Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas! I got this video off of You-Tube; it really makes you think about the true meaning of Christmas. I'll post some pics of Christmas later.



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hard Candy Christmas

Here is a fun idea. Mom and I just finished this tree and, it's really fun to do.
What you need:

a foam cone from a craft shop(ours is about 9 in. tall)
a bag of peppermints( ours is a 16 oz. bag)
plenty of T- pins
a bow for the top
a mom or friend (not a must but, a lot more fun:)

You start out on the bottom of the cone and work your way up, layering as you go.

then when you're finished top it off with a fun bow! To get the candy just pick one and pull down.

Hope you enjoy!

Catching Up (Sort Of)

Well, between nasty colds, Crohns flare up, being lazy, and Christmastime in general, you can see I haven't exactly had this at the top of my to-do list. Last Saturday we had our church Christmas dinner. Thats a lot of fun. This year was our second year to do a white elephant gift exchange.
here's the pics:

Jonette opening her gift( with Ashlynns help:)

Kaelin managed to get in to Grandpa's gift (ya gotta love that grin:)

well, I opened the most wanted gift there, just kidding!

we also gave the pastor and wife their Christmas gift $

Well,it's getting late and,the computer has frozen up more times than my liking. So I might post some more later. Just thought I would let y'all know I'm still around. Good night!

Writing

I had writing classes this semester, and I finished last week. It was with other home school kids and I really enjoyed it. By the end of the semester we all had to have a short story written.

Here are most of the kids from the class

me, Rae-Anne, Brianna, Hannah, Mrs. G(our teacher) Katherine, Julia, Dakota

Here is the first part of my story. I'm going to do this in different increments .

Train of Courage

“Don’t you ever trespass on Carter property again!” Emma screamed at the top of her lungs, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes flashed warning signs.

Slade Porter was a backwoodsman who trapped and hunted for a living. Nobody cared much for him. He had a scraggly beard and always chewed tobacco. It was even rumored that he had a still hidden in the hills, but that could never be proven.

Emma raced to the now motionless body of the doe.

“She’s dead!” Emma glared at Slade. The stench of whisky on him seemed to overpower the fresh smell of the woods.

“ ‘Course she’s dead,” his words slurred together. “I killed her.”

“But she has a fawn,” cried Emma through clenched teeth.

“Ain’t nuthin to me. This’n’s gonna feed me for a while, then I’m gonna sell ‘er hide with the rest of my furs,” he said while picking up the lifeless doe. “Like I told ya, ain’t nuthin to me.”

You'll have to keep checking my blog to read the rest of the story:)
Scroll down to see my other post for today.

Say Cheese

Well, Mom got inspired to make some cheese from homestead. She bought some stuff there to help her make it. So this morning she up and says she wants to make cheese, and of course I was there taking pictures all along:)

here she's warming the milk

she added the tablet that helped it to separate in to curds and whey

then strain it to separate the curds from the whey

and make a ball

stretch it

and stretch it

kneading salt into it

finally we have mozzarella balls

Thanksgiving

Well it's been busy around here, and blogging hasn't exactly been on top of my list as y'all can tell.Anyway, we had a great Thanksgiving! My uncle, aunt, and cousins all came down; I had a blast!

here's is the turkey! I think almost all the turkey leftovers gone:)

Jared, Nathan, Me, Brent

Uncle Todd and Aunt Rhonda

The day after Thanksgiving it's become a tradition to go to Homestead Heritage in Waco. It's a lot of fun. It's a community that believes a lot like we do. They make quality items from furniture to food. They have a blacksmith shop, a gristmill, and a working homestead. It's over the Thanksgiving weekend, and they've had up to 5,000 people a day coming.

me and Lauren at the soap booth

an example of some furniture

Whitney, me, Lauren, Chari

pottery making

soap making

and cheese making. Chari helped the lady with the cheese

Saturday morning dad wanted to go to the Texas ranger museum. It was pretty interesting. Texas Rangers were noted for their ruthlessness to capture outlaws, and protect the border from raiding Mexicans.

here a ranger on his horse:)

Hmm, I've been wanting horseback riding lessons, but this wasn't quite what I was thinking of

giddy up, Chari

ride 'em cowboy

I'll post Christmas decorations later.

Happy Birthday Bro. J!

Today is Bro. J's birthday! One of the favorite people in my life!

Here is Bro. J with his pineapple upside-down cake

Yesterday we went to a fiesta that our Spanish teacher put on for us. We have been having Spanish classes over the past few weeks at the church. Here are some pics:

Chari and Ashlynn

some of Kaelin's funny faces!

me and Kaelin

ok, so the piñata, it is of my opinion that it was purely a tool for embarrassment. It was rigged where Andrew was able to raise and lower it, and on top of that they blindfolded and spun us around. It got very interesting, especially when Regina attacked the tree and about gave Andrew heart failure coming after him like a maniac waving that stick:) (remember she was blindfolded) The kids got off easy though, no blindfold, no spinning, and not a lot of raising and lowering of the piñata. Mom hit it to were the candy started to fall out, and Bro J. knocked it down.

Kaelin "hitting" the piñata

Ashlynn"hitting" the piñata

me trying to hit the piñata

Chari trying to hit it

Kaelin playing peek-a-boo with me

Ashlynn's stuffed pockets

Knitting Classes!

Chari taught her first knitting classes today! It got started when my friend's mom wanted to take knitting lessons from Chari while my friend took piano lessons from mom.I decided I wanted to take them too. I had a harder time casting on, but finally got the hang of it. Now I just need to buy yarn and circular needles!

Here are pictures from today:

Chari teaching Ms. Joy how it's done

Chari showing me how it's done

All of us at our first class:)

Busy Weekend

It's been a busy weekend. Here are some pics from around the house:

I love these mums!

It's literally raining acorns around here!

This is the prettiest tree in are yard this year.

We also had company this weekend. It's a family that's moving to our area in a few weeks.It is really going to be great having more of a youth group in our church. We really had fun playing, Clue, Gestures etc...

Caitlin, Monica, and Jake watching Charmain act her word.

Scamp got spoiled while they were here! (Like he wasn't already:)

Here's one of Charmain without her hand in front of her face!

Well I better get going so I can finish science before supper!

New Blog!

Well, I've decided to start a blog! I'm really excited about it. I think it will be a fun way to keep in touch with friends. Thanx to my sister Chari for helping me set it up!