Happy New Month! What we've done over the past (eleventh) month...
What Blessings We've Received...
*A surprise baby, very much not planned but someone I'm sure will be a blessing to us.
*At least three different wonderful persons gave us monetary gifts or the gift of maternity clothing (I'd given most of mine away) to help us during a rough spell. We've been used to being the helpers for several years now, but we've reached a [hopefully temporary] time in which we're the ones who need help again.
*Nathan and I both received letters inviting us to join the honor society Phi Theta Kappa for our "outstanding academic performance during [our] college career."
*I was able to drop one of the two classes for which I enrolled this semester, because not only did I get my books delivered late the first week of classes, but things are difficult to keep up with during my first trimester of pregnancy.
*I've just finished three weeks of my sociology course. Grades for week three have not been posted, yet, but I feel good about it. Based on my first two weeks, so far I've got a perfect score. This brings me great relief, because I sure have stressed over it all!
*Nathan has some work lined up that I pray he can do without harm, and he dropped all his original four classes to enroll in the second eight weeks program again with two classes. He starts in mid-March. He said he actually prefers the eight-weeks program, though I couldn't imagine trying to keep up with that.
*Eagles! We've seen a lot of bald eagles up very close, and they are truly a majestic sight to see. I keep forgetting to take my digital camera with me, though, when we travel through where they're high-density (though I've gotten to see one around our house). When we went to the college one day, Nathan turned around and pulled over for me so that I could take some pictures me with my iPhone and so that we could just enjoy seeing the bird in the tree. This was the closest I believe I've ever seen one in a tree. Sure wish I'd have had my camera that could have really zoomed in without losing picture quality.
The kids and I got to see a turkey fly right in front of our truck, too, on our way home from church one day.
And I saw a large flock of birds fly while coming down our road one day, which has become more rare in the past couple of years or so. I have truly believed it is because our closest (in proximity, not in good relations) neighbor let her cats breed wildly out of control, and so many cats lead to so many killing of birds. We think she's gone, though! We think she finally got remarried and moved away and took her cats twenty to thirty cats or whatever it was. We've got just two cats (and not able to breed), and they are killers enough! It's so tempting to have their claws removed.
*I was able to get our 2013 photo book made and ordered. It was more rushed than I'd wanted, and there were a lot of pictures I had to exclude in order to end up with just one book this year. I had to hurry so that I could order before the big sale was over, and I know they will end up having other sales on photo books later in the year, but I didn't want to wait forever to get our book. Although I believe I could have made it better, I am actually pretty content with the way it turned out.
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| Remember the eye collage? |
Family and friends will soon get a share link via email to view the digital version.
*A good snow and some sledding fun! There was one day where there was a lot of sledding and some other great things, and William said that he put all blue dots on his wall calendar that day and that it was the best day he'd had in a long time. (He uses a system of four or five dots that he makes with a red-orange and a blue marker, and blue is good, and the red-orange is bad, so a fabulous day has all blue dots.)
We had a few days of really cold weather, where the HIGH was in the single digits!
We actually ventured out in the snow one day (Nathan drove, no way I would do it, especially by those bluffs) to get some fresh produce and such.
Do you see that our faces are red and wet??? The sledding from the previous day was on a well-made homemade sled, but Elizabeth and I were directed on this day to use the plain sheet metal sled ("because it slides better"), which ends were bent safely and all so that no one gets cut. Well...we did get hit in the faces with a little bit of snow the previous day, but this day....it was TORTURE! Seriously, I could not enjoy the speedy ride because of the constant heavy snow blowing in my face, and all I could think through what seemed like an eternity of never-ending painful snow hitting me in the face was, "My poor baby, my poor baby, my poor baby." She was sitting in front of me, so I figured she was getting it worse (but perhaps not). She was screaming, though, at least she was when we stopped. I knew I'd screamed during it all, too. As soon as we came to a stop, I scrambled to get up with my sweet baby girl and get the snow off of us, and I heard Nathan and William laughing hysterically. I was not amused. We went into the house to dry our faces, but first I snapped the pictures of our faces right after our so-called "joy ride." Just look at that precious innocent face looking up at me! She was probably thinking, "Why did we just willingly do that?"
The bottom two pictures were taken right afterward, as we brushed off the snow, dried our faces, and went back out for a few minutes...to WATCH.
They came down the hill at the same time and then veered off in different directions. Was pretty neat the way they did it. I didn't notice snow blasting on them so much.
What Kids Have Done...
Two sample pages of Trusten's Explode the Code work:
Below, his message at the beginning of his current book, that I talked about in my last post. He was loving, loving, loving this stuff until the current book, but I think he's okay with it now.
We've been blessed with some nice days here and there. Not even a coat necessary for this day, when I did math with Trusten outside. He'd finished his work in Life of Fred for the day, and I had him do some work on bar graphs that I had in some miscellaneous stuff.
Above is a drawing of Liv's that includes all of us, her imaginary friend "Indta," a dragon with spikes, and a "turtle friend," which is what the spots on the right are. I don't know what upside-down "T" and spots are on the left. She said the little person is Elizabeth "with her ponytail." :-) How cute.
These bug-like people are Olivia's typical drawings of people. I think they're fun, though!
Below Liv is using stickers on a Highlights "Hidden Pictures." We got this one free in the mail. She did a great job! She found all the stuff herself, except when the boys went over to bother her and told her the very last object (after I told them not to do so).
Nathan's dad gave the boys each an old hard drive to take apart, which greatly thrilled William.
Trusten liked to spin the wheel.
Can you tell William is talking to me all about the parts? LOL
I think William ended up keeping some parts back in his spare parts basket he keeps for whatever creations/inventions for the future. ;-)
I walked into the living room one day to see the kids gathered around (and on) the dining room table, obviously fascinated about something William was doing. I can't remember what it was or whether I even inquired (pregnancy brain, keep in mind...I'm just here these days), but I zoomed in on these pictures before I selected them, and it looks as if he's got one of our science experiment books, and I do vaguely remember recently seeing it lying around. Whatever it was he was doing must have been a real show. LOL The only thing I was really thinking at the time, I think, was how nice it was to see them all together at the table like they were, getting along so nicely (love those times).
It's usually either Jaden William or Olivia holding chickens, but here I've got pictures of Trusten and Elizabeth holding them:
And Elizabeth crawling through an end table and needing assistance getting out...
The picture below was taken in the morning before I'd helped Elizabeth get dressed and brushed the girls' hair.
Below Elizabeth is shown chasing the chickens, wanting to show them her love. Poor baby has gotten close before, but she's not been able to ever catch one by herself.
William is on a kick using his Yonanas machine that Nathan's mom got for him. He whipped up some frozen strawberries, peaches, and a small amount of sugar and almond milk, and froze the stuff in his mold for frozen treats on a stick. We didn't have any frozen pop sticks, so he used chopsticks, instead.
He's really enjoying crushing ice up in the machine, too, for his drinks. It's funny, because one cold day recently the three oldest kids came in from playing, and Olivia wanted hot cocoa, and William said he didn't care about that, he just wanted one of the frozen fruit treats he'd made. I later told Nathan that the hot cocoa makes more sense when it's cold, and I told him I remembered my momma sometimes made us homemade juice pops with Hawaiian Punch in ice cube trays, with little pop sticks, and the one time the memory really stands out is a time we came in from playing in some snow in the winter, and I remember standing in front of the fireplace to get warm, and she was about to give us some of those frozen fruit treats! LOL! Of course, as a kid I know I was very happy about it, but as an adult looking back on it, I get cracked up.
I usually have a picture or two to include in my prayer journal entry each day, and I didn't have one when I went to write (type) one Sabbath morning before getting ready for church, so I snapped the one below. It was a nice day. It's a funny picture, too. I don't really know what was going on. You can see William running one way (and the dog in the background going the same direction, parallel), then Trusten is running the opposite direction, Elizabeth is standing over there looking one way, and Olivia is a good ways across the yard looking the opposite direction. They are so silly.
If the previous picture wasn't enough to convince you they're silly, maybe the next one will. Well, it appears the two girls are normal and their daddy (though he might just be posing as normal--lol).
Oh, the fun we have after dinnertime! Okay, so Nathan is tying William in knots with rope. This has gone on for years now. William has quite a skill of getting out of the toughest knots...of all kinds. Nathan has been certain at times that William "will not get out this time," and lo and behold, every time he eventually does, even though it sometimes takes quite a long time of struggling and working at it. William says of this one, "That was one of the best [set of] knots he's tied me in."
What We've Eaten...
We've had quite a few sandwiches over the last month, mostly with store-bought bread, because I haven't felt like cooking! Nathan made the delicious oatmeal one night, shown above with raisins and cranberries, and sprouted almonds. I made brownies, as you can see in the first two pictures, the batter and the finished product. I like to throw chocolate chips in, and usually I include pecans or walnuts, too. ALL freshly-ground wheat and still very delicious. I make everything with freshly ground flour. Then there's venison and potatoes cooked in garlic butter. Nathan and I were craving sauerkraut again, so he bought hot dogs and buns. I'd been craving chicken and dumplings so badly. I made them the quick and easy way by buying some tortillas. My favorite thing to have with them is fried okra, so I made that, too, and just threw it in the bowl. Mmmmm. I guess I'm the only one who thinks so, but that's ok. Leaves more for me! There's apple pie, a Sabbath dessert request by JW.
And what is that noodle stuff, you ask? Well, you see, I've been eating fajitas left and right, which is common in most of my pregnancies, and there was no way I felt like making tortillas on top of cutting up onions, meat, tomatoes, etc. (I at least buy the frozen tri-color peppers that I don't have to cut), nor did I have any store-bought ones, so I decided to just mix up fajita stuff like I normally do, add extra seasoning, and I boiled some fettuccine noodles and mixed it all together. It wasn't as good as with tortillas, but I thought it was pretty good, anyway. You can see on my plate that I added shredded cheese and started mixing it in. There was some left over, enough for me to make a sandwich the next day, also pictured. Pretty good!
Oh, and I was going to just combine my last Citrus Lane review here with this post, to save me time and all, but maybe I'll skip it altogether. I do have a "Sharks and Teeth" post planned. That theme slowly drug out for probably the whole month. My productivity really goes down during this stage of pregnancy, but at least I've dealt with very little nausea this time around (so far, so good, thankfully). It has come on here and there, mostly pretty mild. But I'm still tired and probably the dizziest I have ever remembered being during pregnancy. I really must eat frequently, or the dizziness becomes worse, and I'm more likely to become nauseous, too. Soon I hope to regain some energy and not be so scatterbrained/absent-minded and moody. I feel pretty lazy right now. I'm so blessed that Nathan and William have helped out a lot and Nathan has said he would do his best to keep my stress down. He's been wonderful.
Soon, soon I hope to get back with the program. I have mostly just told the boys to do their self-directed work, and when I feel like it, I do other stuff.
Until next time...
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