grout the floor. Next week we should have it sealed and ready for an actual shower! We also put in a new light/fan and will be getting new towel racks and a new paint job, so as soon as I make some more decisions on those things I will have more pictures to show you!
Dietrich learning how to mud and tape the sheet rock. This will come in very handy in his life because clearly as soon as the kid can move he will be helping us remodel. This totally reminds me of how my friend Shawna came to town last night and her sister Sarah came too. Sarah was here once before, last January when we were working on the kitchen cabinets and had just finished the lower bedroom and laundry room. As Bryce worked away until 10:00 last night we all sat in the living room visiting. Poor guy has to go clear down to the garage to cut the tile because those water tile cutters are very messy. We all felt pretty bad watching him run up and down the stairs, and Sarah says to me "when will you be done with house projects?" "I'm pretty sure never."
And after finally making a zillion decisions on what color tile, which direction to lay it, what pattern to use, what to use for a border, and picking out shelves, Bryce could finally start tiling the shower yesterday.
Close up of the glass tile border.
Two walls done!
So far I can say that I totally LOVE IT! I was so worried about picking out something that I would walk in and just be kinda "meh" about. But I love this tile, and I love the glass tile boarder. I love that my husband took a day "off" of work to spend 12 hours working on the bathroom. And most of all I love that during this long project we have a SECOND BATHROOM!!!
He did wake up about two hours from Helena. He did pretty good for the first hour but we spent the second hour singing an interesting rendition of "Old MacDonald." This particular farm included a lion, cougar, chinchilla, and of course, a sperm whale. Bryce and I laughed at how we once bought two 30's of beer, stacked them all in the fridge and admired how beautiful they were, before throwing a party and drinking them all. Now we sing "Old MacDonald" to try to keep the baby from crying. How life has changed...
Here's Dietrich sporting his new Carroll hat:
He also decided to taste grass for the first time, I don't think he liked it much.
Here are our good friends Shawna and Bob hanging out with Dietrich.
Oh look, nap time (Carroll won 31-13).
He even slept through the canon that goes off every time Carroll scores.
Again we laughed about the many years that we spent Homecoming out late partying at the bar. This year we went straight home, had an amazing dinner prepared by Shawna and Bob, made homemade ice-cream, and we were all in bed by 11:30 (which was late!). How life has changed...
That's right, it's an old car...
But not just any old car. This car was purchased BRAND NEW in 1949 by Bryce's Great-Grandpa August Eschenbacher. He had to drive all the way to...(there is debate on this but it might have been Fargo) from Froid Montana. Several years ago Bryce's Dad went to Froid to pick it up. It had been garaged after they quit driving it until the cousin's who now own the farm decided it was in the way and they moved it out under a tree. Bryce's Dad decided to sell it to cousin Eric (pictured below) and when he didn't do anything with it Bryce offered to buy it from Eric. And then I married Bryce, so I guess that makes us the proud owners of this awesome old car.
Since Bryce lived in an apartment when he bought it his nice friend Jesse (below) let him store it at his house. But now he is married and his wife was ready for it to move on down the road. So last weekend we picked it up. Our amazing mechanic John Vandervert (Vandervert's Auto Repair, we highly recommend them) let us borrow his very nice car trailer so that we could move it home. Check this out these old tires actually HOLD air!
Look who gets to drive the car onto the trailer. Of course it's me! Because that is always my job. Someone needs a car on a trailer, let's call Keely! She'll do it!
Here's a picture of the steering wheel, since I was in here for a while during the car loading process. I think it's really cool.
Apparently Great-Grandpa August used this car like a truck. Why he didn't buy a truck? Who knows! But he bought this car. And when a new calf was born he would throw it in the back seat. Need to move some hay out to cows? Throw it on the back seat of the Packard! Inside is dirty? We'll just hose 'er down!
Look how happy these boys are to bring this car home!
Dietrich is helping Daddy make sure the car is on there nice a secure. 
Look Mom! I'm ready, I've got my keys and everything. (Dude, your son is in a pink flowery car seat. Shhh...don't tell him, it was on sale.)
And here she is. Parked lovingly next to our house. Bryce is very excited to tinker on this in his spare time (yeah right, like there is any of that around here), and I am excited to take the finished product to a car show someday...like when we are 50.
