"But as for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord"



Friday, November 4, 2011

Nathan's New Hobby

A couple of the men in our church are avid wild mushroom hunters. They've taught Nathan about the mushrooms and he LOVES hunting the woods for them. (Yes, we are very careful to absolutely know what type of mushroom we have before we eat it.)



This unique looking mushroom is called a Chicken of the Woods. It was one large mushroom, but had to be cut into two to get it off the tree.



The inside of this mushroom was magenta! It is poisonous if eaten, but we couldn't help admiring the color!



Here is Nathan's harvest from last week. Some are edible mushrooms and some are not. He found all of these close by on our property. I hardly ever notice them--he finds them in all sorts of places!



He loves mushroom hunting almost as much as he loves fishing!

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Pumpkin Patch with Cousins

All the cousins on Josh's side of the family were together last weekend. They took a little trip to the pumpkin patch down the road.















Back row: Juliana, Heather, Peter, Daniel, Nathan

Front row: Luke, Helena

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Autumn Again

We've been enjoing some fun projects as life has slowed down just a little. Autumn is such a beautiful season here in the mountains. The cold nights have kissed the trees with lovely yellows, reds, and oranges!






Katherine thought the bright colored gourds were the best toys! I washed them and let her play to her heart's content!





Every year I try to make a display that reminds us of God's rich blessings in the harvest!





Tried a new arrangement with the left-over gourds. I like it!





We've been studying the Revolutionary War in school. Of course we learned about Paul Revere's ride and the signal of 1 or 2 lanterns in the North Church tower. We made our own paper lanterns and the kids had a great time decorating them.





The lanterns were beautiful lit.





The lantern on the far left is one Nathan designed himself using sticks and sheets of colored paper!





For the month of November we are trying to be extra grateful. Each evening after dinner we try to each write something we are grateful for on a leaf. Our thankfulness tree should be covered before too long!


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Peter's Baptism

On October 23, 2011, Peter followed the Lord in Believer's Baptism. He really wanted it to be in the creek outdoors. The weather was nice, but the water was pretty chilly. We are so proud of Peter for publically declaring that he has given his life to Christ and his intention of following Him.



Peter was baptized by his grandfather! Special to see 3 generations sharing this moment!











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Ranch News

Lots going on at the Ranch, as usual! We have had a lovely Indian Summer with cool nights and warm days. Just this week the temperatures dropped significantly. It is cold! Today we had ice in the rain and just up the road they had a dusting of snow!




In other news, we've had lots of teeth lost in the past month. Nathan has now lost 3 and Peter lost his first tooth with another one very loose.







I guess it was about 2 months ago now that we bought a mini-van. Not new, but it meets our needs great. The Suburban is very nice, but takes a lot of gas for running around town. It is also hard to park in tight spaces (which is mostly what you find in Grass Valley). It is so nice to have space for a couple extra passengers and plenty of cargo! So if you see a silver Windstar going down the road, you'll know to wave! We are in the process of selling my cute, red PT Cruiser. I will miss it, but we really had outgrown it. Anyone want a fun, cute car?






The van came with these turtle decals on the rear window. I happen to love turtles! But there were only 3 babies. I looked around and found another baby to match! So now we are getting long swimmingly!





Juliana with her block creation






My mending pile got a little out of control over the summer. Finally tacked it! Now I can see the inside of my sewing cabinet so that I can work on some sewing projects!








Juliana has been learning to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. We are so proud of her. Hurrah for no more diapers and Pull-ups. We found her this way one night. She managed to get down the stairs, but was so tired she fell asleep on the way back up!




Our last 4-H meeting had a Hoe-Down theme. All the kids dressed up in cowboy/western/hoedown attire. Here are our farm kids! Peter took first place for his get-up. He loves to dress up and went all out. He was also armed to the teeth (with toy pistols, of course)!



This week we visted Grandma Betty at her home in Union City. We were on our way to San Francisco to pick up a load of our product for the business. Grandma gave us 13 tubs of sewing stuff! Wow! So glad we had the trailer along and extra room. I've had fun going through the boxes. So far I've found just exactly what I needed to complete 2-3 projects! It's like going shopping in my basement! Hopefully I'll get it completely sorted soon.





One exciting note from that trip, aside from 2 flat trailer tires on the way, was that we were at the Alameda Port picking up our product about the time the protests were going on at the Port of Oakland. We saw the police presence and helicopters, but had no idea what was going on. We were very, very close to the excitement! We are grateful to have made it home without harm or incident.





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Katherine is Growing!

Just a few fun pictures of little Kate from the last month or so. Two weeks ago she learned how to get herself into a sitting position by herself. She was very proud of this accomplishment! This past week she really took off with crawling. The world has opened up to her suddenly. She happily moves about the house and explores everything. Meanwhile, we are all frantically trying to learn to babyproof the house and not leave little things around on the floor!









Sister is always showing her new and exciting things!



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Saturday, October 22, 2011

School Pictures

Had fun this week taking some beginning of school pictures. I like to document how the kids grow each year. Not portrait quality, but you can see their little personalities shining through!



Juliana (4)
The tire swing was the location of choice this year!







Nathan (8)
Love the missing tooth!



Peter (6.5)



He's all boy! This is his idea of a "cool" picture!

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Sunday, October 9, 2011

Restful Getaway

So, after a crazy summer, working on the rental, harvest season, school getting under way, and Josh being gone for a week on a fire, we all needed a vacation. We packed up our 5th wheel on Saturday, and took off Sunday after church. We have so many beautiful places to go right around us, we decided to stay fairly close and headed up Hwy. 49. It was a lovely time. We did very little except sleep (I took 3 naps the first day!), eat, hike and explore, and hang out with the kids. Fun times!






I discovered Katherine on our bed gazing admiringly at Nathan's fishing pole. Is she going to be his upcoming fishing buddy?





She played carefully with it for a long time!





In the evening, we played games and sat around in our pjs!





The kiddos all bedded down for the night. Katherine sleeps in the laundry basket!





Peter loved these fuzzy caterpillars and made a caterpillar habitat!





















The view out my trailer window! This is the North Fork of the Yuba River. No, we weren't really that close to the water!





Juliana liked this rock indentation





Being silly





We did take school with us, but Daddy helped with some lessons





All set to head home


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