If the snow...

Comes in November...



Your kids may start build an igloo...



Then come in for cocoa and a story.

If you read them Farmer Boy they may ask why you don't make donuts.



After you've made them donuts they might ask if you're ready to crochet lines to attach their mitts.



While you're crocheting the mitten lines


Your sweet little 10 month old may have some fun:)



Which may inspire you to put this outfit on him!(which you just happened to find at the Thrift Shop last week:).


While you are searching for missing mittens you may come across the baby books and think, "no time like the present to bring them up to date".



While you are down there you might just figure it's time to get started(and complete all the Christmas Sewing Projects.



When you emerge from the basement, after cleaning it up, you may ask yourself how the week went by so fast?



You will most likely be greeted in the hallway by one, or more children asking you to read another book, make another snack or wondering what you're making for supper.

They somehow think that our kitchen table should always look like baking day:).



Happy To Be Hibernating With Such A Busy Little Bunch!

Birthdays and Boxes...

The past couple days have been moderately busy. We celebrated a certain little girl's 3rd birthday yesterday. She told people at church that she was turning "leven".



Today Scott had the morning free and took Elyssia into town to get supplies to fill Christmas boxes. They mail them out next week, so thankfully we're in before the deadline:). We've been getting birthday boxes off and on for the past couple weeks, so it's honestly seemed like Christmas came early. It has kept the kids occupied during the cold snap, so I'm quite thankful for that. Today it's starting to warm up and we hope it stays that way for at least a week(or more).

It's almost time to return Calico Jack, the boy goat and I'm REALLY looking forward to that. His stench in the barn means the kids and Scott come in smelling "not so nice" each morning after chores. Hopefully some of the smell will go away once he's gone and we put new straw in. Only time will tell whether he's done the job he came to do...

Other than that we're trying to have a quieter week. We had a big laundry and baking day yesterday in order to free us up for a trip to the library later in the week!

Homeschool is going quite well. Caleb was able to read quite a bit of a new book that I pulled out and I think he even surprised himself with how well he did:). The boys both took their 2nd Science quiz and did great! We're moving on to the second section-Animals, which I think they're looking forward to more than they did the plants section. Elyssia is doing more in depth study and Scott is helping her to prepare a list of seeds to order for next Spring. She will have more "hands on" work to do then, but I think she's looking forward to that. We're 1/3rd of the way through our spelling lists and so far they usually only miss 1 or 2, sometimes 0. Math was a bit of a challenge for Garrison at the beginning of the year, but I think it's not so bad now. He's multiplying quite well and seems to really like it.

Samuel is managing to get into all sorts of things. He's the first one that heads for the bathroom and tries to cause as much trouble as possible. When you find him, he gives you an innocent expression, "what, what did I do?" He's also able to climb onto the couch, push all sorts of chairs, small tables and the kids bench around the living room. He's standing up without help, but not pushing to take steps without a "finger help" yet. His teeth have been quite and annoyance to him. There are 6 that we can see, but it seems that 2 of them like to keep going back under. He swats at them in his sleep and we're hoping to see a break soon. He's now 10 months old!

Some Winter Decorating...

Some of these decorations are for Christmas, but some are just to celebrate the snowfall and change of seasons. Some of the things I did are simply to try to keep the house warmer. The kids were wondering why I had to cover several windows. I miss the view out our bedroom window, but it's definitely nicer to be toasty warm at night because it's covered. I think we'll still do a bit for American Thanksgiving, but for those who always wait til after American Thanksgiving, I'm really not rushing it. We'll set up our tree after the American one and put up lights around the same time. Some instrumental Christmas music may be playing, but trying to save the others til later. So thankful that my brother is back with his family in time for all the holidays!



The winter scene quilt was a thrift shop find, which we all love for different reasons!

Credit for the sheer curtain go to my mother in law. I think she found it at their opportunity centre. We were given the king size bed by a friend recently and we're slowly finding ways to incorporate it into the room better. The headboard is just two free pallets and the sheer curtain makes it a bit dressier. The poppies are for Remembrance Day and also adding more red to the room(Scott's favourite colour). He put his name in for a draw at the greenhouse a couple years ago and won the picture above the window. The snowflake sheet helps alot with keeping the drafts from chilling the room too! We had the pics of the kids on the mantle, but needed to move them for other decorations. I like to put them where everyone can enjoy them, but will have to do a collage in the entry later on in order to keep the mantle clear for seasonal decorations.

Another non decorational item that I found at the Thrift Shop was an old fashioned 5 quart ice cream maker. We have a kitchen aid one, but find that it doesn't make quite enough and never any leftovers. So, when I saw this one I called Scott to ask what he thought. $10 isn't that much and I was sure that we'd get at least that much use out of it:). So, we tried it out on Sunday evening and everyone thought it was a huge success. Each of us were able to have a second helping, if we wanted, and there was still a carton worth of leftovers. We had some tonight after supper and several of us thought it was even better than the first time. The consistency was so creamy and didn't have the icy "ice milk" taste that many homemade varieties have after being put in the freezer.

Garrison turns 8!

Today was the big day! We started off with messy eggs, bacon and bannock, as requested, opened presents, did chores, completed schoolwork, spelling bees and some tests. I went into town to run errands and came home in time to work on pizzas with the kids. Tonight we watched some episodes of hogan's Heroes for movie night. I think it's neat that we all enjoy it and that it's something we're able to watch without skipping through inappropriate scenes. Lots of laughter and great memories from the day:)

A birthday box arrives!

Elyssia turned 10 last month and Kiersten turned 5. Today a special birthday box arrived for them. I tried to capture the excitement, but my camera isn't as fast as their expressions:)

Calico Jack and the Fencing

Red Towel Premiere!

I almost forgot to post about my brother's new movie, "Crimes and Mr. Meanors". They had the premiere in Georgia the same day we had our western party. I ordered copies and we were watching it 2 weeks later! The kids LOVED it! It's too far for us to drive for the Georgia premiere, so we have our "Canadian Premiere" that we've named the "Red Towel Premiere".

Politics and more...

Our prayers for the U.S. elections were answered last night! We realize that this won't solve all their problems,but perhaps there will be some good changes. Praying for more men to stand up for what's right and also in support of Israel. We really need stronger leadership during this time and pray they do more than "talk" All in all though, we place our trust in the Lord to see us through the days and years ahead.

We are very blessed to have Prime Minister Harper and pray the Lord strengthens him to deal with things in the days ahead. May we offer words of comfort and hope to those around us who are fearful, in light of recent attacks. May we stand strong and never forget those who have sacrificed and those who sacrifice today in order to preserve the freedoms that we have today. So thankful for my family and friends past and present that have served in the military.

Adventures on the farm and beyond...

We had a boy visitor arrive last month. A boy "goat" that is. We forgot to ask what the buck's name was when we borrowed him, so his name while he's here is "Calico Jack". No picture yet... He's provided a lot of amusement for the kids since he arrived. They think his "antics" for trying to attract the does are hilarious. They include sticking out his tongue, making silly faces, etc... Life on the farm is full of unusual things. Quite recently Scott and the kids found one of the kittens dead in the loft. We're not sure what happened, but it's quite common with farm cats, from what I'm told. We also had the opportunity to help some friends with butchering their chickens. It was a very cold day, but the kids actually thought it was a pretty fun day. Our friends had different breeds of chickens and the kids were asking lots of questions about the different feathers, etc... Elyssia brought home one of the prettier feathers, made some ink from raspberry juice and was using it to write a letter to her brother:). Pretty fun experiment!

We've also been reading through the Dear Diary(Canadian series). I'm enjoying them as much as Elyssia. I find it neat to read about the different places and times that these girls lived in and really enjoy it when they mention living in or passing through areas that we've lived in or visited. We've ordered a lot more of them from the library and look forward to cozy winter reading with hot cocoa and lots of little people to snuggle with! The boys have their collection of books and we enjoy reading through them together.

I have so many reasons to be thankful that I'm able to be a stay at home mom and homeschool the children. There still don't seem to be enough hours in the day to fit in everything that we want to do together. We also enjoy our town and library days. We've gotten a lot of nice comments lately about the children and how well behaved/helpful they are. It's a blessing to hear those, especially since there are still a lot of testing days at home. We love reaching out and helping as a family. We were blessed with lots of opportunities last month and look forward to seeing who the Lord will bring across our path this month.

We also had the opportunity to host a speaker from Creation Ministries last month! We learned so much and actually feel like we can help others to understand some of these issues a bit better now. Some of them were a bit more complex and will take time to really process, but we were able to get some materials to continue learning and share with others. We had a couple of visitors that we knew and they really seemed to appreciate it. The kids really enjoyed the first session and the donuts/hot cocoa during the break time:).

Outdoor Music Class

I included a couple of pictures Elyssia took of my a couple weeks ago. We've had snow twice already, so we're trying to make the most of all the warm, sunny days we are blessed with!