 |
We were privileged to host members of both of our families at our Thanksgiving this year. We enjoyed them and the good food they brought! We were also excited to serve our own home-grown turkey and home-grown ham. |
| Our three youngest (and cutest!) guests: Sara (Derek & Camille's baby), Cannon (Ben & Nikki's baby), Elizabeth (Derek & Camille's little girl). | 
|
 |
Carmie tickling Brock. |
| The day after Thanksgiving we trekked up to the mountains to cut a Christmas tree for ourselves and Abuela. We got a big, beautiful tree (I love natural trees--the look, the smell), and Brock got a hot chocolate mustache! | 
|
 |
The kids had fun playing in the snow (and eating chips). |
| And Mack had fun in the car! | 
|
 |
One of the highlights of this winter was ice skating on our pond. The weather dipped below freezing for a nice long stretch (It was 12 below one morning when I drove Stone to school.) and the pond froze. Our neighbor has a huge collection of different sizes of ice skates that she let us borrow. It was such a thrill to skate around in our front yard! A couple of days, Abigail stopped by our neighbor's house after getting off the schoolbus and then skated across the pond to home. The whole experience just put Mack right to sleep! These pictures were all taken on Christmas Eve Day. (Yes, I know, the dates on the pictures are messed up.) |
|
|
|
|
| We had members of Gregg's family over for Christmas Eve. We took a tour of the farm, had fondue, and then had the Christmas program. Here is the illustrious cast. | 
|
 |
|
| Mom always makes everyone sing. | 
|
 |
Jack gave an oscar-worthy performance as Samuel the Lamanite. |
| Samuel being protected from fierce Nephite nerf bullets. | 
|
 |
|
| Cute, chubby Emory | 
|
 |
All ready for Santa! |
| And he came. | 
|
 |
|
| All spirituality gone; everything erupts into unabashed materialism. | 
|
 |
Here we are on the way to Zeke's baptism! This was a very special day for our
family. He was baptized on January 2nd, the day after his birthday, on Stone's birthday. Many family members came to
celebrate which made it especially fun.
I love the changes in spirituality and accountability I have seen in each one of my children so far as Gregg and I have prepared them for baptism. Those months preceding their eight-year-birthdays are periods of intense spiritual progression for each of them--a period punctuated by their baptism day. Zeke's experience was no exception. I love the maturity and spirituality I saw in Zeke during this time. His smile already lights up a room, and now his testimony will as well. |
|
|
| After the baptism we came back to our house to have some dinner and a birthday party. Stone turned 13 that day (13!!!! Teenager!!!) and Zeke had turned 8 the day before. Abigail thought the football helmet cakes looked like characters from Veggie Tales. He he. | 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The little boys pretending the kitchen shelves are bunkbeds. Notice that I keep nothing on these shelves since that would be foolish for obvious reasons. | 
|
|
New baby piglets! Stone bought three of them to raise and sell. The fourth will be in our freezer when he is a few months older and at least a couple hundred pounds bigger. Yum. |
| A Carmie train! | 
|
|
Three silly kids and their trucks. |
| Oh, we had a lovely, snowy winter--part of the time. I love wintery winters and we don't get many of those in the Boise area. This was a fun day of snow play. | 
|
 |
|
| Probably the funnest things we've done on our farm is to get baby chicks. They look like little wind-up Easter toys. The kids (minus Mack) play freely with them and love every minute of it. This time we got 25 baby chicks, followed a few weeks later by 40 more! | 
|
 |
Abigail got a first place on her solo in her Clogging Competition in Boise. Yay for her! Her team took first as well. |
| Stone is in a high school-level Physics class. As part of the class, they participated in an area robotics tournament. Pretty interesting stuff. | 
|