Happy New Year's Eve

We're spending a quiet New Year's Eve at home. Deborah is playing with her new Playdough.

She made a monster with a pink body, green arms, and a purple head with 6 eyes. The monster has a pet snake. The snake has a bowl of white and blue eggs. The monster has a bowl with grapes.

The boys are playing Shogun with my dh. They have been wanting to play for a long time. At last notice, my dh has captured the remaining castles on the board so it doesn't look good for the boys.

And what am I doing? I am working in the kitchen preparing some food for tomorrow and some for tonight. We're having venison roast with mashed potatoes tonight.

A Three Course Italian Meal (without a tomato in sight)

Last night, my dh made me a wonderful three course Italian meal with absolutely no tomatoes in sight. The first course was a Spicy Eggplant Antipasto. It had a wonderful earthly type taste and if I hadn't seen the eggplant in the saucepan, I would have thought this dish was made of mushrooms.

Second course was Pasta with Mussels and Chorizo. My dh had remembered that I had been wishing for mussels. It was delicious.

The last course was a baken polenta cake. It was slightly sweet with a lemony taste.

The Lego Game Dream Come True

We were the chosen family invited to celebrate a friend's 10th birthday. He wanted to play the Lego Star Wars game on the Wii with our boys. What a dream come true for them! We went over around 3:30 and played and played.

Well, some of us played the Wii. Others played with dolls.

Eagerly awaiting the pizza after 3 hours of Wii playing.

And the piece de resistance - the Death Star birthday cake. What a night!

I'm hip!

Knitting is the "in" thing now. All the cool people are learning how to knit. Or so says my knitting friend Kim. And who am I to argue against hip?

Anyway, I taught myself to knit using a book, getting frustrated with that book, calling Kim, and going to a knitting help website she recommended. The website really helped and here are the results. First I made just a regular knitted washcloth (all knitting, no purling).

Then I made a fancier washcloth with increases and decreases and a fancy dancy patterned yarn over hole along the edge. Note: I did tuck in the ends after I took the picture last night.

Lastly, I made a doll scarf for Deborah. She liked it very much and wants a second one for her other doll.

The happy recipient.

And when did I have time to do all this? On the looooong ride to Illinois and the on the loooooong ride back home. And while I was backing up my computer files. And while I was burning our photos onto CDs so I can clean up the hard drive. Turns out knitting is a great way to still feel productive while your computer is working on something.

A forgotten posting

I found these pictures when cleaning up the photo files on the computer. We made hanging snakes in school when we were learning about Arabia. The snakes are from the tale of Sinbad the Sailor. The children decorated them and then hung them from the ceiling. Stephen's is called Kaa (from the Jungle book) and Deborah's is called Mrs. Kaa.

A new desk

Today we were too busy living our lives to take pictures along the way. It would have been a great blogging day today. So much got done. We spent the day in the basement. My dh put together a bookcase for the guest bedroom and the printer/file cabinet and the hutch. We had put together the desk before Christmas but now it is all together in its total glory. And glorious it is because it has no papers cluttering it! yet.

This is the view from near the printer. Our school table is on the other side of the desk and you can see the fireplace peeking out from the corner.

I spent much of the day tidying up the basement. I tackled the toy shelves and wished later that I had taken a before and after picture. But I found a home for the new toys, packed away some old toys that the children have forgotten about to send to our newest nephew, and put all the little pieces that had gotten away from their games back into their orginal boxes. Then I picked up the guest bedroom which had been the Christmas package wrapping station. I also picked up all the things that mysteriously gather on the storeroom FLOOR and put them up in boxes or on shelves or wherever they belong. Whew!

And what did the children do all day? They finished putting together their Lego Star Wars ships, played a long long time with the Sail Barge, and played several rounds of the Bionicle Board Game. So despite the start of colds in all of them, they had a good day.

Merry Christmas!

Last weekend, we went to Illinois to visit my dh's family. On Saturday, everyone was there and we took this group picture. It turned out pretty good considering we had 27 people there.

Then we had our usual wonderful meal with tons of food. It was all delicious.

Deborah had a wonderful time making friends with her girl cousins.

We drove home on Christmas Eve. That is definitely the day to travel. The traffic was very light. We got home at a decent time and were able to get the rest of Christmas preparation tasks done before bedtime. We spent a quiet Christmas morning at home. Or as quiet as four excited children can make it.

Our Christmas theme seemed to be Star Wars Legos. The children got 4 different sets. They spent the afternoon putting most of them together.

Then we had a family from church over for supper.

This is one of my favorite pictures I took over the Christmas season. I was asking Aaron to stand where the big picture was going to be taken and I snapped a picture without the flash. I like the picture because it shows the rush of Christmas swirling around us.

A New Fireplace

We just got our new fireplace installed in the basement. It already makes the basement seem more cozy. I look forward to reading history lessons in front of it.

It is a gas fireplace. The children have already asked if they can put things on top of mantle. I guess they think we want to decorate the basement in the Star Wars Lego motif.

Winter Wonderland

We've had a couple of beautiful snowy days here. These are the best of pictures taken.





The chickens also like the snow. They get a couple of pans of snow a day.

I finished my second fabric rag rug.

And tonight we're having an apple galette. I had a fun time making it and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

A Sticky Snow Day

Today we finally got a great snowman building snow. It snowed all day. The afternoon snow was especially thick and wet. So here are our creations. It looks a little dark because it was still snowing pretty hard while I was taking the pictures.

Gingerbread house extravaganza

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything. It has snowed a couple of times and we have about 4 inches or so of snow on the ground. The children have been constructing a snow fort using the snow piled up by my dh's tractor. Which, by the way, does a great job of plowing snow. He couldn't be more pleased by it.

I also took Nathan and Stephen out for the first cross country skiing outing of the winter. The day was mid 20's and sunny. It was just gorgeous out in the woods. And with the new level trails, we didn't have to stop one time and walk around wet spots. We did stop a bit here and there. The boys were getting using to the rhythm of the skiing again and there were quite a few spills. So I wasn't taking pictures that day.

We did go to a gingerbread house competition and enjoyed it. Our friends made the display below and won the "Keeping Christ in Christmas" category.

This was a cool castle.

This was best of show.

And this one won "Most Humorous". See the junk car to the right?

Christmas season has officially begun

The Christmas season has begun. On Wednesday, we decorated the inside of the house. We have greenery and lights on the windows but the lights didn't turn out too well.

Here is our door to the screened in porch. This picture turned out better.

Grandma and Grandpa are here for a short visit. Today we made a gingerbread house that Grandma brought. The children helped to decorate it.

The children thought that it was the most beautiful gingerbread house in the world. This is a view of the front.

This is the back. The children had a great time decorating it. They look forward to eating it. Already it has lasted more than last year's gingerbread house (which was eaten the evening it was made!).

A Real Easter Egg

Our new Dominiques and Araucanas have started to lay eggs. Nathan and Stephen are happy because they can begin to sell the extra eggs. I'm happy since I will now have enough eggs for our family to eat.

The Araucanas lay colored eggs. Nathan has our first colored egg below.

It is hard to see what color it is from the picture because the digital camera has a lot of trouble focusing on the shell of an egg. The egg is a lovely pastel green.