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Thursday, December 29, 2022

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.




 

Monday, December 26, 2022

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.  

 

Friday, December 23, 2022

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.

 

Monday, December 12, 2022

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!

 

Sunday, December 4, 2022

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.






 

New Pedal Bikes

These two are so funny. They got their balance bikes earlier this year and just took off with them. Balance bikes are definitely the way to learn how to handle a bicycle. Of course, they were itching to move up to the next step of pedals as soon as possible. I told them they'd have to get really good on the balance bikes and then we'd move to pedals. They rode the balance bikes nearly every day they could. So after a few months, Carolyn surprised them with these. They were completely surprised and had no idea they'd get these so soon. They wobbled a tiny bit and then took off like they'd been riding bikes for years. They never would have done that if it hadn't been for the balance bikes. Forget training wheels! They absolutely love their new pedal bikes and have even gone out in the cold and rain to ride them. Man, Carolyn must love these kiddos. 
EC said, "Mama, I have a laptop, a pedal bike and a loose tooth, I really am a big kid now!"