The Week Before Christmas

It's the week before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature is stirring, except maybe a mouse.
The children are tucked in their beds for the night,
The week's been exhausting, with lots of late nights.
Filled with excitement of the days ahead,
Good times with cousins dance in their head.
Christmas is coming, and so is the fun,
Hurry, hurry, there's still lots to be done,
Cleaning and laundry and baking galore,
Organize the mudroom and so much more,
One more day of schoolbooks, oh yes, 
Then a two week break will be the best.
We'll stay up late and sleep in each morn,
Laugh and play until we're worn,
Eat lots of food, make lots of noise,
There's fun to be had with all those boys,
The girls will giggle and talk about their horse,
And play Polly Pockets and Dutch Blitz of course.
The moms will talk as fast as they can 
And cook more food for the hungry band,
The dads will catch up as only men can,
And go to B Dubs as a football fan.
We spend weeks looking forward to all the fun, 
And before you can blink, it's over and done.
We'll keep all these memories safe in our heart,
And someday we'll tell stories straight from our heart,
About the good old days when the kids were young,
Life was so easy, and so much fun.
We'll forget about the three naughty boys,
And the trapper's shenanigans will all sound like joys.
The emotional girls, we hardly can bear,
Will grow up and cook for us as we sit in our chair.
They'll talk of their young'uns, and we'll just smile,
Remembering them, yeah, it's been awhile.
So here's to the rocking chair and the good days to come, 
Getting old just might be fun.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
(Sometimes a little poetry is therapeutic :))

Thesummerthatflewby

This summer just may go down in history as being our most jam-packed one yet, but wait, I say that every summer don't I?

Memorial Day weekend found us back on our campsite, working on fixing up the cabin and clearing some brush. We invited Leon's family over for a 'trash can supper' the last evening.

 This is how Brooke eats breakfast in the rain.

 It poured rain one afternoon, so the children got to hang out in the cabin and read.

  Corn hole!

And then we had VBS at church, which Leon and I helped plan.

Our family vacation came right on the tail of VBS, then I was home for 4 days before I left for a Stutzman Ladies weekend at a cabin in TN celebrating the big sister's 40th. What a grand time we had!

This was the good group picture.

 This was the funny group picture. See, dear Heidi handles the camera and all, but on her mad dash to join us before the camera flashed, she wiped out on the just-rained-on deck and this is what happened.

 Heidi was the crafty brain behind these lovely wooden signs and Jen and Elaine helped her. What fun to choose our own and personalize them with our own color scheme.

The birthday girl herself, painting her sign.

 Megan baking muffins in the kitchen. This is what she thinks of cooking for her sisters in law. (The lighting is terrible in this picture, but I'm not up to editing pictures right now.)

 My sweet mother-in-law, getting a much deserved foot soak.

The famous game of Blok-us.

 We ate good food, spent a day on the lake on a pontoon, ate at Olive Garden, played games, watched a movie, read, hunted for bears, ;) enjoyed the lovely remote area, laughed at the chicken crossing the road, soaked our feet, and shared encouraging words with each other. It was a treasure of a weekend!

I sent my oldest son to camp the very day after I returned from TN. How can we possibly have a child old enough to go off to camp for 5 days?! We missed Logan so much but he had a fantastic time. While he was gone, I totally re-painted the boy's room as a surprise for him. Jamison helped me with the floor.

Immediately after he returned, Leon's sister and her family arrived and stayed with us for the next 9 days. What fun we had! The children enjoyed their cousins so much! We adults enjoyed some wonderful conversations as well! And I didn't take one picture!

Other summer fun.....

snapping beans, which the children do not enjoy but their Mom is very grateful for their help, and since they eat a lot of food, the Mom thinks it is only right and fair that they help out!

playing Narnia......

Trying out new work shoes and having your Mom laugh at your style...or lack of style...

 taking pictures of the kittens and having Mom delete most of them...

mowing yard, weeding the garden, swimming, riding 4 wheeler, building extravagant creations in the sandbox, playing in the old barn......

Last Saturday, Leon and Annika went to pick up a pony for the children. It is Annika's dream come true. She has been taking very good care of Cherokee ever since she joined our family, even going so far as to scoop up every little pile of manure she drops in the yard.  I hope Cherokee knows how loved she is.

In the middle of all the fun, Jamison celebrated his 11th birthday. Being the big boy that he is, he didn't even fuss that it went mostly un-noticed. :)We are still planning a celebration.

Two and a half weeks until school starts! The children groan and complain but I think we are all ready for a school schedule again.

 The children pulled out the tent again and are enjoying sleeping in the yard. Somehow sleeping outside never gets old.

And that's a quick run down of our summer, thus far.

Squeezing the Last Sweet Drops Out of Summer

What a good, busy summer we had. And now it's officially fall...I mean, the calendar says so. Who can argue with that? Tonight the children helped me pick 5 bushels of apples from our neighbors trees, for free. Tomorrow they go to an Amish farm and get turned into cider. Yummy!

Harvest 2013 has officially started. I take a deep breath and hang on for the ride. I will not complain about long days with no husband around. I will not complain about packing lunches. I will not complain about him always being tired and overworked. I will not complain....:) I will be thankful he is healthy and can work. I will be thankful my children can spend hours with their Dad on the combine, tractor or grain truck. I will be thankful that he comes home every night to me. I will be thankful.....

Today as we raced around the house during break time, and my 10 year old son was trying to catch me, I thought, surely I can still run faster than him. But alas! It was not to be. So now I am resigned to the fact that I have the athletic abilities of a 10 year old, which isn't too bad if it's MY 10 year old. But still....where did that 'fastest running girl in the youth group' go? (funny side note: we had relay races in the youth group once, and I was the fastest girl and Leon was the fastest boy. He likes to say that I had to marry him because he was the only one I couldn't outrun.)

My favorite pictures from the summer:

                                                      games with Great Grandma

Jamison's prize watermelon

                                                       Canning....snapping beans....

Slip and slide on hot days

                                                                 
                                                                    applesauce day

Cousin Fun

                                                       
                                                             Corn on the cob for lunch

                                                       (notice the kitties in the lunch bag)

It was a good summer. Yes, it was.

July Memories

After experiencing a really wild and crazy week, which included a wedding in the family and Leon's grandmother's death, we are all so exhausted. Then this morning I turned the calendar to August, and my heart sank. How can it be that we have only 3 weeks left of summer vacation? Why did summer seem to go so much faster this year? What can I do to make these last several weeks really count? I'm moving in a fog the last several days as I tackle the laundry monster and slowly put my house back in order. We all sleep and sleep, trying to catch up. Tonight we are going to a church picnic, which we are all looking forward to. Somehow, doing something normal and with our church family, looks so inviting. Refreshing, even. but before July is a dim memory, I have several events that seriously need documenting. The first is my B. family reunion that we enjoyed at the beginning of the month. There are some great photos that my niece took that I really want to post.

The whole clan

Siblings

                                                      Grandma with the grandchildren

more sibling pictures