Homesteading Sisters

My sister's birthday.

   Today is my sister, Emily's birthday! She's now 18 years old. My Grandpa came over and brought pizza, like he usually does. And we made cherry pie for dessert. It's been a relaxed day so far.

   Emily and I were talking the other day about how when we were young we looked at being older as if we would suddenly be so much more smarter and mature. Though we are more mature now then we were 5 years ago, we don't feel as suddenly knowledgeable and older as we thought we would. 

   Anyway, Happy Birthday Emily!     

Lee 

7 things you probably don't know about me

I've been tagged by TeaFlower! It took me a while to get around to it, but here it goes!

I am to write 7 things you probably don't know about me.

I love writing. One of my goals in life is get something published.

I used to look at things like cooking and sewing with distaste. I preferred to clean out a barn then help cook! And sewing...that was something I always tried to get out of. Then a few years ago I began to look at it a little differently. I actually like cooking....I'm currently putting a "cook book" together for myself of all my mom's recipes that I know how to make so when I leave the house I will still be able to eat yummy food. :) And I’ve started getting into sewing. I'm planning on making myself an apron soon. 

Another one of my goals is to do a LOT of international traveling. I've been to Mexico and after this summer I'll be able to add Egypt, Swiss, and perhaps France (if we drive through France to get to Swiss). It's hard because there are so many places I want to see!

I'm currently interested in Nursing. I think it would be cool to become a Nurse and then live in another poor country, helping them out and all.

I love to wear skirts and cute dresses. It's my main weakness when I go shopping.

I like doing things like scrap booking. I haven't done a lot of it so far, but I really want to get more into it b/c it's a lot of fun.

My favorite thing to study is Medieval and Egyptian history. I find it so fascinating! And very interesting to learn about the culture and how things were done.

Well, thank you TeaFlower for the tag. It was a lot of fun!

Take care all,

Lee

Bake Sale

   School is going good. I got a little behind in my math, so I've been working hard on catching up. I'm going through Saxon's Advanced math book, and it is pretty challenging.

   Anyway, I know this post is short, but I have got to go!

Take Care Ya'll!

Lee

My sister is on vacation!

   Speaking in church went fine. I was a little nervous in the beginning but it worked out fine. I'm almost half way to my goal! My youth leader is planning some fundraiser ideas. The first one is going to be a pie auction. If anybody has any good ideas, feel free to share them!

   Right now Emily is in Maryland! She's visiting my sister Carolyn and Jonathan who live there. She will see DC, which is totally cool, and yesterday when she called me she's like, "So, I'm in New York right now," which is another totally cool thing. They drove there with a guy who said he would show them around because he knew his way around New York. She's having a great time. They'll be going back to Maryland today, and for the moment I don't know when she's going to come home. She decided to stay  little longer then what she was orgianlly planning. 

   Anyway, that's about all. 

Take care everyone!

Lee    

Eeek!!! Public speaking!

   So, this Sunday I will be talking about the mission's trip I am going on this summer at our church. I'm just going to be answering questions my pastor is going to ask me, which I have already received the questions I will be asked, and letting everyone know what it is I am doing and all the details. I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but public speaking is not my forte. 

   Anyway, tonight be and my brothers and my sisters and some other kids have volunteered to be waiters and waitresses at a valentine's dinner our church is hosting. It should be fun. Me and my sisters did it last year. It went great until I got someone’s meal mixed up. Oh well. It wasn't a big deal and it was still fun.

   I hope everyone is having a great weekend. 

Lee

My missions trip!

 My parents will be home in a few hours from taking a little vacation. They went to the beach for a couple of days. We've been busy while they've been gone. Before they left mom handed us a list of chores we needed to get done. Aside from doing school, keeping up on the house, making sure everything runs smoothly, we had some time to watch a couple movies. One of them was Mrs. Doubtfire. It was pretty funny.

  I leave to go on a mission’s trip in about 4 months. I'm so excited! I will be going to Africa! There's an orphanage in Egypt I will be going to. The mission’s trip is around 6 weeks or so. I don't know specific dates yet. A month of it will be spent on the field and the remainder of the time will be spent in boot camp and a debrief that is at the end.

  So, I know today is the day we try to guess who are Super Secret Angel is, but I really haven't a clue! If I do know who she is then she did a good job of keeping her identity a secret! lol...you've been a great SSA and I can't wait to know who you are!  

Well, I need to go finish making dinner!

Lee 

My brother's birthday!

   It was my brother, Jacob's, birthday today! He turned 14 years old. He had a few of his friends over. Our Grandpa brought pizza's! And my uncle, my aunt, and my cousin even came over. The only thing was, was that Emily had to baby-sit today, and I joined her later on, so I missed some of the party. But we bought him a John Mayer cd, so that hopefully made up for some of our absence...he's been wanting a John Mayer cd for a while now. He loves the song Daughters. 

Well, it's getting late,

lee 

Baby goat

   This morning as I was doing school, my little brother came running in to tell me one of our goats had had a baby. Now, you'd think this was exciting news, but my day was already packed with school and other things I needed to get done, so my excitement was limited. And when living on a farm and with the many number of baby goats we've had over the year, it's just not all that. Mom and Dad were just about ready to head into town, so Isaac and me went down and took care of it. The baby is a girl; she's brown and has a white marking on both her sides. She's pretty cute. It took her a while to learn how to eat, but she fianlly got it. Anyway, I've actually never had to take care of a new born baby goat by myself. Usually, my sister or my Mom is there, though with the convenience of cell phones I was able to talk to Mom. So that was nice. I'll try to post a pic of her later.  

   So, we finally have a little bit of sun here! I already can't wait until spring, though that isn't for a while. I'm really not a fan of snow or the cold, so I wouldn't mind if we had a short, short winter season.

   Take care everyone!   

Lee

My cold is gone!

So, I have finally gotten rid of my cold! Yay!!! Last week I lost my voice, almost completely. That’s never fun. It seems like every year about this time I loose my voice…and it’s a growing tradition I would rather do without. The most annoying thing about loosing your voice, at least for me, is when I get phone calls. Especially when they come bright and earlier in the morning and you haven’t tried to use your voice for the past 8 hours.

My SSA, Cranium, and Christmas!!!

   First, I would like to thank my SSA for her comments. So thank you SSA!! I have no clue who you might be or if we've ever "met" on this blog before, but I am definitely looking forward to when I get to find out who you are!!!

 Today me and my siblings played a board game called Cranium. I usually don't like playing board games but this was pretty fun. Emy and I were on a team against my little siblings and believe it or not they pulled ahead and won!!! We'll have to play again so Emy and I can even the score, lol.

   So, Christmas was good. We went and saw a movie, which is something we've never done before. We saw National Treasure Book of Secrets. It was a good movie. A good family movie, (well, in my opinion anyway) and just as good as the first. Though I would have to say I liked the first one better. One awesome thing everybody got in their stockings was chop sticks. We've been having a lot of fun with those.

   Well, I'll write more later!

Lee

Merry Christmas!!! Ellie's Christmas picture!

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Here’s Ellie's Christmas picture.  

Gingerbread Party

   This last week I've been house sitting. It's a nice way to make a little money, but I was glad to get home. I got home earlier Saturday morning, in time to finish helping my sister get a gingerbread party ready. We had about 18 kids over, ages anywhere from 4 to thirteen. It was a house full! It went well, except the humidity wasn't in our favor and the houses had a harder time drying. Thanks to the mothers that stayed, we had many helping hands to help us with that. While the houses were drying we played a fun game called Apples to Apples that Makayla (two friends) brought over. It is hard to find a game that so many people can play, and this ones pretty nice. We got a lot of pics taken. Here's a few...

Kids at work

Some of the houses

   Last Sunday night my sister and I went to a movie night our bible study was having. It was fun. There was lots of food and all. We watched the movie the Polar Express. I'd never seen it before, and though I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, it was pretty good.

   Well, I hope everyone is having a fun Christmas season.

Lee

Heroes

New Every Morning

    I took this photo a couple days ago, hope you enjoy.

emy

babysitting twins

CPR

   On Saturday, the lady Emily babysits for, had signed her up for a CPR class. Unfortunately, the night before Emily came down with the flu. It's been going around lately. Everyone in this house, except for Dad, Mom and me have gotten it. But anyway, since you loose your money if you don't go, I went in her place. Originally I was going to take the class anyway, (I babysit whenever Emily can't) but it wasn't going to be until later. The class was challenging and there was a lot to be learned. They taught us CPR and First Aid. I was really lucky and sat between two really cool people. They split us into groups of two so everyone had a partner and my partner was an older lady. The other person I sat next to was a boy and when we started talking it was crazy how much we had in common. We both come from a family of eight, where there is three boys and five girls. We were both middle children and both of us had an older brother Richard. Oh yes, and he was home schooled for most of his years. There was a test at the very end and even though I understood everything when doing it, it was hard to remember all the details. The way it’s done varies a little depending if you're dealing with an infant, child, or an adult. Many little details to keep in mind. I was thrilled and a little relieved when the instructors handed me back my test and I saw that I had passed.

   I hope everyone is feeling well! And not dealing with this flu bug that's seems to be going around!

lee

The rumba and everything else

   A couple weeks ago when my younger siblings had a few of their friends over for a sleepover, Emy and I got a cool idea. We had a "learn to ballroom dance" dvd Sierra had gotten from the library and we decided we should all learn how to dance. We approached the idea to them and to our delight and surprise they all seemed interested...even the guys. So, we popped the dvd in and that's how it began. It's mostly a weekend thing, and so far we're making progress. We're learning a dance called the rumba. It's pretty simple, but as it is our first dance, that's a good thing.  In a little bit we should have all the moves down. 

   So far I've caught up on most my school today, made bread, helped the boys stack some wood, cleaned my room...and now I should go over math with Isaac. It's nice to start a new school week with out a bunch of homework to do.

   We went to church this morning. We go to the early service which starts at 8 am and is really nice because then we still have the day to do what we need/want to do.

   Well, how are everybody else’s days going?

Later!

lee  

What's up

Hello everyone!   

   I've been gone since late last Tuesday house sitting. It's a good job to have while I'm doing school because I can take it with me and have plenty of time to do it all. As I've mentioned before I watch a 94 year old lady who is very forgetful. I can play the card game skip bo with her for a couple hours and 5 minutes later she'll come up and ask me if I’d like to play because the "other" girl left.  She really is the sweetest person though.

   I think the weather as officially turned. It is rainy, cloudy, colder, and very wet. Time to make some coca I guess and get my sister to make hot coffee drinks.  

    Well, while I was gone my siblings gathered walnuts (they are sure nice to have when making recipes) and cleaned the chicken coup. Not always the most pleasant job, but a job that needs to be done sometimes.

   Well, I gotta go!

lee  

These days

   We didn't go to church today. I was gone house sitting for a night, but everyone else didn't go because Mom wasn't feeling to well. Good news though, Emily is doing better. Her cold didn't last too long and Mom is feeling much better now. It seems like everyone is getting sick with a cold that's going around, but  I think it has come and gone from us now.

   This last week I had a nice break from school. I know, school just did start, but Mom and Dad left for a few days to be at the beach. The kids spent that time at friend’s houses, so it was really quite around here. We watched a few movies. One of my faves that I saw was called Kate and Leopold. It was very cute. A couple more were Step Up, Catch Me if you can, and something else that I can't remember the name to. But anyway, it was fun.

    Well, I gotta go. I have to leave for bible study in ten minutes.

Lee

My monday

   I spent today babysitting in my sister’s place because Emy is sick. She came down with a cold a couple days ago, and didn't want to pass it onto the babies. It was a pleasant day for the most part. It's not always pleasant when they start crying and sense there's two of them it's not like you can hold both of them at the same time and always be there for each one. It's okay though. They are soo cute! And getting so much bigger.

   Well, right now it's really wet and rainy. I think summer is pretty much gone, but it helps me stay inside more and do my school so I guess that's a good thing. School's going pretty good. My mom wants me to write a couple reports/essays every week and that has been a lot of fun. I get to write about whatever topic I want to, so that's been cool because then it's more interesting for me.

   Well, I gotta go!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week,

lee