Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

We enjoyed Thanksgiving here this year, with some of my mother's family. Shawn and I enjoyed some quality time in the kitchen, preparing the turkey..:) He was such a sweetheart and stayed up with me until 3:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, while I baked an apple and a cherry pie, cleaned the house, and then he helped me prepare the turkey for the oven. I got back up at 7 a.m. to turn the oven up and peel potatoes, and in between folded all the laundry I had let pile up this week.
We had a huge feast, so much food that it took awhile to figure out where to put all of it! My newest camera is officially broken, it had been acting up and now it only takes black pictures with purple lines on it, so,,, I couldn't get any pictures. :(.. I will just tell you what we had, (it may be boring to read all of this, but for memories sake I will record it:),,,)
A 21.66 lb turkey, that cost $19.33(thought in several years it might be nice to see how much things cost back then), a huge ham, homemade mashed potatoes and turkey and ham gravy(from scratch), stuffing, crescent rolls, sweet potatoe casserole, baked corn, corn, butter beans with ham, cole slaw, beets, jello with fruit, dirt dessert, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin pie, grape salad, and apple and cherry pie. I think that was everything. Our refreshments were lemonaide, sweet tea, Pepsi, Root Beer, and water.
Our guests included my Dad, sister Diana, brother Tad, and his wife, Sandy, and their child Emily. My Mom's Mom, Grandma Hattie, and 2 of Mom's brothers, Uncle Terry and Uncle Billy and his wife, Aunt Marilyn, and their 2 children( daughter Leigh and her husband,J.C., and son Will) and 3 grandchildren(Mariah, MaKayla, and Marshall). We had a wonderful time and it was very special to spend time with Mom's family. Makes me miss her so much, thankful for the time we had with her though.
Shawn's Mom and Dad had a nice get together for Thanksgiving at their house the Sat. evening before. We had a nice time visiting with his family too.
Special note of interest,,, Noah is binky free! I was sure I would have a hard time taking it away, and here he gave it up on his own, 2 weeks ago. He had fallen asleep with out it on Friday, the 12th. Then on Saturday we kept busy the whole day, and he didn't ask for it like he normally does, and fell asleep again without it, and didn't ask for it until late Sunday night. I told him he didn't need it anymore and he just said, "Ohhh" and that was the end of binky's in Noah's mouth! Now he is sucking his first finger,,, from one issue to another. On another good note, he is basically potty trained now, he just did that on his own this weekend. He started taking himself to the potty, even to poo! YEAH, NOAH!!! We are so proud of you, our last little baby is sure growing up fast and in a hurry.
Well, Shawn is reading a story to the older children, while Noah is piling my desk with toy dogs, and tractors saying,"Here's your toys, Mom", so I guess I will go play with him. Good night.

Weiner Roast 2010

We held our annual weiner roast on Oct.22nd. Enjoyed fellowship, cold weather, and hotdogs(and many other wonderful dishes). And of course, the fire. Wonderful job, Honey! We had around 35 here this year, one of the smallest since we started having them 10 years ago. However, we still enjoyed ourselves, and I enjoyed listening to Albin, Arlen, and Rick playing their guitars. I missed singing hymns around the fire this year, but maybe a hymn sing is in the near future??... I have a few pictures to remember the day by, lighting wasn't too hot(of course not since it was in the low 40's!). I also made a birthday cake for all the Oct. birthdays, including but not limited to Diana, Troy, Cody, Tabi, and Mary.This was a 5 minute decoration job, but hey, it was dark out, right??

Fall pictures of our children

We enjoyed a walk at a local park, and it made for a perfect photo shoot.

Hannah's violin recital; Zachariah's harmonica recital

Hannah had her violin recital (violin and cello students only) on Sunday, September 26th. She did very well, as did all the students. Her teacher, Mrs. Sax, is really a special lady that has a lot of patience for the little ones she teaches. Jerry accompanied Hannah on the piano. My camera shut off in the middle, so I've loaded the second half here.

Zachariah had his harmonica recital (with piano, cello,violin,voice and electric guitar students also participating) on October 17th. Zach had 3 songs he was playing in a row, and when he finished, his teacher, Mike, threw him a loop and asked him to play another song. Zach took it in stride, and continued with another song! He did very well too! I haven't downloaded his video yet, when I get it on, I'll post that. I do have a picture of Zach on stage so I'll share that. Great job to both my children!

Playing catch up, again

Well, I have managed to not take time to post, again. We have been busy the past 5 weeks, and I will try to touch on the highlights, if I remember all of them! It may be easier to use seperate posts.
Josh had a pretty serious bike wreck 2 weeks ago. He just started riding without training wheels on Sept. 12th. He tried to go down a small hill near our garage, and forgot to use his brakes. He instead put down his feet, and lost control. I was just coming from the barn, feeding the dogs and horses, and was too far away to help him. I watched him fly over his handelbars after he hit the swing set, and he caught his neck on one of the plastic swings. He ended up with bruises on his shoulder, knee, and a small bump on his neck. He even managed to rip the swing seat about 2", and his handlebars were left torn and filled with dirt! Thankfully, he recovered within a week, and had only a sore neck from the ordeal, nothing super serious.
Fall has also officially arrived, but without much color this year. We have mostly brown leaves, with a few red here and there. It was so dry, and then in October when we did get rain, most of the leaves fell off while still green. So, no pretty fall pictures to show.