Hockey 101

John enjoyed his first experience playing hockey today. For Christmas, Grandpa Ted gave John & Brielle a hockey goal, 2 hockey sticks & 2 hockey pucks.

Christmas Eve in a Winter Wonderland

It snowed the prettiest flakes all day on Christmas Eve, and it truly felt like a winter wonderland. We spent the day at Grandpa Ted & Grandma Carol's house... taking full advantage of the beautiful day & all the fun activities that we can do there.

Tim, Alexia, & I went snowshoeing across the lake.

We went sledding down the "bobsled chute" that Grandpa Ted spent several days building. The bottom of the chute leads right onto the ice rink, so it was fun to land on the rink, slide all the way across... then off the other side of the rink, ending back in the snow!

Here are Alexia & Brielle:

Here's Tim:

Here's John:

I was having some trouble steering this sled... :)

...and so Alexia showed me a better way:

We also enjoyed Grandpa's ice rink for the first time:

John did awesome on his new pair of double-runner skates. He didn't need us to hold his hands at all.

Winter ATV rides

First, Tim & John went for a ride.

In the above photo, you can see the awesome ice rink that Grandpa Ted has made for us this year.

After John got back, Brielle was ready to go for her ride.

Both kids had a lot of fun and were excited to tell Grandma & Grandpa about it as soon as they got back into the house.

2 1/2 tomorrow!

John will be "officially" 2 1/2 years old tomorrow. He is quite the talker. The other day when Larry, our painter, was here to touch up a wall, John talked to him for 15 minutes straight. Here are some examples:

Tim: "John, do you want to come upstairs or stay down here by Larry?"

John: "I'll stay by Larry, Dad."

John: "This is our piano. Grandma plays 'Dinah won't you blow your horn'. You play piano?"

John: "Grandma Berning lives on the farm. She plays 'Dinah won't you blow your horn'."

Larry: "How old are you?"

John: "I'm 2. I'm John Joseph Berning."

Making cut-out cookies with Dad

(Yes, Jolene, Tim beat me to making cookies with the kids this year... again! But he did not wear the new apron:)... )

And she does her own hair :)

How 2 & 3 year-olds frost a cake...

Let it snow!!

In the past 24 hours the Dubuque area has received 8+ inches of snow. John and Brielle were very excited to go out and play. As we were getting their snow pants and jackets on John discovered his snow pants make noise when he walks. After getting dressed Brielle demonstrated how she will make a snow fairy, aka snow angel.


Once outside Brielle created her first snow fairy of the year while John helped shovel snow while our neighbor Joe helped clear the snow from our driveway with his John Deere tractor.