Beauty and the Beast

Here are our grapes.......

           ........ Beautiful!!! (but not quite ready to harvest!)

Believe it or not.........

Here is the Beast....beautiful as well, but NOT when in the same vicinity as our grapes!

Every morning this critter and a friend are hanging out in our yard......they have not yet eaten our grapes....but certainly seem to be eyeing them. We've yet to see if hanging strong smelling soap on the trellis will deter them to the end...so far...they seem  to have been bothered enough to stay away (in other years they haven't  minded eating them at this stage of ripeness!)....We'll see who gets the beauties!

James Recites Exodus 20:3-17 (Age 10)

Well done, James!

We are continuing our Scripture memory program from the summer. It is one of the first things each child works on each day. I am encouraged and amazed at their progress. I will continue to try to post the videos of each childs accomplisments. They actually have to recite them to me perfectly before we video them. When we make the video, they sometimes make little mistakes, but, they don't make it to the blog unless they have passed them satisfactorily first!

Prolificating Wensleydales

Photo credit

Yesterday my sheep kiddos and I accompanied some friends to their AI (that is artificial insemination)...event?  Their daughter is upbreeding her Wensleydale ewes to be considered "pure".  Here in the states, this breed is still being established. I think that you cannot import the Wensleydales, but you can import the .....necessary male component. As it happens, this procedure is done with a laparoscopy.  So, two small incisions are made and the ewe is impregnated right before your very eyes...well, if you are the one looking thru the scope, which we weren't...but we were able to look through the scope and check out the organs during the procedure. 

I have some pictures on my phone of our participation, but at this point cannot get them from the phone to the computer....If you are interested.....this slide show is exactly what happened (not too graphic!)...and I have the cutest picture of Z looking through the scope like the 8th slide shows. (Incidentally, this is the man who was doing the procedure.)

We also got to look at some of the processing of the wool AND the finished product! The AI was taking place here.

Since we have recently bought some drop spindles and were then given a spinning wheel (which we have not yet used), we are trying to learn all we can about these fiber sheep.

We had a fun and educational hands-on kind of day!

Meggy's 2nd Birthday

Megan Joy (who is 6 years old) became concerned about an eternal life apart from Christ. ...Sarah tells the story quite well.

God bless you Meggy, as you grow in your Saviour!

Good Friends Good Fun!

We invited a family over for dinner and games the other evening....the parents were out of town, and the two oldest children weren't available - so, 7 kiddos ranging in age from 6 up to 22ish (sorry Jesse...how old are you?) came and ate hot dogs and played volley ball, then when the sun went down, it was inside to.........

Settlers of CATAN



Have you ever had 12 people playing this game? (Gregg and I sat out....no more room!)

The straw hat on James was brought in so that people could remember whose turn it was!...That's right, they kept forgetting who was actually taking their turn....amazing.

We had a great time...and if this isn't one of your family games....put it on your list! It's a lot of fun!

Our First Day of School

Oatmeal is a VERY common occurence at our breakfast table...takes no energy, not a big mess, and feeds and fills lots of people very economically....so, today we started w/ oatmeal......and a table full of new supplies...



Everyone is always excited to get started on a new year. I am teaching the younger 5 around the kitchen table this year. (We have been watching Bob Jones dvds for several years now, so this is a change.) Sarah Jayne is helping w/ the schooling, so we are....team teaching. There are two 6 year olds, one 7 year old, one 10 year old, and one 12 year old.

How many shades of red did your kiddos wear today?

James is showing off his new loot!



Here's the first map drawing.....Mohammed II's conquered lands.

These are most of the books we are going thru to start with....We are studying early American History using the Beautiful Feet curriculum. We will learn by reading lots of books....copious quantities of book reading...we are all very excited!

By the end of today, Megan had almost finished her little backstitched sampler....

And Madeline, with her right arm still casted, is doing a lovely job on her sampler!

I believe my high school students had a fine day. They are using the Bob Jones dvd's...3 kiddos upstairs studying Geometry, Biology, English, French 2, American Literature, and American History.



Family Camp

Well, I'm still trying to come up w/ pictures from the fair....(I didn't take a camera any of the 5 days!) Will post those pictures if/when I get some from friends. However, the shepherds had a grand time. Lots of blue ribbons and learning! All of their lambs sold at the auction (HOORAY!) and the two breeding ewes are on holiday - hopefully being successfully bred!
Meanwhile, we just attended our church's annual family camp. Such a fun time for the entire family. We didn't have a live speaker, so opted to watch video of R.C Sproul and Alistair Begg. Lots of good learning!
We also play....play....and more play. There are volleyball competitions to participate in, foosball, ping-pong, horseshoes, and even pinochle (of which Gregg and I are the reigning champions, mind you - 2 years running now)! On Saturday, we divide up into teams based on families. Our team won the "name that tune" game where you use BoomWhackers. We had to identify 20 songs in some amt of time. There are several other activities in this afternoon of fun - getting your entire team across a "no one can touch the ground" field only using a few odd (and very small) items, a water relay in which we got thankfully wet! (This was the hottest family camp we've been too - we are usually battling rain this time of year!), and a variety of tossing games.

There are also three legged races,

Apple Bobbing,

And enjoying friends!

We are all very encouraged and refreshed having spent time w/ our church family!