Candle By Night

What better way to start the season then to have a doughnut and cider party! :D Remember all those apples I canned last week? Well there were still plenty of apples left over, so a family in our church graciously had everyone over for a get together. They made fresh doughnuts and cider. Here is a picture of the ladies getting the doughnuts made. Here are the doughnuts being fried up...it smelled heavenly in that kitchen. ;o) And then about half of the doughnuts after they had been glazed. They were delicious! While I was inside near the doughnuts ;o) Beloved was outside helping with the cider. We had 2 presses and I think almost everyone helped out. We even had popcorn popped over a fire. So much food and great fellowship. It was a wonderful evening. Oh, and after everyone had some doughnuts, cider and popcorn most of us went for a ride on a hay wagon. The children, and adults, had a lot of fun. Although we should have made a stop at Marci's house to serenade Josh before they left ...

I apologize that I haven't been around for a week or so. But here is the reason why..... No, they aren't bananas and peaches. Instead...the boxes are filled with...... APPLES ! That's right.... 4 bushels. I know, I know...I am insane for tackling 4 bushels alone, but I did. Here is a pick of my first batch of apple butter being put in the crockpot for the night. After a couple of days of some work and one of them included me being up for 24 hours! Yes, I got in bed at 7 am Saturday morning as Beloved was getting out of bed. Here is a pick of all of my hard work (minus one pint of apple butter and a few quarts of applesauce.) So I roughly canned 40 quarts of applesauce and some pints and half pints of apple butter. Yummy! Now that the apples are done I hope to post more. Blessings to all. :D

Sweet E talking to Beloved: Sweet E-> "You sound like a hippopotamus. I gotta fix you." Don't children just say the cutest things. :D Beloved had a good laugh from that. :o) To fix Beloved she went and got her little orange reflex hammer, tapped it on his belly, and said, "There...you're fixed."

We had so much fun Friday evening at our friend's home to celebrate the graduation of their four oldest children. Yes....graduation parties are normally held in May or June, but I think they had the right idea of waiting until the busy summer season is over. Anyway, It was a lot of fun and thought I would show some pictures. I just pray that they have their power back on. It went of during the storm last week and as of Friday night they still didn't have any. I also wanted to share a video of Little E just because he is just so adorable!

I am not sure what to call this. I guess our first field trip was to the Creation Museum, but school hadn't started. Then we did go hiking the other day, but I guess I just consider that a family outing. Anyway, Nana Snow had the day off from work so we all headed on down to Legend Hills Orchard to pick some apples. Sweet E kept saying, "Apples don't grow on trees" as she was pointing to the ones in our yard. No matter how much explaining we did nothing changed her mind until we got to the orchard. Now if you ask her if apples grow on trees she says, "YES, THEY DO!" :o) The children had a ton of fun picking apples. It was a joy to watch their facial expressions. I asked Sweet E to show me her apple and this is what I got. :o) Little E tried to pick apples at first, but when he couldn't pull them off he got frustrated and wanted nothing to do with the apples. After apple picking we headed back to Nana's house to make some applesauce and apple pie. He...

This weeks lessons has to do with the letter L and leaf. So, yesterday we went to a local park to collect leaves. It was hard to get the children to focus on collecting leaves because the loved following the trail and deciding which way we should go. It was hard to get in the van because they wanted to keep hiking, but we promised to take them again. Not done with our books yet...I will try and show that tomorrow. But here are a few pictures of our walk. Enjoy and have a blessed God filled week! :o) Picture of one of our obstacles caused by the storm.

of Ike came through yesterday. We didn't get rain, but we got wind and lots of it! Up to 75 miles per hour. I have never seen wind like that before in my life. We have trees down all over the place and I am shocked that I even have internet. I thought for sure it would be out...with our electricity for days. But praise the Lord we never lost power and our internet is back up. Oh...and I have a cell phone...most people around have lost service for their phones. So I just wanted to show a few pictures that we quickly took yesterday. Our poor dog lost his roof too. Here is our roof yesterday.... During repair.... and after. It is such a blessing to have friends to come and help us when we need it. I wasn't sure when we could get the rough fixed and it is fixed less than 24 hours after it happened. I pray everyone else that has gone through this storms path is well. Blessings to all.

I miss Anna and Chloe already and they have only been gone since Friday morning. They arrived on Saturday afternoon. Sweet E and Chloe hit it off right away. They were two peas in a pod the entire week (granted...they are only a week a part in age). After they arrived we went to the park and the children had a wonderful time playing. Unfortunately, early Monday morning we had to call 911. Anna awoke to Chloe not breathing. I never imagined that I would have a policeman coming up my stairs to carry a child to the paramedics. Praise the Lord that everything looks okay and Chloe seems to be doing well. The rest of the week was wonderful and I just wanted to show various pictures from the week. Chloe in Children's Hospital after they finally took her neck brace off and allowed her to eat. The poor girl was starving. :D On Thursday was Anna's husband's birthday and he is also serving in Iraq at this time. So our family decided to take Anna and Chloe out to eat for James' bi...