17 years ago, such a sweet little baby girl.

If I could go back in time and hold you and rock you in my arms and sing lullabies to you again, I would.

... but I know that instead I have to let you go so you can become your own independent person... and I will... but I will also pray for God's guidance for each step you take, and I am confident that you will become the amazing woman I know you are.

I'll love you for always, I'll like you forever.

As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.

Happy birthday to a wonderful 15 year old

Do you know how beautiful you are to me?

Do you know the hopes and dreams I have for your life?

Flowers picked by her brother to decorate the table

Not birthday cake.. rather a milk tart :)

Fruit salad at her request.. I fancied it up a little ;)

Happy birthday sweetheart, I love watching you turn into a wonderful Godly young woman.

A little cowboy turns 7!

Happy birthday you wonderful little boy, thank you for being such a blessing to us.

December 2010

Just a few photos from December. Not much going on farm-wise, but we're keeping very busy!















Finally enough snow to play in!




















After riding slowly over the horseshoe field we compacted the snow enough that the tractor could ride on a path without bogging down. Great sledding fun!













































And our DS turned 12 years old. What a wonderful age!
















Our Jesse tree. A new Christmas tradition.

Sweet 16

Our oldest DD recently turned 16. What a wonderful age, and a wonderful young woman she has turned out to be.



She received a lot of really neat gifts for her birthday, the highlight though was an antique hope chest. It took quite some searching to find one, and all the antique stores we asked about it were surprised to hear of a 16 year old wanting one for her birthday. I guess we don't have "run of the mill" children, LOL! She is really pleased with that hope chest, it's a beauty!





She wanted to go see the Patee House Museum for her birthday, so we headed to St. Joe's for the day.





The museum is pretty neat, such a lot of history, and it was quite something to stand in the room where the Pony Express first started. They have a lot of very interesting exhibits, definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. Everybody got to have a ride on the "Wild Things" carousel, which is quite different to any other carousels we've seen.









Jesse James' house is also located on the grounds, it was moved there from its original location a few blocks away. They still have the hole in the wall from the bullet that killed him when he was standing on a chair to straighten a picture. Where he fell left two blood stains on the hardwood floor, and people actually broke into the house and removed and stole chips of bloodstained wood. Weird.





For a late lunch/early dinner we headed to Cracker Barrel - our first visit! We really enjoyed the food and the service. Everything was delicious :)

After we got home we had cake and tea to end the day.



Happy birthday beautiful daughter, we love you!

Little Miss Botanist turns 14

birtTime really flies. It is such a joy to watch our children grow and mature and get a glimpse of the wonderful adults they will become.

Little Miss Botanist has turned 14 and true to form planned a very unique birthday for herself. She requested a book about foraging and edible weeds, we chose to buy her Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants which really pleased her.



With the money from her grandparents (both SA and USA) we got her a gift certificate to Fire Mountain Gems.



We had a little family party with cake and chips.



And for dinner she requested a campfire with hotdogs and s'mores.



You're never too old to sit on your mama's lap!

To end it all off, we watched the Perseid meteorite showers and got to see a lot of meteorites. All in all a lovely day for a lovely young woman. We love you!

My Birthday

I had such a lovely day on my birthday. Since it was on the weekend hubby was home and that always makes the day extra special. My hubby and children treated me like a queen all day. Thank you to my family and friends for their gifts, phone calls and lovely emails :)

Hubby spoilt me.. he won a gift card to Best Buy from his work and he used it to buy me a new laptop. He also got me a laptop bag for my birthday, so now you know where I'm writing these posts from! LOL!

Our church had a function on Friday night and part of it was a Bake sale, and I bought my birthday cake there. It was made and decorated by our Pastor's wife. Talk about yummy!

All in all, a lovely day!

Levers, Fulcrums, Plants and Cars!

What a combination! This post really just has to do with some photos I want to share.

We're currently learning about levers in school and discussed how a seesaw (oddly not a playground item you find very much in the US!) is a lever. We spoke about the very primitive seesaw that the Ingalls girls played on in the Little House on the Prairie TV series we're currently watching. This afternoon when they went out to play, what did I come outside to find?

Hehe. Put together mostly by DD11. Fulcrum in the new word of the day!

A little peek at our seedlings in case you were wondering how they are faring.

And lastly, DS4 used some of his birthday money to buy this "Cool Fewawwi". He was very disappointed when he took it out of the packaging though.
Do you notice something wrong with the car? Like maybe they put the front wheels on the back instead of on the front? LOL! Those front tires are too big for the front so they won't turn at all.

We'll have to find him another "Cool Wed Fewawwi" because the body is pop riveted together and there's no way to change it.

I wonder if it has any "strange and unusual" collector's value? Nah...

Birthday Boy!

Our youngest turned a whole four years old today. Four! I'm not used to having a young child without having a "babe in arms" as well, so this is a new experience for me, and I'm loving it!

Family tradition is to go into the birthday person's room before they're awake and we all sneak in and then wake them up with the Happy Birthday song. After that DS opened up his gifts which pretty much revolved around cars and also a mini skateboard. His grandparents all sent him an email, he also got a card with money in and they also called later in the day to speak to him in person :) He also got an email from one of his aunties and a dear friend :) Unfortunately we have no photos of the opening of gifts because our camera battery was dead.

We had a little family party today, unfortunately DH couldn't be home with us, but we had him on speaker phone while we sang happy birthday and brought in the cake.

DS4 is not a big fan of cake, so instead of cake I made brownies and decorated them with Hot Wheels cars, and followed through with theme plates, hats and napkins, he loved it!

The party quickly evolved to meltdown silliness and hilarity, as can be witnessed from these photos:

This afternoon he got a card and money in the mail from a very special family friend.

I also decided to buy some of those "twisty" balloons with the intention of entertaining the kids with my amazing creations. Well, I guess in a way that's exactly what I did! They were very amazed by my supposed dog that had a long tail, non-existant body, huge ears and tiny nose. They were also very entertained by my dog that had a teeny tail, huge ears and long nose - they decided it was an anteater. When your kids are laughing so hard they can hardly stand up straight.. well.. I guess that means they're amused and very entertained! Ha.

DS9 watched my feeble attempts and quickly twisted up a perfectly proportioned balloon dog.

Hm... better luck next time mama!

DS4 also got to choose a movie to watch, which was Cars.. what other movie could you possibly expect a wheel loving little boy to choose?!

All in all, our cute little boy had a WONDERFUL day :)