Ben hard at work

After school every day Ben hard at work splitting wood.
We had 7 cords of wood delivered recently. Most of this is huge and very heavy.
So- its Bens job to split split split. He prefers this over chain saw work anyway.

Watching him go to work is very impressive.
In a few more days- the girls and I will have to get to stacking all this split wood.

Crazy Canners

Don't Ask!

This is just what happens when you can TOO long!

Our first real apples

We have a little apple tree out back. We've been here 5 yrs now and

this weekwas the first time we could pick apples from that tree.

Ben and Maya picked a full half bushel.

I sat for ages peeling them. I packed the chunks in jars and canned them in sugar syrup like peaches. The apples are very bitter but the syrup fixes that. Cannot wait to try them in a few weeks.

Ben

Here is Ben~full of glee~ doing the dishes ;)

Chicken Pickin Good

In order to make our 36 quarts of chicken soup...
We had to boil up a ton of chicken. That of course means alot of

chicken pickin'. The girls did a very nice job. Vayda, however, was a bit of a

distraction~ walking through with her onion bag on her shoulder.

Zucinni Bread by the ton

This season we planted a few zucinni plants.

We ate zukes all summer long. Elanee made us at least 35 loaves of

zuke bread.

We have a ton of it in the freezer and everyone is sooooo sick of eating it. But, it is so good!

Our first pumpkin picker

Our first pumpkin picker!

The other day my friend Lindsey came over to visit with her little man, Jordan.

We took him into the pumpkin patch to find a treasure. I asked, "Jordan, do you want a big one or a little one?" He said, "I want a little bitty one".

Too darn cute!

Silly Doggy

Silly Dog!

One morning I was leaning over the desk talking with the girls when Ms. Andi decided to jump up on my chair then my back! Doofis! She thought it was very comfy and layed right down :)

Chicken

Well the meat birds have been processed. Now we have 60 legs in the freezer, many pounds of breasts and 36 quarts of chicken soup. Good stuff. I like this time of year when the animals out back are paired down and the cupboards are over flowing!

Great Find!

Check out this great deal!

OK- when I was a teenager my mother bought me this art program.

I remember it cost $60 a mo.

My mother smoked and that cost $60 so she actually quit smoking (for the first year of the program) to pay for the class. I did the full two years and learned a lot.

So- this summer Vayda and I went online to see if we could get her this program. Well its now well over $3000!!! Yikes. Never gonna happen right?- nope. Lets check out EBay!

So we did and we found the complete program. I bid and won it for $21 shipping included! Its all the lessons and assignments minus the correspondence aspect but- hey I can do that part.

So- how cool is that!?!

ART

ART!

We have been feeling O so artsy over here.

One day recently I was indulging in a 'head trip'. All was bad. Nothing was good.

Ya know how that goes. Well, suddenly I was in the mood to paint. So...

I threw on some rockin tunes and started finger painting

(see below) I rocked out for an hour with my hands covered in paint.

It felt so awesome!!!! It was an increadable work out too.

I showed this painting off to friends and one said to check out ACEO cards on Etsy.

This was totally inspiring! (Thanks Judy!!!)

So this is what got me drawing and painting whatever came to mind.

I also used some old images I drew. I just sized them to fit my card and added back grounds or whatever.

All of these are done in watercolor and ink. I did list them on Ebay but nothing sold. No biggy. Just wanted to see if they would. The point was not to make $ but to get inspired!

That is just what happened. I have had to put my supplies away for a few weeks while I plug away a canning but I cannot wait to dig back in. I want to work on my portait skills. I am interested in perfecting watercolor and learning to really paint with acrylics. I am actually concidering running an art class in T-burg for the home school kids there.

Vayda got inspired from all that I was doing and cranked out this crazy card!

Lookin Good!

These are some random photos.

Jody has been biking like crazy all summer training for he AIDS ride. Hes been jogging a gorge in Ithaca during his lunch break for a year. Hes looking fantastic. This morning he was all ready for work and looking skinny in the smallest size pants hes worn in years.

Elanee is just cute with the Andi dog ;)

Here Vayda is just showin off her 'look'. Lookin AWESOME!

What we REALLY do!

OK- just in case we are starting to sound too decent, goodly and focused with amazing home based learning projects, emotional stability and psychological development...

Here's what REALLY goes on on a school day.

Mom get board and the kids get nuts and show their true colors.

Aren't my daughters just lovely!?!?!?

More School

School- School- School is chuggin along.

Here is Vayda doing her Algebra work.

Maya does spelling drills every day.
We like to snuggle on the couch for this.

So far this year we have been very consistant so that has been nice for me. The big girls are very focused and driven this year. This is our 4th year homeschooling and so far its the easiest. No major adjustments and everyone is just doing their thang!

Cool thing Maya built

Maya Rae is a very creative girl!

She is always salvaging this and that from the recycling bins.

Here she made a little turtle using scraps of T-shirt fabric and fleece. She made a pattern herself then hand sewed the entire thing. (I'm impressed!)

She used a box, sticks, yarn and fabric to create a habitat for her little pet.

Sleepover Girlies

A couple weeks back all of the big kids were gone here and there. So- Maya Rae got to invite

a couple of friends over for a sleep over.

She chose to have Saige and Jenna. They had all kinds of fun.

Morris found all the stuffed animals they drug downstairs to be a nice place for a cat nap. The girlies thought this was the funniest thing! lol

Back to School Time!

School is back in session!

We are back at it. Elanee and Vayda are still waiting on books but are seeming very dedicated to the work they are doing. Vayda is doing Yoga most days. Elanee has been stamping. Both are reading varied and interesting novels and texts. Maya Rae has choosen to learn Swahili. Here she is working on her brand new computer program and lovin it.

Every morning after breakfast we have a group devotion/ deepening . This is good reading practice for Maya and we are all learning alot about the history of the Faith.
Today Maya started a study of Ancient Rome. We learned about Romulus and Remus, studied a map and explored Roman art.....and more.

I am dedicated to the process and school is starting out on a great foot. Hard to believe this is our 4th year!

Jody tappin out some joy

Jody recently declared that he was going to find the time to start practicing the piano, guitar and trombone again. He has been very focused on biking this summer. (Take a look....hes all skinny ;) So here he is tappin away at the keyboard.
He was enjoying the tunes but all I could hear a room away was

(((TAP! WACK! TAP TAP TAP! WACK! POUND! CLACK! WACK! TAP TAP TAP!)))

Oooooo-lovely ???

Its Finally Over!!!

It is FINALLY OVER!I am very happy to announce that it is finally, finally over!

For those of you who know us , you know what a long miserable ordeal we have endured regarding Jodys X-wife and the custody of their 4 kids.

For those of you who don't.... in brief- its been long! Its been miserable! We endured 11 years of court cases. They started 3 months after our marriage and continued relentlessly untill last summer. I lost count a long time ago but we were drug into court around 30+ times! Some years as many as 4 times. We defended ourselves time and time again and always lost.......or did we?

We raised those 4 kids (full time) the best we could- just doing "Damage Controlle" as Jody often said.

And- all that time while our marriage and family was being relentlessly battered and beaten from outside of our home we managed to keep it united- for the most part. Here we are now 11 yrs later and we are happier and stronger than ever before. Ben is 18 which means it is actually over. I recently told Jody that 'we no longer have ANY reason to be unhappy'. I wasted so many year fighting off these outside forces. I am not wasting any more time on her or the bitterness and unhappiness she tried to force us to accept.

This has all been a lesson in choices.

Some choose to focus on their past mistakes and some choose to create a future.