Ski Day

We had the wonderful blessing of taking our two older children skiing Tuesday. We left REALLY early that morning and headed up to Flagstaff for the day. It was great spending the day with just the two older children and enjoying the beauty of Gods creation in the mountains with my hubby. Clayton learned how to ski a couple of years ago and this year we were able to get Brinnlee up on skis.

We have peas!

Here is the latest on our garden. We have some peas growing. Our lettuce is doing great, in fact I think we will be eating some spinach next week. We have had to use some of our grapefruit to try to keep the ants away. They seem to really like the swish chard. Our beets did not do as well. Not sure why?

No More Procrastination

I finally took the plunge! I have been wanting to make my own yogurt and butter for a long time. I just thought it was too hard and took too much time. Well to my surprise and a friends blog, thanks Jodi, I did it. It was soooooo easy and took no time at all. The butter is awesome and I know VERY good for us. Not sure what I will do with the buttermilk yet. I have also started to learn how to soak my grains before using. The oatmeal over night is great. My next new change will be to sprout wheat before making fresh wheat flour for bread. I will need to read up on that.

The Pecan Farm

We are gathering the pecans after the tree was shaken.

This is the shaker. It is placed around the trunk and you can actually feel the ground shake like an earthquake.

This is Clayton on the tire swing.

Last Saturday we went as a family to a pecan farm in Camp Verde, which is between Phoenix and Flagstaff. We had such a great time learning about the Pecan Tree and the 40 plus different varieties. We were able to see how they shake the tree to get the pecans to fall on a tarp and then gather them up. Then we were shown all the different shellers. The children loved it. As you can see they also had a tire swing which we had a hard time getting the children away from. There were some sword fights with Auntie REW and a river walk as well. If you have never eaten a pecan fresh from the tree there really is a difference! They were so tasty. It was a wonderful day being out in Gods creation.

Peek-a-Boo

This is the bag that Grammy brought the children's gifts in. We put Merrick in it to see what he would do. Well, he played peek-a-boo. It was really funny.

We spent a quiet Christmas Eve with family. It was very relaxing as well. One of my gifts was a new mouth piece and reeds for a clarinet my father-in-law bought at an auction last year and gave to me after I told him I used to play when I was younger. So....my goal for this coming new year is to learn to play it again. I am very excited and hope that Clayton and daddy will be able to learn the guitar together as well. Maybe we will have a family concert for Christmas next year. (lol!) You will have to wait all year to find out. Brinnlee got a recorder and I hope to help her learn how to play too. We opened gifts Christmas eve and then after everyone left we watched the Nativity movie in preparation for our Christmas day birthday party.

The Garden

We planted a garden a few weeks ago. We have growing peas, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, green leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, and beets. So far so good. Everything is sprouting. The area we planted in is raised and was empty when we moved in. My dear hubby picked up some good manure and we mixed it in with the dirt. We did have to clean the BIG rocks out first though and loosen the dirt a bit. Hopefully we will have some home grown food in a couple of months. It has been fun for the children to do a little work and learn about how the Lord provides for us. They also have their own flower pots with wild flowers. We will hopefully see beautiful flowers come late winter and early spring. Even when I don't know how things will work out the Lord does and it isALWAYS perfect. He does provide for me and meets my every need.

Fun Day

Not much happening. We had a good day today. We enjoyed seeing some friends who are missionaries in Honduras. It was great seeing them and talking with them. I always remember in the back of my mind that our oldest son told me that he thinks God wants his family to be missionaries. My response is, "well we have to be missionaries at home first and pray about where else the Lord would have us go." I guess we will see??? After that we went to the Surprise City Party for about 45 minutes. It was fun but a little cold. We did go last night to see the balloon glow, tree lighting and the sky divers. Had a great time.