What We've Been Up To, Pictorially...

Howdy from a white and snowy North!

 I thought I'd letcha guys in on what has been keeping the kids busy these snowy cold days. After all, what does a big homeschooled family, living quite remotely, find to do all day (and winter) long on their homestead? Well, I think I'll let these pictures and all those smiles speak for themselves. :)

Cute or what? Those two make the most adorable bookends when they ride their mules together! :)

Nothin' cuter than long ears at sunset...

Okay, now the younger kids want a crack at the fun!

 Even the kitty got a ride!

 The younger ponies look forward to the day when they can get ridden out too!

 This is Perla, our half Icelandic. I love the fuzzy coats and long manes on the Icelandic crosses! They're such beautiful little creatures. Lizzy and Perla have become quite good friends and enjoy spending lots of time together romping in the pasture. They're pretty cute together. :)

Going through my archives, I just found the post announcing Perla's birth. It has some neat pictures and it's cool seeing how she changed as she's growing up. Check out that old post HERE. 

Oh, and never-fear, our household is being kept quite safe these days! ;)

Well that about wraps it up... I'll be back later to (pictorially) report on what the older kids have been up to these days. While not nearly as cute and fun, it's still interesting and enjoyable, so I'll catch ya later with that update.

Thanks for viewing--please come again soon! :)

Happy 1-1-11!!

(While this post was written on 1-1-11, it's taken me this long to get around to posting it! oops.)

Hey Everybody! Happy 2011!

 So did you start your new year off with a bang? We sure did! Sound asleep in our little beds. :) When we were kissing Mom and heading off to bed at our normal times, Mom playfully griped that she had raised a bunch of fuddy-duddy children. But who wants to do something while the whole rest of the world is doing it simultaneously? Take NY square for example, why would you want to go there when you know that's where everybody is headed? I prefer to do things sporadically, in my own time and way. Maybe it's the rebel in me, but I find it to be much more fun when we teenagers randomly end up staying up late for no reason at all, just because we're having fun doing something with each other and we don't want it to end. Knowing that we're still awake, giggling and having fun while the world sleeps is much more exciting than being awake and drowsy while the rest of the world is all awake too. I don't care if you like staying up, I just love the way I spent my New Year's evening: curled up in a comfy arm chair with Johnny reading The Magician's Nephew (Narnia 1) aloud to him. We read half the book in one sitting! And in the room next to us, Theresa and Lizzy were taking turns reading aloud from my book, while in the loft Annie and Donna were head to head reading an intense story of Little Bear. Then, at bedtime, we all hugged and kissed each other goodnight and as I was snuggling down cozy into my comforter, I felt glad that we were a family of fuddy-duddy's with just a random touch of sporadic parties in us. :)

The girls having a sporadic late night party a few nights ago (captured by Lizzy.)

2010 in Pictures

Last year seemed to fly by for us. As I sat watching snow blow past the window next to me, I decided to go back and see if I could see where all the time went. I ended up compiling what I saw into a collage for every month. In each collage, I tried to include a picture of Donna because she has changed so much since last year and I wanted to see if I could break down the changes. I also tried to include one of my flowers in each, (because I'm missing them right now) as well as just an overview of what happened that month; projects and play. The boys photo library got corrupted sometime last spring, so I had trouble finding some of the original dates, but in the end, I'm 90% sure all of the pictures were taken inside their respective months. Anyway, here we go! (Click to enlarge)

January was a quiet, relaxing month of gently falling snow, warm hearths, laughter, woodworking, stitching and sledding.

February was an exciting month of learning and trying new things; cheese recipes, advanced knitting patterns, lathe and woodworking projects.

March was a fun month of planning gardens and orchards, ordering seeds and plants and enjoying the first spring blooms. Tapping for sap, and processing syrup and honey kept us busy.

April was a refreshing month full of those sweet fresh smells of spring and the excitement of the children and animals as the snow banks shrunk away revealing dry patches of ground.

May was a busy month of planting the cold loving things and preparing our acre garden for seed, as well as immensely enjoying the spring blooms and blossoms.

June was a wonderfully productive month of starting things: seeds and gardens, the training and riding of our young horses, our evening swimming routines, and our 2010 barn project.

July was a hot month of character-building hard work and wonderful pampering swims mixed with beautiful sunsets over the lake.

August was a month of beautiful growth; in the gardens, babies, and even in the beehives when we had to catch a swarm!

September was a month warm with smiles and rich with laughter and good food, as we began hauling in the harvest.

October was a month that found the kids outside for long hours everyday, both working and playing, hoping to soak in as much of the sun's last rays as they could before the winter.

November was a mad rush kind of month where we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off to finish all the summer chores before our first snowfall. Once everything was completed, the lovely snowfalls were warmly welcomed!

December was a cozy month of luscious secrets, yummy smells, lovely music, pretty sights, big smiles and abundant joy! :)

The 'Boys vr. Girls' Secrets Revealed!

Well, Christmas 2010 has come and gone and as it past, it snagged on and dragged with it the veil covering all our delicious December secrets.

With everything out of the closets, I am free to share with you all the lovely creations brought into existence by our hands in this past month. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year for us... We all just love how our handmade Christmases tickle the imagination and groom the creativity of the mind each year. I honestly immensely prefer the way we do our homemade Christmas gift exchange to the store-bought-gift-Christmases we used to do. It is so much more fun!

As the snow dropped gently toward the earth, one could hear the hum of the sewing machine and the hushed whispers and giggles of the girls behind their bedroom door while outside their loft window, the curl of smoke rising from the rusty shop chimney and the occasional buzz of a saw were the only clues to the creations being born within. We all had/have each year, so much fun making gifts, from the random and often hilarious ideas suggested during the planning stages, down to Michael hitting everyone in the shop with a tube of wrapping paper on Christmas Eve, explaining, "it is, after all, whapping paper!"

I got the honor of unwrapping the first gift on Christmas eve and I am bold and perhaps biased enough to insist that my sisters and I received the sweetest gift from our brothers of any girl anywhere. Though, I must admit, I was at a loss for guesses when handed this object.

The main gift was a small round case turned on the lathe that held four little wooden purity rings, one for each sister. In tiny letters they say "Love is worth waiting for." Seriously, how sweet and precious of a gift is that to receive from your brothers?! Being the sappy girls we are, we were all donning silly grins and stroking our rings for the rest of the evening. The branch was a ring holder for all the rings the boys had made in the course of making the purity rings for us. Andrew had several with inlaid horizontal strips that were seamless and positively stunning. I could go on chatting about this gift all night, I was sooo impressed! But I've got to move on...

Andrew got a movie director's set, complete with an L.F.P. tote bag to replace the brown paper bag he normally carries around on set, an L.F.P. clip board for the script, binder for the story boards and note book for, well, notes. The girls painted on the logos freehand! I thought they turned out pretty sharp.

Donna got an adorable little farm board game. You have to be the first one to get your animal piece into the hay loft, but watch out for those hay bale chutes! Totally operated by color, it's simple enough for her to catch on to... if the older kids would stop playing it and hand it over... At this moment she is pushing her farm game into my
lap...

 

Donna also got a pull along horsey that bobs his head when it rolls. Yea, she's spoiled, but she did really well in the virtue of sharing considering that she's a 2yr old who just had a birthday. She was genuinely excited for everyone who got to open a present and never attempted to claim anything she wasn't told was, "for Donna!"

Stephen got pair of hand knit gloves out of our own homespun and lined with cozy soft alpaca which Theresa patiently knitted up in her room. Normally we make the kids mittens because they're faster, so gloves are a special treat. He also got an nylon cover for his camera to protect it while photographing out in the elements.

Annie got a new beautifully hand crafted version of the old battling tops game. Of course, all turned on the lathe. I can hear them playing it as I'm writing this. In fact, they've hardly stopped playing it since they opened it! I think this one is going to be going on our Etsy store. The tops are all different and come with their own pros/cons and personalities. The boys had most of them named already, from having played with them in the shop. "Oh this one's 'Frisky' watch out for him, you never know what he might do. Here's average Joe, he's nice and dependable. Oh, check out Sawtooth, he's a doozey!"

Michael got a new quilt because he needed one. He had asked for one, so it wasn't a huge surprise, but the Rangers Apprentice logo that Annie tediously hand stitched in the center was a surprise! (Rangers Apprentice is a cool book series the boys are into.)

 

Lizzy got a little pony barrel racing game. With four adorable little horses on wheels, a launcher, several barrels (which Michael turned on the lathe as his first lathe project) a start marker and flag, there are several games to be played: tag, capture the flag, croquet, knock over the barrels, etc. The boys admitted to playing extensively with this one in the shop. It's positively perfect! (Sorry, no picture.)

Johnny's gift required the most thought... he got a 40 page illustrated book about a hero complete with the hero's costume. He was thrilled and I was relieved when all the parts of his costume fit our young hero. Not to worry, our farm should be perfectly safe from all bad guys, thugs, pirates, and evil doers of every kind now that we have the masked avenger! I am listening to Mom read the story aloud as I type...

 

Theresa got a set of four brain teasers. One was easy enough for the little kids to figure out while the hardest one took Theresa a full day of fiddling with to solve. I still haven't figured that one out. I agreed with Dad when he said, "my brain is very sensitive--doesn't like to be teased!"


Finally, Mom opened a rustic chess set. The boys actually made two, the first one was rustic and a tad rougher, the second one was more perfect and conventional so they reserved that one for friends and kept the rustic set. By rustic I mean the pieces have a bit of bark around their bases and the box is made of rustic slab wood. They burned the pieces with a blow torch but discovered when they made the second set that putting them in the oven at 350 for 3-4 hours works better and darkens the wood a lot more uniformly. Stephen turned most of the pieces on the lathe. I couldn't believe how perfect they all were! The boys are really gettin' good on that lathe!

On Christmas morning the girls and I surprised the kids with a new set of homemade stockings stuffed with one small gift each, as well as a couple pieces of fruit and a foam rocket launcher that Theresa and I managed to invent out of craft foam, a rubber band and hot glue and which the boys and Dad are, at this moment, shooting around the house...

 

Oh, and I still need to introduce our new little friend. He was born just before Christmas, and thanks to him, or thanks to the new mother, we had a wonderful abundance of milk, cream and butter to make lots of yummy treats with over the holidays. Such a blessing! Keeping in the flower theme, his name is Baby's Breath, or Baby (to be changed to Babe when he's older.)

And before I sign off, here's some more pictures of cute animals and kids enjoying each other and the fresh snow!

So anyway, Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you all had great ones! :)

Oh, and if anybody didn't yet see our homemade Christmas ecard, it's in the post below me here on the blog. Please check it out and feel free to pass it on to anyone you know who might glean a little Christmas cheer out of it! :)

Enjoy your 2011!!

Ta Ta for now,
Your little reporter
(Mary:)

 

Merry Christmas!!