Thanksgiving

Since Kaleb was sick the Sunday before Thanksgiving and Damen started showing some symptoms on Monday and Tuesday we cancelled our Thanksgiving plans and just stayed in. No one was too bad besides Kaleb, the main symptom was a lack of appetite, which doesn't really work well with Thanksgiving, so while we didn't do much I decided to start the fudge making. As that seemed the only free weekend we'd have to do it. We made six flavors and over 90 pounds of fudge this year. The girls were an amazing help in packing. We were finished packing faster than we have ever been and actually made it to bed at a normal time, normally we're up until 2 am packing all the fudge. We had it all ready to go and sent it on Saturday and it made it to every location by Monday. It was amazing! Well, every location except for poor Debbie, who didn't ever get her fudge last year when she was in Yemen either...Chicago seems to have lost her package.

Some of our fudge supplies. 

Damen helping to stir!

Nathan stacked all the fluff containers to try and let them drip down to consolidate them. 

Hannah helping stir

Evie helping open ingredients

And putting them in

And now stirring! Maybe next year the girls will do it all! :-) 

The scraps

Piles of fudge!

And wrapping it up!

When I think of Christmas.......

Nathan was given a second oppertunity to preach this past Sunday! After having a LONG drive back from Pittsburgh due to having to stop and have the tires rebalanced Nathan went into a 14 hour day on Tuesday and worked every day through Sunday finishing up his sermon prep late Saturday night. Nathan did an amazing job and God really spoke through him. Here is a link to his sermon. Hopefully you will enjoy it as well!

November 15th

Did you know that November 15th is a holiday? No? Well it is, it's opening day of rifle deer hunting season! It's a big deal around here, like schools off holiday big deal. A lot of the towns have a "buck pole" where people bring their bucks to show off what they got on opening day. We figured since we weren't hunting we should go hang out at the buck pole for the experience. We had been at the buck pole less than half an hour when Damen said "I'm bored" nothing had come in yet and it was kind of slow going at first. The first buck finally came in and Damen said "ewwww gross!" seeing the dead deer with the tongue sticking out and blood dripping out of it. That pretty much sums up the whole day! :-) There were a bunch of boy scouts there helping out and the kids did have a fun time playing with them.

Watching the first buck being prepared to be hung. 

The first buck going up. 

A couple guys from church came by with a buck and the one in the picture said to me "Have you ever pet a deer?" of course I have, who hasn't? At least at a petting zoo. Anyway, he told me I should pet this one so I obliged. It's all part of the experience right? :-) 

How high can you go?

Mid-November we were still having beautiful weather, so the kids were playing outside a lot. One of the things they were playing with were the bows the girls got last year for Christmas. Evie got an arrow stuck at the top of the pine tree, I tried getting it down by throwing a heavier branch at it, but that didn't work. So I finally had Evie just climb the tree.

Here's Evie near the top of the tree, above the roof of our house! 

This bush/tree is right by the house and after seeing Evie so high Damen decided to climb this one (I can't figure out where he is, but I know he's in there somewhere) and made it to the roof line as well. 

Feeding Calves!

A week and a half before Thanksgiving (the 14th) we had the opeprtunity to visit the dairy farm we had gone to during the summer. This time we went in the evening and got to help milk the cows, feed the calves and connect eggs! They had 20 calves that needed feeding and we all had a chance to do it. Hannah is convinced she wants a farm :-)

Watching the cows get milked

Kaleb getting some fresh milk!

Damen giving milking a try

Evie and Kaleb feeding calves

Damen feeding a calf

Nathan feed one

And Hannah giving it a shot. The kids didn't last long, as the calves were pretty strong, so it wasn't as easy as it looked. 

The kids also got to have some fun in the hay loft!

We had a great time hanging out and helping out at the farm. 

A glimpse into our day

I was beading Hannah's hair, she was drawing....

You can see she was at the table drawing, Evie's sitting on the couch and the boys are upstairs playing with legos. 

Working on Our Holiday Illness

Our family likes to get sick around major holidays, it's probably my fault, as I've done it for years before we had kids. Anyway, Kaleb has the stomach bug today, which meant no church for him. We kept Damen home as well because well....they are twins and are in constant contact with each other. The boys were super disappointed about missing church and the potluck afterward. But Damen did get to play in the snow a little and Kaleb has been chilling inside. We watched the service live, but it's still not the same. Hopefully we'll all be there next week and hopefully it doesn't go through our house this week, but if it does at least we didn't have major plans....

Snow!!!

Friday it was 60 degrees for the high. A beautiful Fall day. The kids had a great time playing outside and bike riding. Saturday it snowed! It really is the strangest thing, as it had been so warm and then a sudden 30 degree drop in temperature. The kids were super excited about the snow. It isn't much, but it's a start to winter!

Here's Kaleb exploring the snow last night.....

And here the boys are looking at the Winter wonderland today! 

30 churches

Sunday after church there was a luncheon for people who have recently started attending the church. As part of the luncheon everyone went around and said there name and a little about themselves. Well, we had the area regional minister visiting our church on Sunday and he stuck around for the luncheon, when introducing himself he said that he had 26 churches, meaning there are 26 churches in the area that he helps with. Kaleb heard this and turns to me and said "He has 26 churches? That's not fair, we only have two! (we go to a different church on Wednesday nights for a kids program) When I grow up I'm going to have 30 churches!" Who knew the more churches you have the better? :-) That and the fact that Damen was practicing his preaching at the podium before the lunch began was super cute. They get behind it and there was nothing on it, so Damen said "oh no, we need our papers! Wait, we don't need papers, we need a Bible!" Unfortunately he wasn't quite tall enough to see over it and preach effectively, but he was trying.

Voting

Some people feel it necessary to dress up to vote :-)

Here's the crew that voted with me

Damen found the suit jacket today in his closet and was so excited about wearing it! Definitely the best looking person at the polling location!

small town advantages

We are a small town, but we have our own CBS afilliate stations. I think it's the second smallest afilliate station in the country, at least that's what I heard. Anyway, there was someone from CBS at the swim meet and it was on the news this morning. Apparently they named all the state qualifiers. That means Evie made the news. Here's a link to what they have on their website, unforunately that version did not name all the state qualifers in it...

Swim Meet

Evie had her first swim meet of the year today.....and she probably unforuantely won't make it to many more due to a majority of them because 2+ hours away....but she did amazing! She swam four events, 25 free, 50 free, 25 back and 25 breaststoke. She may have forgotten what stroke she was doing when she dove in for the breaststoke, but she did amazing after that and actually won that event, by enough that I don't think the one incorrect stoke made a difference....they weren't disqualifying people which kind of drove me crazy, but the kids didn't mind. Evie made a state meet qualifying time in her backstoke, not bad for the first time out! She had a lot of fun, and after the meet and going out for dinner she went to bed before 7 pm and feel right to sleep!

Books of the Bible

How well do you know your books of the Bible? The girls were challenged in their Sunday school class to say all the books of the Old Testament in one breath. Think you can do it? Try it! It's only 39 books, but it's not as easy as it sounds.....of course their Sunday school teacher might have also done the entire Bible in one breath and gave that challenge as well, which both girls are practicing for and I think have done at home. As a reward for saying the Old Testament the girls got to go out for dinner with their Sunday school teachers, Hannah did it last Saturday and Evie got to do it today. I'm so proud of them!

Halloween......

It's a little different every where you live. Here there is an official start and end time, 5:30-7:30 pm. Who knew? We were not outside that time window, but I really didn't know it was only a two hour event! Also a couple neighbors gave my kids money. Which was super exciting for the kids!

Damen, Hannah and Nathan were Pirates, Evie was a fairy, and Kaleb used his star wars outfit from Christmas. 

You can kind of see Damen's hook in this picture

Attack! 

Hanging out at a neighbors having super yummy pie!

The kids had a super time trick or treating and it was a beautiful night. 

Selling Raffle Tickets

Today Evie and I went around the neighborhood selling raffle tickets for her swim team. Yes, Evie is swimming this year, I'm not sure what I was thinking signing her up for it, but we're trying it and will see how it goes. It's practice four days a week and she's loving it. Her first meet is November 5th. Anyway, in our two hours of going around the neighborhood, we made it to a grand total of six houses. Yes, you read that right, only six houses in two hours. Are the houses that far apart? No. Why did it take so long you ask? Because at four of the houses we were invited in and had to chat. The first house about killed Evie as she wanted to sell tickets! But she did better at the other three. People are just too nice here. Or at least in our neighborhood, it probably doesn't hurt that they're all older and two of them are women who live on their own. But needless to say we didn't sell that many tickets. Maybe we'll try again another day.

Evie's birthday

Evie's birthday was last Saturday, we had cake on Friday night at some friends house and then Saturday we spent as a family day after she went out with Nathan for breakfast. We started by going to the library where they had a Halloween craft day going on.

The kids had fun making funny face masks

Monster Hug decorations

Owl hats (which Kaleb is working on with Nathan in the background) and many other decorations. 

Next, we went to a store with bulk candy and the kids picked out candy to make pictures with. Evie had seen the idea somewhere and really wanted to make a candy picture for her birthday. 

Here is Evie's finished picture, a dolphin swimming with islands around it. 

Hannah went for a farm theme, with a corn field, banana tree and dirt with worms. :-) 

Kaleb did a face....

And so did Damen. 

After that we watched the rest of a movie that had been started the week before and had popcorn and orange julius. Over all Evie had a very good birthday and is now 8 years old! 

Beautiful Fall Colors

The Summer was warmer than usual, the Fall has been amazingly beautiful and there is no complaining! We've been having highs 10-20 degrees above average recently and it's been gorgeous here. Two weeks ago we went hiking through the woods and here are some of the colors we saw.

This was just from the parking lot!

Starting down the trail. 

This might be my Christmas picture......we'll see..

Or maybe this one...they're getting older, it's getting easier to get a group shot, which is slightly exciting. 

More colors! 

It was a wonderful day for a hike!

More pretty colors and blue sky

The kids were having fun running around 

Climbing on fallen trees

And hiding to ambush us!

There was one spot that had a river running through it, a bunch of fallen trees and lots of potential for fun. We stayed and played there for a little bit, and when we said it's time to move on none of the kids wanted to leave. It will definitely be a park we return to, it has great hiking/skiing/snow shoeing trails and it's only three miles from our house! We'll go explore it once it snows, as there's a hill too that we might be able to sled on, we'll have to see if that would work with the skiing or not......