Christmas and Dave's B-day

Mom's coat tree,also known as a stocking tree.

Building towers with Dad.

Getting ready to empty stockings Christmas morning.

Evan found mustaches in his stocking

Ethan reading John 1:1-14 at our Church's Christmas Service.

Grace opening presents.

Dad's birthday cake.

Getting ready for opening presents.

Opening presents.

Playing our new game, Ticket to Ride.  It is a very easy game to learn, and lots of fun.  Sometimes it is nice to have a board game that does not require tremendous thinking power, and it is great for younger kids as well.

September on the Homestead

Butternut growing like crazy.

Helping with Grace.

Armed with Zucchini!!  Look out!

Getting over abundance of food. 

Snacking on some green beans.

Canning green beans.

Having really good zucchini sticks. 

A really good harvest.

Ethan working on his birdhouses.

Lily petting the cow.

Evan cutting up wood for kindling.

Evan helping Dad build the gate for the cow shed.

Cow shed progress.

Painting the cow shed barn red.

Honey harvest.  It is interesting that the honey seemed to be darker this year.

Lily is helping feed Gracie a snack.

She only missed a little bit.

Lambs Haven Picnic

This post is a little late, but this last year we were blessed to be able to attend the Lambs Haven Family picnic again in August.  We managed to arrive on time this year, and it did not take long for Mia make friends and start having fun.

The boys got to play some volleyball before lunch.

Jennie and the little girls enjoying some fellowship time.

Lunchtime was yummy with plenty of food.

Lily is enjoying Mrs. Organ's homemade donuts.

Listening to some wonderful music.

Pastor S.M. Davis preached twice throughout the day.
https://www.solvefamilyproblems.org/

After lunch we played some kickball.

Evan is kicking.

Ethan's turn.

It was a great time and we enjoyed the beautiful surroundings, encouraging fellowship, and time in the Word. 

 We seem to be very behind on our blog posts, so we have decided to outsource some of the blog post creation to Ethan.  This was his first post, and we slowly worked through it so that he could understand how to put it together.

July Beach Visit And Family Gathering

On our way to a family gathering outside of Astoria we stopped at the beach to play in the sand.

Oh, but first here is Gracie working in the kids kitchen with her leg warmers on.  Those things are coming back around.

It was a little cooler at the beach than we had planed, but we still got come sand castles made.

The only kite we have in working order is Mia's, here Ethan is helping her get it up in the air.

Momma and Grace actually stayed in the van where it was warmer.  They hung out in the back and played with toys, until was time to view the castles.

Lily Bug

Ethan

Ethan helped me work on this castle most of the time, here it is before we packed up.  

Do you know about the wonders of baby powder at the beach??  We always have baby powder on board when headed to the beach.  It dries out the wet sand stuck to your body so that it all brushes off.  Each kid gets doused in baby powder before getting in the car, and we all smell baby fresh afterwards.  It is great, try it out!

On to the family gathering.  Luckily the weather was quite a bit nicer further in land.

Jennie and Grace were spent some time visiting with Great Grandma Johnson.

Some friends of the family had brought a large rock display with lots of activities for the kids to learn about rocks.  Here the kids are trying to dig shark teeth out of plaster of paris with just a tooth brush and a couple of other blunt instruments.  It was quite a bit of work but apparently that is all they give you when working at a dino dig.

2nd Annual egg toss, some of the eggs appeared hard boiled.

Ethan and Evan in the wheelbarrow race.