Anna Made It Bows

 Our daughter, Michellle,  has been making hair bows for the last while.  She has recently started selling them and has opened a site on Etsy and facebook.  It is called Anna Made It Bows.  Here are some of her creations.

Elizabeth and Michelle went out yesterday in the freezing cold (19 degrees F, -7.2 C) and very windy!  The lighting was great and made for nice pictures!  All these pictures were taken here at the farm.

She tried to hide from the wind behind these trees.  I love her color choices,

I think this was  my favorite photo of the day!  The sun came out and the wind was blowing.  I really like this particular bow.

Here's more of a close up of the bow.  It really has beautiful autumn colors.

Another shot of the white bow.

Here is a close up of the blue bow,  She has LOTS of bows made in LOTS of different styles.  If you are looking for a specific color or style let her know.  She also makes matching mother daughter sets or little girl and doll sets.

Here are some smaller bows on clips that would work well on a little girls ponytails or hair.  She does beautiful work.

Please go to her FB page and like it.  She has other bows and pictures there.  She also bows for sale there.  The Etsy site is still a little under construction, but it should be up and running in the next couple days.  These bows make great presents for the girls on your Christmas list.

Thanks!

The House gets an Update

My DH has been putting in very long hours getting our house ready to sell.  Another friend has been working alongside him.  My DH has been putting in 12-14 hour days.  But they are getting so much accomplished! Paul has been working with them also.  Here is where they are in the process...

We are quickly removing the Mango stamp from the house.  Those are the quirky things that make it feel like home to us, but wouldn't be terribly attractive to most 'normal' people.  We have removed the vegetable gardens from the front yard and have planted grass their instead.  After all the gardening we had done there, the first things to spring up in the bare patch were peas and melon vines.  The deer speedily removed those.

The living room is only getting a touch up.  The crown has been repainted and the couple places where the plaster had issues is being repaired.

My project for today was to finish emptying the last book shelf. They are in the third floor guest room.  Everything else has been emptied an removed!  That has been a lot of books to pack up and then either unpack or put in storage or donation.

My DH has been putting crown everywhere, even in some of the bedroom closets.  They have all been drywalled and are ready for their coat of paint.  Our friend, Tom, who is helping, has a sprayer, so the painting goes super fast.

This is what the family room now looks like....naked!  If you remember another Mangoism was the walls ALL being covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves.  They have all been removed and now reside at the farm.

We have taken all the wooden shelf units out of the closets in the family room.  It looks so much bigger now!  Hopefully, someone will fall in love with all the space and want to buy it at our price!

The kid's old bedrooms are all getting new walls and crown molding.  This is the boy's old room.

And this is the girl's.

Here is our old room.  It is a little hard to let it go.  Three of our children were born in this room.  So much joy!  The real estate agent said to paint all the trim white so the beautiful oak trim is now under a coat of paint.  The more it changes the easier it is to let it go.  Plus, I am so happy at the farm!  We have not started on the kitchen yet, a really big project, or the third floor.  The basement will need some touch up too.  So much to get done!  Tom is available to help us until Thanksgiving, then we are on our own.  It is good to really push while we have the help!

I love the farm.  It is so peaceful!

Scrimmage

This blog is written especially for my family.  They want to see the children and keep up with their activities.  Occasionally, a post will have less than universal appeal.  This post is dedicated to my nephew Joshua, who played on this basketball team last year when he was in the States.  I will be providing him updates and pictures.  He is one of two people who asked me to resume blogging and so this is for him!  You all are welcome to read it too!

T-Bob wasn't a starter but he did get to play quite a bit.  This was his first real game experience!  He is number 2, so he tries harder.  (For all you youngsters out there, there was once an Avis Car Rental commercial that had the slogan "We're Number two, so we try harder!")

Chase likes to drive with he ball, but he is still height challenged.

Team during a time out.  They miss you Josh.  Trevor is now the tallest player and he is only about 5' 9".

Mindy is the team videographer.  She uses her iPhone to catch the game action.

Here is T-Bob booking back to get ready to play offense.

Trevor spent a lot of the time at the foul line.  He got fouled a lot.  He played hard, despite a very sore ankle.  He rolled it in practice yesterday.  Since this was a scrimmage, they played three 10 minute 'games'.  I lost track of the scores but they were close.  I don't think they one any of them.  It was still close enough to be entertaining,    The CCS varsity blew out the other team so badly, that is wasn't even fun to watch.  One of the 'games' was  18-2 at one point.  The varsity has a really good team. Apparently they have done some recruiting,  The guys varsity team has a woman coach.  I hadn't seen that before.  T-Bob went off with my DH after the game to go work on the house.  No rest for the weary!  My DH is pushing hard to get the other house ready to sell.

Zac is looking good.  He gave himself a haircut.  It makes him look a lot like his brother Luke.  He is playing varsity ball this year.

This is the 'Moocher-in-Chief'.  Dear Logan has never met a scam he won't try and run.  In the past he would go around looking cute and try and get people to give him some of their snacks or money, and he still does that.  Now he has a baby sister.  He has a new angle.  He takes the baby and then he offers to let people hold her if they give him money or food!  It worked well for him!  What a guy!  He is funny!

Celebrating 52 Years of Marital Bliss

Today is my parents 52 anniversary.  That is a real accomplishment!  Marriage is the union of two imperfect people who are committed to each other for life.  This is nearly impossible.  My parents have done it well as they have added God to their relationship.   As they have gotten closer to the Lord, they have grown closer to each other.  I have watched their marriage improve through the years as they have learned more about each other.  They are well armed to face the new challenges of aging.  They have each others backs.  They have learned to work together as a team.  Are they perfect?  No!  But by God's grace they are getting better and better at loving each other.

Thanks Mom an Dad for your example of faithfulness and perseverance!  Love you!!

Elizabeth's Special Morning

Writing this post Sunday eveing with lots of wind and weather outside.  Tornado watch until midnight.

Elizabeth has been struggling lately with a bad case of impetigo.  Not sure where she got it from, but it has meant that she has had to be in isolation.  No visits with her friends, and she had to stay home from church with Mom.  She has been a good sport and has faithfully taken her medicine.  I am happy to  report that she is on the mend.  With the help of family and friends we contrived to try and make her day extra special!

Michelle woke up early and made waffles for the family.  We let Elizabeth sleep in and when she woke up,  she took a shower and Mom made her breakfast. GF Waffles with homemade strawberry sauce, scrambled eggs with pesto and a hot cup of Earl Grey tea.  Yummy!!  She really enjoyed it!!!  When she was done, we worked on dishes together. Once the kitchen was clean, we moved to the family room.

I had her sit in her favorite chair and shut her eyes...

When she opened them  I had put a bag with a couple cards and a box on her lap.  They were get well cards and notes.

Then she opened the box.  A friend  had given her an American Girl Doll!  Something that she had really wanted.  She was so excited!  The Doll came with 2 outfits, a sunday/party dress, and an everyday outfit with a sports jacket.  Very fancy schmancy!

The jacket got tried on immediately!  It even has real snaps and pockets!

Meet Nellie,  The newest member of the family!

Here is Elizabeth and Nellie posing together. They look a lot alike!

This is Nellie in her everyday outfit.

Later in the afternoon, Nellie had her first piano lesson!

Thank-you to everyone who made this day so special!  We love you!!!

Farm happenings

 There has been a lot happening on the farm.  We have lots of adventures!  However, the camera is not usually on and ready to go when the unexpected action starts, so all I have here is the after pictures.
I can still tell you the stories they represent!

This friendly woodpecker showed up during school hours this week, of course we had to stop and take pictures since it was right outside our window.  The Great Blue Heron also returned this week for a snack from the pond.

The Boss cat was teasing Dallas and was sitting only a foot or two beyond where his leash would let him go.  Then when the cat decided to run along, Dallas took off running after him and snapped his collar. Oooops.  He didn't hurt the cat, just chased him.  There is mutual respect on behalf of the two critters for each other.  Now Dallas has a bright red collar with a metal clasp instead of plastic.  Hopefullly, that will last awhile.

This girl is definitely is her mother's child.  Not only does she read a lot, she also never gets cold.  She was outside running around without any shoes.  Must have warmed up you say?  Only slightly.  The air temp was in the 40's and we still have patches of snow on the ground in the shade.

 Dallas now has his official doghouse here at the farm.  He prefers sleeping in the backhall, but it does give him weather protection during the day.

Why is Earl driving his tractor in our yard? Funny you should ask....

Why is Paul's car all muddy?   Here's the story.  Paul decided that he would haul the wood he needed to build his tree stand out to the woods in his car.  It has all wheel drive.  He chose to drive it through the fields rather than around by the path.  Not a terribly wise decision.  When he started out there was a frozen crust on the field, but before he got all the way to the back the temperature warmed up and he broke through.  His car sunk into the axles and even with a winch he could not move it.  He tried and tried.  He ended up having to ask the neighbor for a tow with his tractor.  Earl was happy to help out and even took the wood out to the woods later in his tractor.  Lessons learned... 1. A Subaru Forester is not an ATV 2. We need to get an ATV!

There are no secrets from younger siblings!  Our telescope gets used more this way than in stargazing.  It only gets aimed towards the back of the property... We don't creep out the neighbors.

Have a blessed weekend!

Chicken 'Coop'

We had chickens at the old house.  They had a really nice coop that my DH built.  Alas, it was too big to travel by road to the farm intactly.  So where to keep the chickens until we can move the coop over....  We had several family pow-wows to make the correct decision.

So what did we decide?

The back of the barn has a 'run-in'.  A run-in is a shed like structure that is built on the back of a barn.  It is a place to give animals protection in bad weather,  a place where they can run in and be dry.  We have a large run in and so we decided to build the chicken coop in the end of the run in.

 Paul did the labor.  He had to make sure there were no holes for wayfaring critters to come in and get a chicken dinner.  He used some excess barn siding and a nice door.  We used the nesting boxes from the old coop.  The chickens moved in easily and felt real comfortable.  We know this because they are laying well.  The downside of the run-in coop is that it doesn't have much light.  The windows in the door is the only source.

The chickens are happy having a dry place to scratch.  There is very aged manure in the run-in, and they love scratching through it.

We can cut through the barn to get to the chickens,  It is a bit muddy in the pasture area outside the run-in.  This has worked out well.

The chickens have total access to the outdoors, but they only seem to go out when the weather is fine.  They like the dry dirt rather than mud.  

We do hope to get the coop moved in the next month or so, but until then we have happy hens in the run-in.

Like Mother Like Daughter

Every once in awhile you see your children or a child doing something and it makes you laugh, because you can remember doing the same thing yourself.  This was one of those moments.  I was sitting there and looked up to see Elizabeth standing there stirring her soup and reading a book.  This was truly not a posed picture.  I know my family will laugh when they see this as most of my growing up years I had a book stashed somewhere on my person.  I would read 3 or 4 full length books (150-300 pages) a day!  If there was nothing critical I had to do I would be reading.  I used to hide up in the tree tops with a book where my family  couldn't see me.  My hearing got progressively worse, the better I was hid.  Nope, I was reading, I didn't hear any one calling me.  My Elizabeth has been a reading machine lately.  Watching her just brings back so many memories of my own childhood!