Tag Archive for Family

Children at Work & at Play!

I captured some shots of our children at work and at play yesterday. I used the flickr slide show again. I just wanted to try it this week to see how I liked them and how you all liked them. Might try something different next week. Not sure what yet.

The first photo is of one of our older daughters (the third oldest) playing with her horses. I snapped a shot because soon enough she won’t be playing with them any more. Sniff. Sniff. She’s growing up! The second one is of our youngest daughter with our reading lesson book, 100 Easy Lessons, which I have used with all six older children to teach them to read. Blondie is doing wonderful and I really believe that the foundation that ABCMouse.com gives the children has helped her supersede where she would have been otherwise. She is nearly sounding out the words silently and saying them fast – we are only on lesson 14! We are very pleased with ABCMouse.com. I don’t have to conj-ole or bribe the children to do their school work on ABCMouse. It’s that much fun. Ok, enough of my shameless, unpaid plug! ;-)

Back to the photos…next comes the blocks that were scattered on the floor. And if I was participating in my old friend’s “The Children Were Here” posts this is one that I would post as we always seem to have these blocks scattered. Then I shot one of a couple of school books that were laying around.

The next photo after that is of our two older boys shoveling the driveway for their Dad. The thing is I didn’t send them out there to do it, they volunteered. Granted they have always loved to shovel snow for some reason, but still it does this mama’s heart good when they do things like this without asking and especially thinking of their Dad who had to drive home on messy roads!

My oldest daughter has taken a dislike of being caught on camera, she’d rather be behind the lense these days! So when she put her laptop up in front of her face today as I was snapping a picture I told her I was going to post it! So that’s why that one is there! She’s a hard worker that one and has some solid work ethics already. She won’t go to the barn if she has too much work to do, nor will she goof off until her work is done. We are proud of her.

The rest of the photos are of two of the younger children doing their best to help shovel a little bit, the snow plow (the boys wanted me to get one of all the snow flying over the truck but I kept missing it) and just of our time outside.

The last photo is of a masked man…not sure where he came from or what he was doing in my house but my daughter caught him red handed! Isn’t he positively evil looking? Ha! ;-)

A FREE Nativity Booklet

If you are observing the birth of Jesus this Christmas, you may want to check out this free Nativity booklet from Answers in Genesis:

Direct link: http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/files/2010/12/nativity-booklet.pdf?utm_source=AiGSuperSpecials&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FreeDownload&utm_campaign=SS12222011

Merry Christmas!

Confessions on XFactor Night

Ok, I admit we are XFactor junkies at our house. My husband is a huge music buff (it was at a Christian music concert that he found a relationship with God!) and I…well…get pulled in by the contestants’ stories. When my husband was laid off a few years ago we discovered Britain’s Got Talent through Susan Boyle’s sensational audition that went viral, that in turn lead to us finding out about the UK’s XFactor. I am actually almost ashamed to admit this but we watch the UK, Australian and now the US version of the show. My husband and I usually watch it first, as with tonight’s US show and then watch it with our children. That way any scantily clad dancers, inappropriate lyrics etc. can be screened out of their view. Most of the time the show is pretty much ok, but it’s the music/entertainment industry’s standards that mess things up – at least for our family.

The girls categories on both the US and UK versions are strong this year. It was the boys category that was strong on the Aussie version.

So are their any other XFactor fans out there? Any thoughts? We think Simon Cowell makes the show and the chemistry between him and the other US judges is pretty fun to watch. After all the show is for our entertainment, right?

Now off to my cheap date night with my husband! (I did not get this posted because as I nursed my son to sleep he lulled me to sleep! I know all you nursing moms understand! ;-) )

The results of last night’s show are on tonight on Fox.

I have started three posts this week and have not got back to them, so I am trying to get them posted now.

Playmates & Brothers

Fall Canning and Apple Picking Photos

Thrifty Thursday is all about canning and finding ways to provide good food for our families. Canning can be expensive, but if you are going to do it for the long haul then the initial investment is worth it. I bought canning supplies back in 2001 and we have only used them a handful of times until this year. Friends have been good to us providing produce and jars.

Apple picking. Check local orchards, neighbors who do nothing with the apples just falling to the ground in their yards and gleaning programs set up by non-profit organizations and farm partnerships. This applies to other fruits and vegetables too. We do this not only for ourselves but to provide local food pantries with fresh fruits and veggies – the ones that take them anyways.

This is actually fermenting sauerkraut and it is a before photo as I think it was a failed first attempt….maybe….haven’t tasted it yet to know for sure. Kind of scared to and you’ll know why by the next photo. A friend told me it should be fine, but I still have my doubts….

And here is one of the second batch with the first batch….notice the difference in coloring:

This is our stash of some of our canned tomatoes. We also have salsa, jam and applesauce. We are planning to make more applesauce tomorrow with two families. We will have three moms and 24 kids…..thankfully we will have a few over the age of 16! Plus some other young ladies helping equal the number above age 12!

Gleaning often means taking the leftovers that have fallen to the ground and are not perfect. However, they are perfect for canning and dehydrating.

Apple picking/gleaning is also a wonderful way to spend a beautiful day together as a family.

Happy Thrifty Thursday!

What I Hate About Photography

I love taking pictures of our family, of our outings etc. Photos seem to make memories last longer.

What I hate about photography is is getting the image so it can be used in multiple ways. For example: I changed the theme of Faith and Family Reviews last tonight and discovered that I could customize the header. I thought, “This will be great because then I can use family photos and make it more personal!” Yeah, right.

I went through dozens of photos only to discover that many of our photos are completely useless in regards to being a header. As with the one featured, it is blurry. Bah humbug. So bear with me as I learn the art of taking photos so they make great headers.

Perhaps we will take a vote on this month’s header from the few that are sort of useable. I will try to remember to switch them out over the next week so please let me know what you think.

Just maybe I will get some shots taken that will be useful….either that or I will find out my camera is the problem…..

A New Addition – Wordless Wednesday

Sorry, this was suppose to go live two weeks ago, but I found it in my drafts folder……

See, I told you he was a new addition! But he is not a human addition, but the pet variety.
……And this went live this morning without a photo because I still have not found my camera cord, so I nabbed a photo of Robert that we emailed to Blaze’s owner. Sorry to those visiting earlier today and saw nothing! Surprise!

More of this story later….;-) Nothing like spiking your interest and curiosity, eh?

End of Summer – Health and Garden Tuesday

I don’t know about you, but I am always sad when the end of summer arrives. It is always refreshing to have the cool mornings and nights that comes with this time of year, however, it also means winter is just around the corner….which is my least favorite season.

It was a very busy summer traveling back and forth two days a week to Mrs. A’s farm, but full of learning and memories. By the time we had moved in early August, the children (and me too, admittedly) were tiring of being gone from home, traveling and…..weeding. All of that came to an end on Friday, September 16th. We are officially done at Mrs. A’s. Our last farmers market was the 10th. (Oh and by the way, we were in the Glenview news for a feature for the farmers market over Labor Day weekend. You can view it here: http://glenview.patch.com/articles/bringing-the-garden-to-your-plate Sorry forgot the link earlier!)

Now, it’s time to make plans for our own farm. We have our garlic to plant, our 2 fields to till and manure. We are still deliberating over ordering baby chicks for laying hens. Not sure I want to start a batch in cool weather and over-winter them. That’s the disadvantage. The advantage is that we will get eggs in the spring some time – a huge plus if we want them for our family, farmers markets or a CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture definition here.) My husband had wanted to wait on the animals but he seems to be more open to the chickens now that we are done at Mrs. A’s. We did just get used feeders and a nesting box off of Craigslist – can you say smelly and dirty?! A definite disadvantage to buying used. We will clean them up before using them to safe guard against any possible contamination occurring. We still need fencing and housing for chickens…and time…lots and lots of decisions.

It still seems a bit surreal that we have our own place to farm. I feel like I have to pinch myself sometimes.

We are thoroughly enjoying our extra space and are praying for guidance for our future farming enterprise.

 

Settling In – Motivation Monday

We have settled into our new home quite nicely. We have even gone back to being hospitable and have had friends and family over at least four times with more to be scheduled. Yes, we are enjoying sharing our new home with others! I use to love having folks over until we really outgrew our townhouse. It is good to be back into playing hostess again.

We had our lefse party with family two weeks ago, which was a great hit. We hope to plan a quarterly lefse party into our family tradition. We are playing around with the idea of inviting a different family over for each one. Just thought that it would be fun to share this Norwegian potato bread and tradition with others.

We had our old neighbors over in August so they could see our new home before school started back up and all the chaos going back to school brings. We had a blast with them.

Another friend dropped over to pick up somethings/drop things off, so we gave her a quick tour.

Then yesterday old friends from our college days came over for the afternoon bringing some of their cast offs, which is like Christmas to the children – new (to them) clothes, toys, games (we did two new puzzles this morning since it was raining 100 piece each) and even some canning jars (we canned tomatoes last week with friends and then did some applesauce and jam on our own, so very satisfying!)

There is something special in having people over, don’t you think? Our children love it and have missed it, thus the reason for planning more get-togethers because they keep asking, “Can we have so and so over?” ;-) Plus we love it too.

How often do you entertain? Are you planning any fall parties at your home? Would love to hear how you all entertain guests in your home! That is this week’s motivation. Being hospitable is actually biblical, what better way to show the love of Christ to strangers and brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Separation Anxiety And a Move!

 

We all know what separation anxiety is, it’s when a small child is fearful and full of anxiety when separated from his/her mother, right? Or is that all it is? What about moms, can we have separation anxiety? I believe we can and to be honest, I am suffering from it this week. Actually it just sort of happened overnight as our house takes on that hollow sound…..hollow sound, you ask…..

We are moving! This is a huge move for us, in more ways than one.

We have lived where we are for the past 16 years. Our current home has served us well, but we have really outgrown it. I think we have been at that point since child number six. We love our current town. It is a great little town. We love our neighborhood. It’s quiet. We have had the same neighbors around us for all of that time or over half of that time. We’ve had the same phone number…and all of that is about to change.

It is a mixed bag of feelings. Truly it is. I mean who would have thought that I would be sad to lose my phone number? Until we ran out of space, I really liked our house and will miss it. There are many memories here. We moved here as newlyweds. We became parents to eight children here. Our last three children were born in this house. It’s been my only home since moving to the U.S. 17 years ago.

The catch is, I have always dreamed of living in the country. I have longed for my children to enjoy the pleasures of country living and for the past three years we have been doing that by driving to the country during the summer. But it is getting tiring driving back and forth and being away from home so many days. Therefore, we decided to forgo our plans to farm at the farm incubator when we came across two homes each on 10 acres or more…..of course we looked at them!

By the time we decided on one and got back to the owners, it was no longer available. :-( Disappointing to say the least. It was a lovely piece of property. So we decided we did not want to lose out on the other.

This all happened within a short period of time in June-July. It still seems a bit unreal since we are still in between homes. If pinching didn’t hurt, I’d be asking folks to pinch me to be sure it was all real and not a dream.

We are moving to a more rural area, but still within the Chicago suburbs. We will have access to land, a larger house with LOTS of storage AND 3 potties. We are very excited!

 

Cartoon by yours truly (inspired by June Cleaver Nirvana) because I did not want to pay to use a comic strip! Please note: The order of children is not typical. Our younger children usually get first dibs on bathroom rights due to obvious reasons! ;-) Also note, my oldest does not find the humor in this silly drawing.

This week has not only been filled with physically moving but moving electronically. It was frustrating to find out our current phone/internet provider does not service our new home for internet, which led to more phone calls. But I think we are all set to go.

Now we just need to get everything moved to the new house. Let’s just say that being between two homes is not ideal! We are grateful to a new acquaintance/fellow farmer for their generous offer to help us by providing their 3/4 ton truck and trailer to get us all moved this weekend. We are amazed who the Lord uses sometimes, truly amazing. We have not even met this couple, I inquired about their farm as they farm using horses, something I have always been intrigued about and they live within minutes of our new home. A few emails later their offer came. The generosity of strangers, plus they are open to us coming to their farm to learn about what they are doing. No, I am not saying we’ll be farming with horses, but it is a compelling idea. My husband prefers machines, there’s something more macho and manly about tractors than horses….I think.

Here’s to separation anxiety, it will pass and a the start of a new chapter in our lives….