Fellowship With The Thomas Family

A few weeks ago, the Thomas family came up and spent the day/evening with us.  We enjoyed the fellowship very much and had a lot of fun.  Thank you all for coming!!!  We're looking forward to next time!!!

Snacking

The fathers

The mothers

Micaiah and Sayer building a 3D human body torso

The finished product

Eating dinner

- Joshua Harris joined us for the evening as well!

Marscel, Seth, and Sayer playing cards

Micaiah and Stasia play "Go Fish" 

- Micaiah was upset because Stasia beat him all 5 times! :)

The parents fellowshipping in the living room

Playing "Kemps!"

Micaiah and Shenandoah playing cards

Micaiah, Shenandoah, and Marscel 

- Shenandoah wasn't sure about them at first, but she warmed up fast!

They tried our super tonic...

...this is what they thought! 

The Cochran and Thomas kids

Random Pictures From January

Well, I'm already caught up to last month!  Just a few more "catch-up" posts to go!  The title pretty much explains this post.

 The Ahlgrens came up

 After his surgery, daddy was instructed to walk a lot so each of us took a turn walking with him around the room - even Shenandoah!

School and journals

Making creations with silly puddy

 Seth and his penguins

 Sayer and his duck

 Stasia and Adam (this was for Bible - studying creation)

 Raw pizza!

 Making lap books of 2010

Sisters

New Year's Eve - 2010

On New Year's Eve, we went to Oklahoma City.  We had a fun day out as a family having a special meal, running errands, and getting ice cream!  Another special thing is that we celebrated my graduation from high school.  We reviewed 2010 together and discussed our goals for 2011.  We got home late, ate dinner, and watched a film from the SAICFF.  It was a great day!

We had so much fun that this ended up being the only picture we got of the day!

Hunting!!!

The end of December, daddy, Sabrina and Seth went hunting with some friends of ours.  This was their first time and they enjoyed it very much.  The exciting thing was that Sabrina shot a deer!  Unfortunately, after following the blood trail for nearly two hours, they never found it.  They are looking forward to next deer season.

Spring Cleaning...In The Winter?

In December, we deep cleaned the house.  It was a whole family effort and lasted about two weeks.  Now this wasn't just any cleaning.  This was MASSIVE cleaning!!!  Nearly everything came off of shelves, out of rooms, ceiling to floor, dusted, polished, windexed, organized, scrubbed, and vacuumed (do you get the idea?! :)  Almost every room had some re-arranging done as well.  It sure felt nice after it was all done!!!  Here are a few pictures...

Goat Butchering

The beginning of December, the Fleshman family came up and helped us butcher our three male goats.  We really enjoyed the time of fellowship we had together!  I was especially happy not to have to assist with the butchering. :)  A couple of days later, part of our family went down to the Fleshman's house to do the cuts (I stayed home with some of the little ones).  Everything went very well and the meat is really good - we weren't sure how it would be, but it tastes just as good if not better than beef!

 The goings on outside

 The goings on inside

 Emily - isn't she cute?!

 Timmy and Abby

Danny and Stasia

 Fellowship

 Playtime

 I think abby had too much fun!  Shenandoah didn't quite know what to think about her falling asleep!

Cutting the meat a few days later

Thank you all for the help - it was a huge blessing!!!

Raw Cheesecake

Our family has been re-thinking the way we eat and have been experimenting with going more raw (not raw meat - just fruits and veggies! :)  We've had a lot of fun trying new recipes and using our dehydrator much more.  One of the things I experimented with was raw cheesecake.  We thought it tasted great!

 My family was picking on me for the mess I made because NORMALLY I'm NOT a messy cook!!! :)

The finished product

Apple Dumplings!

I made apple dumplings for the first time last November.  They were a lot of fun to make and everyone enjoyed them very much!  My Grandmother (Daddy's mom) used to make these for daddy when he was growing up.

Are You Staying Tuned?! :)

Just a few more posts to go (about 10) and then I'll be finished updating what has been going on around here and I'll announce the fun surprise!!!

2011 Storm Spotter Training and... Our first storm of the year!!!

A couple of weeks ago, daddy, Sabrina, and I went to a storm spotter training session.  For those of you in blogger land that don't already know this (if there are any of you!) I really enjoy anything that has to do with weather and I LOVE storms!!! :)  I have been named our family's weather girl and I can usually give you any desired information along those lines.  As you can imagine, I was especially looking forward to this session and I'm so thankful it worked out for us to go.  We had a great time, learned tons of new information, and could have easily stayed and listened all night long (if the session had lasted that long!) 

Announcing...

...that this year will hopefully be our first year of storm spotting!!!

So now we are getting prepared and greatly anticipating the arrival of storm season.  Daddy and I (and possibly some others too) are looking forward to and hoping to be able to do a lot of storm spotting this year (safely!) - our goal - to learn a lot, gain a better understanding of how storms work, hopefully be able to send in some helpful reports and...see a tornado!  I've wanted to do this for a long time, so I'm really excited.  We'll  see how it goes and I'll be sure to keep you posted! ;)   With that said... here are a few pictures!!!

 Daddy, Sabrina, and I getting ready to go to the spotter training session

 Storm Spotter Training 2011

They brought in Mr. Rick Smith from the National Weather Service and we really enjoyed his presentation.

This past Sunday...

 We had our first storm of the season!!!  

(Even though it was to the north of us and we didn't chase it, it was still exciting! :)

 Yes, the quality of this picture isn't that great, but I couldn't resist the view from our upstairs bedroom window - it was so much better!

 First radio alarm of the year

The radar screen 

(as seen from my phone!)

Coxsackie Virus!

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, my siblings all got coxsackie virus - more commonly know as hand, foot, and mouth disease.  They all had a couple of days where they felt pretty rotten, but the bumps seemed to hang on for forever!  Thankfully they were all cleared up before Thanksgiving.