The Holidays are Here!

Well, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Now on to Christmas :)  Yesterday we set up our Christmas tree.  Mary is at the age where she did most of the tree decorating.  We have a lot of ornaments of all kinds.  I have been collecting ever since I was in my 20s, so a lot of memories.  It is fun to tell Mary the stories behind them.  She really saved my back from all that standing and bending.  She loved having more input on where the decorations should go.  She also gets a kick our of the stockings, hats and stuffed Christmas toys we put under the tree.  She couldn't resist putting a Santa Hat on Mac.  He wanted to play with it but he did hold still long enough for me to snap his picture.   Today we tackled the school room.  Mary changed the calendar and I worked on the bulletin board.  We were happy how it turned out.  We do our supply shopping at the thrift store and get some amazing deals.  Also my sister, Linda, has gotten her a lot of things over the years and we have really used them these last couple of years.  Mary said it was amazing how pretty you can make something out of a little bit of stuff and a lot of love!  Well, I will post our pictures.  We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

 

 

This was a Christmas wreath making event at Hanley Farm.

 

We will put a candle on each day with a name of the Lord and read the scripture where it is found.

Getting Ready

A busy and happy evening getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Mary helped me make an apple crumb pie and she also helped me arrange some flowers for the table.  She is loving it and I am so enjoying showing her things. I also put together a pumpkin pie.  I am so thankful for a husband and in-laws who love to cook too.  Rich made some fantastic pork ribs to take to a work potluck today and Mary and I had them for lunch.  He also got the turkey ready to roast tomorrow and will be make the stuffing.  It is so great to have Mary help with cooking.  It is truly a family affair!

 

Amish Cousins

We had a visit from my Amish cousins who live in Kansas.  They took a train trip out to California.  They visited with my dad and then they came up North to visit us.  Mary was fascinated by them and they are such sweet, sweet people.  We just felt comfortable with them right away.  Rich and I got to share our love of making bread, cheese, sausage and hams.  They like talking about that a lot.  My one cousin, Harry Wayne loves to make sausage and hams too.  We wished we could get some of the wonderful fresh milk that their cows produce to make cheese with.  We had such a great visit, just telling family stories and laughing and talking.  They are all retired now and their kids are all grown.  They all have big families and love kids, so they got such a kick out of Mary.  

 

For breakfast we went to my sister and brother-in-law's house.  Rich made homemade biscuits and my brother-in-law made gravy and eggs.  I made some sourdough cinnamon rolls.  Rich looked up the verse in Matthew 13:33 in the German Bible that the Amish use and printed it out.  He had told Harry Wayne about our sourdough bread and how in the old Wycliff Bible it said, sourdough instead of leaven in Matthew 13:33.  They thought that was pretty neat.  So he gave Harry Wayne the verse in German and asked if he would like to read it and he did. 

 

They are OK with taking pictures.  Dad had told me that they can have pictures of family members and they can take them too.  Some of them borrowed their kids phones (who are not Amish) for the trip and were able to take some pictures of family.  So I took one of Mary with 2 of my cousins and a video of Harry Wayne reading the Matthew 13:33 scripture.  Mary also drew a picture of them today.  We sure had fun and wished they lived closer so we could see them more often. 

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. This is the first year we all dressed up. We went to a friend's house and did some Trick or Treating in their neighborhood and had a blast. So many sweet and friendly people. I did a couple slide shows. The last one is Mary and I playing some fun music on the piano.

 

 

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Mary's Birthday

I posted this on Facebook yesterday on Mary's birthday. 

Mary turned 9 today! I feel so happy to be her mom and see her grow. She is truly a gift from God. She has grown so much height wise and being her own person. Mary you are such a help to your folks, clearing the table, making your bed, running and getting things for us, working out in the garden, and learning how to make things. It is so fun doing crafts with you and most of all playing the piano together, making music in our hearts. You are already a great little song writer. Your teacher was so pleased with your Cricket Song and she is teaching you chords to help you write more music. Most of all I love to see you blossom with your walk with the Lord and how excited you were to get your first Bible and I look forward to reading it with you each night. What a precious girl you are to both of us and you make us so very happy!

 

We had a great day of celebrating.  She picked Roadhouse Grill for her birthday dinner.  It was so cute they brought her a coffee filter hat and a ice cream Sunday for dessert and sang Happy Birthday to her.  She got such a kick out of it.  She got some really nice phone calls and lots of lovely cards and gifts in the mail.  So hard to believe at times that our little girl is 9 years old now.

School Work

This is the Fall bulletin board we put together for the school room.

 

We studied George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We had fun with a flag painting day.  She also made a construction paper head of Washington.  We studies about the founding of our country and the Revolutionary War.

 

We also studied about Johnny Apple Seed.  We learned about who he really was and got poems, stories and songs about him.  Mary wrote a story about him.  Lots of fun!

We also baked an apple pie in his honor.  Mary helped with most of it.

Another snack learning event was making Abraham Lincoln's cabin out of gram crackers, pretzels and wheat thins.  We used peanut butter to cement it all together.

Mary made a construction paper head of Lincoln and learned that is hat served as a brief case for his important papers.  She learned about the Civil War and about Lincoln's life.

This came out wrong and I can't turn the next 2 but they are illustrations Mary did for her 2 stories she wrote about Huck Finn and Johnny Appleseed.  The expression she used in them cracked me up.

The last 2 weeks we have been doing some writing prompts on pumpkins and we have done several craft projects involving pumpkins.  She has been reading some Fall poems.

We made some origami pumpkins and they were enjoyed by all!

Here is poem that Mary wrote about a pumpkin.  I thought it was really good for her age.