~ All is Well ~

Another one has come and gone

   Another year has come and gone, and I have to say, I'm kinda glad. I don't usually say that 'cuz with each passing year and/or day, I get a little older, but 2008 wasn't a banner year for me. The whole thing with mom's Alzheimers taking over her life poor heart and me having to put her in a home wasn't a good thing to say the least. Not too mention the hurricanes that hit us, the lost of several people in my life and last but not least, my husband wanting a divorce, well as I said, I'm glad it's over.  I do hope and pray 2009 brings a much better outcome. I do see good things ahead for me if God willing.

   The last couple of days were busy ones for me.  Not long ago my husband came home with two little pigs and on Tuesday we slaughtered one for a New Years gathering here at our home.  So I have been getting ready for that, cooking and baking, and  yesterday we had 27 people here for lots of good food and a good time. It didn't take as long to cook the little fellow as I thought it would. We put him on the rotisserie  around 6:30 yesterday morning and it was done by noon. Pretty good. We still had lots of fire so I ran to the store and bought four chickens to cook. I figured I wouldn't have to cook for a couple of days. Well to my surprise, most of it all went. There is no  chicken left, what didn't get eaten here was taken home by some family members. Not fair! LOL

   The guys are out fishing this morning so I will be working on school plans for the rest of the year. I do half in August and the other half now. This is just incase we get off schedule or Zach falls behind in something that we need to keep working with, which is the case in Math this time.  So with that said, let me get off of here. I have a batch of clothes to put out on the line and one to fold, then off to the lesson plans.

   I do hope everyone had a wonderful New Years and that everyone HAS a great new year filled with blessings and prosperity.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

After Christmas

          Isn't it amazing how the pace of life slows once Christmas is over?

     Generally I go through what I called the "Post-Christmas Cleaning Binge". I seem to be overcome with a manic urge to go through drawers, closets, even my jewelry box and weed out the excess items that we don't use or that don't even work anymore.  The good part about the binge is that I usually part with more volume of stuff than we acquire from the family Christmas gift exchange.

     Maria has been with us for about 1-1/2 weeks now and I dread seeing her return to work. She needs to cook her first meal on Sunday, but she wants to get back to MWSB and do some cleaning in her cabin and then there is food to order and menus to prepare. She looks forward to the students returning and to resuming the two Bible studies she has been attending. I pray faithfully for a godly husband for her, but for now we sstill enjoy having her to ourselves.

     Maria ordered the most wonderful book for me for Christmas called Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. The authors are Jennie Chancey and Stacey McDonald. It is one of the best Christian women's books I have ever read. I highly recommend it to encourage any Christian woman you may know.

     We are getting some more snow today and the roads are slippery. Maria and I had intended to take Jonathan to an indoor swimming pool in Choteau today, but we decided to wait till tomorrow. I had some gift certificates for a local restaurant, so we went there for lunch. I had one of the best sandwiches I have ever eaten. It was a croissant with turkey, cranberry, sprouts and cream cheese.

     I'll put on my snow pants and spend some time in the snow with Jonathan. We also got a few movies at the library.

     On Saturday we went sledding at a friend's farm. It has been years since we have had enough snow in this area for sledding, so it was especially fun.

     Well, that is all for now. I want to wish everyone a very blessed New Year!

                                                         Denise (prairiemom)

Our Christmas in photos...

We were blessed with a lovely and peaceful Christmas this year.  We began the day with singing carols around the piano and the reading of the birth of Christ in the Bible.  The kids then exchanged the simple gifts they had for each other ( they drew names so each child had one sibling to purchase or make a gift for).   We enjoyed a quiet morning.... Christmas is very very simple in our home.......

Here are a few snapshots chronicling our day........

We began our Christmas festivities on Christmas Eve. Our church sponsored the anual town Christmas service & nativity pageant.

Here is our Sarah Grace as a "sheperd" .. sore amazed when the angels appeared.......if you look below sarah on the ground are the "sheep"..... they were precious! Dressed all in white and with furry backs......

Bowing down before the baby Jesus..........

Sarah Grace, Peter & Paul enjoying their Christmas treats....... check out those smiles!

 Peter very very happy with his farm tractor he received from his lil' sis, naomi .......he ended up fililing it with Christmas candy.......

Dru working hard on getting our hearth / chimney completed for our wood stove.......yes , he did work on Christmas day! He got the chimney re-mortered ( it was in disrepair) , replastered and got our hearth layed out and tile installed!!!

Hannah, holding up Jesus' Birthday cake!!  She is my "right arm" in the kitchen!

 Big brother Jacob, taking out little sibs'  Naomi, Sarah & John to go sledding on the "big hill"......yes, we enjoyed a white Christmas!

My "big" helpers on Christmas day were Rachel Anne & Hannah Elizabeth! They were indespensable to me! We baked and baked and baked........ good job girls!

Oh yes, I can't forget our #1 dish washer -- Miss. Rebekah! She did load after load after load......

After all our hard work....... we sat down for a lovely Christmas dinner of Spiral Honey ham...... mandarin orange salad...... swedish cardamon braids....... vegetable medley casserole &  yams & pecans.......

And here is the "resident cook" ......... "your's truly"...... taking a minute to enjoy the presentation of this bounteous feast before we devour it!   Yes, I do look tired..... I worked hard all day to create this feast! :)

I so enjoyed spending the day at home - baking and cooking with my girls...... while little ones played with their new toys and big boy jacob and dad worked on the hearth..... After our delightful dinner we bundled up and caroled again..... we got back about 10 pm and then sang  "Happy B-day Jesus" and enjoyed our delicious Rum & Pecan Cake, yummy Christmas cookies and homemade eggnog!  We ended the day watching The Christmas Carol, one of my favorite Christmas movies.

It seems like just yesterday we were anticipating this special day and here we are "looking back" to yet another Christmas past......... and looking foward to another Christmas yet to come.......

I always feel a little bit of sad when I realize Christmas has passed again........ I love this time of year.... and the girls and I all sighed sadly as we started to clean and take down decor........I keep reminding them that there will be yet another Christmas again and of course each and every day is reason to celebrate the JOYous news that our Lord lives & reigns!  I know many folks are relieved that Christmas is "over" but not so for me. I love this time of year.... I love the carols, the lights, the sounds and smells..... and most of all I love the focus on Jesus.......... ahhh....... I will miss Christmas...... every year I feel this way........

Praying & hoping that the beauty  & memories created this season  warms our hearts all thru the coming  year.... until next Christmas.

~ gloria ~

Saturday on the Homestead

Well even though winter is just starting I am so happy to say we are finally thawing out!  The temps went above 32 and now everything is beginning to melt into one big soupy mess..  But hey at least we can get out and about now.  Emily and Leanne dug out her car yesterday..  no easy feat.  Today I think she is dying for a shopping and Starbucks fix with her sisters.  Cabin fever is alive and thriving around here!  LOL..   

Today I will be at home.  I have soap business stuff to catch up on and a house to clean and food to make.  We feasted on Christmas Eve dinner and then leftovers for a few days.  My son was thrilled to enjoy lots of homemade food..  and lots of food is what I made.  But now it is time to make some more.  I did make a pot of navy bean soup yesterday with my leftover ham bone. Today I think spaghetti or lasagna will be on the menu too.   

I typically take down my tree the day after Christmas but my son had two requests before he came home.. one was pizza (did that for him the first night he got here) and the other was a Christmas tree..  so for him I will leave it up a few more days.  But by Monday it has got to go..  I start feeling a real need about now to get my life reorganized and ready for the new year.  

I am currently contemplating my new year goals..  I am not a big fan of resolutions instead I make goals.  So I will be praying and working towards some new personal goals, business goals, website goals, and more.  So what do you typically do..  goals or resolutions?   

Well that is all from the homestead today..  Keep warm as we head into 2009!

26 December

I haven't written in a little while.  I was trying to survive Christmas.  We had a wonderful Christmas holiday.  I am glad to have it behind me.  My sister and I cried the first half an hour she was at my house talking about and missing our parents.  We are hopeful that next year we can fly them out for Christmas.

Believe it or not my dryer broke.  It was a used one that a kind woman bought for me for no reason at all but to be kind when we first moved to Texas.  I am not worried to be without a dryer because I barely used it.  I did use it to dry the billions of socks we wash.  Now I will just hang those out also.

We bought another horse.  It is a buckskin, quarter horse stud.  He is 19 months old.  We haven't named him yet.  This brings our total to 6 horses after we lost one last May.  He is a sweet horse.  I will take pictures soon.

Well, I better get going.  I have been cleaning all day.  I took down the tree, did a big cleaning in my room, and had all of the kids working on separate areas to get the whole house feeling clean.  The weather was warm and windy so we were able to air out the house as we cleaned. 

Brenda

Got more than I bargined for

  I do hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I did. Lots of smiles, my favorite thing, great gifts and tons of food.

  I received everything I asked for, a MP3 player from my husband, a Bath and Body basket from my daughter Kristy, a great smell good candle from my youngest Zack and a gift certificate from my  son Eric. But the one thing that I got that I did not ask for was three pounds added on. LOL Yes I gained three lbs. of the weight I worked so hard to get off. I was kinda depressed this morning when I got on the scale, but I knew what I had done and was prepared for the outcome. And so be it. BUT the reason I asked for the MP3 player was so that I can start walking again. I don't like to walk during  the grinding season with all the big trucks and tractors all over the place, so now that grinding is over, Thank God, I can start back up with my routine. I'm so looking forward to getting out there and burning off this ham and cornbread dressing.

  So other than the "gifts", Christmas was pretty uneventful. The weather was so un-Christmas like here. We were actually all in shorts and I had to at one point, turn the AC on so we could open gifts and eat without breaking a sweat. I think it was in the high 70s. So Un-Christmas like!

   Well now I'm off to the after Christmas sales to pick up goodies for next year.  So see ya'll at Walmart..........

Merry Christmas

I want to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas. I hope your day is filled with love and laughter. Always remember to make lots of new memories to cherish. I also hope that everyone gets everything they've asked for. My greatest gift is just having my loved one close to me, and with that, I want for nothing. God Bless each of you............Kitty

Old Fashioned Christmas Caroling

        " Rejoice Evermore"   -  1 Thessalonians 4:14

After our  "more than challenging" week we have been thru...... I had a good cry on Jesus' shoulder..... isn't He wonderful? He is always available to us 24/7!!!  After placing all my cares and woes at HIS feet, I realized that the enemy was fast at work trying to "steal" our JOY in the Lord -- especially at this time of year when we are celebrating the birth of our beloved Jesus!  When I realized that I became resolved to not allow the enemy to steal the JOY of Jesus or to steal away our joy in this most joyous of seasons! So last night we prayed, bound the enemy ( yes you can bind him in Jesus name!) and bundled up to go Christmas caroling and deliver some fruit baskets to our dear friends.  Oh what JOY!  I was so overcome with emotion and just JOY as we sang :  Joy to the World,  Angels from the Realm of Glory,  O Come all Ye Faithful & We wish you a merry Christmas!  We have been practicing for weeks now and the kids really sang out last night!  We stopped at the home of the wonderful pastor and his wife who head up the prison ministry that I am involved with each week. Oh what a wonderful visit we had! It did us all a world of good! They had us come in and served cocoa and cookies and we just had a wonderful time of fellowship!  Before we left, Pastor Mark prayed over us and it was just a precious expierence!  We came out feeling so buyoed!

Today we have been busy baking delicious cookies for our Church's christmas service and pageant...... the kids are all excited!  Our church host's our town's anual Christmas Eve service and we have been busy baking cookies to serve afterwards! We are just about done. :)  Ginersnaps, chocolate sugar cookies and jam thumbprints..... mmmm..........

We are looking forward to our Christmas service tonight -- time to sing and praise our Lord for HIS humble birth, His amazing life, His painful death and His glorious resurrection!

Friends, I realized this week that the enemy was out with an attack to steal our family's JOY ..... when the Lord showed me that we prayed, bound the enemy and chose, purposefully *chose* to expierence JOY in Jesus -- for HE IS THE REASON for this season!

I want to thank you sweet friends who publically and privately have prayed for us during this challenging week! Thank you dear ones! You are all precious to me! Your love, faith and prayers mean the world!

I pray that each of you will enjoy a blessed and JOY filled Christmas -- remembering my dear readers that we are celebrating the birth of our King and Lord!

Praising His name!

~ gloria ~

Updates from the Homestead

Well the last snow pictures I showed you were just the beginning of this storm!  LOL..  well maybe not really..  but pretty close! We got a break from the snow for a few hours but it is back again.  I will share some updated pics in this post. 

My hubby was finally able to come home on Monday night!  Yea!!  I kept watching the DOT website waiting to see when the highway would be open and finally about 4:30pm Jacob refreshed the webpage and came to me saying..  Mom I think it’s open now.  So I checked and sure enough.  I called Tobin’s cell and told him the good news and he was so happy.   He had worked Saturday night as usual, slept at work in a chair for a few hours and worked another shift on Sunday plus overtime.  By Monday morning the highway was still closed. His company paid for a hotel room for him so he could get some sleep which was a real blessing. But by Monday evening things were open again and he could come home. 

On Tuesday he cleared the driveway and by afternoon we were able to get to town and pick up groceries and then we were going to pick up my son.  But his plane had mechanical difficulties and was delayed 4 hours.  So we headed home, unpacked groceries and went back to town to pick him up at midnight.  We were so thrilled to see him!!  It has been a year and half since he has been home.  He arrived home to see all the yellow balloons greeting him from the fence posts and tied to trees lining the driveway and the back porch.  We had pizza and talked till nearly 3am..  needless to say we all slept in this morning!   

We also woke up to MORE snow and it has been snowing ever since.  Tobin redid the driveway and then dug our neighbor out of his drive way too.  Tobin says if it does not stop snowing pretty soon there will be no place to put all this snow after cleans up!   

Well now for pics..  remember the picnic table?  Well if you look carefully you may just be able to see it now..   that is my deck almost completely full of snow..
 

Here are a few more shots from around my property.. 

Part of the driveway with the snow walls on each side from the snow removed…
 

My front yard…
 

Updated pic of Emily’s car… 
 

And some pretty pics of our property that Emily took this morning…

Have a very Merry Christmas Everyone!