The Kohlmans

CHRISTMAS! One of the ways we kept busy during the ice storm was to put up Christmas decorations. Since we're living at the farm, we had to limit ourselves this year. We put up a little tree in the basement with our ornaments.

Right after Thanksgiving we had a two-day ice storm. It wasn't as bad as some have been in the past, but we were definitely staying home for the duration! After about 36 hours of ice, Lincoln and I ventured outside to check out what was going on.

We spent Thanksgiving in Emporia at Jim and Sheila's house -good food and good company!

We were all "off" the day before Thanksgiving, so we took a little trip to the zoo. This was the first time we let Lincoln go to the petting zoo. We thought he might be scared, but he loved petting the sheep! Lincoln also made several attempts to chase the birds in the rain forest. This was the first time we've found Grandma Sue's brick! It's by the bears, and now that we found it once, we can check on it any time! We also bought some lettuce for Lincoln to feed the baby giraffe, but he was not game. We have loved our zoo membership this year!

While we were at Grammy and Grampy's on Halloween, Lincoln got to help carve a pumpkin. He was very interested in scraping the sides, but he wouldn't touch any of the insides of the pumpkin. Thankfully Aunt Leah was there to help!

Lincoln spent about nine months of this year saying that he wanted to be Dorothy for Halloween. At the beginning of October, though, he changed his mind and decided to be a little brown bear. We started the day with several rounds of the fishing game, Lincoln's surprise from Grammy and Grampy for doing so well with potty training. Brad had to try out the hat. It almost fits! We went up to Cottonwood Falls for Halloween. There was a special event for kids in the park. They had several different games that Lincoln got to play, then a costume parade. Lincoln loved his bear costume, but he thought the hat choked him when it was buttoned. He pulled it off most of the time. He was so serious about pinning the stem on the pumpkin that he had his eyes squeezed shut tight under the blindfold! We ended the evening roasting hot dogs and marshmallows at Barb and Jeff's. ...