marbles and pictures

Gideon's really into marbles right now

We had parent teachers last night, Gus is doing really well

this first picture he drew the first day of school

this next one is from this week. they've been talking about what they want to be when they grow up. gus wants to be a farmer :) i love that he drew a beard on himself!!!  

this little dude will be 7 months tomorrow!!

Spring?

Well, the calendar says it's supposed to be spring, but looking out the window there is still white stuff coming down :( I did get some seeds started for our garden a few weeks ago for when the weather does get better...it will get better, right?! haha it always does.

 I started some peppers, tomatoes, celery, watermelon, cantaloupe and dill. usually you plant dill right outside, but last year it wasn't ready when I needed it so I started it early this year.

Here are my lovely crocus. they have survived a foot of snow covering them (after they bloomed!) and are getting covered up again, but they are a promise that better days are ahead.



Buzz Cut

it was shearing day yesterday!

 Naked sheep :)

my job was to take the fleece and put it in the bag. Chris had to stomp it down though because i never would have gotten back out of the bag haha 93 sheep got sheered! we ended up with 4 bags.

Birthday bash!

Our oldest turned 5 on the 9th. Its hard for me to believe he's that old already! The older i get the faster time seems to pass. I get teary eyed when i look back at his baby pictures and see how much he's grown in such a short time, but it also makes me excited for all that is to come! Gus was a little sad on his birthday because school  was called off on acount of crazy cold weather; but we made up for it by having a fun day at home and cup cakes at supper :)

Our middle kid turned 3 just five short days later! He had fun helping me make his birthday treats. I was looking back on videos of Gideon as well this past week and was just amazed at how much he's grown in just the past year! He keeps us on our toes at all times, but i think he'll always be my little Gideon.

I love making their birthday cakes every year, its so fun to come up with the theam and see the smiles it brings when its all done! The past two years i've done one cake for each of them to try to keep each birthday special, but this year i opted to make one big cake, just for ease and i realy dont think they minded.

It was a camo cake this year! and i must say it was fun (even if time consuming) to make :) even the inside is camo! I found some camo sugar paper at walmart and thats what you see on the outside. I must say its not the gratest to eat, kinda tough and tasteless, but it does look good and is easy to work with, and easy to pull off if you dont want to eat it. Both boys ate it and thought it was fun.



inside view!



We had a great time with family celebrating these two crazy wonderful boys of ours :)

Christmas

So i know i'm a little behind the draw here, but oh well, with three kids its not easy to find time to ones self!

we started off the Christmas season by playing the Holy Family in our church Christmas program :)

We were able to visit my family for there Christmas get together! My grandpa got to meat santa and said he thought he'd be taller haha :) i love this picture of them <3

we had a realy good time visiting! My sister was able to fly in from CA and we had a realy good time visiting. she was able to come up to our house and visit overnight with my mom after Christmas too wich was realy fun!

We had a nice Christmas day morning at home. Gus got us all some nice gifts at school! This is gideons with his :)

We made our new years gingerbread house! i admit it was a bit crazy and almost didnt happen, but it was fun :) i gave them each a side and it was fun to see the difference between them. gus's side was just plastered with candy! Gideons not so much, i think he ate more than he put on, actually i think he only put on what he did because i kept telling him to put some on the house haha! 

2013 was a crazy busy year for us, having a baby, moving, gus starting school; the year just flew by for us. I look back fondly and look ahead with anticipation to all that will happen in the new year.

school play

Gus's school Christmas program was yesterday.

Is there anything more cute than a little boy all dressed up and fidgeting on stage?!

I was pleasantly suprised that they included the nativity and some hyms!

Gideon was so excited to go see Gus at school and was realy good, but didnt want to leave.

By his classroom tree

All ready to go home!

Gus documented our ride home with the camera (he loves to take pictures) so here are a few pictures he took. You can see that we have a nice thick blanket of snow!

Turkeys! we also saw a bald eagle!



Home again home again jiggity jig :)

2months

I'm not sure where the time has gone, but oliver is already 2 1/2 months old!

the 3 amigos!
He had his check up today and he's 12 lbs 15oz (49%)
and 24 1/2'' long (85%)! tall and skiny just like dad :)



snow day

Today was Gus's first ever snow day!

school was canseled due to the bad weather; i think he was a little disapointed at first.

i decided to cheer him up by making some snow ice cream!

They thought it was delicious!

i dont remember the last time we had so much snow so early! Hope you all stay warm in the cold snap that is coming!

butter

Gus and i made some home made butter today! he did this at school a few weeks ago, so he knew what would happen, but its still fun :)

i needed the cream to make some Christmas candies (making them a bit early to send over seas to my brother) and had about half of the container left.

it realy couldnt be easier! all you need is cream, a jar and some willing helpers!

just put the cream in the jar, put lid on tight, and shake away!

it'll turn to whipped cream first, but dont stop! a few mins after it turns to whipped cream it will clump up into a clump of butter with 'buttermilk' seperated from it. i poured it from the jar into a strainer to seperate the 'milk' from butter.



Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

from our home to

yours!



onions

i recently ran out of my supply of dryed onion, so i thought i'd share how i make them :)
couldn't be simpler, just cut up a few of the large yellow (or whatever kind you like) onions in slices. the thiner the slice the less time it takes. place them on the dehydrator trays and turn it on! it takes mine about 2 days to finish. (dont forget to rotate the trays!) you want the onions to be brittle before you take them out. if you do apples you want them to be bendy.

they will be all shrivled up and yellow brown in color when done. then i just break or crush them up in my hand and put them in a jar and they keep for a long time! my last jar lasted almost a year before i ran out! i dont use a ton of onion in my cooking though. i do find though that just a little of these falkes will add a lot of flavor and not be to oniony. 

thats the finished product :) they realy dont take up much space! that jar in the picture is holding 4 large onions! a tip too, for getting that nasty smell off your hands is to wash after cutting them up with a small amount of hydrogen peroxide mixed with dawn dish soap! this is also suposed to get the skunk smell out of say your dog or whatever happens to unfortunatly meet one!

settle down dust

well once again its  been awhile since i've been on here. i've been pritty busy chacing around these 3 hansome dudes :) i'm constantly reminded of a little poem i found that goes like this..

"Cleaning and scrubbing can wate for tomorrow,

for babies grow up,

we've learned to our sorrow.

so settle down cobwebs.

dust go to sleep.

i'm rocking my baby,

 and babies don't keep."

sorce

We had a fun holloween, although gideon realy did not enjoy the lions hall kids party.

Oliver is realy growing fast!! he's such a snuggly baby :)

My parents were able to visit  about a week ago and we got started in on our remodle project! i'm realy excited about it! when we moved here there we 2 bathrooms (same floor), the washer and dryer were in a hall area just outside one of the bathrooms and there is a back empty/nothing room wich shares a wall with the 2nd bath. our plan is to make the empty room and 2nd bath into one big bath, and what my dad and chris worked on was putting the washer and dryer in the other 'bathroom' and turn it into a real laundry room.

this is after the first day, doesnt look pritty to the eye, but to me its beautiful! the dryer now sits next to the washer you see here and they work beautiful!! its soooo nice to have a functioning laundry room even if its not compleatly finished.

this is the other half of the room and eventualy the toilet and sink will be gone and there'll be a laundry sink. and the nasty green will be gone!!

this is where the washer and dryer used to be (right off the kitchen outside of the bathroom). its now the pantry area. as seen here...

eventualy the dark shelves will be replaced with bracket shelves that will span the wall; and the walls will be painted white. i'll keep you all updated on the progress as it happens!

Happy  Thanksgiving!



Miracle of Miracles

Welcome to the world Oliver Charles Gregory!

9lbs 21.5 inches

tons of hair!

I never expected to have an October baby, but then babies cant read calenders and God had other ideas :)

We prayed for a long time for a good birth and i couldnt have asked and still cant believe how well it went! The phrase keeps coming to my mind 'oh ye of little faith'. God went above and beyond what i asked for and granted me an amazing delivery. This was also my first time having a dula and she was awsome! i highly recomend getting one if you can! Chris was also amazing, and continues to be :) (love you deary!)