December

As part of our advent calendar this year we decorated gingerbread houses. I have to say that the icing they include worked quite well and the boys were able to load up their structures with a ridiculous amount of candy.

There were 4 mini houses in the kit I bought and that roped dad into making one too. He had some good ideas with pixie sticks that were leftover from Halloween.








Our boys have never been the type to get up unusually early on Christmas Day, thank goodness! In fact, Bennett wasn't in any hurry because he said Santa came to my Grandma Jackie's party the night before so he figured it was pretty much already over.

The legacy of Star Wars lives on along with the tradition of new pajamas on Christmas Eve. I think the boys are at a great age for gift opening. They like to see what everything is but they don't tear through them crazily either. It makes for a fun morning.

It was truly a white Christmas and in the following days the boys have enjoyed themselves. They built this snow cave between a retaining wall and the neighbor's fence. Bennett is pretending to be asleep.

The chickens don't seem to mind the snow too much. We shoveled paths for them or they'd literally be in it up to their necks.

November

After such a busy October, this month was a nice change of pace. We had our first snow at our house, enough for me and Bennett to build a snowman. I used to dislike the snow and REALLY dislike winter in general but I am learning to appreciate the beauty of it and enjoy the break from so much (self imposed) gardening.

Speaking of gardening, this is some of the Indian corn, a cultivar called "Painted Mountain", which I saved.  I'll give some away to those who might want to grow it next year.  All of these colors came from the same crop. The variety from just one packet of seed is fun.

Paxton seems to enjoy reading and he has four legged friends that love his bed too. Chica here is content with a warm spot to relax. The quilt on Paxton's bed is one my mom made as a gift for Paxton on his 8th birthday. His favorite colors are red, white, and blue.

This slightly creepy photo was taken by Bennett of one of his favorite stuffed animals. This one used to be a must have for him at bed time. Right now he is toting around a snowman that I pulled out as part of our Christmas decorations. We put them up the week of Thanksgiving because the boys were home to help but I usually wait until December.

My Grandma Jackie is still graciously hosting many family members for Thanksgiving dinner. She works so hard to make sure everyone is well fed before she can ever sit down and even then she doesn't stay sitting down to eat her own food. We love her so much!

I never pictured myself owning chickens and DEFINITELY never thought I'd give one a bath. But there's a first for everything. This little Rhode Island Red (or Royal Red Guard as the boys named her) has managed to sit on a broken egg twice in the last few days and became a gross mess. I didn't want her to have to try to work out a frozen clump of dried egg or for it to affect her laying ability.

So I brought her over to the utility sink which I had partially filled with lukewarm water and dipped her in. She didn't flap around or complain once! Then I used my hairdryer on a cool setting to dry her. She didn't mind that either - I think the advantage to a hen's tiny brain is not overthinking. Next on the chicken front is making a cookie tin water heater so their water doesn't freeze in the daytime.

October

We had an unusually eventful month. The best part happened on the LAST day of the month, because Paxton chose to be baptized a member of our church. He has always been excited about this day, and it actually was more special for him because he loves Halloween. I was so pleased to see so many family members come to support Paxton and our family.

Since so many family members were coming for the baptism, we had a little birthday celebration afterward for Paxton turning 8.

Paxton has wanted a pocket knife for a while now. We've always told him when he turned 8 he could have one and we kept our word. The first thing he wanted to make was a spotted stick and some beads like Grandpa does when we camp.


Jared took this great shot of our boys with our neighbor's boy who has become a good friend. They are dressed up for a pack meeting carnival. It will be really fun for Paxton to be a cub scout.

Between school, preschool, church, and family parties, both boys have had the chance to dress up several times this week, and they loved it. Star Wars is popular with our boys and they both had the chance to be Luke Skywalker and Obi -Wan Kenobi. They also dressed up as a cowboy, stormtrooper, and transformer.

Jared does not like answering the door on Halloween so this year we put up a sign at the front of our sidewalk with an arrow pointing to the neighbor's house. They had invited us to sit on their driveway around a propane fire. Jared joined them (with our bowl of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters) while I took Paxton and Bennett around the neighborhood.




This hayride was part of my aunt's family party which she invited us to. The boys played games and were spoiled with treats and toys. Thanks Carol!

Our nephew Jack was hanging out with my Mom so he got to come to the party too. He loved it, even though he didn't know most of the kids there, he wasn't ready to go home when it was over. He just had his 2nd birthday and we enjoyed his party with his mom and dad and extended family.

For fall break from school, we took the boys to California to visit amusement parks and the beach. On the way we had the added bonus of seeing Jaylene, who graciously let us stay overnight to break up the drive.  We had fun with her and their two girls - Ellie is next to Bennett and Cami is next to Paxton. They are sweet, and Bennett got Cami laughing with his chicken dance. We love you J!

Here we are in the first line of the day! We went to Disneyland first hoping to avoid the worst of the weekend crowds. That worked for the first hour or so...but by the end of the day we could hardly walk down the sidewalks and streets in the park. The boys loved Tomorrowland and we got onto rides easily there. That's where we made the mistake of taking Paxton on Space Mountain. Jared rode with him and apparently he didn't like it at all. So Paxton thought EVERY ride would be like that and it was hard to convince him to try others. But he did some, and by the end of the trip didn't hate ALL rides. His fear surprised me because Bennett has had some car sickness and yet the rides didn't bother him a bit. His fear was more age appropriate; he didn't want to try the adult rides like big coasters but most others were fun for him. Paxton did enjoy Star Tours a lot with the 3D glasses.

The part that I enjoyed most about the trip was that our family shared it with Doug, Marin, Zoe, Jack, and my Mom. I doubt we would have gone by ourselves and my mom helped a great deal with juggling kids of different ages. I highly recommend taking a grandma (or grandpa, or both) if you go to an amusement park!

We liked Knotts Berry Farm and California Adventure parks just as much, if not more, than Disneyland. They weren't as crowded and the variety of rides was great too. Bumper cars were fun for the boys - I didn't hate them as much as I did as a kid.

My favorite family type of ride was the Cars Racers in California Adventure. The set, the story, and especially the race part of the ride was impressive and very well done.

Here's Bennett purposely pulling another face for the camera (both above and to the right). Lately he is into posing is silly ways for pictures.

We couldn't drive that far and not see the ocean so we spent a few hours there before heading home. Parking wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be and the beach wasn't too crowded. The weather was good the whole trip with low 80s.

This guy let Paxton try out his surfboard and Paxton showed good balance. Both boys liked the beach but Paxton loved the water and sand the most.

September

Bennett had his first day of pre-school this month. He TOTALLY loves it. He has a knack for learning names and he knows who is or is not there each time. Bennett is learning how to read and write and still loves to color.







Because I wanted our dining table back, we took this quirky little table that came from my great grandpa and made it Bennett's art table. The first day he didn't leave it for 3 hours.

We were able to attend a reunion on Jared's mother's side which was held in a favorite camping area above Fairview. The boys found this hut and had fun with their cousins. I enjoyed myself too.

A few years ago we took a Fall camping trip with Jared's parents. We enjoyed the cool weather and changing leaves so much that we decided to do it again - even in the same camp site. Although we camped several times this summer, this was the first time that hot chocolate or a fire sounded really good. It didn't freeze at night but we had a little frost and some cool fog on the nearby reservoir.

We hiked a lot this trip, and the boys more than they ever have. Because we were in sheep country we ran into some protective dogs that firmly pushed us back up one trail. Thanks to Jared's elk bugling (and Gma's fruit snack break) we saw this large elk above us.

My camping photos wouldn't be complete without a canoe shot.




















On one of our hikes we found several massive fallen tress that boys played on. Paxton does not appear to have any fear of heights and he can have fun climbing even the smaller trees near  camp.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen Clyde catch a fish in a long time, so it was fun for me to see him pull this one out of the water for a photo op.








We saw plenty of deer nearby, and even a moose. There were also beavers that had worked extensively on the stream below our camp spot.

I loved the trip. In fact I aim to make it an annual event.

My friend recently told me that I'm very domestic. I'll take it as a compliment, and I can't really argue since I have a cold storage full of self-bottled tomatoes, applesauce, peaches, and now around 32 pints of home made syrup. We spotted these elderberries on our camp trip and decided to try the 'ole fashioned elderberry syrup. It turned out well; I personally like it the best of the several types we made. The others were blackberry-raspberry and blackberry-raspberry-peach. Some turned out more like jelly and others were a bit too thin. But they're ALL sweet.

My favourite type of cantaloupe, 'Athena' grew in a range of sizes in our garden this year. But they are reliably tasty.

Here's a recent pic of our 8 chickens. They are a pretty flock, and very friendly. The smallest one now routinely jumps up onto my arm or shoulder if I'm close to the ground. I don't know who's weirder - the hen for doing it or me for allowing it.

And, if you animal lovers haven't had enough, here's our two cats. Destructo on the left and Invisible on the right. They are brother and sister but other than color they aren't too much alike.