You’re...
Not only mud
It’s been sooo cold out today! The ground is nice and hard and there’s a thin layer of ice on the pond and waterholes… and on the animal’s water bowls!
Yesterday Levi invited our neighbor-friend up to the house (and he brought McKayla along, which is his little sister, the one I normally babysit) and we played Ping-Pong in the barn for a while. That was rather interesting, since we all trying to play (including McKayla.. I was attempting to teach her how!!), so there were two us of on each side of the table. McKayla & I on one side, and Tre’ and Levi on the other.
Then, after a while, we all went in the house to play Hide N’ Seek. And really, there’s not many places to hide in the house, and you have to think really hard to find a good spot! Levi, Tre’, and I went through all the past “What Am I?” cards that I’ve posted on my blog, and some other Bible card question game. We all enjoy doing that. 
Levi and I had to put all the animals in last night again (and tonight, and every night it gets real cold), since it got down to 12 degrees! Those guineas refuse to go in the box by themselves, so we still have to put them in. It’s a good thing the ground was frozen, because it gets awful slippery and really muddy in there after it rains. Only.. it’s not only mud, if you get what I mean! 
I’ve almost slipped and fell in there before when it was really muddy and we went to put them in. It would have been absolutely terrible to land in that stuff!!! Ewwww.
Levi managed to escape out of the house with the camera today and got some pictures of the ice crystals, the waterholes, and the deck we put over the buried tank.
There.. that’s the deck we built over top the tank, complete with a nice set of steps. Now that’s where Gabriel stands and howls at the neighbors! Me, trying to lean down and get a nice looking ice crystal I found, and the next one is it. And Gabriel. I was trying to keep him away from the ice, since he has a habit of stepping on ice on the pond in the barnyard (which isn’t deep, so I don’t worry about that one) and I was trying to keep him from doing it on the waterhole where it was deep!!
Daddy has a touch of the flu — sore throat, cough, nose and head plugged up, etc. He did have a fever the other day, but managed to get rid of that, so he does feel a bit better. So far the rest of us haven’t gotten it, and I sure hope we don’t! (We have a dentist appointment next Tuesday to get my next three sets of aligners!)
God bless you all this Christmastide and I pray blessings upon you as you reflect upon the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas!
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Hi! I have a ping-pong idea for you. My little cousins, my brother, husband and I all love to play ping-pong and had to come up with a way so all of us could play at the same time. We invented “One Bounce” which we taught to our church youth group as well and we all love it! You don’t even need the net! We all circle the table with paddles (no particular spot) and determine the order in which people will hit the ball. The first person serves (nicely) and the ball can hit the table as many times as needed but it must bounce on the floor one time before the next person hits it. If the person doesn’t hit is after one bounce on the ground, they are out. You continue like this until there is only one person left. It is really a lot of fun because everyone is running all around the table and it makes it easy for younger kids because the ball has to hit the floor once. Hopefully that makes sense, as weird as it might sound it is really fun! We actually set up a ping-pong table in my aunt’s garage (which is very cold in Wisconsin winters!) so we would have enough room to play. Have a great day!
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