BLAST FROM THE PAST Monkey Do

L and E doing school work on the couch while S and G Monkey do :) 

This was taken January 2015. Check out the room behind them. No walls, hallway or stucco. 

Gingerbread Smash

Successful :) Great fun had by all! 

J's 11th Birthday

Better late then never right? 

So hard to believe he's 11 already! He loved his apple tarts and whipped cream cake. 

Reading the invitation from Grandma. A night on his own at G&G's house! What an experience :) 

A funny card Papa made for him. :) Strangly similar to one Papa's folks gave Papa not too many years ago. Humor, strange or otherwise abnormal, does run in families :) 

His very own sling shot. He promptly made a bag for rocks and went out target practicing. 

A book from G&G. Hardy boys. His first one. He's also been deep in the Louis L'Amour box this winter. 

Happy Birthday J! J loves to read, shoot his new bow and sling shot, and help in the kitchen. He told me just the other day that now he can make all 3 meals in the day, and cookies, just about by himself!  (And only just about because he isn't sure of oven temps etc). He's very good with the littler kids, often reading to them or teaching them something. He's amazingly strong and does all my lifting jobs with Papa now. He's working on a origami book right now and has a collection of animals he's made from paper. He also loves to build paper air planes, metal swords and collect things. He also loves to wrestle, either with L on the trampoline or with Papa on the living room floor. His feet are a size bigger then mine and Papa's and he's got about 20lbs to go before he'll outweigh Papa! He loves social studies and science and could do without math (even though he's super good at it) and English :) he loves to make fires in the woodstove and plays some great piano :) He's already decided his next instrument with by a guitar! 

Thanks for being such a wonderful son :) We Love you lots! 

Gingerbread Houses

We made a village this year. Two big houses, 4 little houses, a big tree and a bunch of gingerbread men. It was super fun! 

The finished village. 

It went really smoothly this year with the different work stations for different age groups. I did all the 'glueing' while Papa ran interferace and helped keep everyone busy and out of trouble :) 

The boys house. 

The tree decorated by Papa, G and J3. 

The girls house. 

A little house I decorated and a person done by either J3 or G. 

E's little house she decorated alone. 

Papa started this one and I finished it. 

And I did this one too, with some help from R :) 

E's 8th Birthday

What's that they say? Better late then never :) 

Here are E's birthday pictures. She really enjoyed making her own cake this year :) 

Our horse crazy girl loved this new horse and the book that went along with him.

We had a great celebration night with G&G and B&B. Root beer floats! 

She wanted a dog family on her cake and flowers :) Turned out pretty good actually. Did you know that red sprinkles added to white icing makes really cool pink sprinkly icing? You do now! 

I can't believe she's 8 already. She loves to do hair, horses, playing with or reading to the little kids, tag or any sort of games. She can ride her bike with no hands, hand milk a cow, make toast like a pro, braid her sisters hair, finger knit, hand sew (and a little on G's machine!),  read a novel, and loves to take pictures with her camera. Oh and make pot holders, quite a lot of pot holders around the place these days ;) Here favorite school at the moment is her book study! We love you E! 

G's 3rd Birthday

G was so excited to have OLAF on her cake :) 

Whipped cream for snow and some pink icing just because she loves pink. Pink everything. 

Opening gifts with the siblings. She got a Frozen set of mini dolls from Papa and I, a bunch of random stuff from the siblings and a tea party ( food included) from G&G :) Grandma baby sat for us a few weeks later and they had a grand tea party then :) 

G loves pink, Frozen, coloring, babies, Olaf and trying to keep up with every other child on the place. She's quite the little motor mouth and loves to sing. She just got a toddler bed and graduated to it from a mattress on the floor ( so when they fall out of bed they don't fall far.) G loves to play with S inside and 'wing with J3'outside. She's a very brave girl and anything J3 can do: she can too ;) 

Thankful Thursday.

So I'm siting at the kitchen table, tapping this out, munching on a granola bar and watching the sun rise. Yes, it's 8:22 and the sun, here, is just rising. Pretty isn't it. 

The funny lights in the top one is from our Christmas lights in the living room reflecting in the window. 

R, a great friend of mine, could tell you how much I love to watch sunsets. Sometimes on our little girls nights out we've driven quite out of the way just for a good view of the sunset. Once we even got a call from her worried husband who happened to be tracking her phone. Opps. But this morning I'm watching the sun rise from my kitchen table.  This is huge. I had no idea I could see it rise from inside my house. Maybe it's the time of year? Like the sunsets we see rarely in the fall when the days are just the right length? I'm hoping not. I'm hoping that I've just been sleeping in and missing them and it's not some weird sun directional thing like the falls sunsets. 

Throwback Thursday

    I keep this picture as the screen picture on my iPad. S loves it. PAPA he screams every single time he sees it, just like G did before him. 

    It was late at night and the boys were tired but the gas station ( look at the price of Gas!!) was pretty much deserted and I asked Papa to pose for me and he did. A very rare event. 

    This was taken before E was born in 2006. Here are the boys J and L in the back seat. This was the first trip to town in Polly. I remember L hated that jacket. We had been driving a brown VW Rabbit before this but the three kids wouldn't fit so Papa bought Polly and got her ready as a family hauler. She has been through a few updates: she has a 3rd seat in the very back and can now haul 9 :)  We recently thought we had to up grade to something bigger but then we realized that she seats 4 in the front seat :) So Papa and I and J and L can all sit in the front and we still have room for baby!! Yay!! 

Little Monkey

He loves to watch the critters and kids outside :) 

Thankful Thursday

Wow it's been ages since I wrote a Thankful Thursday post! 

Today I'm thankful for 

- my crew and crew master: Papa and kids. 

- several really good nights of sleep. 

- my kidneys seem to have decided to behave themselves for a bit :) 

- beautiful sunshine

- little kid snuggles. One of the best parts of my day. 

- S and his love for cows. 

- J3's energy and enthusiasm. If only I could soak some of it in! 

- the Internet and everything that's now available in our homes.

- little girls who love to do hair and who are getting quite good at it.

- friends who encourage. 

- baby T's thumping through my belly. He hit the ultrasound wand so hard the other day it bounced! 

- my maids, dishwasher, washer, dryer, coffee maker, oven, milking machine :) 

And the last and slightly 'off' one: the dogs. I've got a love/hate relationship with them at the moment. I love that I almost always know when someone drives up, an animal is out, or someone is walking on the road. I hate that Tucker try's to climb into vans and that Chip is cranky. They've taken to fighting over a coveted sleep spot sometimes several times a day. Bonus Chip is losing weight :) which is probably why he's cranky.