Fathers Day

OK, so today I am playing catchup today with my posts.

Some of my best times are spent with my family! 

This is our new fashion statement.



At least  at the bowling alley! 

We hardly ever go bowling, although when we do

we sure have fun!!!!!!

I have a hard time thinking up new things to do that

will appeal to all of our ages . . . I wanted us to do something special to celebrate Father's Day,

because Kent is an awesome Father!



Bowling was a hit with everyone.

 

I love spending time with my family!

The score at the end turned out good too. :)

Family

We are having another busy weekend, but aren't they all.  My nephew and his wife and little daughter are here this weekend.  We always enjoy having them visit, and my children along with the rest of us love playing games with them.  They always bring some new ones to teach us and some of them are way over my head. :)  At least with the number of hours of sleep that I usually get.

Thursday we did lots of baking for the weekend.  (Garlic bread and cake for church,  and food for entertaining.  We also did some deep cleaning.

Friday was finally sunny, but windy and rather chilly.  My nephew and his family stopped by in the afternoon and played a game.  Kent came home from work a little early and then we tried our skill at the new game we had learned.  (Forbidden Island)

Satruday we spent all morning cooking and baking cinnamon rolls for our May Baskets.  We love our May basket tradition.  Even though it falls on Sunday this year, we are still going to go ahead and deliver our baskets.  In the afternoon we went to a local farm that is designed to operate like the Joel Salatin farm.  He had some sheep, chickens, calfs and a rather intimidating llama.  Then my nephew and his family, along with my parents came over for supper, and of course a few more games. :)  We had our favorite meal of burritios, with homemade tortillas, guacamole, hummus, sauted onions, sour cream, lettuce, homemade salsa, seasoned meat and jalopenos.  Yum, Yum!  Of course we had some baked goods from my sweet little bakers.  Katelyn loves to bake and does so daily if I let her.  She gets up at around 6:30 does her chores, school and by late morning she is asking what she can bake for breakfast the next day.  She is heaven sent!!!!!!  She made us some wonderful chocolate chip cookies and Rachel made some whoopie pies.  They turned out great!

I so enjoy spending time with my family.  Even though we spent much of the day in the kitchen, I can honestly say it was fun.  We were all out there working toghether.  Even Jacob helped us out making the tortillas, start to finish.

Journaling . . .

I have decided to "try" and journal. I have realized that I am a terrible blogger, but perhaps that I can journal. We will see. :)

This past weekend we went to the Peoria Homeschool Convention (Kent, Faith and I). We had a much needed break from routine and although tired, we had a nice little get-a-way. The speaker was John Stonestreet and his talks we on World Vision. He was a good speaker, representing Summit Ministries in Colorado. They have a world vision curriculum that we are considering doing with the children. We were gone from Friday morning until Saturday evening. This is the first break we have had in about 2 years. We really needed it. :)

Monday morning started off a little slow, with my sister bringing some pants for Michelle to hem up. The sewing machines didn't want to cooperate and it took most of the morning. It was probably was God, reminding me that life doesn't go according to my schedule and I need to relax and let life happen according to His plan. Here I was just back from the homeschool convention, ready to really implement MY schedule. Of course with having a baby and a 18 month year old at the begining of the school year, nothing has really gone as planned anyway. In retrospect, I wish there was a way that I could have just skipped school this past year and taken more time to enjoy my two little ones. Summer is upon us and I am going to soak in as many carefree summer days with all of them as I can!

We recently accquired 50 chickens to raise for meat. So far we have just lost 1. Not too bad. The one that died was one of the largest ones and Jacob thinks that maybe its head was too big to fit into the feeder and maybe it starved to dearh. Poor thing! We took care of that problem A.S.A.P. The chicks are a little over 2 weeks old.

                                                                          Then

                                                                         Now

Giveaway

There is a wonderful giveaway happening at http://happilydomestic.blogspot.com!

Summer . . . where did it go??

Summer. I love summer, or at least the thought of it. When that first blast of warmer air comes our way I am always so ready for days of leaving the house without having to bundle everyone up, not having to deal with all the coats, muddy boots, and soggy hats & mittens, but there is nothing better than going barefoot. :) You will be hard pressed to find us with shoes on most any day of the year while at home, but to be able to go outside in the summer with no shoes on is the best. Ok, so my children will laugh or complain, when they read this, because I try to enforce wearing shoes when you are outside. . . you might step on a nail, thistle or who knows what. I do have a hard time making them live by my rule, as I have been caught way too many times outside without shoes on! :)

I was looking forward to this summer. I was going to spend time enjoying my tiny little baby and decorating our country home with my girls. Summer was going to go by slowly in a relaxed state. Well I did enjoy my summer, but some of it went by in a sleep deprived blur. :) I did enjoy my days, but it all went to fast and those things that we all love . . . entertaining our friends, going on walks and special outings together, just took much more energy than then I would have liked. Although spending the spring fixing up our country home and moving in just a week before baby #8 was born, may have had something to do with that. :) In looking back through the many pictures that were taken, I can see that many good memories were made. Memories are important to me. I like to be a part of making good memories for my children. I think that it makes the not quite so fun times more bearable and our family more of a team. We love doing things together, and having fun.

As school gets underway and the days get colder, I look forward to making more memories. There will be the late night games, time with other homeschoolers, yummy winter snacks, holidays with family and don't forget the good books we will read.

My tiny baby!

Somehow my little boy is not so little anymore either.



2010 Summer Memories! God is Good!

Jacob made a "crop duster" for Grace, who enjoyed seeing one fly over our house many times this summer.

Trying out a new way to cookout over the fire.


Hiking





Eating playdough. Yum. Yum.

Jacob preparing for hunting season.

Homeschool Campout Drama

My precious baby!

Canning

Random

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Slumber party in the living room.

Early morning with Faith.

Trying to decide who is taller.

Trying to get a nice picture of my children in the heat of the day. :)





God is Good all the time!

Faith

Who would of guessed that when I named my blog last summer that the name would end up being so appropriate . . . .

I never would have imagined, that not too long after I began this blog, (which by the way you will notice that I haven't been a faithful blogger) I would find out that we were once again expecting a new little blessing!

My sweet little Grace was only 9 months old . . . This was going to take a lot of Faith. :) How was I going to get through 9 months of being tired and sick, while having older children to school and little Grace to take care of . . . and all at the age of 42.

Well now that the first 9 months of that journey is over, I can look back and say, "I only made it to this point because of God's faithfulness!" It was not by my strength or power. It was a stretch some (most) days, but I (we) learned a lot. I had to rely on my children (and wonderful husband) and they were wonderful and supportive. We didn't get to all of the extras, education wise, that I was hoping we could, but we learned many other lessons. Including how to help each other in many ways. As I look back, I am not sure how we managed to accomplish all we did, including a major move in the midst of it all. :)

It only seemed fitting that our sweet little bundle be named Faith, after God's faithfulness in getting us through the many long days!






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A thankful mother of many blessings. Each one unique and special in their own way.