My girl

Training a pup is no easy task. I'm proud of A for sticking with it, so proud. We're battling demons, she has her mothers quick temper sometimes, and it's hard for one who isn't always in control to help. But, by God's amazing grace, we're getting there, learning better ways, and A is falling in love with Tally more every day.

Today.

After our walk, the girls played "crabwalk" numbers.

Because we're weird homeschoolers like that.

Tally supervised. 

(unsure who Tally is? It's A's little pup, a 6mo Toy Aussie. She saved up the money for her (for the entire summer) and we picked her up last Sunday.)

 J found himself in the mirror. I imagine his conversation went something like this:

"Hey, who's this?"

"Com' a lil' closer"

"Let me touch ya"

"Oh man! Are you a handsome sonofagun!"

"Toodles"

It was amusing. Can you tell?

(no children were harmed in the making of this montage. and yes, the mirror play was completely, 100%, supervised. and will be hung tonight.)

FarMin some Pictures

A wonderful lady named Melia came out to the property in mid October to snap some pictures. We hadn't had family pics since A was a wee babe. A and K were the subject of a few maybe a year and a half ago, but it was in the 90s and the studio had no air. Needless to say, they weren't great. This year was the opposite - the weather was a bit on the cold side. But yet, we had fun. I mean really, where else can you get pictures taken with turkeys stalking? I'm serious, see below.

Harvest Fest!!

So, if you remember (anything like other campers at the TC State Park do), you'll know that last year we camped at Harvest Fest and dressed up as "The Hungry Caterpillar"...and brought home the first ever 1st Place group award. Winning a gift certificate for 1 hunger filling 16" pizza, for the dozen of us to share. This year we returned, once again victorious. We rocked an enchanted forest like no other forest has rocked before, and that ain't no pun either.

Cast of Characters: Trees, Forest Goddesses, Fairys, and G-nomes

Trees, hangin' loose with their kind.

I have to give props to my sister. She worked really hard on these trees, and they turned out amazing. Lets just say, we found out why people don't often dress up as trees. It's really hard!

Homeschooling on the go - the Salmon were climbing upstream, it's spawning season. We took a few walks and saw many Salmon, learning facts about Salmon, their habitat, and life cycle along the way.

I don't know if it's good or bad that I had to Google it while in the field. I feel like I cheated...but I didn't want to miss the opportunity! And Adalynn soaked it up like a leaf. (sorry, couldn't resist).

Adalynn, bless her heart. She cut out (herself, the girls' did amazing cutting on their own pumpkins this year. they're growing up so fast! *tear*.) two teeth, and then another. Below is how it finished. Which, if you know A, (and A, I say this with the most love in my heart a Mama can), it's just ironic. That's all.

The group carved some amazing pumpkins this year.

Ryan couldn't get over the novelty shots...I have some amazing flip photos of him falling demonstrating the age old question, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a sound?". And here, a tree in a tree.

Baby J loved the acorns hanging off the "trees".

Henry kept asking kids, "If I have acorns, what kind of tree am I?", as random kids would come up and touch his "limbs", so they called them. Rarely could anyone tell him what kind of tree he was...in fact, one answered, "Pine tree?". Um, no. 

It goes without saying, but J was the Cutest G-nome Ever!

The Hugging Tree!

And one of our trees met his demise with a woodchopper along the way.

Super fun times, fam.

-C.

I so love this girl...

...and not just because she rocks her cowgirl boots with her jammies, or has a killer milk mole (it's the new milk mustache).

Tonight we were out feeding, as has become our custom to do together most nights. She's a great help, and awesome company and I get time to talk with her about what's going on in that grand mind of hers. She mentioned about how Daddy and I were probably going to die before her, and I said, "Yes, probably", and about how she wants to die at the same time as her friends because she's worried she's never going to find them otherwise. I assured her that if we all believe in Jesus than we will all be together in Heaven. She solidly answered, "I Believe" (see, how can you not love her?) and we proceeded to use our chicken herding sticks to perform a funky "Believers" high five. (yes, we're wierd).

I've been trying to incorporate more of the Bible in our homeschooling. There's an awesome lady who homeschools with a blog called Simply Living for Him. This year she has taken it upon herself to use the Bible as their main text. It's awesome, and I love the idea and really want to, and am trying, to teach A, K and J to have a love of the Bible as well.

So as we were feeding I began thinking about how I need to teach her about sin and Adam and Eve, and about forgiveness, and the whole salvation story, and we should go over the verses in Romans that guides us in asking Christ into our hearts. I start talking to A about sin outside, and she pipes up and says, "I know about sin. It's when we do bad things, like yelling, and texting while driving."

FarMin' a Beautiful Fall Day

Featuring Peach the Wonder Horse and Cindy the Best Pony Ever....

Finally got up the courage to ride this buckin' bronc today. I seriously think she looked at me like, "Mom, you crazy girl". But we's good together. It's all good.

Canning Grape Jam...

There's a story behind this, but for now...

This Weekend was a Hoot

We celebrated this weekend, both T's 30th Bday (woohoo!!) and our house. On Saturday we found out how to throw a party at the new house, and I hope that everyone had a good time. We sure did! I know I didn't see everyone who came, and actually maybe interacted with a fifth of the people who arrived (and most of them were under the age of 10), but we hope and pray that we were able to shed a little blessing on the people who had to put up with us dreaming, negotiating, adjusting, and planning over the last 9 months. I wasn't able to get a lot of pictures, but we feel very blessed to have had so many people come out to see the house!

Prior to the party, we "redid" the dog and chicken layout around the barn. This was two-fold: To give the dogs more room and make the chickens more accessible (and oops...I know this is 3, but really, I had to get the door to the barn open and closeable once more). So Wednesday before the party I tore things up, then, like a good wife, I waited for the big T to come home to put it all back together before sundown. We made it (give or taking an hour or 3 past sundown). I love the new layout and the moving doors. We're still tweaking it to keep the dogs in-ish, but it's good so far.

T then blessed me this week by making all of our gates swingable. If you have had non-swinging gates before (and we had a lot of them), this is a big deal. And he did a great job! Thank you T!

And a BIG Happy 1st BirthDay to Joanna! We love you girl!

A's SuperStar Soccer Debut

A started AYSO soccer today, which means that A. She is growing up , B. T and I debuted as the world's best soccer coaches. (aka the world's best encouragers, they are only 4 after all). Anyway, it was fun, and she L-O-V-E-D it, and did NoT want to leave the field. 

4yo soccer at it's best...

Ahh, there she kicks it in, just like her Mama!

So the girls didn't want to leave, until T told them he was picking up a new rooster. Then they were excited, and didn't want to leave the peoples' farm (super sweet people, we loved them!). And when we got home, K was still so excited that she didn't want to take her penny off.
Silly, silly kids. Gotta love'em!