Around the house in December

These two crack me up. This was the day Gretel died. They were both super sad and I was trying to think of something that might cheer them up a little. They asked me if they could get a bath together and I agreed. They laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a good ending to an otherwise yucky day.

EC the dog training whisperer.

This is not right. 2012

In the blink of an eye. 2022

My sweet pippin. He somehow manages to break out of his bed and makes a bee line to my feet in the kitchen. Little stinker. You can't get mad at that sweet little face. So I made it worse and gave him some scraps. lol

Sweet Scully Bug after her vet appointment to be spayed. No more puppies in the Hays house for a while! She was quite out of it.

Hoogie rode with us to go pick Scully up.

He loves to ride and protect the car.

Sweet girl resting in front of the warm stove. How does she lay with her foot like that?

 

Cousin time and spoons

Annual Thomas side cousin get together. This year with two new members, Maddy and baby Eddy, and missing two others, Pop and Nonna (they were sick...yuck!). 

Pictured left to right: Robert, Taylor, Turner, Maddy with baby Eddy, EC, Abby, Benjamin, Emily and Papa Jim (swapped out with GT in the next group picture).

Abby made a pot of chili and Emily made cornbread. They ate, had stick sword fights, rode bikes and had a game of spoons. Way to go Emily for winning the trophy and bringing it back home where it belongs! It was a beautiful day to enjoy the company.

 

Benjamin turns 6!

He went to bed a little 5-year-old and woke up a nig 6-year-old. My goodness how the time flies. He got up the next morning and told me he had actually grown a little. We love this boy so much. 

Abby knitted him a knight hand puppet.

He got his first knife! Swiss army, just like his sisters.

Emily got him so fishing lures and a sticker for his laptop. EC made him some cool things for his lego house and gave him a pouch for his knife. He had a great day. GT, Papa Jim and Rodney all had birthday dinner and cupcakes with us. Party to come soon after Mick arrives.  

 

Artic Cold!

Truth!

Farm girls!

This late December, there was an artic blast that swooped down and tried to freeze us all out. It was a cold like I've never experienced before. I've seen single digits once or twice since we've been here, but never negative numbers! The kicker was that it lasted for several days, and a couple of the days never even saw double digits. Thankfully, we have a wood burning stove and we never lost power. I cannot imagine not having a way other than electric or even gas for that matter, to heat your house. People that don't have a way to burn wood inside are going to freeze.

The girls still had animals to tend to. The goats huddled together and were fine. The chickens were moved to the shop and under a heat lamp. All of the dogs got to come in the basement to sleep. We all made it just fine, but man was it cold. We watched movies, took naps, played games, drank tea, stayed warm and just relaxed.

It doesn't look like it's that cold, but man it was. Everything was frozen solid. We only got a dusting of snow.

Feels like -14! What the heck??

The fire kept us nice and toasty inside. I was in shorts!

This is BS. Thankfully ours never went out, but we heard of people that did experience this and more. There was one family that was without power for 8 hours. At the end of the 8 hours, they got a text that said thank you for participating in this controlled outage, you helped save so much blah blah blah. That is not cool. Everyone needs to invest in some solar!

The pond was completely frozen over. A few more days and we could have gone ice skating! This was the drainage line for the pond. Hello Molder Minimum. I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of weather.

 

EC dances

This girl loves to dance and has taken full advantage of having a huge platform to practice her leaps.

The seriousness!

Those landings!

 

Feasting hall updates

Cutting the last tree for the floor of the feasting hall deck. This floor has taken so much wood!

The big girls have been there for every one of them too. They are now professional loggers!

I love the bond these two share. Yes, we homeschool, and they are around each other all the time, but they are truly best friends and get along so well. It makes this mama's heart so happy.

These two finally had a bath after their whol parvo ordeal and it was a little colder than I realized, so they got extra snuggles wrapped up in the towel. They didn't seem to mind.

Hoogie likes the view from the deck.

Their last structure fell down with some strong winds, so they are building two new ones.

He's obsessed with A frames.