HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Wishing happy holidays to you and yours! Doesn't seem like Christmas Eve Day today though, more like a rainy fall day. Very windy, rainy, oh, and a warm 50 degrees. This comes after our interesting journey home last evening, through freezing rain and a glaze of ice over everything. We saw 4 accidents, and I did a little spin once. I was dreading thinking of Shawn heading out to work in that this morning, then around 1 A.M. the ice stopped and turned to a steady rain. Thankfully that melted all the ice, now it is just soggy out. Well, Hannah and I are busy baking today, I just took a short break to post and nurse Noah. So, back to our cookies!

The Maxwell Petting Zoo!

As Shawn puts it, we are turning into farmers more every day! We added "Tinkerbell" to our animal collection yesterday. She is a 9 month old goat. We got her for company for Beauty and to help clean up the woods. Tinkerbell and I had an enjoyable ride home in the back of our suburban, not really but was quite an experience. She has a beautiful temperment, and loves us to be around her. She was bottle-fed so I suppose that has helped.

So we are thinking, all we need now is a nice little trailer and we can take our show on the road. We have the horse to ride, the goat to pet, and even a rabbit, Floppy, that the kids could hold! Wonder how much we could charge for admission? I would even make a deal for families, half off for 2nd child, free for any child born #3 or greater! Well anyway, here is our mini-zoo pictures.

While waiting for the pictures to upload, I was thinking I'll get a couple of ducklings in the spring, and I will train our border collie, Lucy,( the one in the picture) how to herd the ducks around, so we can also have a show to go along with the petting zoo!!

Winter Special Meeting

We had an enjoyable week-end, with much cherished fellowship with the workers. Was so good for all of us to visit, and for the children to have playtime with them, and to enjoy a story from Aunt Dorothy! I'll post the pictures, they turned out very well. Only wish we could keep them longer. I always love the peace that abides in our hearts and home when the workers come, and when we get together for special meetings.

Had a very good meeting on Sunday too, even the weather was good. Kinda strange for this time of year, temp in the 50's, rain later in the evening. Last night, old Arthur started acting up in my back and I told Shawn something must be going to change. Sure enough, we are under a winter snow watch starting tonight! Does that mean I'm getting old if I can predict the weather with my aches and pains??:) Guess it happens to all of us, oh to grow old gracifully!

Noah is 9 months!

Can't hardly believe it, our little baby is now 9 months old. Just think of it, he's now been in this world as long as I carried him in me! Here is a few pictures.

What I enjoy/ Do I realize how fortunate we are??

What a cold day today! Got up a little before 5 to pack Shawn's lunch and the temperature was 18 degrees! Brrr! Got back in bed till 6 to get up and get my niece, and back in bed again till 7:30. Then get the 3 children up and dressed/fed and ready for the bus. What a good day for a novel....
Which takes me to my title.. On Wednesday we had meeting here and I had the house cleaned and set up before 12:30! The little ones went down for a nap at 1:30 and I had 2 hours till bus time. So, instead of laundry,(which has me overwhelmed right now with what, 20-30 loads to do, no kidding,(( I hate the flu it threw me back 1 week))!), I picked up a history romance reader(which is my favorite type of book to read, anything that tells of what life was like back when) with 4 novels in it and proceded to read 1 whole novel! I felt so guilty when I looked at the clock and it said 3:15 p.m. I scurried to fold 2 baskets of laundry. But the book I read(based on life in the 1800's) made me do some thinking. I don't realize how easy I have it with all the "modern" inventions we enjoy today. I don't have to get up at daylight to milk the cow, gather the eggs, and start the bread for the day. Or stoke the fires and draw the water from the well. Or boil the water for washing, or go out to the "outie" house, or wash my hands in cold water, or make the candles and soap, or make and preserve my families meals by canning, freezing, pickeling, drying, or what have you.
I don't have to drop in a freezing cold bed at night after kneeling on a cold, drafty floor, by a straw or feather filled "tick" bed, totally exhausted by the physically challenged, busy day of chores, that starts all over at the crack of dawn. Wow. And I complain because I have to cook, on my nice electric stove, with food from my pantry, in my kitchen not in the cellar, bought at a store, not from the labors of my hands. Imagine! And I have to do laundry, clear down in my basement, gasp!, in machines that will wash and dry them for me! No bloody knuckles for me from scrubbing on a washboard or aching back from dragging clothes out in the yard by the kettle hanging over the fire. So I ask myself today, why do I complain when I have it so easy? Wonder what the women in the 1800's would say if they could peek in on me for one day? I bet they would think I am pretty lazy and lucky, yep, pretty sure thats what they would think!
So, I want to be more thankful that God created me in this wonderfully easy time we are in today, even with the threat of a depression looming around us. I want to be thankful for my house I love, that at times I wish was bigger, and remember it is a mansion compared to the "sod houses" and 1 room cabins of old times. And be thankful that I have a light switch, and a dial that heats and cools my house, and machines that do work for me, and that I have car keys, and stores to buy our food and clothes from. And I especially want to be thankful that my children don't have to start work or "chores" at the tender age of 3, that they don't bare callouses on their tiny little hands from an honest days work, or that they don't have to be taken from me and sent to work for others like so many were back in the "olden days". That they can be just that, children. Thank you, God, for the blessings of modern life.