Christmas happenings....

We had a nice Christmas break spent with family and friends. 

Here are my Christmas gifts this year, homemade ornaments!

                                 Christmas morning I found our animals guarding Carter and the gifts.

                                Christmas Eve pajamas!

This guy loves to cook with me and so for Christmas I got him an apron with a bowl and measuring spoons, it came in a set. He loves it!!

                                Even Beardie enjoys the Christmas story.

Josh read some Christmas books to us!

The boys playing telephone at a friends house.

Sledding with cousins!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a Happy and Blessed New Year!!

Christmas caroling!

I love this time of year, we just finished a weekend of caroling and a Christmas program at our church. It is such a joy to sing carols and be merry. And also a blessing to see others merry too.

This evening we went and sang Christmas carols at a nursing home with my dad and his friends from church. It is always such a lovely time and so nice to see the people enjoy singing with us and being blessed by us talking to them and singing to them. Year after year it has always been a great way to start the Christmas season by doing this. I hope everyone goes Christmas caroling and just tries it at least once. You will find out how life changing it can be for you and the people you are singing to.

Gifts are great and everything, but what will happen to those gifts over time? They will break or get lost. Touching peoples hearts and showing them the Love of Jesus will not disappear. It will stay with them and I think that is what is really important.

After singing carols some people prayed with the residents and they were so grateful and happy we were there to talk, sing and pray with them. How great it was to see these people smile and it touches my heart for my boys to see this too.

So I hope everyone goes caroling and has a Merry Christmas!! :)

The boys and daddy handed out bulletins today at church for the Christmas program!! So cute!

Big, Big Bear!!

We went for a walk/hunt in the woods this past weekend and it was a foggy, but beautiful day. I kind of had a feeling we were going to see something today, either a deer or a fox, something. Well as we were walking up the hill in the woods, I heard Josh say something, but I thought he had seen a grouse or something like that. Well then I heard him say a little louder, Bear, walk do not run. I thought, O boy! So my oldest was keeping up with daddy, and my youngest was trying to keep up with me. The way Josh had said it, I thought the bear was coming after us, so I was thinking the worst. Thankfully, we got to the road and the bear was far behind us.
Josh said the bear was standing up and he thought it was about 500 Ibs. Ya! Big, Big Bear. The bear looked directly at Josh too. The boys and I didn't actually see the bear. I wish I could of got one quick photo of it standing up, but I can only imagine it now. Also, Sadie our dog was with and she was not far from the bear and she didn't bark or growl, nothing. So I believe if the bear was a real threat, she would have been growling or something.

But I was thanking God as we were walking on the road, because really it could of been worse. So it was an adventure, but thanks be to God for watching over us.

A walk in the woods

We helped daddy take down deer stands and go hunting with him before the hunting season ended. I had to pull the sled with deer stands in it and at times both boys in it too, lets just say I got my workout for the day. I do love walking in the woods on these beautiful snowy days. 

I Love history and antiques and this is a favorite of mine to find treasures like this in the woods, how cool. And once again I am going to say, I wonder who owned this, when it was used, where is the home of the people who drank from this at? I just love to think about a family in a log cabin in the woods and this was their source of water. Makes me think about Little house in the big woods. 

The date looks like May 4, 18 something 7

Now a little field mouse makes it his home, yes can you see his little whiskers. He kept peeking his head out at me and the boys while we were looking at this.

What a wonderful home for a little mouse, he is protected from all the dangers of the woods and from the cold, winter nights. I imagine he has a cozy little bed with nice warm blankets and in his room are a collection of things he has found in the woods for his decorations. Maybe  I have watched too many Disney movies or read to many fairy tales, but it is fun to imagine things like this.

                                                       Sleep sound tonight little field mouse.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We enjoyed a wonderful time with family and friends today.

My helper setting the table.

 It snowed today and it was beautiful!

Anthony wasn't too fond of Beardie, his girlfriend wasn't either.

We played lots of games after the feast. 

Fun times, thankful for the nice time with these guys and for being able to serve others this morning for Thanksgiving. 

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever!!

Now the boys and I are excited to decorate for Christmas!!

Our funny animals....

We love our animals!! 

They have been kinda goofy around here lately, look and see for yourself.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Mr. Beardie

Can you see this little guy, wow! He stole that huge apple in his arms from our bunny. How crazy!! And would you believe he ran up the tree with the apple in his mouth, too funny!!

You can tell by the craziness of these animals that winter is just around the corner......

Our sweet Rainbow is such a mother, she is the kindest, most loving cat to the boys.

So excited about speech therapy!!

Conner is now attending Natures Edge for speech therapy, he loves it and they have lots of animals, which is really cool.

In these pictures they were doing Hippotherapy on the horses to help with his sounds, It is a great place and I am so thankful it worked out for us to come here. They also have a parrot who helps with speech and even plays games!! So neat! 

The boys love going there and I am excited to see Conner learning and enjoying it. 

Homeschooling is going good, we are so busy and it seems like the days fly by. The boys are loving it, but still give me a hard time about doing there work. It is getting better now that we have a set schedule. I have some good friends asking me weekly how things are going and I am so thankful for them. We have also put the boys in Karate, one more thing, but I have wanted to enroll them in Karate for awhile and last week I said lets try it and the boys love it. We are trying a month and see what we think and if we can balance all of this without it being too much. The holidays are coming and the boys and I cannot wait to decorate the house with Christmas stuff, especially Aunt T's train she gave them as a gift last Christmas. 

Hope everyone is enjoying Falls beauty!!  

Canning

Canning, canning , canning its all we do around here lately. I LOVE that our garden has provided such great, healthy food for us to enjoy all winter, but it is alot of canning and cutting. Whew! 

So grateful though!

As you can see I have even had the boys help with making spaghetti sauce. 

And we had 10 times the tomatoes than whats in this picture!!

Sadly, some of them went bad and I had to throw them into the compost pile. :/

School is going pretty good. I have had some rough days and some days that I cried (happy cry) because the boys actually seemed to be learning what I'm teaching them. I know crazy, but that is something that worries me a bit, that they won't learn what they need being at home. 

I do have a little issue with my Language Arts that I was trying and now I am trying to find a new curriculum. 

We have also started learning some Latin, which I love, just because I love learning things like that. I have truly learned so much myself or I guess relearning some things. 

Today in art we went outside and found different textures and colored over them, which was really fun and I participated too. The boys love that. 

So here is our finished textured pumpkins. 

Blue hills

All day nature day. It was great to get out in the Blue hills yesterday. And we finally found the "top secret" waterfalls in the blue hills. It is our favorite thing as a family to go out and fish and just enjoy nature. It was beautiful. 

We are excited to be coming up here again in a couple of weeks with some friends. 

If this isn't the coolest?!?!

~Nature is the art of God. ~