Shirley The Jersey. A Christmas Story.

Some friends of ours wanted to go on a trip, but they had a cow they needed taking care of . Papa said sure and told me later, but I was fine with that. They brought her over the 22nd of December. Her name is Shirley and she reminds me of a large happy dog. She is inquisitive and alert. She walked right over the wire fence to explore the pigs and right back in again when Papa put the fence down. She is easy to catch and lead and she seems to be, very much, a people cow. You know; instead of a people person? She's a people cow. Shirley is a purebred jersey cow with a rough coat. I'd never seen a Jersey with a rough coat. Looks neat. I knew she was in labour the night she got here so I put her in our new calf pen with Ivan, Isabel's calf, and watched her for a bit. Until 1am actually when my feet were frozen and my eyes kept closing all by themselves. I went inside to bed but resolved to wake up in a couple hours to check on her. I must have been tired because the next hour I saw was 8am!! I thought, for sure, there would be a calf but no! While I was still scratching my head over that she lay down and gave a little push and I saw feet!! I ran inside and woke up the kids, made them get jackets on and boots and we all went out to stare at the cow! Then we went back inside as nothing was happening..that friendly cow kept saying 'good morning' to everyone and wouldn't lay down again to push the calf out!!   I stayed outside and watched her and when she was down again and staying down I called the kids and they all came out and watched the calf being born! Papa stayed inside with S but the other 6 were all there. Wonderful experience! Shirley did so good and after the calf was out and she was up she shared the love and licked Ivan all over just the same as she did her calf! A Christmas Eve calf! What a wonderful reminder of life and love and Jesus! 

L hand milking Shirley. Norman is the red calf, Ivan the black calf. 

 What a busy day it was. A friend and two of her children came for breakfast, a wonderful lady dropped off a quilt, a couple of guys showed up to pick up a freezer full of old meat for bait (a very big pig that died a couple years ago in the bush that we were going to feed to the dogs and never did as it smelled so bad!), Papa took the oldest 4 kids skating with church family for two hours while I cleaned house and napped littles,  R and her 6 kids came to see the calf and have a quick visit. C's and their 4 boys stopped in to see their cow Shirley and name the new calf Norman (city slickers anyone?). At one point there were 17 children in the house! Papa and Mr. C went to pick up some hay. Everyone was visiting and having a great time! I totally forgot it was Christmas Eve! The dog barked, the kids yelled, Grandma and Grandpa are here! The families were introduced, the calves seen again, the snowsuits, gloves, hats and children packed up, hugs given, good byes said, Papa and Mr. C arrived. R and her children left, C's packed up their boys, checked and double checked for mittens and jackets and oh don't forget the babies boots! Than a moment of silence. Ahh. 

Children chattering excitedly, Christmas Eve! We've remembered! Gingerbread houses and snack night and Grandma and Grandpa and excitement reined! I remember Papa hugged me and I smiled at him and we went into the kitchen to set up for the gingerbread house decorating. We decorated, we chatted and ate, we even opened gifts and hugged and laughed and then we were saying good bye again to Grandpa and Grandma and yelling MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Then again the house had a moment of silence before the little excited voices. Reminding us. Another Tradition. A wonderful Tradition, the annual watching of 'The Nativity Story.'  

Later that night after the kids were in bed Papa and I took a couple deep breaths and finished a few surprises for the next days giving. When the house was ready for bed I went out once again in the dark cold night to check the calves and Shirley and marvel. Every birth is a gift but God becoming man, being birthed into this human world to save us from sin is the greatest gift of all! What a personal reminder of the magic of life, the God thing that opened my eyes and quiets my heart. Thank you Jesus! 

*Disclaimer. Our children close their eyes for several minutes several times in the movie 'The Nativity Story' we also fast forward the first part and both births. 

General Update. Nov. 2013

I went on the computer to the blog tonight to make sure I don't forget how to blog. It's been a bit crazy around here you see and I'm still trying to get my feet back under me and remember that there are other things to do besides school, butchering, and housework and parenting.. well when the kids are asleep anyway. SO here you go... general update of our life.. crazy as it is :)

We've had two birthdays, which reminds me I need to change my about me again. E turned 7, and I already blogged about that here. And G turned two and we had her party last week. I'll hopefully post that soon. Other than that fun we've pretty much been busy putting up the animal harvest of the year.

Meatball the 3 year old steer we brought home, hung for two weeks and cut and wrapped and frozen. One simple sentence but a heck of a lot of meat and work since we did the entire thing ourselves. We sure are enjoying having beef again though :) OH and we bought a new meat grinder.. it's amazing!! Gobbles up the meat quick as a wink! Super quiet too.. Papa and I can chat while we work with this grinder.

6 pigs have hit the freezers, some for us, some for others. We have 4 more to do. There is a tote of sausage on the back porch waiting for Papa to smoke from our last butchering marathon. About 130 lbs of it. Pork pepperoni, summer and Mennonite sausage. Tastes great, we tried it all :) At one point we had a production line going. Papa cutting pork chops with the electric meat saw, J bringing them to the butcher table, L, E and R using canning rings to scrape the bone chips off and passing them to me to have the fat trimmed and do the final bagging. 10 chops to a bag. 12.5 bags. 3 pigs worth of chops. I don't see the point in packaging it in small packages.. I'm rarely going to get out just one bag. Normally I do two. Then we have leftovers :) I know.. we like to eat. We like to eat MEAT!!! lol. Papa's got bacon making in the back room and more frozen waiting to be sliced. Slicer is likely next on our to buy list as the place in town were we've always gotten it done can no longer slice it for us. Slicing bacon by hand is HARD WORK!! I don't mind work but 20 sides of bacon is a bit much to hand slice.

As we are butchering there is a lot of hides and innards and things in the lagoon.. which means we are seeing Eagles again. The kids have been taking pictures of them. So far there are only two but we are hoping we get the 8 or so we had last year later on in the season.

Term one of home schooling requirements 'to do' list was saved by a patch of cold weather.. kids couldn't spend much time outside so we actually almost finished the work for Term 1 before the deadline.. I don't feel to bad that we didn't. We only missed one assignment which is awesome work as we got 12 weeks of science and Social Studies work a mere month before the end of term. Some crazy changes to the curriculum in the school we go through. This term we are, hopefully, done with the changes and it will go smoother.

 R is reading and doing so wonderfully. She loves it and has been pecking away at her term 2 work for awhile now as she flew through her reading program. I'm really enjoying J's set up this year and he is too.. his system is a bit different now with his grade 4 teacher and we both like it.

S is doing really well. He's got cheeks :) Loves his jolly jumper. Tried banana's and HATED them. Sleeps long stretches at night, often is only up once around 5 or 6 am. And is in general a very happy smiley giggly little boy. He loves to laugh. If you laugh near him he bursts into giggles. Today I put him on his belly on the floor and he scooted.. later on I did it again and noticed he is bringing his knees up in order to move forward. Crawling is not far off. He has great hand eye coordination and rarely misses when he grabs things or shoves things in his mouth. I was going to wait until 6 months for solids but Papa's work has a Christmas Party that I want to attend so I will try him on cream of wheat soon. Just so I can go to the Party and Grandma will have something to feed him if she needs too. With the other boys I normally started solids at 4 months but S just isn't as hungry as L and J were. He's no where close to the constantly hungry J3 was at this age.. mind you he's only about 14 lbs and J3 was something like 20lbs at this age. S really is a Griggs :) J3 takes a bit more after my side of the family. I tried banana's just to see if he was really interested at all and he really was not. I'll likely wait another week now and try again. If nothing else I'll send it along and Grandma will have it if she needs it. The party will likely only last about 3 hours and we'll be near Grandma's house so I can go nurse him if I need too. And no I won't be leaving him a bottle.. I've not bottle fed the 1st six and I don't plan on starting with the 7th ;)

I realize I'm skipping around from family to farm but this next thing is both :) We got a couple more piglets to raise up on bottles. My uncle's pig had too many again and he brought two little female, gilts, piglets over Monday afternoon. We named them Sausage and Chops. The smaller one is Chops.. she's got attitude! They weighed in at 1.5 lbs and 3 lbs Monday when we got them. We are going to weigh them each week for a while and see how they grow. They are super cute. Sausage does seem to have a problem with her legs but it seems to be getting better as she gains strength. They were a week old when we got them, but very small. I put a glass square pan of milk in their tote tonight and I can hear them drinking it!! The pan is heavy enough they cannot get their little pig noses under it and tip it out!

Umm.. house.. nothing to report.. still there, nothings happening on it.. too BUSY BUSY BUSY putting in the meat harvest :)

Kittens.. seems like Daisy's kittens didn't make it. Never did see them but she's not skinny like she was last time, actually she's in superb shape, which makes me think they didn't survive. She must have abandoned them. Which is sad but there is nothing we can do about it so I'm not letting it get to me. Fluffs kittens are older and fine.. each one has been door trained. Some took longer than others. The little brown female got past J a couple of times but we did eventually teach her not to rush inside the minute a door opens. I won't have them in the house.. there are enough of us in here as it is :) 7 kids, 2 adults and 2 little pigs. Not bad for a two bedroom trailer with a addition!! Anyway now with her 3 kittens we have Daisy, Midnight, Fluff and the kittens are Caramel, Mischief and the so far unnamed orange male. Our last orange male has disappeared and we've not seen him in months. A good reason to keep a breeding female around.. cats don't seem to last long up in the north woods with the coyotes and wolves and eagles.

Papa is back to evening shifts. Noon to midnight, Wednesday thru Saturday. Which means I get less sleep then I would if he was on a normal shift but that's ok :) I like to see him at the end of the day and S often isn't in bed for the night until 11 anyway. I am taking my vitamins :) Dr. Nicole :)

Anyway. As always we are busy busy busy with family, farm, work and harvest. Some things get put off for later while we deal with more seasonal things.. for example I normally potty train right after their second birthday.. which G had almost 2 weeks ago now.. and no I'm not potty training her... I'm not going to either until later when butchering is done. It's not fair for any of us to do it now so we won't. It won't hurt her or me none to wait.

So things to look forward to on the farm is the end of pig butchering which should be not this weekend but next weekend. Isabel's calf which is due around the 23rd of December.. She's been AI'd to a Brown Swiss so we are hoping for a heifer. She sure is cranky these days and chasing Milton and Patch around a lot. Patch is still a scrawny little runt of a steer and both Papa and I have wondered if we did ourselves any favors when we got him from the dairy. We actually had him tied under a roof the 1st time it snowed as he was not looking good at all. He recovered well and is in with the cows now. He does have a nose for trouble and got out several times before we realized he could open our man gate by the milking area. Now the gate is bungied shut and he tries and tries but can't wiggle through anymore.

Oh right, the woodshed.. Pretty much done.. we got 6 inches of snow when Papa had two more piece of tin, one on each side, and the ridge cap to put on so neither of those are done but the snows pretty much off the roof now so he might get to that soon. We are loving the extra space and the wood dry and right by the house!!!

Our phone had a problem with our electric fence one morning when we had a dump of fresh snow so it's no longer working and we are phone less. We are looking into a cell phone to replace the home phone and hope to get that all figured out this weekend, but in the mean time are communicating mainly through Imessage and FB.


I have to say though that I LOVE MY LIFE. I'm not complaining as I write this. I'm explaining. I'm not whining. I'm winning my battles that are near to my heart. I'm taking a stand for what I believe to be right and doing it. If I wanted to whine I could tell you that I've been out of my yard 3 times, besides church, in the last 6 weeks and I miss the contact, however small, with the outside world. Another good reason to take my vitamins :) But I don't want to whine. That is not why I blog.

 I blog for my kids. Like a scrapbook. Which reminds me G has been saying some pretty funny stuff lately! I want to remember how Papa and I make pancakes the morning of the first snow, we kick the kids outside and make them pancakes while they play in the snow and then when breakfast is ready they come in and we eat hot pancakes and drink hot chocolate and talk about the wonderful world God made for us. (And yes I know that's a long long crazy sentence but that's me :) Say it really fast and a bit breathless :) )  I also blog for you.. the reader who actually made it to the end of this book. The Aunt Linda's. The family far away and nearby. The Momys Ladies.The random person who found our crazy life by accident and enjoys reading these rambling posts. The old friend. The large family curious person who wonders how we make it work. The odd person we have that random chance encounter with at the store. So thanks for reading and HEY I know your out there so leave me a comment or two and prove it :)  


Well I feel like I've written a book after my recent silence. I hope you enjoyed it. I will try very hard to sit down at the computer more often and keep you lovely people updated.. and post pictures.

Good Night and GOD BLESS!!!!

A Little Update. Sept /13

Well I've been a bit MIA this last little bit. It's been busy around here and I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with school and canning and house building and farming and I could just keep going but that won't help. So I'll focus on the positives.

 We've finished our 1 set of PACES this week and now are moving at a much slower pace in school. I don't know what I was thinking jumping in with both feet like I did. I guess I deserved the dunking for not thinking it through. 

 J, L and E are now finished 1/4 of their PACE work for the term and now we can take some time off later if we do end up moving into the house. We are slowing down for a bit now though, that pace works fine in the middle of winter with little else going on, but is way too much for this time of year and this time in our lives. 

R is almost half done her reading program, two years of watching others do this program is really working to her advantage and she reads like a pro! 

J3 is learning the songs for the reading program from R and loving his school time with a picture to color. 

G is also coloring pictures but she'd much rather be OUTSIDE. And even a mention of an animal can send her running to get her 'oots. Or boots as us non baby's call them :) 

S is also doing well. We had a bit of a heart murmur scare with him but the pedi in the city couldn't find it so that's a good sign his heart is fine. He is 'underweight' to maintain his growth curve on their charts so I'm waking him to nurse if he doesn't wake himself during the day and he seems to be gaining. I'm not super concerned as this is what our girls did too..and they are just small. It's in their genes. He is grabbing stuff now and trying to get it in his mouth. He also smiles a TON and giggles too :) Super cute! 

We took the kids to the beach yesterday and spent a couple of hours just relaxing. It was wonderful. It was needed. The weather has been strange for September and we've had +30C several times this last week. The leaves aren't even changing colors and the gardens and grass are still growing. Very odd weather for here. We are loving it. We pulled the kids little pool out again and the spent hours building boats and playing in the water. We might do that again today as its suppose to be very nice today and Papa and I will be busy stuccoing :) 

I'm going to try and keep posting a post a day for a bit and try and catch you all up on us, the farm and the house. Have a wonderful Saturday! 

Who's Nest Is This???

It's about waist high in this small tree. Made with mud as well as other things. 

Some School Projects :)

L and E with their mosquito traps made from bottles, tape, yeast, sugar and water! 

(Thank you Pinterest! )

J's spaghetti bridge experiment .. 

J had to put pennies in the triangle paper piece and see how many pennies both spaghetti and fettuccine could hold without breaking and compare the two. Pretty neat!! He really enjoyed it! 

The bridge he designed himself! 

His birds nest out of newspapers, a pipe cleaner and toothpicks... It held an amazing 136 pennies!! 

Bird Houses :)

Well this weekend we had a extra day and we got a couple extra things done! 

One was the bird houses got put up! YAY!!

L under the tree with his birdhouse. 

J3's bird house.. he was asleep when we put them up but he knows this is his. 

Each birdhouse has a letter on it.. J's has his name as it's short enough to fit :) 

E supervising Papa putting up her bird house.

J chose one of the last pine trees on the place for his birdhouse! 

One of the extra 3 went in this big old spruce tree beside the house! 

One of the few trees Papa and I want to keep around the house.

R wanted hers on the chick barn. 

There is also one on Papa's shed and another poplar tree right behind the house.

8 new bird houses! I was a bit worried we'd be too late with Spring all of a sudden showing up but there were birds fighting over at least two of the houses the next day!! YAY!! 

The kids are very excited to see if their bird house gets chosen and if the birds like the locations they picked! Time will tell :) 

I will HOPEFULLY keep you updated.. I'm able to sit for short periods of time these days but it's going to get even busier around here for the next oh.... 6 months :) lol. 

Dreaming Of Spring! Thankful Thursday Post!

We like to keep our front window decorated :) This morning we took down the last of the winter decorations and this afternoon we did this!! 

From the inside.. note the snow and the green grass showing through!! 

From the outside! With R's little smiling face in there and a reflection of the truck/calf pen and you can also see part of the bus and the chicken barn through the window on the other side!! 3 different perspectives in this one photo!!

We had a blast making flowers, some with hands, some with just fingers, some free handed and cutting them out. R even cut out a few! 

J says 'Maybe this will encourage Spring to come!" 

I told him it might :) but it will for sure encourage us as spring comes!! 

It's been raining all day and the snow is melting, mud is everywhere and we are keeping busy inside. 

R's Exciting Day!!

Today was a BIG day for R!! She's been SO wanting to go to school for the last Oh 18 months or so since E started and today she got enrolled in our home school Academy!! I filled in all the required boxes and R got to hit the send button!! She was GLOWING she was SO EXCITED!!! I think she floated a couple inches off the floor for a bit!! We've already gotten confirmation that she's been enrolled, and the other 3 re-enrolled, and she has the same teacher as L and E. She'll be in Grade 1 come September!! She'll be great at it :)

Wacky Wednesday :)

The title really covers it. Wednesdays are wacky around here. It's Papa's first day back at work..so it's kinda our Monday. This Wednesday was wacky in more ways then normal. This morning we woke up to snow falling. About 2 hours later it turned to rain, then a bit of sunshine, then it POURED rain, and then we had a couple of hours of the sun trying to shine and now it's snowing again. When it started to rain I checked the temp and it was -5C. Seriously! POURING rain and -5. It did get up to 0 later with the weak sunshine.

Today was catch up day. The kids and I spent about an hour outside this afternoon. Them playing, me working on the never ending lathe on the house. They also went out this morning to do chicken chores and firewood. They have been sick for about a week, one or more at a time, and today was catch up day for several things. Firewood, egg washing, outside play. We managed to keep up school work by working for short periods of time through out the day. We are doing a bit extra a week so we can take a couple of weeks off in April. Papa has two weeks off and we don't want to have to do school then.

Wednesdays (and saturdays) are also suppose to be shower/bath night. If it goes smoothly it only takes about 45 minutes. Sometimes when we've already had a long day it's hard to get motivated enough to run the gauntlet, I mean showers and bath marathon.  The boys are a big help. Both the older boys can get the shower water the right temp and run a sink full of bath water and wash their own hair/bodies in the shower. So we normally get the baths started, J3 and G together, and then the boys watch the those two while I shower the girls. (Girls hair! ack!) When the girls are done the boys hop in the shower and I get the little two out of the bath and get them dressed and brush hair. The boys have also been washing the littles hair in the tub but only while I'm helping. They like too...honest!

Anyway on this wacky Wednesday we are having open faced egg sandwiches, cupcakes and apples for supper while the kids watch a movie in the living room and I'm writing this post! Easy and requested supper, relaxing evening (before shower/bath time) after a wacky weather Wednesday. We did really good for our Monday. School got done, house is clean, chores caught up and we even played outside! Thankfully only the weather was wacky on this particular Wednesday!

Funny Faces :) Drama Fun.

These two had to do a Drama activity where you only use your face to communicate  It was fun actually and they needed each pick a face and have their picture taken. L is going for angry and E is going for surprised. 

J's Puppet Show.

For Movement and Drama this term J had to do a puppet show, either Little Red Riding Hood or The 3 Little Pigs.. he choose The 3 Little Pigs and did a fantastic job with it. 

The first little pig and his house of straw.

The second little pig and his house of sticks.

The 3rd little pig and his house of brick.

The wolf talking to the first little pig. 

House one and two blown over, all the little pigs in the brick house and the wolf climbing up on the house to go down the chimney.  

Nutrition AKA FOOD FUN!!!

E and L's groupings of breakfast, lunch and supper using the Canada food guide 

They also had to fill in a chart with which foods they used and put them in the right heading... Grains, protein  etc. 

Rock Candy :)

Kids and I attempted to make rock candy again this year, grade two science, and it didn't really work.. it worked better then last year but not super well. At least this year we got crystals :)

J's Teepee

Side view :) 

The art on the back. 

J also had to make a teepee for school :) He did a great job!! 

Birdhouses

 J was suppose to make a 'stick house' out of a cardboard box, Popsicle sticks and tubes of paper.. I showed it to Papa and we both decided it was a useless thing. Then Papa put his foot down and said 'if he has to build something with wood it should be USEFUL" so we built bird houses instead of clutter.. It  also ties in nicely to our on going bird unit :) He did read the pages that went with the 'stick house' project :) 

J and his birdhouse :)

It really was a family project. Papa and I cut the boards, Papa cut the holes and helped the kids put them together. J, L and E pretty much put theirs together with the drill with Papa only showing and holding and  putting in a couple of 'holding screws.' R and J just passed him screws to put in to their birdhouses. 

 They are only missing one thing.. Papa is going to drill holes in the front under the entrance hole for a stub of a stick for a perch. 

L and his bird house :) 

E and her birdhouse. 

R and her birdhouse! 

J3 was SO very proud of his and that he got to 'help' Papa make it!! He loves it!! 

We marked them so when we put them up we will be able to remember who's is who's. The kids are very excited to put them up around the place and see who decides to live in them. 

New Neighbors.. of the Fowl Kind.

See it?? 

It is a grouse sitting in a spruce tree. 

The spruce tree is at the end of our driveway. 

It's not our tree actually it's Mr. M's but our driveway goes right by it.

I discovered our new neighbors one day while I was walking back down the driveway.. 

I'd gone out to take pictures of Papa bringing Maggie home.. I wanted one of him walking her down the road home.. I never got the picture I wanted as Maggie decided to NOT follow him and we chased her the whole way! Anyway.. I was walking back to the house with the camera and I was a TAD distracted as I was also taking the opportunity to train Tucker to stay on the house side of the raised beds and NOT follow me down the driveway, when something EXPLODED right beside me.. 

Yeah.

 I knew what it was the minute my heart went out of PANIC MODE. 

Grouse are known for this little trick. It must have been less then 3 feet from me and I panicked it and it panicked me and Tucker took the opportunity to come a bit closer.. 

I yelled at the dog and marveled a little at myself.. I had NOT dropped the camera you see! 

I gave myself a mental shake and turned around to see if I could find it and calmly took a picture. 

My heart didn't actually stop racing until I got inside. 

I walked up and down the driveway several more times that day and saw two grouse in all. 

Over the next two weeks we saw 4 in all, sitting in the trees, walking across the driveway like they owned the place. Chip barked at them. Tucker went to sniff them out and got yelled at. 

I think they may have been attracted to the area by our hay pile.

Then one day they were gone.. moved out. Found a better place to camp I guess.

Anyway now that they are gone we kinda miss them.. they were fun to watch. 

Even if they did like to get your heart rate a boost! 

Kids Projects~ Cheese Making.

Stir, stir stir the milk while it heats to 120F!!

 J is stirring, E is checking the temp.. they all had a turn doing both. 

L measuring the vinegar for this simple vinegar cheese! 

3/4 of a cup per gallon of milk.

Taking a look to see if it's the right temp yet! 

Yes they are in their PJ's!! It was a lazy fun day! 

Pouring in the vinegar!! While his sister stirs. 

Stir stir stir!!

Normally it changes color. The cheese stays white and the whey goes greeny. I'm not sure why it didn't.. maybe because she's not on green grass?? The cheese looks good though! 

We let it sit for 30 minutes, drained it off and let it drain for 4 or so hours before putting it on a plate in the fridge. I use this cheese for breadstix and lasagna's and IN stuff. You can also slice it and salt it and it's a pretty good melting cheese for sandwiches or what have you. You can drain it just a tiny bit, crumble it before adding salt and pepper and cream to make a cottage cheese but I prefer to use rennet for cottage cheese now that I know how :) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

          Wowza!! The Christmas letter already!! We've had a busy year as per normal but I’ll give you some highlights ;)

          -The Griggs Family is learning, growing, and enjoying life together; enjoying our new, since the last Christmas letter, home church group; and enjoying watching each other grow in God’s word and love and in many other ways!!

-The Griggs Family Home school is still going strong! We've added a science program called Apologia to our ACE curriculum this year and we are loving it!! With 3 children in two grades, 3 and 2, and Rose doing sort of a pre grade 1 work we have a busy kitchen table J With Jesse, age 2.5, and Grace, almost 1, we also have a busy living room.

-The Griggs Family House Building is going really good. We got what we are calling the ‘half addition’ floor, ceiling, window frames and walls, except stuccoing, pretty much done this summer/fall. The VERY TENITIVE plan is to move into it next summer sometime.

-The Griggs Family Homestead is filling freezers with beef and pork, feeding critters, collecting eggs, making cheese and beer, curing bacon, selling piglets (28!! This year!), and generally keeping busy!  With butchering season upon us and snow on the ground it should slow down soon. Just in time for the holidays!

          -Ages and Stages Of The Griggers J

                   *Jed is almost 9 years old and in Grade 3.

                   *Levi is 7.5 years old and in Grade 2.

                   *Emmaline is 6 years old and in Grade 2.

                   *Rose is 4.5 years old can’t wait to do school next year!

                   *Jesse is 2.5 years old and officially toilet trained J

                   *Grace will be 1 when you read this and is trying out this whole walking thing J

*Some one new will be joining us around June or July of 2013 J.  We are excited to see who he/she will be J

“And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21.

Merry CHRISTmas From

                                                         The Griggs Family

The littlest Grigger..

        

Arm Trees :)

Today we made some leaves for our Thankful Tree, post coming soon,

 and these really neat arm trees with leaves from outside! 

Super easy, you just trace your hand and arm and glue leaves on :) 

School Photo's~ Griggs Family School!

J is 8 years old and in Grade 3 :) 

L is 7 years old and in Grade 2! 

E is 5, almost 6, and in Grade 2.

R is 4 and is doing some fun school this year,(coloring, matching counting) but is not in Kindergarten as she is too young. 

J3 is 2.5 and in Potty school at this time. It's taken him a while to catch on but he's getting there! 

Baby G is almost 10 months and is in house training school.. no you can't go in the entrance where the wood stove is, yes you can play in the living room.. stuff like that. Oh she's also in a bit of manners school; no you can't bite me with your one little tooth, and mobility school: walking around the couch is FUN!! 

Those are all the students in the Griggs Family school! 

Oh wait I forgot one :) 

ME!!! 

I'm still learning every single day! 

And Loving EVERY minute of it :)