February Happenings...

We had a couple BIG snows!!!

We had some big drifts!

Aren't snow covered trees beautiful?!

A winter wonderland

Sabrina took Shenandoah out to play in it.  I think this was one of the first times Shenandoah played in snow and she was really excited.

They sled down our snow covered stairs!

A few random pictures...

Stasia crocheted this beautiful purse!  She came up with the pattern all by herself.  Didn't she do a great job?!

Shenandoah and I enjoy a walk on a warm day

Sabrina made Seth a "feather pen"

Shenandoah is a good little mommy

Mr. O's surprise 50th birthday party...

The cake

Mrs. O had a few words to say

The O's 

(or most of them anyway!)

Opening gifts

We got our wood stove in!!!

We've really been enjoying it!!!

A quick flash back...

Daddy cutting away the carpet to prepare for the stove!

Mommy did most of the tile -she did a great job!

Doesn't the tile look great?!

The wood gathering crew

 -we just had to try our new stove out!

The kindling 

Our faithful reader of the instruction manual

Now it's time for the big stuff!!

The first flame

The cautious boy and the confident boy

Gathered around enjoying the stove 

(thank you mommy for the picture!)

The Thomas' came up for an evening a couple of weeks ago...

Discussions

...and horsey rides!!!

Stasia and her faithful steed Domino (aka Matthew)

As always it was a great time you all!!!  

I once again had too much fun to remember to get any pictures (thanks to mommy for these!)!!!  

Workday On Our Property...

...and a lot of fun fellowship!!!

Last Saturday, the Thomases (minus Mrs. Thomas and Melanie who were here) came up and helped do a lot of work around our property.  Lt. Harris joined us for the day as well and we were greatly blessed by everything that was accomplished - and by the wonderful fellowship too!!!  Thank you all so much!!!

Our garden beds

Planning

New kittens (born earlier that morning!)

Daisy

Sabrina planting

Matthew digging for the grape transpalnts

Mr. Thomas

Daddy

Working

This huge toad (the picture really doesn't show how big he was) crawled out of one of the holes that was dug.  I think we disturbed its winter nap!

Micaiah and the toad

Joshua

Some of the kids 

-poor Marscel hurt his eye a couple days before they came, so he was taking it easy that day.  

The work crew

A closer view

Unfortunately, I was told after the fact that I missed out on taking pictures of the grand wheelbarrow races that occurred that afternoon. :)  So we shall have to leave that to your imagination!

After they were done outside, Micaiah helped me finish dinner -thanks Micaiah!  It was a lot of fun!

I had to keep Micaiah from sneaking a taste and getting germs in the soup! :)

The soup turned out great!!!

Marscel

(Thanks for the pictures Matthew!)

The counter group

The table group

Shenandoah and Marscel

Discussions

Horsey rides!

Shenandoah and "Bub"

Horse races!

Little ladies and their mighty steeds

Micaiah de-boned the chicken 

The clean up crew 

-many hands really do make light work.  Thank you to everyone for pitching in!

Fellowshipping that evening

What a great day!!!  Thank you again to everyone!!!

And The Winner Is...

This afternoon, our family gathered around to have our official drawing in order to find out the winner of our giveaway.  We put everyone's names in Seth's special hat and the excitement built as Sayer drew out the name of the winner...

So without further delay, we joyfully announce that the winner of our giveaway is...

The "S" Family from Arkansas!!!

Congratulations and we hope you enjoy the honey!!!

Here is a video of the drawing!

I want to say "thank you" again to everyone who entered our first blog giveaway for my last bottle of honey from 2010.  We appreciate you taking the time to do so!!!  

May God bless you all!!!

To Be Announced...

Thank you to everyone who entered our first blog giveaway! It was wonderful to hear from everyone and we had just as much fun as we hope you did. :)

It was our original intention to announce the winner today. Due to originally unanticipated events, we were unable to do so. We are very sorry for the delay!

Lord-willing, we will be holding our official drawing tomorrow and will joyfully announce the winner then!!!

Thank you for your patience!! (We can hardly wait to find out who the winner is either :)

Many blessings and you'll be hearing from us soon!!

Attention Everyone!!!

Our blog giveaway ends tomorrow, so don't forget to leave a comment on our giveaway post (click here)!!!


We've enjoyed hearing from all of you who have already commented - thank you for participating!  As for the rest of you - we'd love to hear from you too, so please feel free to comment!!!  :)

Don't forget to leave a comment on our Surprise post - our first-ever blog giveaway (click here)!!!

Hats!!!

Surprise!!!

Now that I'm finished catching you up on everything that has been going on around here, are you ready for that fun post I told you about?  I hope so because I'm excited!!!

I'm inviting YOU to enter our first ever Blog Giveaway!!!

That's right!!!  I am doing a giveaway of a honey bear from my honey harvest last September!!!  Not only is it a bottle of fresh, all natural, delicious sweetness, but it is also my LAST bottle!!!  It is highly prized possession around here :)  so I hope that one of you will enjoy it as much as we have.

The rules for entering are:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me a little bit about yourself and how you found our blog.  We are looking forward to "getting to know" some of our readers better!

2.  For an additional entry, tell others about this giveaway and leave a separate comment telling me how you did that!

Please enter by midnight on March 25th, 2011.  Lord willing, we will draw for the winner on March 26th!

Thank you so much for entering and I hope you have fun!

A Snow Storm and ... Burst Pipes!!!

We had an interesting experience a few weeks ago.  We were hit with a big snow storm and below zero temperatures.  This was a really bad time to forget to drip us girls' bathroom facet (which tends to be a little persnickety), but none the less it was forgotten and we ended up with frozen pipes.  Two days later when they finally thawed out... we had busted pipes!!!  That had never happened to us before and hopefully it won't happen again! :)  Thankfully we caught it pretty soon after they burst, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  It was still pretty bad though.  We had water dripping down the door posts, through the light fixtures, and down the walls.  Thankfully the only carpet that got wet was in the boys room and we were able to get some new padding down and re-stretch the carpet last week.  A couple days after the burst, daddy, Sabrina, and Sienna blew new insulation into the attic floors which should help a lot.  What we discovered in this whole thing is that the previous owners had a similar situation, but they didn't put any new insulation in.  Now that we have the insulation up there, it shouldn't happen again!

So, now to the pictures of the adventure.  Joshua Harris was over for dinner the night that it happened and was a huge blessing in helping us to get everything taken care of.  We really appreciated it!!!  We had just finished family worship when daddy called out from the hallway "We have a leak!!!"  Everyone scrambled to their places and daddy (after turning off the water to the house) ran to Lowes to get a few parts before they closed.

 Everything was a mess.  We used almost every towl in the house to clean up the water - and all of the fans too!!!

 Up in the ceiling - thankfully we had already had our skylight removed which aided in the speed with which we were able to assess the situation.  Joshua also poked a small hole in the ceiling to allow the water to drain.

 Ladder holding duty (it got interesting when it tried to tip)

 Pulling up carpet- it was soaked

 The next day, Sabrina was on ladder holding duty

 The boys room was torn apart

 Ladders really come in handy :)

 Insulation

The girls and the blower