A House Full of Boys

Snow Days

2011-01-26T11:34:00.009-05:00

January has been a dream month for the boys. Three days off of school so far, two of them snow days. This year the snow is staying around, instead of melting off quickly. We don't have much of a slope in the backyard, but the boys are being creative. They built up a ramp on a tree stump, and start off from there. It gives them another foot or so of height, so they can get better speed. Then they built a ramp to jump over; but it was hard to see, so they put a yellow cup as a marker to aim for. Next they decided to put up slalom poles, using shovels staked in the snow. Last they came up with putting a "roof" on the jump. As crazy as it sounds, it worked! They've gotten pretty good at "threading the needle" LOL.

The cats aren't as thrilled with the snow. It's cold! And doesn't make as comfy a bathroom, ahem. We all laughed when we saw Toby up here:

Polecat

And then Waterfall tried to knock him down and take his spot. He wouldn't give up his spot, so she tried out a different pole LOL:

Copycat

Now the boys are inside enjoying some hot chocolate. I'm guessing they'll be out again this afternoon :-)

Just for you, Dad, Merry Christmas!

2010-12-31T01:28:00.003-05:00

If my laptop were working and I could access the photo editing software I prefer, it wouldn't look quite like this, but it's better than nothing!

The Great American Melting Pot

2010-03-23T01:44:00.005-05:00

I've been spending the last year or so playing around with researching my family's history. Growing up, I was always aware of how deeply my family (both my mother's and my father's sides) is rooted in this country. We had traced our roots back to the 1750s on one side (Troyers) and as far as the 1650s on the other (Fannings). I knew that before that, Troyers were from Austria/Switzerland and Fannings were from Ireland. I knew that the Eighmeys had lived in New York state for a long long time (Philip Emigh was the first to be born in the New World, in 1711). I also knew that beyond that, I had some Dutch and English and German and Irish blood in me. I knew that I have a strong Amish background, and that they originated from Austria. But the focus had always been vaguely on how long our history is here in North America.

Just recently I became aware of a pattern that I was ignorant of. I had all the pieces but I had not put them together. Tonight I saw it for the first time, and it changes so much how I see myself and my history. My family truly is a melting pot, in the classical sense, not just in the distant past. What I realized is:

my father married the daughter of an immigrant (England)
my grandfather married the daughter of immigrants (Hungary)
my great-grandfather married the daughter of an immigrant (Ireland)
and my great-great grandfather married an immigrant (Germany)

Somehow, I have never known how close I was to immigration history. What makes family history more fun is to put it all in historical context, too. To find out just why those people came to America (or the colonies!) when they did, and to learn what was going on in the world at that time. Hungary was in a period of upheaval when my great-grandparents left (1890s); WWI was about to start when my grandfather arrived (1912); my great-great-grandfather arrived from Ireland at the end of the Potato Famine in the 1850s.

Truly, my family is a mix of the old and the new. I have a brand-new perspective on history because of my personal ties to it. I have been watching the new show on Friday nights that Ancestry.com is doing, called "Who Do You Think You Are," and in the first episode Sarah Jessica Parker is quoted (over and over in the commercials) saying "It changes everything about who I thought I was" and I thought that was so over-dramatic and corny. But now here I am, saying the same thing LOL.

I am still digging, and hoping to find more personal stories as well as to see how far back I can get. I am hoping to break through a wall where I am stuck now; hoping that persistance will pay off. Some days I regret not having an interest earlier, when I could still ask my grandparents about their backgrounds. It is such a loss that their knowledge was not recorded. I hope to have a lot more to pass on to my children, when they are older and become curious. It really does make history come alive.

3 Years Old

2010-03-02T08:32:00.002-05:00

Last week Jacob had his third birthday. He asked for a Thomas cake, of course. It feels like the 600th Thomas cake I have baked! lol. I guess I haven't made enough of them yet, because I was still disappointed in how it turned out; luckily 3 year olds aren't as picky, because Jacob loved it LOL.

The store didn't have colored icing, so I had to mix it myself. Ugh it is hard to make black! It was really more gray than it looks in the picture, but overall it's better than I expected it to get. I am also happy with the blue - very Thomas.

He requested chicken nuggets for dinner (I think Chris snuck off and ate something else!) and we had fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and of course the cake, for dessert. He got just a few presents, but they were what he asked for, so he was happy. Ah, 3! They are easy to please!

Snow!

2010-02-10T12:36:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday we got a huge snowstorm. The tv news had talked about it for 3 days before the first flakes flew; clearly there was nothing else to talk about LOL. By Friday morning, activities were cancelled for the weekend. We ended up with about 27 inches when it finally stopped Saturday afternoon. A pretty good snow in anyone's books; but wow they made a big deal out of it! I am too used to the snow we got up in State College, I guess. I think for this area down here, it was a big deal. In any case, the boys were thrilled. They've been complaining for 5 years that we moved them "away from all the snow." Saturday was our second big snow for the season, and we weren't done! Last night another storm came through and left us with over 12 inches more. And so, of course, I must post pictures. :-)

There was lots of drifting, so some spots in the yard were almost bare, but in order for me to get to the spot in the driveway where I took this picture of Levi, I had to wade through thigh-high snow.

While you could see in the other picture that the cars were almost clear of snow in the back, here you can see it all drifted onto the Pontiac!

Here is Caleb, wading out to the barn.

Samuel and Noah tried to dig a tunnel, but the snow was too fresh and it ended up collapsing.

On Sunday the sun was out and the snow hardened up a bit. Out along the road the plow had piled up a nice big bank of snow, and the boys dug a new and better tunnel. It actually branched inside, and part of it went straight through, and the other branch came back around and out the same side further down the bank.

Micah

Caleb

Samuel, with Noah climbing on top

Noah

By Monday Chris had his car and the van dug out. We all had dentist appointments Monday morning, so we needed to be out. The sun was out again, and the driveway was clear down to the pavement. Well, except for the Pontiac. We didn't get to that. Here it is, just as the second snow started yesterday:

I'm thinking we won't be using it until Spring LOL

The snow was falling heavily this morning, and we had about 10 more inches by 9 am. It is still going strong, at 1 pm. The boys were eager to go out and see how much of their shovelling was undone LOL.

Levi on the side porch. The other boys were out sledding on the hill behind the garden.

Here is Micah coming back from the hill.

I just came back in after taking more pictures, and the wind has really picked up. The driveway is buried again, so the boys did all that work for nothing. Visibility is almost zero from all the blowing snow, and it's still snowing hard. Blizzard!

The snow blew up to the front door. I had to push it aside with the door to get out.

This fence is about 4 feet high, and borders the road.

Here's how the boys did shovelling. Just kidding, they had it down to the blacktop; it's all blown back over again. And just beyond the milk shed is the road. Trust me, it's there. Somewhere. The snow was really blowing like crazy; it was hard to take pictures.

And here's the Pontiac. The wind is from a different direction this time, so the front is blown partially clear. The boys ran their hands across the windows, so it looks a little like a mohawk ROFL.

Caught

2010-02-10T11:02:00.003-05:00

Kim, over at Musing, Rambling, and all around Blathering (see sidebar for link to her blog), tagged me for a meme. This one is the Honest Scrap Award. I guess I'm supposed to tell you 10 things about myself? Hmmm, what would you care about?

1. I collect Barbies. I do this because as a young girl, my mother took a stand against them as being bad examples for girls to aspire to. I just figured if I couldn't have such a great wardrobe, at least my Barbie could! I never thought to try to be one. I didn't start collecting, though, until one Christmas when Chris gave me one as a gag gift. I was complaining that with all boys, I was never going to be able to indulge the little girl in me and buy Barbies for my daughter. (Trust me, Chris is reliving his childhood over x7 with all the boy stuff around here.) Well, I decided, since my nickname around here is Queen Mommy, that I would collect Princess Barbies. My collection is probably around 50. There are quite a few I'd love to have, but the higher end Barbies cost over $200. Um, not for me lol.

2. My hair is still very long. When I turned 30 I made an attempt to cut it to a "respectable" length, since, you know, I was now too old for "young" hair. But I hated it. I did cut it shoulder length one more time when Levi was less than a year old, and I admit it looked good, but I missed my hair. So I grew it out. And now at 42, it is past my butt. And I like it. :-)

3. I am currently working on my family's genealogy. I love all things old, and am fascinated by photos from the past. I hate that we lost so many photos and records from my grandparents when their house burned down, but I do have a wonderful pile of family history from my mother. I encourage my Dad to write down memories from his childhood and young-adulthood and email them to me. I had a lot of fun this summer researching into one of those memories. I hope to write up a blog post about that, once I have all the materials gathered to put it together.

4. I am NOT a "foodie." I don't like to cook, I don't like to try new foods, I don't like to think about food at all. I eat the same things all the time, because I know what to expect from them. I eat poorly because I eat what takes the least amount of effort to prepare. If that means opening a bag or wrapper, that's what I'll do. My mother and my older sister love(d) food, but ugh, I don't really want to talk about food!

5. What I do love is puzzles! Jigsaw puzzles, word puzzles, those metal chain type puzzles. I approach almost everything like a puzzle. I think that's why I like LOST so much. However, I have only so much patience, and then I am perfectly happy to get help, or even to cheat LOL.

6. I still want another baby. Ok ok, don't even bother to comment on that one. I know what you all think, and go away. You want what you want, and I want what I want. My good friend called last night from the hospital, to let me know her 14th child had just been born, and I could hear him crying in the background. I am so so thrilled for her, but I went in the bathroom and cried. I could practically feel a baby in my arms and I think my milk let down. Yes, my baby is almost 3 years old, and I am 42. What about it?

7. Ok, something less serious. My first car was a VW Rabbit. It was black with maroon interior. I only remember having it for one summer, the summer before I left for college. After that I drove an Audi 5000 (very used), then the first car I owned and paid insurance on was a maroon 1982 Honda Accord hatchback. I used it to drive back and forth to college. I liked that car. Next came a blue 1987 Toyota hatchback. It got great gas mileage. I traded that in for the 12 passenger van I drive now. Totally skipped the full size sedan and mini-van LOL. I like my van, though I won't go out if there is even a rumor of snow coming.

8. When I was little I had rabbits. I was not good at taking care of them; I am lucky my grandfather would come over and feed the poor things. He built them awesome hutches, and spoiled them with grass cuttings and garden veggies. I kept rabbits continuously from when I was 5 until almost 35. My favorite rabbit was Thumper, who I called Tumpie. He went to college with me. Now we have moved on to cats LOL.

9. Ok, I've run out. If you comment with a question, I'll edit the post and add more with whatever you want to know.

I'm not going to tag anyone for this. If you want to do it, feel free to do your own. Let me know if you do, so I can go read it!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T12:49:00.002-05:00

I know a lot of people had a rough time with 2009, but honestly, it was a good year for us. In fact, it was one of our best years as a family. I am thankful to God for His blessings so far and above what we needed, and that we were able to share those blessings and help some friends.

May 2010 be full of blessings for all of us!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-26T18:56:00.004-05:00

We had a nice Christmas this year. We had a big snow storm last weekend, and there was still plenty of snow on the ground Christmas morning. We hosted dinner this year, so I had a lot to do to get ready. Chris was great about doing all the cleaning and decorating, so I just had to do the usual shopping and wrapping, and plan the dinner. His family brought side dishes, so I just had to do the turkey and stuffing, and Chris made our usual holiday punch. Even so, I was up late wrapping, and then up early to get the turkey into the oven. The poor boys had to wait a little longer than usual to open presents, until I had the turkey ready LOL.

We use Christmas cards to decorate the kitchen

The boys made gingerbread houses while I was out shopping. I think they still need my guidance LOL.

Chris decorated the top of the tv with his n-gauge train, and the boys had fun opening the Lego advent calendar this year. The candy jars had to be refilled almost daily!

More decorations:

The ladder goes up to the loft, which is finished enough for Noah and Caleb to sleep up there now. We will be putting in a spiral stair this spring, so I can get up there too LOL.

Stockings stuffed

We started at 8:30 and were done by 11, enough time to get the rest of dinner ready. We were supposed to have dinner at 12 but it turned out to be more like 1, because the turkey was bigger than I had guessed. The tag with the weight on it was missing, so I guessed about 18 lbs, but it ended up being a 22 lb turkey - oops! Everything worked out fine, though, and I got compliments on my stuffing. :-) MIL usually makes hers from a mix but I did mine from scratch; she was impressed! I also made pumpkin pies for dessert too.

My Christmas breakfast:

We also had bagels and cream cheese and cinnamon rolls. Troyer also added left over pancakes. It's no myth how much teenage boys eat! LOL

Christmas dinner. The turkey was on the counter - it didn't fit on the table LOL.

Now the boys are happy with gifts, and I am ready for a long winter's nap!

Merry Christmas for 2009 and Happy New Year for 2010!

Picture Palooza

2009-12-17T20:35:00.005-05:00

Well, since I haven't posted since September (oops!) I have a lot of catching up to do. It will be mostly pictures, but I'll throw some labels in for you :-).

In the beginning of October we got free tickets to go to the Apple Harvest Festival:

Antique tractors

Since the tickets were free, we were able to spend money on some fun stuff, like pony rides:

Levi's first time on a horse!

Micah

Caleb

The boys' favorite part was the Tractor Square Dance:

We had some pretty days in October:

Our church sold some mums at a fund raiser, so I got some for the front flower bed.

Sparkette was following me around while I had the camera out. Clearly she wanted her picture taken LOL.

Someone might recognize this shirt:

Yes, it is one that I used to wear when I was 8 or 9. I have a drawer full of old shirts that the boys now wear. Including a Camp Wanttago shirt, and a Milton Ave shirt!

Caleb and I went down to visit Aunt Michelle for a field trip to the Smithsonian. It was a cold rainy miserable day, but we had fun anyway! We took the Metro in and walked from the station down to the Air & Space Museum. We noticed that the Castle was open, and I had never been in before, so we stopped there first.

Caleb likes birds, so he enjoyed the Audobon exhibit.

The Air & Space Museum had a scavenger hunt of sorts related to the Night at the Museum movie filmed there, and Caleb had fun hunting down all the items. The first one was the landing module.

No Halloween pictures because while I did buy pumpkins, we never got around to carving them. Rather than waste them, I decided to learn how to prepare them for pies from scratch. They turned out pretty well!

You have to bake the pumpkins a long time, and then mash them up and make the pies, and in the end they taste exactly like the canned pumpkin. It was fun but I don't know if it is worth all the extra work. I did buy frozen pie shells rather than try to make my own crusts.

The finished product.

Our church had a Fall Harvest Party at the end of the month. It was pretty fun. I got pictures of almost all of the boys.

Jacob

Levi

Micah

Caleb

I had a picture of Samuel but he's trying to hide behind a cup LOL, Noah wasn't feeling well, so I let him off the hook, and the picture of Troyer just didn't turn out well. I did get a picture of this elusive person:

Not too many of him!

And this guy is so cute, I had tons of pictures of him!

Once again, no picures for November. We had a nice Thanksgiving at my sister-in-law's house. All of Chris' family was there. The food was great and it looks like we were lucky to have Mike, Shawna's husband, able to enjoy himself. Only a few days later he was admitted to the hospital for gall bladder problems, and it turns out it's all from his cancer returning. Now he may not be able to be home for Christmas. He's in a lot of pain from the damage to his gall bladder and then the reaction to the medicines that damaged his pancreas, and might have to be hospitalized during Christmas. We are all hoping he will feel up to visiting by next week. We are also praying that the doctors give us an optimistic diagnosis and a simple treatment for him. I'll admit, I get scared when I hear about cancer returning. Our fingers are crossed.

This year I bought some window candles for the house. I've always loved them, but didn't have windowsills for them. Our new house is perfect, so they are up! I think I needed to wait for it to be a bit darker before I took the picture:

Unfortunately, 3 of our cats followed me across the street while I was out, and only 2 made it back :-(. We lost Firepaw tonight, one of the orange kittens. I hope the Christmas holiday gets a little merrier in the next week!

More Pictures

2009-09-29T18:53:00.005-05:00

First, the rest of the pictures from my trip to Virginia and DC:

Some stills from the Spirit of America show:

I used to dress like this and march like this and play fife like this! Only I was 13 LOL

Here I am with one of the fifers during intermission. There were several of the musicians out in the lobby offering to stand for pictures. They were all very friendly!

On Saturday afternoon, Michelle and Gary took us out on their boat and we went to Georgetown via the Potomac! It was Micah's first time on a boat, and he loved it!

Parking for lunch at Georgetown!

Micah and Jenny

We sailed (do you "sail" on a boat with a motor?) past the Lincoln Memorial, and I got a shot of the Washington Monument behind it!

For Labor Day weekend, we had a picnic at our house. It went great, phew. I don't do a lot of entertaining at my house LOL.

Noah made his own cake for his birthday this year, and we served it at the picnic. Can you tell what it is supposed to be?

Happy 13th Birthday Noah!

At the beginning of the month, 6 of the boys started up again with Adventurers and Pathfinders. Troyer didn't want to be a Pathfinder this year, so he volunteered to be an assistant leader/teacher for Adventurers instead. The jury is out on how that is going to work out LOL It is Levi's first year. He wasn't so sure about the uniform idea.

Don't they look awesome in uniform?

A few weeks ago we had this beautiful sunset, so I snapped a picture of it:

Jacob loves going down to the barn to ~~terrorize~~ visit the cats. He likes the boots because he can put them on himself. He looks like a real farmer boy!

Today Troyer turns 15 years old. He's a pretty darn good kid. I think we've got it easy for our first go-around with this teen thing. It's nice to ease into it LOL. I'm sure we'll get our money's worth out of some of the next few...

A Troyer in his natural habitat (Muppet reference intentional!):

Spirit of America

2009-09-13T21:45:00.004-05:00

This weekend I drove down to Michelle's and brought Micah with me. We came down because Michelle and Jenny had gotten tickets to see Spirit of America , which is a musical show put on by the US Army. It includes performances by The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, the precision drill team, and the US Army band and the Army Orchestra. It is a review of the progression and growth of the armed forces from the Revolutionary War up to today. Most of it is music but there are narrated parts where men in costume and period uniforms act out short skits. There are fired rifles and cannons, and horses racing across the stage. It was all very impressive, and super fun! Of course, my favorite part was The Old Guard.

Here is a short clip of part of the performance; my batteries were running low, and I also wanted to watch the show live, rather than through my camera's view screen! I'm hoping I'll be able to buy a DVD of the whole show.

I have more pictures to post, as well as pictures from the rest of the visit. We went out on Michelle and Gary's boat, and went up the Potomac River to Georgetown, where we docked and had lunch. Micah loved the boat ride!

After the show on Saturday, Michelle and I found an old friend, and caught up on old times with him. He was in the MCM with us, and after high school went on to join the Old Guard himself. He retired from the Guard a few years ago. We had hoped he might be there, but weren't sure if he had gotten tickets or not. It was fun to talk Drum Corps with someone else!

Hopefully I'll be able to upload the rest of the pictures soon!

Happy Birthday!

2009-09-01T06:05:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Birthday SOSOM!

Happy Birthday to us!

Troyer's Art

2009-08-06T09:43:00.004-05:00

Troyer is getting better and better at his drawing. It's no wonder, as it's all he seems to do! He carries paper and pencils with him almost everywhere. Here are two of his latest works:

The first one is pen and ink with crayon:

This one he did on the computer, using a program called Corel Painter X:

Summer at Our House

2009-07-13T14:51:00.007-05:00

Summer is here, though the weather has been very mild. It's pleasant, but the boys haven't been longing to get in the pool like they usually do. We've been busy doing nothing, as it should be in the summer. June started the camp rounds; Caleb and Micah up first, then Noah and Samuel, and finally Troyer. Troyer just got back yesterday. We have a week off before swimming lessons start for 2 weeks, and Troyer will be attending Art Camp. VBS also starts next week, and I have volunteered to help out. (and the town over from us is having theirs this week, if I want to send the kids to that too)

Troyer and Noah have both been recruited by Chris to take over mowing duties. Troyer drives the John Deere, and Noah drives the Cub Cadet. Chris is left to do the trim work.

While Caleb and Micah were at camp, Troyer asked me to take him to the Arts Festival in Gettysburg. He was a little disappointed that it wasn't a bit bigger. I'd love to take him up to the Arts Fest in State College, but that was the same week he was at camp. It was fun to be back on a campus for a little while. Gettysburg's campus is very pretty, and the weather was perfect.

They had a wall with window-frame shaped art splatters that made nice frames for the boys!

Here's some new shoes I had to buy for myself:

I needed them because I stubbed my pinkie toe, and it swelled up so badly I couldn't put shoes on. I have sandals, but they all have straps across the toes. I didn't have any flip flops! I think I might have broken the toe, but without an x-ray I can't know for sure, and since the doctors won't cast or splint a dumb pinkie toe, I didn't bother going in.

We went to my in-laws' for a 4th of July picnic. The weather was almost too chilly because of the breeze, but at least that kept the bugs away! The boys got to play with some cute kittens. They are a few weeks older than our kittens, who are too young to play with yet.

Here's a picture of our cat with her new babies:

They are 4 weeks old now, so much bigger, and just starting to crawl out and explore.

Our neighbor came over last week and gave us all a hay ride. He is a farmer, so he has the big size tractor and full size hay wagon for baling. He picked us up at our house, stopped at another house to pick up another family, and gave us a ride for over a half hour, on the roads around our house. We had a lot of fun, and I got to see some areas I haven't driven down yet.

Here is the tractor baling hay in our backyard last week:

Lucky for us, the baler wasn't attached while we were riding in the wagon LOL. Can you see the bale of hay flying through the air to land in the wagon? The boys loved to watch them. The baler actually makes a real "boing" noise when it shoots the bale out, just like in a cartoon LOL.

Samuel had his birthday last week, too, though we waited until today to celebrate with cake and presents, so that Troyer could be here too. Samuel prefers homemade cakes to bakery cakes, so we baked an orange cake with lemon icing this morning. We used orange extract to make a yellow cake orange flavored, but the taste wasn't very strong. Most recipies call for orange juice, but we didn't have any. I tried using orange gel icing to decorate, but it came out all runny. Samuel wasn't too upset. He likes to mush up his cake when he eats it anyway LOL.

Samuel is still collecting dalmations, and he was thrilled that Toys R Us had restocked the Animal Alley puppy they had sold years ago:

I also got him a little Ty beanie:

He got a Ninja Turtles DVD and some legos, too.

Here is the peanut gallery, waiting for the movie to start:

Chris has been playing softball with a church league for a few months, and I took Levi and Jacob to watch a game.

Believe it or not, I have even more to write about, but I haven't gotten the pictures uploaded yet LOL. Hopefully I'll get it done soon.

Another Quote

2009-06-17T14:43:00.003-05:00

Still reading my Gatto (among others) book. The end of school (yes, we finished evaluations yesterday, so we are DONE! at least until July 1 LOL) kept me too busy to do much extra reading; but hopefully summer will bring me more down time!

Here is another quote from Gatto:

"Here is the crux of the difference between education and schooling— the former turns on independence, knowledge, ability, comprehension, and integrity; the latter upon obedience."

I really recommend reading some of these books, especially to anyone who is curious about the history of the educational system in the US or who is dissatisfied with it now.

Random pictures from the last month and a half

2009-06-07T21:13:00.002-05:00

Pathfinder Fair

2009-05-19T09:05:00.003-05:00

2 weeks ago, I drove my Pathfinders and Adventurers over to Hamburg for the Pathfinder Fair. It is usually held outside, but this year it was chilly and rainy, so most of the events were inside. We were told to be there by 8, but of course, they are never ready on time, so there was a lot of waiting. Line up for the parade was supposed to be at 8:30 but since it was inside, and therefore the parade was obviously much shorter, they had line up at 9. Of course, even then there was a lot of standing around and waiting.

Micah and Caleb were the only Adventurers to make the trip, so they carried the banner. We have 10 kids in the club, but I guess the other parents didn't think it was worth the trip for the younger kids. I'm not sure I would have gone if I wasn't also bringing the Pathfinders, whose presence was mandatory. Hmmm, some of the Adventurers who weren't there do have older brothers and sisters in Pathfinders. Hmmm.

Finally, the parade started; it basically consisted of marching into the gym and lining up. It was hard to fit all the clubs in!

Noah and Samuel are the two shortest Pathfinders. Although, they are NOT the youngest. It is starting to bug Noah a lot.

After the parade, the Adventurers went to another building to do their games and contests, while the Pathfinders stayed in the gym. I had to go with the younger ones. They had games like sack races:

and compass puzzles:

and at the end, they did a peanut drop. If you remember from last year, they usually do a peanut drop outside in a field, and all the kids race out to find the specially marked peanut that will win them a prize of a free week of camp. Last year, Troyer found the winning peanut. I had hoped we might be able to repeat our luck! But since it rained this year, they tried to do it in the gym. There were about 40 adventurers there, plus parents. It was hard to fit into the gym. The peanuts also don't hide so well on the bare floor. Can you guess what happened?

Here is Micah lined up ready to collect peanuts. He really just wanted to get a bag full to eat LOL

And here is the mob trampling each other to get to the *really obvious* special peanuts. Ugh.

Micah cried because everyone trampled the peanuts just to get to the painted ones; Caleb sat down and stuck out his lip because he was pushed over in the first 3 seconds. I'd say, it was a bad plan to do it in the gym. Our leader was really nice, though, and did her own peanut drop at the next meeting at home, so Micah and Caleb could collect up peanuts to eat. :-)

I didn't get to see Noah and Samuel compete in any of their events, but it was just as well, as they didn't do very well. This club doesn't seem to try so hard to win the events; they don't practice as much as the old club did. The clubs set up tents and sell food for lunch, too, as a fundraiser. Last year our club sold pies. This year this club sold chilli and hotdogs, and ice cream floats. I think they did pretty well, though the weather might have slowed sales a bit.

I was hoping that we'd get to leave for home a little earlier than last year. Last year we didn't get done until after 3, but it was worth it since Troyer had won his free week of camp. I thought this year with no peanut drop in the field, they would let us go early, but no such luck. It was still after 3 when we left. Instead of the peanut drop, they offered an essay contest to win the week of camp. I have a feeling my boys are not going to win this year, since the essays are due today, and they haven't written them yet LOL. Also, they are supposed to write "why I should get a free week of camp" and I have no better reason than the fact that I am sending 5 of them to camp this year and it's a lot of money! We are not suffering financial hardship to the extent of a lot of other families this year, so I almost feel guilty trying to take that chance away from them. But then again, the peanut drop was incentive to come to the fair, not a scholarship based on need.

So after staying past 3 for no real reason, we finally headed home. We got home safely, and the weather never turned truly nasty, thank goodness. I got to drive our "new" car, and I love it! I want my own.... LOL.

Field Trip!

2009-04-23T15:10:00.005-05:00

Today I took the kids into Gettysburg for a field trip. Back when I was in school, field trips were the best thing ever. No classes, no tests, no books. They were a free day, plus you usually got to go somewhere cool. For some reason, my kids whine and complain every time I announce a field trip. I don't get it. It's the same deal; no bookwork, no tests, a free day! And chances are it's going to be something cool. Getting them out in the morning nearly kills me, and I'm always ready to just leave them home and go by myself!

Well, we did manage to all get out and into town, and on time! I had done some scout work earlier in the month, so I knew just where I was going to park, and how to get from one place to another. We had been sent a notice that the USSC Museum , which is the U.S. Christian Commission Museum, was having special programs and discount rates for homeschoolers today. They have two locations, so I needed to have a plan as to moving between the two.

We started out the day at their "chapel," which is a log-and-canvas tent building like the kind that would have been built for soldiers to attend church services during the Civil War. The people who run the museum wear period clothing, and one of the young men dressed as a soldier gave a talk about his uniform and his gear. He passed around the gunpowder packets, bullets, and caps, and showed us how a soldier would have had to load the musket to shoot. He described what life was like on the march for a soldier. He did a really nice job. Then another man dressed as Abraham Lincoln came up and gave two of Lincoln's speeches; one where Lincoln established the National Day of Prayer, which was April of '63 (before the Battle of Gettysburg) and then the Gettysburg Address (November '63). We discussed the difference in tone between the two speeches.

After that, I took the boys over to McDonald's for lunch. I had to remind them that the field trip was to the museum and not to the Play Place LOL. We met up with some other homeschooling moms that I have been emailing with for a few weeks. I am glad to be widening my circle of acquaintances. It was also nice to see how big a group of homeschoolers there are in our area!

After lunch we went back to the main museum, which is the home of Jenny Wade. As some know, Jenny Wade was the only civilian killed at Gettysburg. What I learned, though, is that it was not her own home she was killed in, that was her sister's house; she actually lived right in town. While being guided through the home, we learned about the Christian Commission and how and why it was founded. It was founded by the YMCA to minister to the soldiers of the war. We learned a lot about the life of a soldier, and also how their survival or demise affected their loved ones and also those around them. We heard inspiring stories of men who shared their faith and even young children who reached out to the soldiers. It was fun, too, to see the house decorated in period style, and all the artifacts.

One last stop was back to the chapel where we listened to two more museum guides play on dulcimers and harmonicas for us. I sat and imagined how it would be to attend a tent service and sing hymns where there were no pianos or organs, and you had to be accompanied by harmonica!

The boys ended up having a good time in spite of themselves, and in the end agreed it was better than staying home and doing book work. LOL Wouldn't you know it, I forgot the camera, darn it. I will say, though, that I enjoyed the day better myself since I didn't have to worry about good picture opportunities. Go ahead and follow the link above and see what it's about.

More Food for Thought

2009-04-13T12:28:00.003-05:00

Same book as before, but this time the author is quoting from a book published in 1839:

"According to our theory the people are wiser than the government. Here the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give law to the government."

"To entrust government with the power of determining education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power of the master."

Keep in mind that this was written before compulsive education was instituted in America.

Extra Pictures

2009-04-07T11:43:00.002-05:00

Here are some more pictures from around the house.

First, the save-it-to-show-the-girlfriends picture of Levi and Jacob:

and another of Jacob, relaxing on the couch:

This past weekend, I went on a fact-finding mission with my sister to see what we could dig up on my grandfather's plane crash. We were more successful than we could have ever hoped for! I am saving that for another post.

We Didn't Call the Fire Department

2009-04-07T11:39:00.002-05:00

Last Tuesday, we found one of our cats up in a tree. Chris has said repeatedly that a cat will come down on its own if you leave it alone, but the boys were too worried to sit by and listen to it cry. They did their best to get up and get it, but it was too high and none of us could reach it.

The next day we had strong wind and a lot of rain. Guess what? The cat came down by itself! LOL

5 Fewer Long-Haired Hippy Freaks in My House

2009-04-07T11:35:00.002-05:00

On Friday the weather was nice enough to get the boys out on the back porch and do haircuts. They were long overdue!

Levi

Micah

Caleb

Samuel

Troyer

Noah decided he likes his hair long. I think that will change when the weather warms up and stays warm. Jacob needs a hair cut too, but it will take some wrestling with him, and I wasn't up to it LOL. He has had his bangs trimmed, so I left it go. Chris also needs a cut, but he was at work.

Spring is Near

2009-04-07T11:31:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, I got these pictures from my yard:

A welcome sign of spring! We also had a warm sunny day, good enough to go out and do some yardwork. The boys and I raked the leaves out of the flower beds, but mostly we enjoyed being outside again!

It's been warm and cold and warm and cold, ugh. Right now we are cold. And windy. Double ugh. Next Sunday is Easter, I sure hope it is sunny and warm again by then!

I'm Addicted!

2009-04-03T05:12:00.001-05:00

Here are two more:

Just For Fun

2009-04-03T04:43:00.005-05:00

Because, you know, none of us has anything to do and we all have time to waste LOL

This was posted on one of the forums that I read.

1 - BAND NAME: Go to "wikipedia." Hit "random" or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RandomThe first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - ALBUM TITLE: Go to "Random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.phpThe last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - COVER ART: Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7daysThird picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Here's mine:

It was so fun, I did it again:

I used a photo editing program to add the artist and title to the picture, but you can just list them below the picture. Go ahead and play!

The Rest of the Trip

2009-03-25T09:20:00.002-05:00

Sunday was really just a clean-up day, as we had to leave for the airport before lunch. Dad sent home a suitcase full (literally!) of scrapbooks and clippings and pictures for me to sort through and label. He had been telling us great stories about our grandpa, and brought out some articles about some of his exploits.

One story that has become almost legend in our family is about the day Grandpa crashed his plane in a field and crawled with bloody face (he slammed into the dash and broke most of the bones in his face) and broken back (5 vertebra!) over a mile to a farmhouse for help, where he then scared two poor widows when he knocked on the door! I never even knew there was a newspaper article about it, but Dad found it. Now we have names and a location. Amazingly, the crash site is less than an hour away from where I live! Now my sisters and I have a mission: we are going to go up and explore the area, and see if we can find anyone still living in that area who may remember hearing stories about the crash. It's a rural area, so I'd imagine that something like that would have been big news for a while. We'll be playing History Detectives for a few weeks :-)

As I said, Sunday was just a pack-up-and-go day. I got one last picture:

I joked about cutting and pasting Aimee twice, so I could be in the picture too LOL.

Our visit was very relaxed, and that was deliberate. We didn't want to pack our days with tourist activities and get worn out while we were supposed to be relaxing. We watched DVDs of LOST, spent some time on the computer (I brought my laptop along, so we didn't have to borrow Dad's), went out to eat, read books, slept late, visited friends. Oh yeah, we giggled and laughed A LOT! It was a great vacation! I could have done with another 5 days of it LOL.

I Had Other Things to Post

2009-03-24T14:44:00.003-05:00

I had plans to post pictures; of the kids, of the spring flowers, of my wondering where the heck Spring is???? lol. But I came across this quote in a book I'm reading, and I thought it was awesome.

We live together, you and I, in a dark time when all official history is propaganda. If you want truth, you have to struggle for it.

John Taylor Gatto

I'm not going to make any commentary here. Just chew on that for a while.

Saturday

2009-03-16T13:51:00.002-05:00

On Saturday we went over to my dad's friend's house for dinner. We went early so we could go out and see her horses. She owns just one of them, but she boards 3 others. We were hoping to have a chance to go for a ride, but the day was warmer than expected and after a very cold winter (for Florida LOL) they still had their winter coats on. As a result, they were overwarm and not in the mood for any extra work lol. Still, it was fun to pet them and help feed them.

My dad's friend, Maxie, with Chip

Aimee with Maxie's horse Max

Maxie is German, so she fixed us a tasty German meal, with cheesecake for desert. Yum! We had a lot of fun with her. She is funny and well, um, not uptight LOL. It was fun to see her with my dad, who is, especially compared to her! I'm looking forward to spending time with her again, the next time we get to go down.

Friday Night

2009-03-15T22:58:00.002-05:00

Here's what we did Friday night:

a few hours of this

an hour of this

and another few hours of this

It was a good Friday!

Florida

2009-03-12T19:44:00.002-05:00

My sisters and I are in Florida for 5 days, just the 3 of us at our dad's house, no kids. Ahhhh the quiet! We flew down yesterday; I came down with Michelle, and Aimee met us in Tampa. We worked it out so that our flights would land at the same time down here, so we could all drive to dad's together.

Here, we read the safety instructions, just in case. Oddly enough, there were no warnings if we experience bright white flashes or the plane starts to break up. No worries, though; Frank Lapidus was not our pilot. ;-)

I got the window seat. I love to watch while the plane takes off. So cool! I've flown since I was very young, but the take off still thrills me.

And here, the obligatory wing shot:

because, you know, no one ever takes pictures of the wing and clouds ;-)

I hope to have more pictures over the weekend. My dad is taking us to meet a friend of his who has a stable with 4 horses in it. She has offered to let us ride! A special treat, we don't get that chance very often.

I hope my kids have been enjoying the 40 degree weather; it was 80 here today! Woohoo! Hee hee.

Cuties

2009-03-04T16:32:00.000-05:00

Generous Neighbors

2009-03-02T19:11:00.004-05:00

Here's a video of the boys riding their tractor and wagon around the driveway a few weeks ago. We have great neighbors, and they offered this great tractor and wagon set to us. I guess their grandchildren are too old for it any more. The boys love it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbBemJpLogI

I had to post the link because YouTube won't let me embed the video for some reason. Darn.

Woohoo, it wasn't YouTube that wasn't working, it was Blogger that wasn't letting me paste the embed code. I got it working Yeah!

What a Difference a Month Can Make

2009-03-02T18:47:00.003-05:00

It's good to know Winter is almost over! I mean, just a few weeks ago, the boys were out in this weather:

Note the lack of heavy coats, and the sunshine?

Today, on the other hand, just on the edge of Spring, they were out in this:

It's good to be reassured that it won't always be cold, right? Sheesh! LOL

*just a note; I added pictures to the post about Jacob's birthday below!

Out With the Old

2009-02-27T22:50:00.001-05:00

In With the New

Spending that much money was painful for Chris, but it's so pretty!

A Sad Day

2009-02-27T12:53:00.002-05:00

This morning Troyer found our beloved Tigger by the side of the road, hit by a car. He was not even a year old yet. He had been missing since Wednesday night. He has never run off before. We have had a stranger cat visiting us for a few days, she looked hungry so we think she might be a wild cat. She was very friendly with us but did not get along with Tigger and Flame at all. She hissed and spat and scratched at them, and wouldn't let them near the food and water when she was eating. I am thinking she ran him off. Poor Troyer is devastated, and I think I am as well. Tigger was the best cat I have ever known.

RIP, Tigger.

2 Years Old

2009-02-25T12:08:00.002-05:00

Jacob's birthday was on Sunday. 2 years old already! I have pictures, just not uploaded yet. Hopefully I will be able to add them to this post soon!

Ok, Now With Pictures!

Jacob with his birthday cake:

Enjoying his cake and Oreos:

Unwrapping his presents:

Playing with one of his new puzzles:

He also got some Hot Wheels cars, and a Thomas DVD. His brothers enjoyed his cake and presents almost as much as he did LOL.

No Pictures

2009-01-30T10:30:00.002-05:00

No pictures, nothing new to report. Really, what is ever new in January? It's cold. It's snowing. It's icing over. The boys are trying their best not to do their school. They are fighting. I'm cold. See? Nothing new LOL. I hope February gets better.

Some More Christmas Pictures

2009-01-09T22:41:00.002-05:00

The boys all got pajamas and bathrobes from MIL, which they all love. My personal favorite was the set she got for Jacob:

LOVE those polar bears! lol

Here is Troyer in a pair of flannel sleep pants that his aunt sent him:

They are Hong Kong Phooey pants! We laughed over those.

Here is a shot of Levi doing a ninja pose for me. Whenever the camera comes out, he starts posing. Not that he's ever had karate lessons or anything. Too much TMNT probably LOL

Here's another pic I got of all the boys together. I don't like the lighting, and I should have tried to be a bit taller for it. I was sitting in a chair when I took it. But still, it's a record of the moment lol.

One more of Jacob, just because I love the jammies so much!

Ice

2009-01-07T13:44:00.002-05:00

They were calling for an ice storm yesterday. It was supposed to start yesterday afternoon. Evening activities were all cancelled. We got a drizzle. Not frozen, just rain. Bah, another warning for nothing. The power blinked a few times, so I figured it must be icy up in the hills where people aren't being careful driving. No big deal. We watched tv, surfed the net, went to bed.

This morning I was woken by the sound of my 4 yo coming to tell me the night light wasn't working. Sigh, such big news that it was worth waking me up for, huh? But when I went to see what time it was, I realized why the light wasn't working. The power was out. Ugh! The boys were freaking out, because they like to get excited about everything, lol, but I figured we'd have lights again within a half hour. Then I looked out the window. Oooohhhh, that's why the power is out! Overnight the rain DID freeze, lol. How pretty! But then again, a PITA! No lights, yes, but also no heat, and no water. Ugh. And for how long, since the electric company will have a tough time fixing things while they are all still frozen. We snuggled on the couch and read books, and some of the boys got out a board game. In the end the power was only out for about 3 1/2 hours, and it didn't really get much colder in the house. If the power had been out overnight that would have been worse, because we have our thermostats set to turn back at night. Luckily it was already up to 61 inside when the heat went off. In 3 hours, it only went down to 60! Nice to have a house with 8" thick walls!

I ran out to get some pictures of the ice covered trees, but it was COLD! The thermometer said 33, but it felt more like 3. Something about that breeze blowing through the icy branches right at me LOL.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T09:51:00.002-05:00

Overall, 2008 was a pretty good year for us. We moved to our new (and hopefully final!) house, which we all love, and so far we have weathered the economic uncertainty pretty well. We are all healthy, and so are our families. The biggest blessing of 2008 was that my brother-in-law had a bone marrow transplant in July for Hodgkins' and he has come through wonderfully. Last spring things were looking pretty grim, so we are all soooo thankful that he made it through!

I have a few catch up pictures for you, and of course there are more still on my camera from Christmas Day. I got some new photo editing software for Christmas but I haven't played with it yet. I want to try it out on the pictures I have in the camera still.

Here is a shot of the boys piled on the couch watching tv. That's pretty much the year-end photo, as I never did get them all set in front of the tree. Troyer and Samuel did get haircuts the day before Christmas, btw LOL.

Here I experimented with the black and white feature on my camera. I was just playing around so I don't have all the boys in the picture.

Our tree doesn't look as good as it did at the beginning of December. The kitten has been playing with the lower branches (that would be Flame, the younger kitten, not Tigger) and the boys have been moving things and knocking things off. Plus one line of lights midway up have gone out, and I haven't figured out why. Since it is a pre-lit tree, I will have to wait until we take all the ornaments down to be able to check it out competely. All I know is that it is plugged in, and the rest of the lights on that cord work fine.

On the 17th I took the 3 oldest boys down to my sister's to attend her church's production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, which is a "children's opera" about the 3 Wise Men's trip to see the baby Jesus. The set and costumes were great, the singing was impressive for a group of volunteers from a church (this was opera, not just Christmas hymns!) and the best part was that my sister and niece played in the orchestra that accompanied the singers.

We did some marathon baking the last week before Christmas. The first day I let the boys help, which meant it took 3 times longer than usual, and I was sooo tired but not even half way through! I ended up doing the next round by myself and it went much better LOL. I am still not done, as we haven't done the sugar cookies with sprinkles yet. I meant to take some tins of cookies to the neighbors with a card, and it hasn't happened yet. I guess it'll be tins of New Year's cookies now LOL. I DO intend to get them delivered yet!

Last night, New Year's Eve, Troyer and Samuel stayed up with us to bring in the new year. Chris and Samuel went to bed right away, but Troyer stayed up with me for a little while and we watched Dick Clark. I know he does that show for nostalgia's sake, but it was very hard to understand him. I think as a whole it was good as background noise but not so much for watching as entertainment. I am too old to even know most of the musical acts on the show LOL. At least I know who Ryan Seacrest is ;-P

Troyer drew this last night. It is part of a series he has done since 2005:

Happy New Year!

Some Pictures

2008-12-22T10:59:00.002-05:00

Not in order, because I didn't edit any pics from Thanksgiving yet, but here are some shots of our tree, and of the boys making their gingerbread houses last week:

Our tree

The ornaments have been rearranged several times already. The boys like to play under it, and some fall, and then Jacob just likes to touch them LOL. All the "good" ones are up high out of his reach. Can you see what is under the tree?

We made gingerbread houses on Monday. That means we opened kits and assembled and decorated, LOL. There are 2 houses and a tree. I wanted the tree kit last year but they sold out and we didn't get it. It looked intimidating because it involved actually mixing the icing and using pastry bags, but in the end it came out great.

The final products:

Wait, did you get a good look at that last one? Did you see the level of artistry? Did you see...

Santa smashed on the roof?

The hyptnotizing snowman in the front yard, or the vampire on the roof?

Do I get points for letting them do just what they wanted on this house? I hope so, because it was hard! I like Micah and Caleb's better LOL.

Many Pictures, All Still in the Camera

2008-12-09T14:42:00.003-05:00

You wouldn't know it from my blog, but it is almost winter here! It is NOT almost 70 anymore, LOL. I have a few pictures from Thanksgiving (not as many as I would have liked); Jacob got a haircut; we put up the tree; and various around-the-house shots. We had some snow, too, but I didn't get pictures of that. Now it's time to do Christmas pictures. I hope to get some pictures posted soon, if only to get them off my to-do list! I did get Christmas cards out last week, without pictures of the boys. If anyone REALLY wants a picture, please let me know, and I'll send out a second card once the picture is done. Still on the list: Christmas cookies, and haircuts for the rest of the boys....

One More

2008-11-29T20:50:00.001-05:00

Another leaf jumping video, this one Photobucket again. I think Photobucket distorted the video the least.

More Leaves!

2008-11-24T01:38:00.004-05:00

I'm having fun with the videos. I think the photobucket upload came out the clearest. What do you think?

This one is another upload to Blogger:

Hmm now I have to learn how to edit the videos so I can cut out the end LOL It would have been better if I could cut off the part when Noah leaves for the bathroom!

My First Ever YouTube Video

2008-11-22T00:11:00.004-05:00

Here is the first of several videos I took of the boys raking and jumping in the leaves. I'd have more, and picked the best ones, but even with DSL it took soooo long to upload! Also, the quality isn't as nice as it was on my computer.

Here is Jacob helping with the raking. You can hear Caleb talking in the background.

Here is a video I uploaded to Photobucket, to compare uploading times and picture quality. It is a short one of Levi jumping into the pile of leaves.

They're Baaaack!

2008-11-14T10:32:00.002-05:00

According to the website Muppet Central , Disney is making a push to bring Muppets back into popularity. Part of their strategy is to release a bunch of videos on YouTube. Some of them are hilarious. Here is one of my favorites:

My kids Looooove the Muppets, as properly taught by their Muppet-loving parents :-)
I hope if we are going to be seeing some new material, that it is as creative and funny as they were at the start.

They've also filmed a new Christmas special this summer, to air some time in December. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for air time; it will be on NBC.

Autumn

2008-11-10T13:17:00.001-05:00

These are the days that make Fall a favorite season. As opposed to the cold grey rainy days LOL

Indian Summer

2008-11-07T16:56:00.005-05:00

Today it was almost 70 outside. In November. Woohoo! The boys took full advantage. Some went bike riding, so went tree climbing. This afternoon they started raking. We have too much yard and too few trees to really care about the leaves. They will blow across the street into the cow pasture eventually. But they make great piles for jumping!

In the back yard:

Jacob helps out:

Levi jumps in!

I love this one of Troyer and Noah; Noah is just about to jump in and ruin Troyer's pile LOL:

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T18:33:00.003-05:00

Finally got the pumpkins carved this afternoon!

The younger boys' design:

Troyer designed this one:

We don't dress up or go out; and out here in the country I doubt anyone will be coming to the door. I went out and picked up some candy for the boys to share at home, and the pumpkins are really just for their fun.

Happy Halloween!

Definitely My Favorite Political Video So Far This Fall

2008-10-27T00:50:00.004-05:00

Rats, the video was removed. It was hilarious. Aha! Found it again on YouTube!

Celebrity Sighting at WalMart

2008-10-24T13:30:00.002-05:00

Look who we saw at WalMart a few weeks ago:

There was a contest to guess how many Lego pieces it took to build this model of Jango Fett. When I saw it, I knew I had to come back with my camera and a few boys!

The next time I was at that WalMart, I brought Noah and Levi with me. The model was still there, but they had already run out of entry forms for the contest.

Unfortunately by the time I came back again with Troyer the model was gone. There hasn't been any notice about who won or how many pieces there actually were in the model. I assume the model has travelled to another store. I thought a good prize would have been to win the model!

October is Fire Safety Month

2008-10-22T09:14:00.003-05:00

One of the requirements we have to meet for homeschooling is to include a lesson on fire safety each year. Since October is Fire Safety Month, many homeschool groups arrange tours of fire departments. Our local school invited us to come along on their tour this year. I found it very interesting, and the boys loved the trucks and the gear! It's a fun way to take care of that requirement. When we got home, I printed off some safety coloring pages and puzzles.

In the truck bay:

The ambulances:

In the ambulance:

Learning about the different kinds of trucks:

Climbing into the engine:

The best part was when the fireman put all his gear on. He wanted to show the kids what a fireman looked like when he went into a burning house, so that if one of them should ever be trapped inside, they wouldn't be afraid when they saw him, and would let him rescue them. I thought it was a good idea; I'd never thought about it but a small child could be very frightened by a fully suited fireman, especially when already scared from being trapped. I guess a lot of kids try to hide because they are afraid. The kids liked when he turned his mask on and talked through it.

This is one of the better tours we have taken. There is a firehouse museum, but it was closed when we were there. I would have enjoyed seeing the antique equipment, and some history of the department.

Pathfinder and Adventurer Induction

2008-10-17T17:02:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday afternoon, the Pathfinders and Adventurers held their induction ceremonies. This is where the new members are welcomed in, and returning members pledge to another year in the club. Mostly it is for parents and new members to know what the club is about. They sing the club song, recite the Pledge and the Law, and then do a candle lighting to represent the new members joining the club. It was fun to see everyone in uniform again. :-)

Micah and Caleb up on stage after lighting their candles:

Samuel lighting his candle:

Noah has been a member for 2 years already, so he got to do one of the readings:

And here are all 4 outside afterwards. Don't they look sharp?

Catch Up - Part 3

2008-10-14T11:28:00.002-05:00

After the orchard tour on Thursday we headed home and I started packing for another camping weekend. This time there were 4 boys going, and me! Noah and Samuel were tenting with the Pathfinders again (but not backpacking, thank goodness!) and I was accompanying Caleb and Micah for an Adventurer (that's the junior version of Pathfinders, kind of like Cub Scouts or Brownies) weekend. Luckily we got cabins. This trip was over 4 hours away, so I had to make sure we remembered everything; there was no going home for anything we forgot! We left around 1 on Friday afternoon, and headed out for the mountains. I had checked the weather and the rain we had had early in the morning was all that was forecast. The rest of the weekend looked clear!

We had a pretty easy drive up, nice weather, no bad traffic. Our only trouble was that it was a bit cool outside, but anyone sitting on the sunny side of the car got overwarm. It was hard to keep the car an even temperature so that one side wasn't too hot and the other too cold. We arrived a little early for check in, so I drove Noah and Samuel down to the camping area where their group would be. This gathering was a conference-wide Camporee, so there were going to be a lot of other clubs there. When we drove in, though, there was hardly anyone! I didn't even know where their site would be. Luckily the club had sent up a few adults early, to gather firewood, and they found us and directed us to the right spot. I dropped off Samuel and Noah, who were not happy to have extra work to do LOL, and they got busy helping stack the wood.

At this point it was time for the boys and me to check in at the lodge. We were still some of the first campers there. Once I had checked in, I learned that they were not going to be serving dinner, and there were no activities planned for that night. Ugh! WHY had I gotten there so early??? I got directions to the nearest WalMart and went off to get us some snacks for dinner. My biggest concern was getting back before dark, since I was driving on unfamiliar roads. I didn't want to get lost in the dark! We picked out snacks and I also picked up some coloring books and crayons since I figured they would be bored later in the evening, and headed back. There was only one turn that I almost missed, and we made it back safely. Phew! We settled into our cabin and waited for our cabin-mates to arrive. We though we were sharing with two other boys and their moms, but it turned out that one of the moms was going to be staying in the lodge, so once Benny and his mom arrived, we were set. It was a cabin for 11 with just 5 of us in there. Fancy cabins, too, with bathrooms attached - even a shower all to ourselves! We didn't know but were pleased to find out that the cabins were heated too! Hardly roughing it LOL. Micah had a hard time sleeping away from home. He didn't want it dark, but the light from the bathroom that we left on for a night light kept him up. He tossed and turned all night, which kept me up too.

After breakfast in the morning, the boys got dressed in their uniforms and all the groups marched down the road to the Pathfinder campground. We had been invited to a "Flag Retirement Ceremony," to dispose of old tattered flags respectfully. It was pretty cool; I have never seen one before. The flags were raised, the pledge was said, the anthem was sung, and the color guard stepped forward one at a time to read some history about the American Flag. The flag was presented to the Pathfinder Director, who then "approved" the flag to be retired. The color guard carried the flag 3 on each side, like carrying a coffin at a funeral, stopped for a 21 gun salute, and then readied the flag for burning. First the captain of the color guard cut off the blue field from the stripes, and then the other 5 carried the stripes to the fire and dropped it in. The captain followed with the blue field and dropped that part in last. Another mom and I agreed afterward that it was a very moving ceremony. We knew the kids probably didn't really appreciate it because they don't have the life experience to have witnessed the disrespect our flag and our country receive; but we have seen it, and it was so meaninful to us to see proper respect. Such a contrast!

The morning was wet because it had, in fact, poured AGAIN the night before, and Noah and Samuel were pretty cold. We were a bit warmer because we had hiked the mile up to the camp.

Noah is in the blue coat, and Samuel is in the orange.

Caleb and Micah are the redheads. It is hard to see Micah!

Here is the gun salute. The Teen Leaders in Training were allowed to fire some of the rifles, along with 2 of the adult leaders.

And here is the color guard readying the flag for burning. They passed over the burn barrel and dropped their corners in 2 at a time, and the captain came behind them.

After we hiked back for lunch, the kids earned an Outdoor Explorer honor. We went on a scavenger hunt to find the alphabet in nature. We had to find an item for each letter of the alphabet. Luckily we didn't have to collect them all, just find them! The day had warmed up beautifully and we really had fun. Our group found almost every letter.

After dinner the kids got to play in the gym for a while to burn off more energy (yes, after that 2 mile hike in the morning, and that scavenger hunt in the afternoon, plus rolling down a STEEP hill at least 12 times after lunch, LOL) and then we had some quiet time before bed. There was nothing really planned for Sunday morning besides checking out after breakfast, so we were pretty relaxed. I have to say, those bunks are fine for kids under 12, but UGH not for this old body. My shoulder ached for over a week after I got home, from sleeping on it.

Sunday dawned bright and clear again, a great day for driving home. The Adventurers finished up by 9:30, but the boys and I had to wait until 12 to pick Noah and Samuel up at the campsite. Ordinarily the two groups don't have their camping trips the same weekend; it was just a coincidence that they did this year. We took our time packing up and cleaning the cabin, and by 11 I decided that my boys could leave early. After all, they had arrived hours earlier on Friday and did more work for it, so it should be fine. I drove down, and they had their stuff packed and ready; the group was just cleaning up the campsite. It was no problem to take them home. The drive home was sunny and warm again, this time nice enough to have the windows open with no complaints. We arrived home by mid-afternoon, in time for me to make a shopping list and go out for my weekly grocery run LOL. I sure would have preferred to relax a bit but Sunday when Chris is home is really the best time for me to get the shopping done.

I wish I had more pictures, but my batteries died at the flag retirement. I'm glad I got a few shots of the boys!

Catch Up - Part 2

2008-10-13T17:14:00.004-05:00

Ok, so Troyer's birthday was Monday. On Tuesday I went to the doctor to have a cyst removed from my scalp. It wasn't painful, but it was annoying and was getting bigger, so I decided to have her cut it out. It was from an oil gland getting plugged and then infected, sort of like a pimple but not in a pore. It was cool listening to her and the nurse working on it. They cut a little slit and then popped it out. Then I got a few stitches and was done. I had to keep my scalp dry for almost a whole week, which meant no washing my hair; yuck!

On Wednesday I went to my Women's Ministry meeting. We are studying The Love Languages of God, which is part of the 5 Love Languages series. It's very interesting to learn a new perspective about the different ways people understand and receive love.

Neither of these two activities were picture-worthy (well, maybe the cyst removal, if you like that sort of thing, LOL, but I didn't have a camera with me, and I didn't have anyone to take the pictures). But on Thursday, I took all the boys on a field trip for an orchard tour. Our church school organized a trip, and invited us to go along. The weather was great (though a little breezy and cold, but that makes it more Fall-like, right?) and the boys had a great time. Definitely picture worthy! lol

Here we are loading up into the wagon for the ride through the orchard:

Right where we loaded up they had a huge pumpkin patch set up. It looked pretty, but we didn't get any pumpkins. It feels too early to put pumpkins out yet.

We drove out to a spot where everyone was allowed to get out and pick an apple for themselves. Along the way we got a lesson in the growing and picking of apples. The boys loved the snack!

Of course, I didn't actually get a picture of them picking, sigh.

After the orchard, we got a tour of the huge refrigerator where they store the apples after picking, and then the processing section where the apples are washed and sorted by size. Finally, we got to walk through the store and see all the different products you can make with apples, as well as buy bushels of fruit. They had some pears and a few grapes and peaches too. Of course the smell of fresh baked apple pies was hard to resist!

Jacob liked this guy:

Once the tour was over, we had lunch at the play area they had set up for kids. Lots of climbing structures and a big sand box, as well as a cute hay "maze" and some neat tunnels they created by piling hay and wood chips over big pipes.

The boys had so much fun they really didn't want to leave. :-)

Playing Catch-Up, Part 1

2008-10-10T09:56:00.002-05:00

Last week was Troyer's birthday. He's 14! He loved helping make birthday cakes for his brothers, but he didn't want to make his own. At the bakery counter, we couldn't find any theme cakes he liked, so he picked out one that looked tie-dyed, and put his favorite cars on top, Volkswagen Beetles! Thanks to Aunt Aimee, who got the little cars.

On to opening presents. Troyer seems to be the easiest to buy for. He likes lots of things! He got Ninja Turtle mini figures, a movie, a book about the science in Indiana Jones, a little stuffed rabbit, and a comic book (oh, excuse me, *graphic novel*) of Indiana Jones.

Opening presents

Noah is curious

The whole group

Did you notice the recliner right in front of the door? Yeah, we don't use that door LOL.

Taking a Breather

2008-10-09T12:28:00.002-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I've posted. We just had a bunch of stuff going on last week, so I haven't had a lot of time to write about them yet. I have pictures, so once I get them edited and uploaded, I'll tell you all about what we were doing over the past week!

Wet

2008-09-29T15:41:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, Noah and Samuel went on a backpacking camping trip with Pathfinders. They left on Friday afternoon and came home on Sunday afternoon. It took quite a bit of preparation for this trip, because they had to be able to pack everything they would need for the weekend in a pack they would be carrying themselves. The group leaders made sure that no one carried more than 25% of their own body weight, so that meant that little Samuel didn't actually carry everything. He couldn't carry his sleeping bag. Neither of them own a tent or camping stove, so they didn't have to carry those either. They shared with older (larger!) boys who had them.

They were very nervous about going. The leaders talked about hiking 5 miles a day, and warned about blisters and wet shoes. I was nervous too. I was worried about it getting very cold, or raining a lot. As it turned out, it did rain. A LOT. (the total rainfall for the weekend was 2 inches!) Friday night we had a huge thunderstorm, with thunder and lightning, and lots of rain. It drizzled a bit Saturday morning, but luckily the temperatures actually were warmer than they had been the last few days.

The church had arranged to have a potluck picnic in the state park where the Pathfinders were hiking, so we could provide them with a nice big lunch that they wouldn't have to carry. By lunch the sun was out and it was turning into a nice day. We had the food set up, and finally the hikers started arriving. I didn't realize they had separated a bit, and were arriving in groups. The first group of older kids got there first, and I couldn't find my boys. I was a little worried about them, but was reassured that they were fine. Finally I spied Samuel coming down the path.

Although tired, he was in good spirits. After a little rest he started in on lunch. He started with the brownies, LOL. At long last, poor Noah finally arrived. He had been doing fine, but he had been assigned to walk with the leader who was in charge of the rear, catching any who fell behind. Noah HATED being last! He was in quite a bad mood when he got there.

He did feel better after a bit, and ate a good lunch. There was a discussion amongst the leaders about whether or not to continue the hike, because the rain was supposed to return, and the next section of hike was uphill. They were concerned about getting to the site and getting set up before dark, and before the rain. Apparently they had a lot of difficulty the night before because there was a thick fog just before the rain, and they had a rough time following the trail, even without rain. They arrived much later than they had planned.

Noah really perked up at the thought that he could go home, but instead the leaders decided to drive the kids to a parking lot much closer to the next stop, so they would be sure to have enough time to set up before dark. Rats, Noah was grumpy again LOL.

They were also earning a Tree Honor, which is like badges in Boy Scouts. The younger kids, who are Adventurers, also worked on their Tree Honor. Caleb and Micah are in that group, and they enjoyed wandering in the woods collecting leaves and learning about trees.

While they waited, some of the kids played on the swing:

This is the only picture I got of Troyer, Caleb, and Micah lol

And here are the younger two, with friends:

After the picnic was over, the Adventurer leader invited the younger kids to her house for a hay maze and snack. She raises goats, so she and her husband stacked bales of hay in the shed and made tunnels for the kids to crawl through. All 5 of the boys left (yes, Troyer too!) had a great time climbing through there.

After a dinner of tomato soup, grilled cheese, and apple juice, the kids played some board games, and then it was time to head home for bed. By then, the rain was coming down in buckets again! Arrgh!

Sunday morning came with more rain, but much lighter than the previous night, and by the afternoon it had cleared up. I picked the boys up, happy to see they were still in good shape! Again, Samuel seemed pleased to have accomplished the feat, and Noah was just grumpy LOL. All of their things were muddy and wet. But they didn't get a single blister! I am very proud of them for sticking it out to the end.

These Guys are Awesome

2008-09-25T15:38:00.009-05:00

We've been watching America's Got Talent, and Nuttin' But Stringz have been at the top of our list of favorites from the very beginning. They make playing violin COOL!

I didn't know they made a music video. I like this one because the kids in it can't dance any better than my kids or I can. But they are having so much fun!

The final of AGT was last night, and while Noah really wants the piano player/singer Eli Mattson to win, the rest of us are pulling for this duo. According to the judges, they have a very good chance!

ETA: I replaced the embedded videos with links, so people with dial-up (you know who you are!) can load the page more quickly.

eta2: Arrgh I'm trying to make them clickable links, and I can't remember how! Blogger has a button for "insert link" but when I use that, it doesn't show up at all! Can someone remind me how to make the link clickable? Thanks!

eta3: Woohoo I figured it out!

Is It Over Yet?

2008-09-19T08:49:00.007-05:00

I am going to become a hermit until mid-November. Seriously. I expected the obnoxious ads on tv. I expected the obnoxious ads in the mail. I expected the nasty dirt flying in both directions on the news and in the papers. I even expected to hear opinions all over the internet. But last night was more than I ever wanted or expected.

Last night I went out to the store to buy bread and milk. As is not unusual for the store with the least expensive bread, the shelves were bare. Irritating, but when it is 1/3 the price of anywhere else (including the other brands on this store's shelves) I have come to expect it. Up on the top shelf were 3 slightly smashed loaves of wheat bread. As I was debating whether my boys' complaining about "dirty" bread was worth trying to scale the shelves to grab 2 of them down, another family came by, also looking for some cheap bread. We stood and talked about how this store often runs out of bread, and how it is so much less expensive here than anywhere else, even at the same chain's other locations. Out of the blue, the dad says "I can't wait for next February!" I was quite confused. What was going to be happening in the bread world in February? He looked at me as if I were an imbecile. "The Election!" "Oh," I said, "I don't think anything is going to change overnight just because someone new is President." In my head, I'm thinking, Please God, this man can't really think the price of bread, and gas, and milk will all magically drop overnight just because the "right" person is president now! And of course he is assuming who will win. I didn't ask who he is voting for, because I didn't want to be going there in the first place. I was shopping, not looking for political discussions. Scornfully (not towards me, at least I hope) he said, "I can't wait to see George Bush leaving the White House." Um, ok. At that point his wife and kids started pushing the cart down the aisle, so blessedly the conversation was over. But wow, that is not the way I like to end a trip to the store. I like to mind my own business, thank you very much.

I am coming to think that political discussion is an oxymoron. The two words can't exist together. Political mud-slinging, insulting, yelling, yes. When people talk politics, very rarely is the one side actually listening to the other side. They are really talking to themselves, trying out the sound of their arguments on their own ears. Or worse, repeating what they heard on tv or read in the paper or on the internet, because it sounded clever to them. People are mad, and want someone to blame. Fine, very understandable. But to promote this election as if casting your vote is like waving a magic wand is just beyond ignorant.

In November, we will vote. Someone will win. Then what? We as a country will have to learn to live together again. Will we really be able to get along? Will we be able to work together? I think the number of people who actually think the country is doing great right now is pretty small. We all know there is a lot to improve, a lot to fix. And who you blame is your own business. But I think the most blame lies in the huge divide, the unwillingness of one side to listen to the other, the whole fact that there are "sides."

Personally, I can't wait for December, when people will keep their "side" to themselves.

This Weekend Was Busy

2008-09-15T13:43:00.003-05:00

but not for me so much, as it was for my friend Catherine. I spent the weekend online, waiting for updates, because she spent the weekend having a baby! Woohoo! She had her 5th boy (and 13th baby!) on Saturday morning. Congratulations Catherine!!! Go ahead and click on the Bread in the Oven blog link over in my side bar ----->
and check out her new little cutie!

Holiday Fun

2008-09-09T11:13:00.003-05:00

Last weekend, for the Labor Day holiday, Chris' parents had the family over for a picnic. It was on Sunday, because that fit in better with everyone's work schedules. The weather was beautiful, and the food was good. There were a lot of family there that we haven't seen all summer, so it was nice to get together. I was busy talking, so didn't get too many pictures, but after dinner, Chris and the boys played a game of whiffle ball in the yard.

If you see a little one in a skirt, she's not mine (sigh). She is the daughter of Chris' cousin. She has the most adorable curly red hair (double sigh).

Noah helped Jacob swing at a few pitches, and once he got a hold of the bat he wouldn't let it go! The game pretty much was over then lol.

Don't let the grins fool you, these two spend more time in a day fighting than getting along. But what great smiles!

OUCH!

2008-09-07T09:24:00.002-05:00

I came across these guys in the back yard this morning. They look cool. They also stripped the leaves off a maple sprout overnight. As I was plucking this leaf I accidentally brushed my finger against another one that was hiding on an opposing leaf. OW! It was like getting stung by a wasp.

These buggars are bad! I got online and read about them. They are Saddleback caterpillars, and the stings can be dangerous. The best you can do is treat them like other insect stings. These guys come out in late summer/early fall. They range from Florida to Texas, up north as far as Massachusetts. Yup, I'm smack dab in the middle of that range, lol. Funny, I haven't seen them before. I guess they like fruit trees, although I found these on a maple. They hide on the undersides of leaves, so they'll catch you unaware when you are gardening. Watch out for them!

Something to Think About

2008-09-05T12:59:00.004-05:00

I got this in an email today. Thought provoking, at least. What do you think?

"We send our children to school at an earlier age than our ancestors did. We provide our children with a minimum of 17 years of formal education (preschool thru college). We spend more income and resources on our children than our ancestors consumed in food and shelter. We provide more organized activities for our children to improve their social skills. Yet, our children take longer to mature / grow up, are more self-centered, and less empathetic towards others.

Today’s typical child is no smarter than a child from 100 years ago or even 200 years ago (although they live much longer). The child may have acquired more knowledge in terms of pure facts but is not capable of performing simple tasks that earlier generations performed without effort or injury.

Generations ago a boy was considered a man when he reached the age of 12, later it was 16, and now today it is 24. Some experts think it is more like 30 after the boy has had some life experiences on his own. In our effort to provide and protect for our children, have we abdicated our responsibility as parents / mentors to provide our children with real meaningful growth? Is not the acquisition of knowledge without real world application just trivia?

If this is evolution, then it would appear that we are headed to a very peaceful, self-serving destruction. Or is this a form of de-evolution? Where as parents, we accept less responsibility for our children and require others to share the burdens of our decisions. Where our children proclaim ignorance of the facts even though they have been schooled in these facts for more than 2 decades.

If as parents, we want our children to mature / grow-up as nature intended it (and not when they feel like it) then should we not also grow-up and accept the responsibility for the gifts that were given to us? If there is to be any hope for our children in this world, should we not set the correct example?

Remember this when you are washing the clothes for your 30 year old son or paying the bills for 30 year old daughter. Remember this when your children won’t help you because they can’t be bothered with your problems or when they put you in a home because it is easier than physically caring for you.

Being a parent may be choice. But once you have made that the choice, it’s a lifetime responsibility. For ever and ever, till the day you expire."

Mowing the Lawn, the Green Way

2008-09-05T11:55:00.002-05:00

Someone mentioned the other day an alternative to lawn mowers. I thought I'd show you how we do it:

In all reality, that is why they are there. Our neighbors run a dairy, and they asked permission to fence off part of our property to let the cows graze. This is an area they cut for hay early in the summer. They decided to let the cows graze instead of cutting, drying and baling it a second time.

Happy Birthday Noah!

2008-08-29T00:50:00.003-05:00

Noah turns 12 today. One year shy of being a teenager. Believe it or not, he has been more fun this year than he was at 9 or 10. Those years it seemed he was already trying to act like a teen, but this year he has been a lot of fun. He's had his moments, of course, but nothing like the past. It seems that Caleb has taken up that position, LOL. Noah has been more reliable and dependable, taking on more responsibility, and really growing in maturity. I am very proud of him.

Here's a fun set of pictures I made to show how he's grown:

from 4 months to 5 years old

from 6 to 11 years old

I'll be editing this at the end of the day, to add his 12 year old picture!

Noah had a great day. We had pancakes and eggs and "facon" (turkey bacon) for dinner, at his request. He made iced brownies for his cake, and I also made a cinnamon swirl cake with cream cheese icing. He liked most of his presents, though I guessed wrong when I chose X-Men for him. He said he'd rather have Fantastic 4. Oops. (Remember when I said how easy it is to please a 4 year old? Not so a 12 yo LOL)

Cherry pancakes for dinner:

Noah had to smile quick, because his "N" was melting LOL:

Lego Lover:

More Fun with Widgets!

2008-08-26T08:29:00.003-05:00

Take a look at my sidebar --->

I've had fun adding some new elements. The first is an avatar I made up a few years ago. Unfortunately I saved the image and lost the code for the link, so I don't know what site I found it on. I may change it if I find a site that has a more, um, accurate picture lol. I'd like longer, straighter hair. I love that sweater, though!

Next, I added my local weather. I know not not all of you care about my current weather, but I thought it would be fun for my family.

Finally, I added a quick comment widget. If you want to leave a message that isn't in reply to a specific post, (or even to suggest a post!) you can do it there and it will appear instantly. Also, you can see a reply instantly instead of having to search through the comments.

Ah, the wonders of DSL LOL. Chris thought I'd spend all my time on the web, surfing and watching You Tube, ignoring the kids and the house. Well, he was sort of right LOL.

ETA: I got the longer hair, but now it needs freckles!

Some Pics of the House

2008-08-22T21:17:00.005-05:00

Since Melanie asked so nicely LOL

Here is our front porch, with Caleb and Samuel working on a pail of beans:

Here is our kitchen. It is eat in, long enough to fit our big table that seats 8. (notice that's not 9 or 10 - that's more because we don't have 10 chairs than that we can't fit 10 LOL)

Here is the back room that we gave to the boys for their toy room. It is officially the family room, where we play games or read, and the boys have all their puzzles, games, legos, and toys. The walk in fireplace is cool. There is a wood stove in it that seems big enough to have had big kettles on. The room was originally detached from the back of the house, so I guess it was some sort of summer kitchen.

Now we get to the category "What Were They Thinking???" LOL

Our living room is papered with a mural:

Very rustic, bucolic. Appropriate, I guess, since it is a farm scene. But the other 3 walls have a paper that is like fake grass cloth lol.

Here is a really bad un-plan:

I'm pretty sure the toilet came after the dryer LOL Our plan is to move the toilet so I can actually get the dryer door all the way open.

Here is a pic of one of the two lovely lavender sinks in my upstairs bathroom. Why lavender? Not sure, since the paper is blue stripes, and the trim is painted turquoise. Oh, and the tub and toilet are mauve. Bleh! lol

And the best for last, a little tropical vacation with every bath:

Why yes, that is a mural of Figi on the wall above the tub! Note that the material is not actually waterproof, so there is no reason at all to have that there. Other than atmosphere, of course LOL

As we do renovations and redecorate, I'll take pics - you know, when it looks better in here LOL

More Fun Pics of Summer

2008-08-19T23:48:00.004-05:00

Here are some pictures from around our yard:

Inside our barn, where we store bicycles and the lawn tractor

This is a cool picture inside the back of the barn. It was in low light, so the shutter speed was slow. Caleb was walking when I took it, and it came out looking like his ghost! You can just see his one sneaker.

Another pic of Tigger

Aimee had asked a few questions about him. He stays in the barn, he is not allowed in the house. There was another cat that had come by a few times, but he has not been back since we got Tigger. The boys go out to play with him every morning.

Caleb

Jacob getting ready to head out and mow the lawn...LOL

More cute shots of Jacob

Aimee asked for more pics of my lilies. Here are a bunch of them:

And a close up; I was hoping to capture the blue at the tips of the petals. Really cool!

I love this one, one of our sunflowers

This is cool - one day we saw this across the street. No idea where he took off from or where he landed.

Finally, last Wednesday was Levi's birthday. I made him a Thomas cake. Ugh, it took me 3 hours to decorate, because I didn't have the right decorating tips for the brand of icing tubes I bought. I had to do it all with toothpicks. Levi was thrilled with it, so I'm glad it worked out.

Here he is opening his favorite present - money! LOL

He said, "Hooray! Now I have money! Now I can go out and buy something!" First on his list was a bag of M&Ms LOL

He really enjoyed his birthday. 4 is a nice age for birthdays, it is easy to please them LOL.

Fun Summer Pics

2008-08-19T23:28:00.002-05:00

I have a bunch of pics I took this month, just the boys having fun. We went to a pool picnic on Saturday, and the boys had a blast. I baked zucchini bread for the first time ever. We grew some zucchini in our garden, and they are living up to their reputation LOL. TOO MANY! It took me all evening to chop up the ones I had so far, but I had to because they were starting to go bad. I made 3 different kinds, one regular but with a brown sugar topping, one with raisins, and one with chocolate chips. They were a big hit! Phew lol. Even Samuel, who hates veggies in all forms, loved it. I made 6 loaves all together, but I have enough zucchini left over to make 12 more lol.

My yummy bread:

Enjoying some juice:

In the pool:
Jacob wasn't afraid at all

Caleb

Noah jumping in

One of my favorites, Samuel jumping into the deep end. Just 2 years ago he was scared to get in the water at all.

Micah enjoying a soda

Troyer

He requested this haircut. He thinks it looks like David Hasselhoff's hair. Hmm. Well. Yeah. LOL

I have more pics, but I'll save them for another post

A Few New Things

2008-08-12T21:41:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago we got a kitten for the barn. It took a while for him to warm up to the boys, but now when they go out to visit him he likes to come out and play. The boys named him Tigger.

The weather has cooled off a bit, so that it is nice to be outside. The humidity has dropped to comfortable levels, too. Here are Micah and Caleb riding bikes in the driveway. Just today Micah came in to say he has learned to ride the bike without training wheels! At 6, he's the youngest yet to master that.

Finally, just last week I had something strange pop up in my flower beds. Tall olive green spikes with buds on the ends, but no leaves whatsoever. It was very odd looking. They have since bloomed into these:

I looked them up, and they go by many names: Suprise Lilies, Magic Lilies, Naked Ladies (I can't wait to see how many hits I get on this post from people googling THAT lol), and my favorite, Resurrection Lilies. They did have leaves, back in the Spring, but they had since died back. I had been disappointed that whatever it was had not flowered, but just shrugged my shoulders and waited to see what else would come up. What a wonderful surprise! They smell really nice too. They do look funny, though, with no leaves.

What Happened to Summer???

2008-08-04T12:48:00.003-05:00

Holy cow, here it is August 4th, and we are starting school today! Well, we are supposed to be, anyway. The boys have a friend visiting for the week from our old church. It is going to be hard to get them to do any work when they want to play.

Last month was full from beginning to end with camp and swimming and VBS. Micah just finished up a week at day camp at the Y. The theme was zoo week, and he loved it. They brought up the "Zoomobile" full of animals, right to the camp. He talked all week about that. He got to swim each day, and on Friday they went to a pool park that had slides and a sprinkler section, as well as smaller pools for the younger kids.

The kids did two different VBSs this year. The first one was Power Lab, offered by MIL's church. I thought it was really neat; the theme was science, and it was about how God is in charge of everything, and gives us the power to do anything. They had really catchy songs as well. The second one was at our church, and was Castles and Crowns. It was medieval themed, and it was about how we can be adopted into God's family to become princes and princesses. They had some cool crafts, and the skits were really funny. In both groups the teen helpers did a great job. I was really impressed.

So now that swimming and camp and VBS are over (and our gas budget has been wiped out for the year!) it's time to start back up with school. We'll be starting slowly, with review and fun stuff. Come September, it's time to really get down to work!

Inedible Fruit

2008-07-10T11:14:00.002-05:00

Wow, you guys are good! I believe the "weed" with orange pods is indeed a Chinese Lantern plant, or husk tomato. I like the term Chinese lantern, because that is exactly what the pods look like. I've checked inside a few of them, and most have a very tiny fruit inside, and many are shriveled, so I doubt we'll be harvesting any.

The white-flowering shrub looks to be a black chokeberry. Mine is much bigger than described on the sites I found online, but I think my bush is pretty old. It is supposed to get pretty black/purplish berries in the fall, but the ones on my bush have already shriveled and dried. Again, I think it's because it's a pretty old bush. Apparently you can make jams from the berries, but they don't taste good right off the bush.

At least I have some veggies in my garden coming up. I saw some pea pods on a few plants, and I have some green tomatoes. I saw one flower on my watermelon plant, so I don't know if it'll grow and ripen in time to eat this year. We planted a lot of other seeds, but most were more than a few years old, so we didn't know if any of them would grow. Next year we'll be able to plan more in advance and hopefully do a better job!

Success! and Thanks

2008-07-08T14:16:00.003-05:00

To those of you who suggested Sweet William for the white flower, thank you! It is indeed a dianthus barbatus. I found a picture online that is identical to my plant. I also was able to identify my pink flower. It is a dianthus armeria, called Deptford Pink. Woohoo, I love solving a mystery!

Ok, now that that felt so good, let's do it again ;-)

Here is a bush that flowered behind my north-facing chimney, it is mostly shade there. It bloomed at the end of May. I'm thinking it might be a kind of honeysuckle?

And this is a plant that spread like crazy once it came up, so very weedy. I guess it is a kind of ground cover since it spread so easily, but it is tall, over a foot high. The white flowers have fused petals, and grow beneath the leaves. It grew in a very shady corner, it gets almost no direct sun. It started flowering in early June, and it is still getting new flowers even while the seeds on the older plants are ripening.

After about a month, they developed these pods, which are turning a cool orange color:

When you pull open a pod, there is one seed inside:

So, flower detectives, what do you think?

More Mystery Flowers

2008-07-02T16:10:00.002-05:00

I have some more pictures of flowers from my yard that I can't figure out. Maybe some of you can find out what the names are?

Here is the first one:

I only have the one plant, it grows in mostly shade, and it bloomed in early June.

And here is one I have blooming now:

and a close up of one bloom

Any help would be appreciated!

The Prize Peanut

2008-06-26T16:03:00.000-05:00

Well, our first round of campers is half way through their week away. Unfortunately it has been in the low 70s and rained half the time. I hope they are having a good time anyway. We go to pick them up Sunday, so I'll get the report then.

Now I have some pictures from the Pathfinder Fair that Troyer and Noah went to last month.

Here is the group marching in the line-up. They actually have 16 members in the group, but only 8 were able to go to the Fair.

They participated in some competitions, which as a group they did pretty well. Two firsts, two seconds, and 2 thirds. After the events, for fun they do a Peanut Drop. Since the Fair is held at a school that is next to a small airstrip, the organizers arrange to have a small plane fly overhead and drop peanuts into a field. Some of the peanuts are marked, and if you pick one of those up, you can turn it in at the prize table and pick a prize. There is one *special* peanut, out of the thousands that are dropped, which is worth a free week of summer camp. Both boys were begging to go home early, each year they have been there they haven't been able to find any prize peanuts, so they didn't want to bother again. Well, I made them stay and look. Troyer was so funny, he headed out in the opposite direction of most of the other kids. There he was wandering around at the edge where few other people were. I kind of laughed to myself. Noah went right into the thick of the crowd, but he was unlucky and didn't find any again this year. Next thing I know I see Troyer walking towards me with an adult following. I jokingly said, "Don't tell me you won the week of camp?!" and laughed. Guess what? He did! Woohoo! with 4 kids going up to that camp this year, winning a free week was a big help for us.

The Winning Peanut

Driving Lessons

2008-06-22T15:12:00.002-05:00

Troyer is only 13, but he had his first driving lessons yesterday! No no, not in a car, on the riding mower! Now, it was pretty exciting for Troyer, but even more exciting for his father and me. He will finally be able to mow the lawn! Woohoo! The first tangible benefit of having a boy! (not that 13 yo girls can't mow - I did a few times when I was 13). He had some fun, but little does he know what lies ahead for him... mwaahaahaahaa

A Busy Month

2008-05-31T17:53:00.002-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I've updated here. Sorry about that. Some of it was because I was feeling a bit depressed for a while. I was looking forward to warmer spring weather, and a cold May didn't cut it for me. Also, the adrenaline from moving wore off and I was left with a lot more to do but a lot less energy. And of course, the Cold That Wouldn't End. Ugh. I'm suspecting that I may have some allergy issues here. I didn't consider that at first because I have never suffered allergies before.

Aside from all that, May is the end of our school year, so things get hectic for me there, too. A brief recap for May: Troyer and Noah attended the Pathfinder Fair, where all the groups around our Conference meet to compete in skill games, and also have some fun. I'll try to post a separate post about that. Next Troyer and Caleb have been taking Spanish classes for 6 weeks. I have to drive everyone about 20 miles each Tuesday to drop those two off for an hour. The rest of us hang out for the hour trying not to get too bored, then we all drive home again. Troyer really enjoyed the classes, at least. I took all of the boys to the zoo on Friday before Memorial Day. Instead of driving all the way in, we drove to a Metro station and took the train/subway. The boys loved that. We had a great day, and the weather was perfect; but whew, was I tired by the time we got back! At least when we park there, we start and end at the bottom of the hill. On the Metro, you start at the top. Ugh the walk back up at the end of the day is HARD! LOL The oldest 5 boys also went along on a field trip with the local Adventist school to tour the battlefields in Gettysburg. The weather finally had turned warm and sunny, so they had a good time on that trip as well. Add in 2 doctor's appointments and a dentist appt, plus school evaluations (read: grading Mom on how well she can gather all the year's papers etc and present them to the evaluator) AND dressing all of us up in church clothes on a non-church day so we can sit for a directory portrait, and Wheww! I'm glad to see the end of this month! Yeah!

One picture, though I have more to upload later: All the boys plus two of their friends who, along with their mom and dad, came along with us to the zoo:

I admit to some photoshopping on there, but it came out great!

Another Birthday Party

2008-05-01T09:55:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday Micah turned 6! We were going to celebrate that day, but he woke up and got into trouble before anyone else even woke up, so I made him delay a day, conditional on his behaving the next day! Luckily he did not copy Caleb's 7th birthday, where he had to wait over 2 weeks before he could have his birthday, and we were able to celebrate yesterday. We went to Walmart and picked out a cake and some soda, and when we got home I made pizza. I let him open presents first, so they had something to do while I cooked. He got Star Wars legos, a clone trooper figure, and a movie.

I'ts been stinking cold here this past week. It went down below 40 several times overnight. Back when we had a warm spell (even hot one day!) Chris turned off the heat. We'd used a lot of oil in just the two months we've been here, so I didn't really complain. I figured it wouldn't get that cold, and even if it did, it would warm up enough during the day to make up for it. Well, when it only gets up into the 50s, that doesn't warm the house back up again. Ugh, it is soooo cold in here! Not good for all of us who are trying to kick this cold thing for good. Poor Jacob, he had finally had a few days without his nose running, but yesterday he had a fever and his nose was running again. Waaah. I'd like spring to come back and stay this time!

While it was warm, Troyer and Caleb worked on a project out back:

They built a tree fort out of boards and old doors they found in the barn. It started out with a rope ladder, but that broke, so now it has an old ladder they found. The fort has 4 levels, so room for everyone! Noah spent a week reading books up there. :-)

Mystery Plant

2008-04-25T22:17:00.003-05:00

Can you help me identify this plant? It is small, low to the ground. It is kind of like a crocus, except it just came up in mid April. All my crocuses had already come up and finished before these bloomed. I really like them, but I have no idea what they are. Do you?

In other news, I have been sick. Ugh, SICK. I got the flu last week (and somehow managed to not pass it on to anyone else in the house!) and caught a cold on top of that. I am still trying to defeat the cold. I have a nagging cough that keeps me up at night, which makes me very tired during the day; plus my left ear filled with fluid and won't drain. Luckily it is not infected, so it doesn't hurt, but it is very hard to hear with that ear. While I have been sick, the house has gone waaay downhill. The boys can barely manage to behave themselves without drawing blood when I am not on top of them; nevermind taking over some chores for me. Chris did some dinners, which helped, but didn't clean up after them. I also fell more than a week behind on laundry. The drawers were literally empty of clothes. oops. I am happy to report that I am feeling well enough to catch up, but it will take a while!

We're Free!

2008-04-10T13:44:00.002-05:00

Last week, Chris and I went to the closing on our old house, got our check and got outta there! WOOHOO!!!! Who'd have thought that we would be able to sell our house so quickly, in today's market? We certainly didn't. Our buyers had already tried to bid on another house similar to ours and lost to someone else, so they were eager to grab ours. Luckily we were eager to get rid of it! LOL Inspections went well, conditions agreed to rather easily, and they requested to move up closing by a month. No problem! So now we are free of a very heavy weight - namely, a second mortgage payment to find money for. We had saved some money aside for that expense for 3 or 4 months, but since we closed so quickly we ended up not even paying one month of double payments. We are planning to use that money to pay down the mortgage on this house so the payment is approaching reasonable. I suppose that for a lot of people out there, what we pay now is already reasonable, but it is twice our old payment, so too much of a shock to the budget at this point. Reammortizing will bring the payment closer to that of our old house. So we are one-house owners once again - Whew!

Signs of Spring

2008-03-28T12:12:00.002-05:00

The weather here is warming up, slowly. I can't complain too much, since we don't have snow (and I am HAPPY for that!) but I do wish it were a few degrees warmer. It didn't feel too much like Easter this Sunday, but the sun was out and it was less windy than it's been the last few weeks. I found these out in my front yard on Sunday morning:

I also have some daffodils starting to come up as well. I really like living down here; the area we used to live in won't have any flowers for another month!

We went over to MIL's for Easter dinner on Sunday afternoon. Dinner was yummy, and we got to spend some time with Chris' sisters and BIL. After dinner, the boys went outside to hunt eggs. FIL colored the eggs, and then he and BIL and Aunt Shawna hid them. I was glad it was sunny and nice out, even if chilly. Last year it was really cold and the boys didn't have much fun. The way they hide eggs over there is funny. For the little kids, they do the obvious hiding spots on the deck, so the eggs peek out a bit and are easy to find; but for the older kids they really make it a challenge. FIL went out into the yard and just dropped the eggs in the grass. Then he moved leaves or grass over top of them to hide them. They boys had to wander around in the yard hoping to come across the eggs. Even funnier is that FIL doesn't pay much attention to where he drops them, so by the end of the hunt, we are all desperate to find the last of the eggs, LOL.

Finally, FIL decided to offer cash for eggs LOL and announced he'd pay a quarter an egg to whoever could find the last 2. Noah was all excited to come up with them, but just at that point MIL yelled out that there were still another 2 missing! FIL upped the payoff to $1 an egg, and everyone looked even harder. Since Levi and Jacob found their eggs on the deck, Levi kept looking there. MIL and BIL told us that all the deck eggs were found, so we just thought it was cute that he was still looking. Well, lo and behold, he came up with one of the eggs! It had rolled under the deck. Samuel found the other egg out in the grass, and FIL gave out the money to each of them.

2008-03-25T09:28:00.004-05:00

Here are some pics of the boys playing by the barn. They love using the ramp to pick up speed. Too bad we haven't had enough snow to use it for sledding. Maybe next year!

A Room With a View

2008-03-21T09:09:00.003-05:00

One of the things I love about this house is that every room has a great view. We are surrounded by farmland; we only have 2 neighbors that we can see from the house. I love looking out every window. Here are some views:

Living room window, facing north:

I think those deep sills are awesome too!

Living room, facing east:

Kitchen, facing east:

Out the back door, facing west:

Ok, ignore the hand prints on the back door LOL. You can see, we have a back porch, which will be great in the summer, to sit in the evening and watch the sunset.

Very Belated

2008-03-19T04:37:00.002-05:00

Jacob turned 1 last month, right in the middle of our move. We waited another week until the kitchen was unpacked to celebrate with a cake and a new movie. Troyer baked the cake for him, and he really enjoyed it!

A Nibble

2008-03-05T14:41:00.002-05:00

and not from a mouse! We have gotten an offer on the house already! A full-price offer, which we have accepted. Whew, what a relief. We had visions of our house sitting on the market for months. Pending the usual inspections, we could close as soon as the end of April! Yahoo!

Things Are Crazy (and Dirty)

2008-03-04T10:25:00.003-05:00

Wow, I thought I would have had time to post some pictures by now, but we've run into some issues that are taking a while to correct. Biggest on the list is the hot water. We noticed last Sunday that there didn't seem to be any hot water, but the inspection report said the heater was working, so we weren't too concerned. We figured it had to be turned up or something easy like that. No such luck. You see, we have a solar heated system, so usually the water is heated that way and stored in the tank. I had to call in a repairman to look at the system to see why it wasn't working. First off, the computer on the controls was bad and needs to be replaced. Next, there is a back up for the solar, that is the boiler (furnace). The repairman tried to turn off the bypass from the solar so the water would go through the boiler, but it killed the water pressure. It took him 2 more hours to figure out that all the valves were clogged with iron deposits. As in, clogged completely shut. Well, that explained no hot water. So, after replacing several valves and such, he got the water working, but told us the tank was shot and needs to be replaced. Cost for a solar hot water tank? About twice the cost of a nice electric heater from Lowe's. Ugh.

Now, since the heater was ruined by our hard water, we decided to have the water tested and get some figures for installing filters and softeners. After all, we don't want to get a new tank just to have that ruined too. Last night we had a rep from Rain Soft come in and do tests on the water at the kitchen sink. Of course, our water is bad. Bad. BAD. Highly acidic, which is why the copper pipes are leaching copper into the water. Full of iron, which is clogging everything. Luckily we have a UV light to kill bacteria, so he didn't have to pitch one of those to us; but on the opposite side we have high nitrates. Were you keeping track? That's three systems/filters we need installed. Like, immediately. It will cost money we do. not. have. Ack! We explained to him our situation, about how we haven't sold our old house yet, and all our cash is tied up in that right now. Once we sell, we will be able to do repairs. But that could take months, or more if we are particularly unlucky. He did take pity on us, and offered us a super super deal on financing, and included all installation and any parts that may need to be replaced once they start taking everything apart to install it. Considering how the water tank went, that could be considerable. We are leaning towards taking the deal. Oh, he also said he could have it done within 2 days of signing a contract, so it could be as soon as next week. That's how sorry he felt for us, since we have small kids drinking this water. We have Culligan coming in tonight to see what they have to offer. I'm betting they will have a hard time beating last night's offer though.

So, in light of the water issues, the mice pale in comparison. After all, they are keeping to just one cabinet, and I don't even have food in them. I've been putting poison in there, but I know there are too many to kill off that way. I put a trap there too, right where I can see the opening, and it gets set off twice a night, but it hasn't caught them yet. Smart little buggers. A cat is moving higher up the priority list.

As Promised, Some Pictures

2008-02-21T16:47:00.002-05:00

We made another run (actually two, I forgot the key the first time - Oops!) today, and it was a nice sunny day, so I got a few pictures. Of course I then wandered around the house thinking, OMG it is so small! What was I thinking? How will we fit? And then to top it off, the kitchen was littered with mouse droppings. UGH! I guess the sellers had been coming in daily to clean those up, so we didn't realize how much activity there was. I had assumed some, but obviously we will be setting traps and putting out poison. Yuck.

Also, it looks like I won't get my fridge tomorrow. We are due for a snow/ice/sleet storm all day tomorrow, so even if the delivery truck made it, there is no real way *I* could get there and back. I have rescheduled the delivery for Sunday. That will work, since there will be a lot of people there, helping move in!

Both of my sisters are coming, and bringing their families, so it will be a kind of family reunion, and we plan on having some fun once the work is done.

Ok, here is the house from the driveway:

And here is a shot of the barn. It is very close to the house, which is nice and convenient. Not sure how much I'd like it if there were cows in it... LOL

It's Ours!

2008-02-20T16:45:00.002-05:00

We are now the proud owners of an old farmhouse! With awesome barn. Lots of work to do to clean it up, and ack, it seems smaller inside now that we have to figure out where to put everything. But the potential is heady. There are so many things we could do with it.

We have been packing and moving boxes all week. On Sunday, Chris took 5 loads over in the van, with the benches out. I have been driving over once a day with just the back bench out, and the boys have been helping me unload. Last night I went out and bought a new refrigerator. It was a little tricky, since the space for the fridge is in a tight spot, so I had to maximize volume while minimizing depth. I did ok, though I suppose most people would think 18.2 cu ft is small for a family the size of ours. But the best part was that it was on sale! It was last year's model and they already had the new models out, so I had to take the floor unit. I got a 10% discount for a tear in the cardboard on the back, plus they were having a special for free delivery. I got my new fridge for $400!

At closing, Chris got a good look at what our payments will be until we sell our current house, and got a little freaked out. Our plan is to reammortize the loan once we get our equity back out of this house. We won't be eligible to do that until June even if we sell now, so we have 3 months of very high payments. It is a bit scary, but we planned for it, and have the money in savings to cover it, at least for a few months. Let's hope this house sells quickly! (and for asking price - we are listing it at what we consider to be a reasonable price, instead of trying to play games with counter offers etc etc). The market around here is picking up a bit, and Spring is traditionally a busy season for real estate. My fingers are crossed!

No pictures yet, but I will be at the house on Friday to clean (and await my new fridge), so I can get plenty of pictures. I think most of them will be "what were these people thinking????" kind of pics, but they will make great "Before" photos! LOL

Almost There

2008-02-13T13:56:00.002-05:00

Closing is less than a week away! We're signing the insurance policy this afternoon; we got permission to get in the house on Sunday so we can move some stuff early. By the end of next week, we should be ready to shift the bulk of our living from here to there!

Packing is going, um, slowly. Really, how can you know what to pack when you need most of the stuff that is out? I think mostly the boxes in the attic, some in the garage, and the little I have managed to pack so far are what is going to be moved on Sunday. Chris will have the last week of February off of work to finish getting everything out and clean up. Hopefully we will find a buyer quickly!

He Walks!

2008-02-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

In January, Jacob took his first steps. By the end of last week was up to about 5 steps at a time. This week, he is choosing to try walking everywhere before he gives up and drops to the floor to crawl. Right in line with his brothers, he has walked before his first birthday!

In other exciting news, the house is officially ours, and we are closing on the 19th! Yes, only 2 weeks away! Ack, off to pack...

Things You Didn't Know That You Really Didn't Care That You Didn't Know

2008-02-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged for a meme by Lisa so I guess I'll play. I have a feeling that most of the people reading this blog know as much about me as is worth knowing, but here goes...

The rules for this meme are:

(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

hmmm not sure I can think of 6 people who haven't already been tagged LOL

1. I like Diet Coke and won't drink Pepsi no way, no how.
2. I like angel creme donuts, and can't stand chocolate donuts.
3. I went to Germany for 3 weeks when I was a sophomore in high school, as an exchange student.
4. I ended up graduating from college as a Math major, even though in high school I regularly slept through my Calculus class (as in, I fell asleep with my head on the desk, and I sat in the first row, oops!)
5. Green is my favorite color. Not mint green or pine green, but hunter green, the color of early summer grass and leaves.
6. I like to swim, though I don't get much chance to anymore.

Ok, so now to pass on the fun:

1. Paula
2. (the Other) Gretchen
3. Kim
4. Jenni
5. Heather
6. Aimee

Where Have I Been?

2008-01-28T15:08:00.001-05:00

I wanted to try to post more often once Christmas was over, but I've been busy. Just after New Year's, I saw a house come up on the market and it looked like maybe something Chris and I would want. We have always known that our stay in this house would not be long, 5 years maybe, because we wanted more room outdoors for the boys. Lately Chris has really been getting the itch to get out of this house. He doesn't like the area (he thinks this is the city, which makes me laugh, it is country to me) and he wants room to get out and roam around.

We went out and looked at the house. We went back and looked again. We looked at our checkbook and tried to figure if we could swing it. We went back and looked one more time. We decided to go for it. We qualified for the mortgage without even selling this one yet (though the payments are scary), and so we made an offer. There was a previous offer on the house, but those buyers couldn't get financing without selling their first house, so their contract was conditional. The sellers decided to take our offer, even though it was a little lower, since we could close right away. So, barring the previous buyers actually coming up with money by Wednesday, the house is ours! Now the worries about how the heck we are going to pay for it, and of course selling this one, begin!

Our new house (?)

Belated Merry Christmas (to us!)

2008-01-09T23:53:00.000-05:00

My dad sent a check to help us upgrade our sad little 19" tv. When he was here to visit at Thanksgiving, and saw what we were watching, I think he cried a little for us LOL. We had already been thinking of getting something bigger, but we hadn't really decided on what we wanted. The cabinet we had would not hold anything that much bigger than the one we had. In the end, we decided on a 32" LCD tv, so then we had to get a new cabinet too. So shopping for a new tv, and a new cabinet to put it in, took us a while. It was a lot of money, even with a generous dad/father-in-law/grandpa, and we wanted to be careful how we spent it. Both the tv and the cabinet ended up being on sale. I think we did ok, though obviously we have room in the new cabinet to upgrade again LOL. We only just got it all hooked up and plugged in tonight, so I can't review the tv yet; I hope all the excitement and anticipation was worth it!

A Closer Look

2008-01-03T12:06:00.000-05:00

Even with the individual pictures of the Days of Christmas, it was hard to see the details on each of them. I told you the pipers and drummers were my favorites, here they are, even closer:

Each color is a separate piece of paper glued on, none of it is colored in. Even the tassle on the hat, the tags on the socks, the plaid on the kilts, the eppaulettes, the buttons on the coat fronts and cuffs. I used an Exacto knife to cut almost all of it out. One of the things I like best about these are that cutting each piece out by hand one at a time made each figure unique. None are exactly alike.

Christmas Cookies

2008-01-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

So, a few days after Christmas, I finally got around to rolling out some dough and cutting out some cookies! This is the first time I've tried cut out cookies, and they weren't all that tasty because they were too doughy and I had to keep adding flour to stiffen them. Samuel, Micah, and Caleb decorated them, and they had fun with that. For all that they were not the best tasting sugar cookies I've ever had, they were eaten up pretty quickly!

They ate the cookies so quickly that I didn't have a chance to get a picture of them eating them!

12 Days of Christmas, Construction Paper Style

2008-01-02T19:40:00.002-05:00

I was asked to show a closer view of my 12 Days of Christmas cutouts. My sister and I started these in high school, as a locker decorating project. We never did get them finished before we graduated, but I finished them in college. They are made from cutting out pieces of construction paper in different colors, kind of like quilting but with paper and glue instead of fabric and thread. I drew up a picture, then cut it into pieces for each color, traced it onto the construction paper, cut them out, and glued them onto the background square. Our inspiration was a holiday ad for some sort of liquor like Bailey's or something. I did adapt the images, and I am most proud of my pipers and my drummers.

On the first day of Christmas:

On the second day of Christmas:

On the third day of Christmas:

On the fourth day of Christmas:

On the fifth day of Christmas:

On the sixth day of Christmas:

On the seventh day of Christmas:

On the eighth day of Christmas:

On the ninth day of Christmas:

On the tenth day of Christmas:

On the eleventh day of Christmas:

On the twelfth day of Christmas:

The Rest of the Day

2007-12-28T23:50:00.001-05:00

Once they got over the shock of the Barbies, they went on to open the rest of their gifts, which they were very happy with. Lots of Transformers, lots of Thomas, some Legos, some books and DVDs. The oldest 4 got shirts with Lego Star Wars on them, that was a popular gift.

Christmas Morning

2007-12-28T23:27:00.000-05:00

After getting to bed around 4 AM (I was up wrapping, but to be honest, I wasn't moving too fast. I interrupted myself a lot, to read, or change the CD, or have a piece of candy LOL), the kids got up around 7. Actually, Samuel woke up at 5, because the baby was stirring. Instead of ignoring him like usual, he got him out of bed and started playing with him. He says he didn't know it was so early LOL. Chris got them both back to sleep and then they were the last ones up for breakfast.

Christmas morning breakfast here is just candy. I have tried making something special, but the boys have no interest in putting off presents. This year they ate the second gingerbread house. Keep in mind that we made it over a week ago, and that Levi is very sneaky. Here is what the house looked like when I served it:

The back

Not too bad, just a few candies missing here and there...

The front

Well well, notice how the gumdrop windows are gone? LOL

They enjoyed the house anyway, along with candy canes and Hershey's kisses.

This year is the first year we've done stockings for the boys. We don't teach them that Santa is real, so there wasn't a point, especially since we didn't have a fireplace. This year, since we put the tree up downstairs, stockings made sense. I bought cheap ones and put candy in. We also added a surprise...

Eager to open

What the heck???!!!

Oh yes, those are Barbies! LOL See how the 13 yo has fallen completely over? I think that was an allergic reaction LOL. The boys had been acting pretty badly the last few days, and very much as if they were entitled to their gifts. We thought this variation on coal could be a teachable moment LOL

Worse Than Coal

A House Full of Boys

Snow Days

Just for you, Dad, Merry Christmas!

The Great American Melting Pot

3 Years Old

Snow!

Caught

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Picture Palooza

More Pictures

Spirit of America

Happy Birthday!

Troyer's Art

Summer at Our House

Another Quote

Random pictures from the last month and a half

Pathfinder Fair

Field Trip!

More Food for Thought

Extra Pictures

We Didn't Call the Fire Department

5 Fewer Long-Haired Hippy Freaks in My House

Spring is Near

I'm Addicted!

Just For Fun

The Rest of the Trip

I Had Other Things to Post

Saturday

Friday Night

Florida

Cuties

Generous Neighbors

What a Difference a Month Can Make

Out With the Old

A Sad Day

2 Years Old

No Pictures

Some More Christmas Pictures

Ice

Happy New Year!

Some Pictures

Many Pictures, All Still in the Camera

One More

More Leaves!

more videos

My First Ever YouTube Video

They're Baaaack!

Autumn

Indian Summer

Happy Halloween!

Definitely My Favorite Political Video So Far This Fall

Celebrity Sighting at WalMart

October is Fire Safety Month

Pathfinder and Adventurer Induction

Catch Up - Part 3

Catch Up - Part 2

Playing Catch-Up, Part 1

Taking a Breather

Wet

These Guys are Awesome

Is It Over Yet?

This Weekend Was Busy

Holiday Fun

OUCH!

Something to Think About

Mowing the Lawn, the Green Way

Happy Birthday Noah!

More Fun with Widgets!

Some Pics of the House

More Fun Pics of Summer

Fun Summer Pics

A Few New Things

What Happened to Summer???

Inedible Fruit

Success! and Thanks

More Mystery Flowers

The Prize Peanut

Driving Lessons

A Busy Month