Sunday, November 23, 2014

birthday weekend

hi everyone!  i had my first cold of the season this week, which left me kinda out of it for a few days but i am so glad noone else has gotten it!  it was a strange mix of a very sore throat, cough, and headache.  i was praying Adam wouldn't get it on his birthday!  He had a great weekend, a cousin sleepover, eating out, and a surprise banner.  Even though we can't figure him out sometimes, there is so much we appreciate about this guy and it's really not the same without him around!  He's very inventive and comes up with all the good (and not so good) ideas.  It's been special training w/ him for his 5K.  Tonight we ran to grandma's house to get his birthday present.  (some incentive there)  He only walked twice, there are some big hills over that 2+ mile stretch.  Proud of him!

Earlier in the week i made these cupcakes for his class at school, and for the cousins on saturday.

Saturday night at a special buffet!  Clay likes kiwi, don't mind him.
Banner signed by many of his favorites..

Happy 9th to Adam!  So thankful for you!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Eagles!

Yesterday mid-morning we were doing school, Adam and a church friend were out in the kitchen doing math.  The twins and I in the toy room doing another subject.  Clay was....somewhere, who knows.  Then, we hear Adam "An Eagle!"  and then Brad "I see it!!"  Us adults were still like "are you sure?"  We went outside and Yes an Eagle, flying above and heading to our orchard.  We watched for awhile and marveled at how that never happened before!

After lunch we saw him again, in the field behind our house, just sitting there.  i zoomed in and grabbed a picture.  The boys used our binoculars.  

I told the boys if he's still up there after we get our schoolwork done, we'll go on a walk and try to sneak up on him, and get more pictures.

3 excited boys can't sneak up on anything, i found out.  But we did get closer and got some pictures and found out there were 2 eagles!!  They flew above us for awhile and seemed to just want to be where they were, not flying far away.



Then we walked over to where the eagle had been sitting earlier and found a dead deer.  Apparently that brought him in.  This was such a treat from the Lord, to allow us to see these amazing birds, right from our own home on a day when the boys were here.  So thankful we could experience it together and they could witness first hand God's work of art.

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Home today!?

Today was the first day I've been home ALL DAY in, like, Forever! (saturday) It was nice to have nowhere to go!

Early this morning our missionary friends came back to the states for a month long furlough.  They are staying down in our apartment.  It's a family of 5 so we had to get creative!  i was a little concerned about the setup being 'cheesy' but they seem very appreciative of the space, so praise God for that!

Adam and I are training for his first 5K in a couple weeks!  The race is on Thanksgiving morning.  I am enjoying the time running with him.  We add a little more distance each time we run.  We are up to 2.5 miles and the boy doesn't get out of breath.  I'm a little bit speechless about that.

The boys are also practicing for a "gig" they have coming up.  They are participating in an annual Christmas musical with the New Holland Band, held at Willow Valley.  They've been asked to do the "surprise music" where they will be a barber shop quartet, lip singing "santa clause is coming to town".  I''m a little speechless about this too.  It's a fast moving song with a lot of motions and words.  400 people attend this event so there's some motivation to make sure Clay knows a little about what he should be doing.  He's going to be the Bass singer, of course.

Another new thing the boys are doing is Tae Kwon Do, they started a couple weeks ago and have class 2 times a week.  They really like it.  Their coach Mr Luie is really good.  Rod and i get a little desperate in the colder months to find them places to put their energy into!  We agreed on trying this and it's been fun for them.

A highlight for us this week was taking our homeschool day on Wednesday and heading down to mom's to rake leaves.  It was a warm day (for November).  half of the boys got big truck and tractor rides too.  We worked on their school work the night before, on the way to moms, and the next day.  I like having the flexibility in my days.

And it looks like the rest of this year will be like this....lots going on, but all things we look forward to and enjoy.  We have 2 events here in November, smaller then the norm, and one inside.  And Adam has a birthday in 2 weeks!  Then December is filling up with a school program, field trip, family gatherings, the quartet singing, our Anniversary, etc.

I will leave you with a recipe for my favorite way to use pumpkin......cookies!  try these...and don't skimp on the caramel icing.

Pumpkin cookies:
Beat:  1 cup butter & 1 cup sugar
Add:  1 egg, 1 cup pumpkin, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 cups flour
          1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp           salt, 1 tsp. cinnamon

Bake 350 for 15 minutes

Caramel Frosting: (enough for a double batch)
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 cups 10x sugar

melt butter and br. sugar on low heat stirring constantly, boil 2 minutes
add milk and heat just to boiling again
remove from heat and stir in 10x.  ice cookies.