Hockey Helpers

The boys got to be little hockey helpers for the local high school here. It was adorable! They were able to do it for two different games. I wish I would have signed them up for more because of how cute they are skating with the high school boys. One of the players is the son of Grant's first grade teacher last year. That was a cool surprise to see her there with quite a few other teachers that the kids all recognized from their school. Hudson and Grant helped pick up pucks from the rink, skated with the players and lined up with the team as their names were announced.

Game 1

We were able to stay and watch most of the game before going home to put the kids to bed.

Quinn was especially tired so we all started making faces to cheer her up. Luckily it worked.

Rylee Girl wanted to put on the hockey gear and got it on all on her own.

Game 2

Fargo Santa

Addie's orthodontist's office had a visit from Santa so we took the kids to see him. The twins were especially cute around him. It does feel weird having them be the only two now out of the kids to believe but to watch the older kids be excited for them is awesome to witness.

Addie helped the girls write their letters. 💗

Rylee Mae

Quinnie Rue

Grant was having a little pout session and didn't want to be in the group picture so we took a Santa picture with the four that wanted it. Grant regretted that choice after when he realized we did it anyway. Oh well. Kids will definitely keep you on your toes.

Finger Injury

*Trigger warning. These pictures might be too much to look at.

Quinn recently injured two of her fingers in a freak accident. I'm not even sure if I know how to describe it in a way that would make sense but I'll try. The first thing to understand is that here in North Dakota the wind can be very strong. On windy days if we have the back door open the same time as the garage door then the wind will flow through the house and slam the door to the garage closed; which makes sense because with the layout of the house it's almost a straight path from the garage to the back door making it easier for the wind to travel through. Well this time that's similar to what happened except that the back door wasn't opened at all. Quinn was in the garage opening the door to come in. All of the kids were out riding their bikes at the time. Danny went to open the front door at the same time that Quinn was opening the garage door when the wind did a curve ball through our house and slammed the door to the garage on Quinn's little fingers. That was the first time we had seen it done from the front door being opened. That little girl screamed so loud, it was so sad. We thought for sure they were broken by her screams alone. Once we were able to get her to let us look at them we could see one of them was immediately purple and swelling up. Fortunately after an xray was done at the clinic we could see that there weren't any breaks. They gave us the choice to relieve some swelling by burning a small hole in her fingernail but also stated that it wasn't necessarily needed since she seemed to handling it much better once we were in the clinic and the initial shock and pain of it had passed so we chose to go back home.

Nov 22, 2025

Silly girl.

Nov 24, 2025

Within two days it was starting to look really bad.

Nov 25, 2025

This was day three. Not the best pictures but I was trying to get an angle that would show how puffy her finger was starting to get. Her whole nail bed was seeming to rise as well. 

We were in the middle of a blizzard but because of how it was looking and how dark her finger was I thought it would be best to not wait until morning and to just take her to the hospital to get the blood drained from her fingernail. The morning would have probably been just fine but I'm glad I took her anyway. As soon as it was drained we could see some instant color return to her nail. Unfortunately there is no way of saving her nail so we expect it to fall off soon but the good thing is that it should grow back just fine. 

She loved this Christmas tree and how tall it was.

Dec 4, 2025

This is what it looks like exactly two weeks later. I'm surprised the nail hasn't fallen off yet but we can definitely see it won't be hanging on much longer and then her real nail can continue to heal and grow back.