Snowshoeing and sledding

Yesterday we finally got some "warm" weather (20F feels warm when you've had zero and below zero temps tor a week!), so we all took advantage of it and spent the afternoon outside.  Jim and I snowshoed around our woods, and the kids went sledding.   Ari tried out snowshoes for the first time, too!  She had fun in the driveway, but wasn't a fan of the deeper snow.  Here she's glowering at me because she didn't want her picture taken! 😉

Jim got some neat pics of the brooks near our house.  There were some really neat frost patterns and ice crystals.

The old outhouse at the camp next door...looks like this winter has been kinda hard on the roof! 😂

Looking toward the lake across the road.  This is the only time of year we can see much of it.

Us 😍

Snowy selfie!

Beside the brook, looking up through the woods toward our house.

Layers of ice...so cool!

Sledding wrecks. 😉

Happy kids

Miss Ari!

Jim came back to the house to get the macro lens for his phone, and got some really cool close-ups of the ice crystals.  Here are some of the best ones.

I can't get over the beauty in the tiniest details.  Evidence of a master designer! 

These ones are really neat...

I'm glad we got these pics yesterday, since today we're getting another snowstorm.  The kids have been out playing in it all afternoon, and our neighbor friends skiied over again to play, too.  It's so beautiful...we have tons of snow already and it's only early January!  I will probably be tired of it by March, but for now I'm loving it.  So glad we live in a place with four seasons. 😊

Homesick for blogging

I NEED to get back to blogging!!!  I know I say that almost every time I finally post something, but the truth is that I am really getting homesick for it.  Today I was looking back on some posts from a few years ago because I wanted to go back and see how we had made our little resurrection gardens around Easter time.  When I saw those posts...and how much I'd recorded from our day-to-day life...it made me sad that over the past couple years I just haven't made the time to record the memories.  To be honest, lately homeschooling has been taking a ton of time, and my days have been chock full.  Teaching three kids in three different grades, while chasing a busy toddler around and trying to keep up with housework, laundry, and dishes, is really challenging me.  (I don't know how you moms of many get anything done!!!)  If it's not school, it's running errands or taking the kids to various events and outings and get-togethers with friends.  All of these are GOOD things and things that we love to do!  But how to make time to get on here (when my arms aren't full of a little girl, which makes it hard to do anything other than read stuff online) and actually post about all the things that make up our life...other than late at night (like right now)...that's the tricky part.  But I really want to somehow fit it in, even if just once a week, maybe on a Saturday or sometime when Jim can watch the kids for a bit so I have a little free time at the keyboard.  Because these days are fleeting, and I'm going to be so sad one day if I don't have much to look back on from these more recent years!

At the moment, the house is quiet.  Everyone is in bed but me...I finally got Ari down a few minutes ago.  She is not the world's best sleeper and has never slept longer than 6 or maybe 7 hours at one time (I can count on one hand the number of times she has--possibly--slept that long).  She starts off the night in her pack 'n play in the boys' room and sleeps anywhere from 1 to 3ish hours before waking, when one of us gets her and brings her back to bed with us (or Sam brings her in!).  Then she sleeps with us or crawls into her cosleeper from our bed, still nursing occasionally through the night.  She's fast outgrowing the cosleeper, so that won't really be an option for her much longer.  My plan is to work on her sleep habits through the summer, but right now it's not a fight I feel like working on. :)  This way I still get a decent amount of sleep, but boy, do I dream of the night when a good straight 8 (or even 7!) hours is normal for me again.

 (And this is little girl is just so sweet that I can't begrudge her the lost sleep...most of the time, anyway. ;))

I have lots of things I could write about, but since it's late and I need to get to bed asap, for tonight I will just share a picture collage from our little hike last Saturday.  I had a to-do list of all kinds of things I needed to tackle that day, but instead we decided that we needed a "mental health" day much more.  So we packed a few snacks and some water, loaded Ari in the backpack, and headed out back to the national forest land, where we proceeded to have a wonderful adventure.  Jim showed us a lot of the places he's hunted over the past few years, we explored old cellar holes, waterfalls and rocks...it was just such a good afternoon.  We came home in much better spirits than when we left!  So thankful for the gift of nature just outside our door, and adventure for the taking.

Hoping to pop in again soon... Till next time!

Summer Days

One of my goals for this summer was to relax and enjoy life, and to make the most of the days, not frittering away my time (especially online).  While I haven't done this perfectly, I've been able to see a lot of progress, and I am thankful.  And I'm happy to say that although the summer is going by quickly (as it always seems to!), I don't feel like it is rushing by at breakneck speed.  In fact, it's going exactly as I'd hoped . . . lots of leisurely days at home, weekly adventures with the kids, time for cleaning and summer decorating, time for sewing and creating.  In short, we've been soaking up time doing lots of things we love, and I thought it would be fun to share some pictures (okay, a lot of pictures!) of a few of our days this month.

On the Fourth, we had our annual church picnic at the home of one of the church families.  It was a super hot day (as many of our days have been this month!), but a really fun time.

Flag cake

Josiah by the pond

Some of the other kids went boating and swimming

More kids by the pond

We saw a rainbow after supper (you can just see a piece of it toward the middle of the picture--to the right of the big tree)

And enjoyed some great fireworks!

Trying to keep eyes open in spite of the flash :)

Julia's star braids (Pinterest project! :))

Last Friday, we went to the science center where my parents got us a membership for Christmas last year.  I had planned to get over there sooner than this, but with rain and vacation, it hadn't happened yet.  Friday was a great day for it, as it was hot but not terribly humid.  We were able to meet up with some friends and enjoyed several hours of walking the trails, looking at animals, and playing!

Sam and some other kids watching a guy with a hawk

We got to see an "Up Close to Animals" presentation about coyotes--this is a 12 week old female, which was soooo cute!

The kids were watching a deer--which is kinda hard to see in this picture.

In the children's center--a wonderful barn full of fun stuff to climb on and do!

Ready to slide . . . 

One of the black bears . . . this thing was HUGE!  They definitely keep them well-fed! :)

Two bald eagles . . . the younger one doesn't have a white head yet.

Watching turtles and frogs in the pond from the floating bridge

Sam and Josiah with our friend Joshua

That night, we had a little birthday celebration for my Grampa.  He turned 90 last Monday!  I made blondies and we had ice cream with them.

Singing to him . . . 

Love this one!  So thankful that God has given him good health and 90 years of life.

Yesterday, we met up with my aunt and cousins who are visiting from Florida and went swimming.  It was VERY hot and the water was VERY cold.  It felt good though, once you got up the courage to jump in! :)   The kids loved tubing and playing with their older cousins and aunt Carolyn.

And building "drip castles!"

Jim got home a few minutes after we did, and we decided to make grilled pizza since it was so hot out.  This is our third time to have pizza in a week, but happily no one minds. :)  Grilling it makes it a little different, and it is yummy, although a little more work!  I use the recipe from Money Saving Mom, which makes 8 individual pizzas.  I had a pretty little helper (and Jim helped too :)) so supper came together quickly.

"Decorating" the pizzas (Julia's words :))  Mine is the one with all the veggies . . . the rest of my family thinks I am weird. :)

But I say YUM!  Chard from the garden, plus pepper and onions . . . what's not to love about that? :)

To top off a great day, this was waiting for me in the mailbox when we got home from swimming: my  new Lisa Leonard Bookworm Necklace!!!

I have loved Lisa Leonard's jewelry for years, and bought her tiny squares necklace with my kids' names a few years ago.  Recently she was running a special deal where you could buy anything in her shop and get a free Love of Family necklace . . . that one hasn't arrived yet, but this is the one I ordered to get the free one.  Isn't it so cute?  And perfect for me!  Love it!

So, that is a peek into our month so far.  We also had an awesome boating adventure, but I want to share that in a separate post because there are lots of pictures!  How is your summer going?