The Muench Bunch

2018 width="240" 4/9/18  Guitar- Luke has been taking guitar lessons once or twice a month with Mich from our church. He is a great guy and has really given Luke a good start. They enjoy each other and have fun talks about farming. Mich encouraged Luke to get some lessons learning to read music. With homeschool, Luke doesnt have any exposure to music class or learning any music. We lined up lessons with Keith from Reimen music in Ames the first of this year. Luke is a quick learner and really picked up reading the notes fast. He moved pretty quickly through the first of his book and I think he really impressed his instructor. i know I was impressed. Recently, Keith has been teaching Luke how to play the beginning of "Sweet Home Alabama" and he is getting it. We scheduled lessons Thursdays and go to taekwondo later in the evening. Coordinating them on the same day has worked well. Taekwondo - Luke has advanced all the way through the colored belts and recently

On New Years Eve we packed our stuff, took the boys and headed to Cedar Rapids to stay with the Buhr's. They had invited us about a month ago to come celebrate New Years and stay at their new house. The roads were questionable with a snow, sleet, rain mix, but temps stayed above freezing by a degree or two. We got to the house and had a lots of munchies and a big meal fixed by Angelia. She really enjoys hospitality and goes all out to serve. The boys spent the remainder of the night on the video games on a big screen in the basement. Lizzy, Sam and her boyfriend basically watched them play. Not my idea of fun, but nobody complained. We had board games packed but they never came out of the bag. The adults did a lot of visiting and watched a movie. At midnight we had confetti poppers, the real kind with TNT that sounded like a gun went off. We each had one and shot them off in the house leaving behind bits of paper everywhere. Leave it to Dan, he always has the gadgets and explosives

Brock Purdy turned me into a football fan after 2 games. I am not a big football fan, but I have been an ISU fan ever since I started college. I rarely ever watch a game. i am notorious for catching the last 3 minutes of a game because to me that is when all the action happens. We attended the first game of the season for a whole 3 minutes. The next game I happened to tune in on the radio because I was driving home from my parents and bored. It was exciting and I kept hearing the name Purdy mentioned and he was a freshmen. Just hearing hsi name and the great passes and touchdowns and how exciting it was got me into the game. It took me another game hearing his name over and over and I became a fan. I figured he was a talented black kid from Perry Iowa. I mentioned something to Jayden about this freshmen who was stealing the show at all the games. She said she followed him on Instagram and was so impressed that he is a christian and posts bible versus. My fan status rose and I was now

Alice had mentioned to me that she wished the kids could spend the night like they had one year before Christmas. She also talked about how it would be fun to have the kids play cards with her and she had a certain game she wanted to show them. I felt an urgency to make plans and have the kids plan as many things with Alice as we could, so I made arrangements and panned a night when I knew all the kids would be available. Friday after Christmas, Alivia and my kids went to spend some time with Alice playing games and having snacks. Alice popped some popcorn and had candies and snacks ready. She taught the kids her card game that she enjoys playing with her lady friends called "Seven". The kids caught on quick and we played a few rounds. We also played a few rounds of the board game, "Payroll". There was a lot of laughing and fun had by all of us. The kids enjoyed the time with Alice and she enjoyed them. I am glad they got to make that memory .

Christmas Eve we had our Williams traditional annual Christmas with family. We went to my parents right after lunch. Somehow things got mis-communicated and mom forgot to tell Alice we were meeting before church. Sadly she was only able to come later in the evening. Her health hasn't been well and she has been moving slower and getting tired easier.  Mom wanted everyone to open all the gifts from her. She likes to get all kinds of gifts for everyone. It was loud and it was crazy. Levi was busy and into every cupboard and running around. He loves the ceiling fan and light switches. Grandpa made him a switchboard with all kinds of things he can tinker with. He can't say words yet, just mumbles and jibbers all the time. We went to Williams for the evening Christmas candlelight service. I sat next to Alice and the boys on the other side. I knew she had not been to church in a month and everyone would want to see her and talk to her. I know just her being there was a lot for her an

Mick asked Luke to join him in playing for our church Christmas program. He had been practicing for a couple months to get ready. Luke played the Sunday before Christmas and played Silent Night. He was very excited about getting to play on stage with the worship team. Mark took him in early for practice and he played for the first service at 8:45 and the second service 10:45. This fall our church started holding two services every Sunday! God is good. Luke looked so cute up there on stage jamming with the team. He did a great job, strummed along and he enjoyed it. Hopefully that motivates him to keep at it.

December 2018 .... We picked out a live Christmas tree from a tree farm. The tree height just didn't match up to the size. We brought one home and it seemed even smaller in our house. After two weeks the needles were drying and falling out with plenty of  watereing, I sent it outside and put up our fake tree. I was a little irritated. Tim threw a surprise birthday party at Karen and Orrie's house. He specifically told me not to bring a gift, I must have been the only one he told because everyone did.  I am glad I brought something too. We don't spend a lot of time with the Anderlik's anymore. Our families seem to have grown apart. It makes me sad. At her party it was our family and the Anderlik relatives. Ferarri's were unable to attend.   We made a visit to see Ila in mid-December. The boys and I took some banana bread and Luke brought his guitar. He played some songs for Ila which she loved. She was thrilled we could be there. She is such a sweet lady.  Our

Entrepreneur... Jayden has become quite the little business girl. Last summer she bought a western tote bag,  always liked the bag and thought it would be fun to try to sell them. Her strategy was to make herself known on Twitter with lots of followers. I don't have a Twitter account or even know much about it. She tells me she has to post frequently and keep people interested. She posts a lot about rodeo, horses, and western fashion. She did her research on the tote bags and discovered she had to order a minimum of 15 and pay shipping costs. The bags are sold in El Paso, Texas from a wholesale store. They are most likely made in Mexico, are quality made, southwestern print, and currently popular in the western world. On Thursday December 13, Jayden listed her bags on Twitter. Right away she received messages and sold one after the other. Within 24 hours she sold all 15. She marked the bags up from what she bought them making $15/bag. The next shipment she decided to order more of

Mark's shoulder recovery had gone so well, he decided last minute to attend a Farm conference in Omaha, AKA Farmers Business Network.  He sprung the idea on me short notice and I got pretty stressed out. All I could think of was the bad the timing, I am trying to finish getting all my shopping done for Christmas and trying to finish up the boys school semester. I have expectations for them and things I wanted to finish and be done next week. Then there is the boys and all their activities. Luke needs to take extra guitar lessons so he is ready for his church program. After I calmed down and thought it through I agreed to go. It turned out to be a much needed escape. I got to take my mind off all the chaos at home. Mark went to meetings and I did some shopping. In the evening the guest speaker was Captain Sully Sullenberger who landed the airplane on the Hudson river. His retelling of the event and his story was just amazing. We ate appetizers and stayed in a nice hotel, all expense