It's Beginning To Look A Lot

like Christmas!!!!
(His shirt is always disappearing! At least he's not in his underwear!)

We got our tree yesterday...

Trimmed it last night....

And enjoyed it today!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Weston Lee

arrived on June 27, weighing 7 pounds and 8 ounces. Jake and Luke are very proud of their new cousin. My brother, Stephanie and Adam are very happy to finally have him here!
I apologize for the quality of these photos. I went to my mom and dads yesterday, so excited to get photos, turned the camera on and had forgotten my camera card. I always carry an extra in my bag but guess what? It wasn't in there yesterday.....who's been in my camera bag??
Anyway, poor quality or not......here's Weston!
The colors go with the holiday!


Jake is growing up so fast and was so sweet and gentle holding and loving on him.


Luke thinks it's so cool that he's not the baby in the family anymore!

I'm just happy to have that new baby smell around again! Joe took one look at me holding him and said, "Honey, you know we can't have anymore!" I'm okay with that even though my boys are growing up fast BUT.....
I'm going to spoil this one as often as I can!!!!!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!!

Time Flies!

When you're having fun! Or at least when you're so busy you don't know what day of the week it is. A quick update and a promise to get more organized and efficient at posting to my blog. First I have to say......I MISS Y'ALL!!!!!

My 2-day a week job is now a 4-day a week job. Not only am I RN and health-care coordinator, I have added case management and 2 more days a week to my bucket of many talents. I have given up my medical transcription. Just not enough time in my day! I've had to go to Frankfort a couple of times for training which requires an overnight stay and 8 hours of driving. We are now moved into our new office and workshop and we are loving it! Open house was wonderful. We also had my sister-in-law's baby shower the same day. Weston Lee is due on July 6th and I cannot wait!!

We've been playing T-ball and baseball 2 to 4 nights a week.


Until 9:30 at night!

We bought a small john boat and the boys are loving the fishing and time on the water.


Joe and I are loving it too. We'd be out there more if the rain would slow down a bit.

The garden is planted. Got it in a little late but it's growing and doing well now! The cherries came and went...I canned several jars of cherry jelly YUM! The blackberries are starting to get ripe now. They would do a lot better if I could keep the 9 goats out of the them.


We have bred all our does again so we should be having fall babies! Yeah!!!

I have chicks, chicks and more chicks from 3 incubator hatchings. I also have a hen sitting on 16 pheasant eggs and an incubator full of guinea eggs right now.


Dimple is doing fine. I still haven't found him a woman yet but I am still looking. We WILL have a donkey baby on this farm someday!

AND all this working is paying off....I got a new ride!!


My new 2011 KIA Sorento! I love the smell of new car in the morning!

How's everyone here doing and what have you been up to? I still have Friday off and my schedule is getting a little more adjusted. Hopefully, these posts will start showing up a lot more often around here!!

My Niece

is growing up too fast!

Prom 2011

What happened to the little sticky fingered girl trying to share her blow-pop with me?

What happened to the baby girl who called me "Aunt Dollar"?

She's beautiful! Seeing her like this made me cry!

I love you, Baby Girl!

My Baby

My baby turned 5 today!

And I can't believe it.
Where does the time go?
He's growing up way too fast!

Hop in Our Buggy

Well okay it's a truck but we saw lots of buggies! And you can still hop in and come along on our trip with us.
We took a trip out to the Amish community yesterday to pick up feed for the chickens and goats.


We made a few stops in town first. I needed 2 more 4 x 4's to finish my new clothes line poles. My clothes line was a little longer than I planned and needed a middle pole.

We grabbed a few things at the new Dollar General.


Had bite to eat at DQ,


then headed for the country...


Everything is turning green and the trees are on the verge of bursting forth with life.


The Amish folks are busy preparing fields and planting already.


I love the barn pictured below.


The old boards have been replaced on the original support structure of the old barn and it looks great.

You can see the feed mill in the distance in the photo below. It is owned and operated by Lester Stutzman and his boys. They also raise pigs, sheep, cattle, chickens and guineas. I also get my strawberries from them a little later in the year.


On our way out we stopped and said hi to these beautiful ladies...
Miss Holstein


Miss Holstein #2


and Miss Brown Swiss


The roads were busy with buggies on Saturday afternoon.


We saw them coming...


and going...


We turned on this road and stopped by the greenhouse which is also side by side with the bakery. No trip to the Amish community is complete without a stop at the bakery!


I didn't buy anything at the greenhouse but the bakery was a whole other story. These doughnuts followed me home.


Well some of them followed me home,


some of them didn't make it all the way home! They are SO good! If I knew how to make these I would weigh 500 pounds!
I also picked up seed potatoes and onion sets yesterday!
The temps have dropped again but all the green and the flowering trees let me know that Spring will be here very soon!

Hope you enjoyed taking our trip with us!

Spring Day!

I had every intention of spending today working in my yard and cleaning leaves. I wanted to get a lot done in the barn while waiting on the baby goats to get here, was wanting to make some soap and some more homemade yogurt BUT.....


SOMEONE got me all sidetracked and I spent the day laughing and fishing with Angie, my little sister (and best friend even though she caught more fish than I did)! Sometimes you just need "that" kind of day!

We Have Snow!

and I have been playing in it! I love making snow angels! I've made a snow angel each and every time it has snowed since I was a little girl. Had to get out there and make one this afternoon! I also rode on the sleds with the boys behind the 4-wheeler! I love hearing their giggles and "Go faster, Daddy!" We're making snow cream now....YUM!

I'll be posting a Winter farm update tomorrow. All the animals are staying warm and eating lots of hay! Do you have snow?? Have you been out playing in it??

Christmas Day

and family fun! It's always such a blessing to spend the holidays with all these crazy people I claim as family!


Luke got his blue Nintendo DS. There's a red one around here from last Christmas of Jake's but I was told by Luke that if Santa brought Jake a red one then he could surely bring him a blue one!


Jake loaded up on Star Wars and Legos!


This is my brother's family. He bought my boys BB guns this year! I threatened to beat him but then found out I will have my revenge! They are expecting a baby in June!!!!!


What can you by a country man that will make him very happy?? A new tractor starter!


But then you have to be tortured by your grandchildren. Wonder why they love him so much?


Another Christmas full of blessings!


Mom, Dad and us four kids
I hope you enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did!

Oh and I have a surprise to post about later this week! I am so excited!!!

Christmas Eve!

Don't forget to put out feed for the reindeer so Santa will stop at your house.

Just remember to put your boots on before you go out there!!!! Yes, those are bare footprints in the snow! Jake got a little excited about putting out his reindeer food and forgot his socks and boots!

Wishing All Of You A Very MERRY CHRISTMAS From Our Home To Yours!!!!!

Job Update!

I got the job! I am now Health-care Coordinator of CRH, Inc.! I start January 4. Thank you all so much for your well wishes and support yesterday! It means so much to me!

By only working outside the home two days a week, I'll still be blogging, raising animals, canning, soaping and doing all the farm things I love so don't go anywhere!

My Baby Boys

aren't babies anymore!

All dressed up for their Christmas preschool and school program last night.


I want to know who told them they could grow up so fast??

A Night of Baking Cookies

My sister and 3 of the 5 boys we had here last night.

There are a lot of photos in this post but it's fewer than the 97 I have posted in my Facebook album! I just could not narrow it down any farther! We had so much fun! We mixed up our sugar cookie dough using this recipe.


While it was chilling we mixed up chocolate chip cookies and white chocolate chip cookies! Houston put them on the cookie sheets for us!


When the sugar cookie dough was chilled we rolled it out and the boys all cut out shapes.


We had thick cookies, thin cookies, gingerbread men with no arms and gingerbread men with 3 arms! It was all good! We baked and cooled them then the real fun began. Below is a series of photos that some might find disturbing :).

We had some intense artists among us.


We had some a little less serious...


We had a one-socked Picasso amongst us. I have never seen such cookie creations in my life...


He did a little mixing here, a little mixing there and lot of mixing everywhere.


This was by far his coolest masterpiece...


Luke was quite proud of his M&M gingerbread man too!


We had a little belly painting going on!


This $3 tablecloth was one of the best investments I have ever made!


Cookie tasting! They passed the test!


Beautiful Christmas cookies!
Tip: Put a slice of bread in the container with your cookies after baking them. The cookies will pull the moisture from the bread and your cookies will be very soft and delicious the next morning!! When the bread gets dry and hard, replace it with a new slice!


The end results were well worth the mess and all of us have declared this a new annual tradition from now on!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!