Snow day!

We had a MAJOR snow day a couple of weeks ago. The kids were out of school for 2 days and we had snow hang around for 5 days in our yard. That's pretty major here, as usually the snow melts the same day it falls. There were lots of trees breaking and it was beautiful all around us!

The cows were a little freaked out by the white ground. They did come for hay though. I had to chip thick ice off of their water for 3 days! That was getting old.

The kids had a great time playing in the snow. The best part was that they could come inside and dry off unlike when we go to the snow. Once you're wet and tired we go home! The dryer got a work out until Daddy lit the fire. Then I cooked the clothes until they were dry.

I love how the snow accumulates on the fences and tree branches. It's amazing how it builds up on the smallest surfaces.

Here is my German Shepard. Look at how DEEP it was!!! Ha, ha. Just kidding. She's a Corgi and only has 4 inch legs. I think we ended up with about 8-10 inches. Sophie LOVES the snow and jumps around making little paths with her belly. She's a cold weather doggie.

Here's my car. It had a snow "blanket" for 2 days. Then it finally melted enough and slid off in the parking lot when we went driving into town on day 2 of the kids being home from school. Um, 2 snow days can be a little hard when the had just come off of a weekend. Snow days should happen on Thursdays and Fridays, not Mondays and Tuesdays!

Ok, that was enough snow for a while. We aren't used to snow that much so after a couple of days we're tired of it. I couldn't live with it for months at a time. No way!

Egg anyone?

Can you guess what this is?

Here's another hint...

You won't believe this!

Look at the worlds smallest chicken egg! I almost stepped on it one morning when I was going out to let the chickens out of the coop. One of my new babies is learning! Too bad humans don't start small and work up to the LARGE eggs...

Being thankful

Lots to be thankful for this year. The older the kids get the more they are thankful for traditions. Hay rides, desserts, taking a walk after dinner to pick out ornaments at Nicholson's Blown Glass down the road, all things they look forward to every Thanksgiving. They have it easy though. We used to get towed around in a rickety trailer with tractor exhaust burning out our sinuses. Pansies.



This is a tradition that's been carried on in many families, but I still like to think we're the only ones that do this. My Aunt Cathy used to always make sure we dawned our olive fingers every Thanksgiving. Of course I taught my kids to do the same.

Another tradition, my mom always in the kitchen whipping up great food. We are always thankful for her skill and hard work.

Hummm. Somehow this one is out of order and I don't feel like fixing it! Olive fingers never get old. I must admit I even had my olive fingers on at one point as I stood quietly in the corner. Don't tell anyone though!

We hope your holiday was filled with tradition and family!

A couple of holiday crafties

Merry Christmas! I'm a sucker for crocheted Christmas stuff. I think it reminds me of my Grammie Crabtree sending out little tree ornaments every year along with various other homemade items. She made snowmen, wreaths, trees, etc. all out of yarn. I still have a couple of her ornaments hanging on the tree. (That's one of the fun parts about decorating the tree. I love to pull out an ornament and remember what the story is behind it.) My sister in-law Jessica(Chris's sister) asked what kinds of things to make for Christmas for her craft website where she makes handmade items to sell. I asked about a snowman. Then she sent me a pic of the man with an orange scarf. Then I asked about a snow lady. The red hat wearin' snow lady was born. Well, you can't have a snow couple without a couple of snow kids to go along with them! Now they are sitting on my counter!

I also made my first "real" quilt this past fall, which means it wasn't frayed edge. I did quilt as you go on this one. It is a bread warmer that I made for my mom out of Christmas fabrics. I have lots more crafties to finish before Christmas. School teacher gifts, piano teacher gift, birthday gift, Christmas pillows that I've been wanting to make, aah, I'm not sure I'm going to get it all done. Oh well. There's always next year for my pillows. The other stuff can't wait!!! Better get busy! Hope you're all enjoying your holiday preparations!

Yeahhhhh! Heeeyyy thereeeee! Been a while. Lots of things going on and not much in the way of picture taking and blogging. Not been inspired as of late.


Of course I always have animal pictures. Molly thought she had an edge on the fish finally when I was changing rock a couple of weeks ago. I thought she was going to jump right in!

My dog can be a bit of a pest in the kitchen...as you can see. Hello mommie! Whatcha doing up there???

Umm, I think I can taste test it for you...

See? I told you I've not been inspired! I'll try to get some snow pictures up. Yep! We had a bunch of snow this month! Quite festive for the holiday season! Hope you're all toasty warm! Peace out!

Happy Halloween!

We went to my bf's house to trick or treat this Halloween. Her sister helped decorate the house and make a haunted house in the garage. The dads were in charge of scare while us moms took the kids around the neighborhood to trick or treat. The funny part is we made it to about 10 houses and the kids wanted to go hang out and scare kids too. That meant about a sandwich bag of candy that was gone the next day! SCORE!!! Us adults dresses up this year, which is a first for me. I'm missing some pics that I'll have to get from Marcy but here are a few to start.


Amber LOVED trick or treating! She would head right up to the door and work her way inbetween the kids. Then she'd say, "Get more candy!" and head to the next house. She walked the ENTIRE way around the block. Not bad for a two year old! She was a bugga for Halloween. She was not a bugga, however, that was interested in wearing her wings. She only wanted to be a bugga without wings.

Here is Evan fighting with his mask. Why do they always want the masks? They end up hating them about half way through and taking them off anyway.

Here is Amanda as a vampire. Yes, I broke down and let her start reading Twilight. Heck, after having to have the sex talk with her what's the big deal about a little teen vampire romance?

Here is Mama, I mean Marcy. Sadly, there are no pictures on my camera of my costume...sigh. Marcy said I looked like Flo from the show Alice. The best part about our old lady costumes is we could pad ourselves up and let our guts hang out! Much better than all of those trashy devil and hooker costumes you see for women in the stores. We only needed about 12 pairs of socks to fill out our Dollar Store double d's!

I'll try to get more pictures. It was pretty funny. They had the squeemish kids screaming and running away and the daring kids saying it was cool. Amber didn't think it was scary since she knew that Dracula was her Papa and Daddy was the "pink nightmare" bunny from A Christmas story, and Chris was the scary skull masked Jester at the door. Don't try to put bugga wings on her though. Thems fightin' words right there.

Animals we can eat...

Well, we finally were able to start on our venture to raise beef on our own property. After much fence fixing we're hoping they will decide to stay and be babied for a year or so. We knew a guy that knew a guy that sold cattle and went over to pick some out. "Go ahead and pick one you like." Uh, the brown one? The cute one? The one that doesn't look sick? I went for one that looked healthy and was Hereford. That was my criteria. Then he did the 20 question cowboy that is selling to city slickers routine that pissed me right off. I just stood there taking the brunt of his attitude. I just wanted to kick him and tell him I'm not a city girl and grew up raising beef with my dad. Instead I just played along. I didn't get REALLY irritated until he said, "Why do you want a smaller cow? I sell beef to people like you all day long that come over and want a cow. You're better off buying it bigger, even up to 1000 pounds. You won't have to put as much feed into it." I wanted to tell him that what's the point in having him feed it God knows what and giving him $700 to $800 more money, knowing I won't have that much more in hay in the smaller cow by the time I do it in next summer and I also just put one in the freezer from my parent's house and I want my kids to experience raising their own food anyway. A city slicker would just prefer to buy the big cow giving you more profit right away and do it in right away for immediate cow in the freezer, wouldn't they??? We like to take our time and do it the right way, thank you. He also kept telling me to call him if I had any problems and was concerned I wasn't going to know if they looked sick or something annoying like that. ANYhoo, we're going to the auction next time. We want drop calves so the kids can bottle feed them. THAT'S fun!
Here is Bubba. This is my best friend's cow that is keeping ours company. He is Hereford and Brama cross and quite shy. Although I'm finding out he's the curious one. He's almost opened the gate twice in the last week. I always catch him playing with the chain. He's also the only one I ever hear Moo.

This is our Gus Gus. He's the protector and can be a bit pushy at food time. I have to separate the alfalfa a little or he hogs a bit. He also attempted to challenge me to a stand off when I was chasing them out of the fruit tree enclosure that they busted in to. They mostly run away when I try to pet them but they have also discovered that not only do I provide them hay and water, but I also have a YUMMY grain treat that is sweet and only given in small amounts so they are slowly wearing down.

Come Boss! They pay attention to the back door and come running when it's time to eat. They also don't understand the time change and think 4pm this week is just as good as 5pm was last week.

Now Chris can say I got an animal that we can eat. That is his rule. No more animals unless we can eat them! Now to convince him that some countries eat horse meat...

Winner, winner no fish dinner!

Look who won the fishing derby this time up at Nana's house! I'm glad too because otherwise my life would have been miserable! You see, Amanda won last time and Evan was bent. This time Evan won and Amanda was bent. Can't you just be happy for each other? It's Labor Day Weekend and lots of kids would just be happy to BE here!!!

By the time they were judged those poor fish were kind of dried out and gross. That's fine by me cause I'm not cooking fish in the 5th wheel. Plus it's lake fish so there is a bit of nasty that you can't get rid of. I'm a firm whitefish from the ocean kind of girl. Even then I prefer it battered and smothered in vinegar and tartar sauce...

Let's Go Dragons!

Evan started playing soccer this year. Thankfully, he loves it! He ended up staying on the under 8 league since his 8th birthday was just after the cutoff. We decided that was ok since he'd never played before outside of with Dad in the front yard. Better to be the older kid than the youngest kid on your first year! Most of his teammates are in first grade and are first year players. You can't really tell by their heights. Evan is a shortie and blends right in! Skill level is a different story though. It makes me realize how much he's matured in the last couple of years
The soccerama day turned out to be HOT. Poor kids were melting at their scrimmage game. Where's Fall when you need it?

We found some shade while waiting for the parade to start. Ugh! This little guy next to me is on Evan's team. Tears started after his mom left so I felt bad and sat with him.

This, though, is my favorite picture of the day. Can you say 9 year old drama? Heaven forbid if she does something for her brother...even after he sat through practices and games for her softball career last Spring. Actually, she's getting off light since his practices are twice a week for an hour and hers were 3 times a week for 1 1/2 hours. His games are also only 40 minutes long. She better stop complaining! Wait, I'm not sure that's possible. What is it with 9 year olds anyway?

Poor thing! She's being tortured!

Evan's new bike

Here is Evan's birthday present. He was finally ready for a bigger bike...barely. The seat's in the loooowwwest position. He thinks he's big stuff now since he has gears and hand brakes.

How come they need a new bike every couple of years? Evan looked like a giant on his old bike. Chris, being a bit of a bike snob, requires their bikes to come from the bike shop. He detests heavy, cheap bikes and spent so much time fixing their first bikes from a mega chain store that we aren't allowed to go there again.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 8th Birthday!

Evan turned 8 this August. Although we'd transitioned into kid parties over the last couple of years, this year I did a family party for Evan as well. Last year we were living at my parent's house after we'd sold our house and hadn't found property to buy yet. He kind of missed out on the birthday thing. He'd say to me, "Remember when I didn't have a birthday last year?" Ugh, take the knife out of my heart! The weather was perfect that day, thankfully since I'm known for having BBQ's when it's 104.

There was lots of scooter/bike fun on the driveway---

Kid food on the grill---

Tree climbing, of course---

Sorenson cousins brought a stomp rocket/bubble blower---lots of fun---

Played games like egg passing, water bombs, and penny toss/candy games. It was pretty intense! The cutest was watching Luke, my brother's youngest, walk so carefully with his egg.

I also, drumroll please, FINALLY finished Evan's frayed edge quilt! It only took me 3 years to finally focus on finishing it!

The back side

And the front.

It fits his twin bed and is nice and big for couch snuggling.

Then it was time for banana splits and snickerdoodles as per Evan's request. How easy can it get? Whew! Hopefully this will make up for Birthday 2008, or lack of. Happy Birthday E!!

Hellooo!

Helloooo! (Imagine Mrs. Doubtfire here) I know, I know. I've been away for a long time. My life is busy, as is everyone elses, and I chose to focus on trying to keep the house under control so I'd also stay under control. The end of the summer brought on the last of our crops. Can you imagine the haul of tomatoes on thirty some odd plants? Even with this being such a bad year for tomatoes and some of the plants not producing we still had a ton. We made sauce, stewed, and salsa'd til I couldn't take it anymore. STOP PICKING!!!! I grew tired of my counters being covered and my table having a beach towel full of tomatoes on it.

Guess what?!? I already miss fresh tomatoes. Is that sick or what?

I promise to be a better blog buddy and will catch up on the past couple of months the rest of this week. We had fishing derbies, birthdays, soccer, sewing, and of course, more animal pictures. Hope you are all doing well! Love you!

Busy!

School's back in session, and I'm busy. I've been so tired lately and realized yesterday that it must be because I now do all of the house stuff plus work and after school activities. Evan started soccer practices and his first scrimmage is tomorrow. I've got pictures of what's been going on but not had time to blog about them. I have no idea how long it will be before I get to it so I'll leave you with this question...How many bb's does it take to kill a skunk in my hen yard at 4:30 in the morning? Chris knows. And he's probably getting a 22 for Christmas. Poor guy! AND my house reeks like skunk. Too bad I was so tired and didn't get up to help or I might have had a more descriptive account of the situation.

Have a great weekend!

More fruits, and veggies of our labor...food and otherwise.

Um, I'm now sick of squash, for this year anyway. The chickens are excited about this fact. They've been getting zucchini and cucumbers thrown in to them daily. The tomatoes, bell peppers and jalapenos are now ready...finally. Salsa anyone???

Here is a sneak peak at Evan's quilt that I've had in the works for 2 years. Now to just wash it and act like it's a surprise on his birthday since he's seen it. I gave up staying up late to work on it when he wasn't looking. The best part is IT'S DONE!!! Now we have a fun trip going to the laundrymat to use their oversized machines. I just love experiencing the laundrymat culture.

Here is Amanda's book bag for school. I just barely finished this one by the hair on my chinny chin chin. School starts tomorrow. I need to lengthen the strap a little, but other than that she loves it. It's stuffed with school supplies that we got yesterday. She is so excited to be in 4th grade!

We got a little crazy on the front with the embroidery settings on my machine(Maybelle).

This bag was a bit of an experiment since I worked from a pattern and picture we found on the internet and just changed the size up a little. One thing I've noticed on the free patterns you find on the internet is the directions are usually lacking. If I hadn't just made up 11 grocery bags made with similar lining concepts I'd have not been able to complete it properly. These people need to edit their directions better. They forget key parts that make a huge difference, like don't sew the handle all the way to the top since you have to tuck it down inside when you are sewing the lining to the outside. That way when you turn it the right side out the handle is on the OUTSIDE instead of the INSIDE. I think I'll write them a note. They forgot that whole step. Anyway, bookbags are packed and awaiting a lunchbag and school starts tomorrow. I see some closet organizing going on today in preparation for tomorrow. Fall is near, and I'm ready!