Santa Came To Town

Proud to say we have one child who would sit with Santa without bawling at this age! She was perfectly content and smiling even. Who would'a thunk?:)
Cade hugging Santa. He really was a cute Santa.

Brinly was really into it this year. She sat and talked to Santa for several minutes, despite the line behind us!

Merry Christmas!

I couldn't leave out Shane's amazing accomplishment this year. He decked the house with boughs of lights that we've been hauling around for 7 years:). Doesn't it look great!!

Blizzard

Blizzard:

1. Strong Winds

2. Heavy Snow

3. Low Temperature

Difference between snowstorm and blizzard- the gusting winds.

Our blizzard cancelled church this morning, and so far has cancelled one day of school (tomorrow). Brinly's first snow day ever! FUN! Now, lets see how stir crazy we get:). Shane still has work, boo-hoo. But he's enjoying our new snowblower! Now, we need to get a winter survival car kit put together for both cars. We REALLY need that here!

Anyway, these are pictures of our recent fun.

Merry Christmas

Juicing Continued

Next, put your grapes in your steam juicer. Wait patiently for them to cook down.... Drain the juice into a sterilized jar.Process the jars for 5 minutes (I have a steam canner).

Allow the jars to cool 24 hours before storing.

There you have it. Simple, cheap, nutritious grape juice.

Grapes of Wrath...

Not really...it is SO easy to make grape juice! Seriously, here's how it's done:

First, have a great time picking whatever type of grapes you have access too (these are concord in early fall):

Elbow Grease

So, here is the inside in a nutshell. It tooks some serious work to get it all put together, and obviously, it isn't quite tidy:). I don't have any curtains up yet, but eventually....

Living Room

Dining Area

Kitchen
Pantry (yippee...still working on organizing it all)

Mud Room (much needed for these parts in the winter)

We Moved...AGAIN...

Well, to our dismay, the beautiful home we were renting sold and we were forced to move. In our little town rentals are HARD to come by...especially ones made for a family of 5. We were very fortunate to find anything that was built later than the early 1900's! This house isn't our dream house and has had it's issues from the getgo, but we are very grateful for it.

I have to say, every time I drive up to it the Brady Bunch theme song starts playing in my head...anybody else get that impression from this house??



It is on a large piece of property (large from my experience) that some time prior was an apple orchard. It now has at least 7 apple trees, 2 peach trees, a couple cherry trees, a pear tree, a grape vine (which I made grape juice from- will document later), and possibly a plum tree- though we're not sure about that one.

Several months ago....

Adelle did this! It took me a moment to figure out what had happened because I left for just a moment and returned to this. Well, as we have since learned, she is quite the escape artist. She HATES being strapped into ANYTHING...car seats have been a sworn enemy since day 1. So, what happened, she stood up in her highchair (even though she was snugly belted in), started crawling on the tray, only to try to sit back down...all while chewing a chicken nugget. She was snug as a bug...absolutely no ability to move. We all had a good laugh.

Shane's Famous

Ok, so I'm driving down the road with Shane's mother, and I see this billboard in the distance. I didn't realize Shane was in the picture (2nd from the right) until we got this close! Pretty neat. Not very often you find yourself on a bill board!:) Thought I'd share. We were all beaming with pride when we discovered it.

Sleepin' & Eatin'

Does this little dress remind you of anyone? Ali, this was yours...and in your honor, she also has no hair:) These kids must have been really tired this week. They both fell asleep while eating! I always think this is so cute.

Sleeping Cade. Now, who does this remind you of? I think he looks A LOT like Tyler in this picture!

Mom would die if she had been here, but Adelle thoroughly enjoyed her first meal of spaghetti, as documented below! What a mess!!

Pretty darn cute if you ask me!

Cade's 3rd Birthday

Cade was thrilled to have a BLUE birthday, as he called it. We had blue cupcakes, he was in Heaven. He literally is a little OCD when it comes to blue. He literally will separate anything blue and has to have them all to himself (for example, when he plays blocks, he takes all the blue ones and builds with those ONLY, and if anyone else takes any, he has a royal fit!). Opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa Ford.

Construction, here he comes!

My little boy turned 3! Hard to believe. He is a joy to be around. He talks like crazy and has since he was 18 months. He always has funny questions and stories. He is a very tender and loving little boy. He is forever telling me he loves me and giving me loves...at all the most random moments (and sometimes very convenient, like when he's in trouble):). We are so glad to have him around!!! Happy Birthday Cade.