Merry Christmas

Ahhh, what a relaxing day it is. We have had such a good time this holiday season. Last night we played games, watched a movie and enjoyed a nice hot fire (in the fireplace). We also decided to sleep in the living room, the kids thought it was great. Darrell and I did to until about 4:30am and decided these old bodies couldn't take sleeping on the sofa any longer.

Merry Christmasstar wars legos

her boots :)from this....to this!

happy birthday darrell

Yesterday was Darrell's birthday. Alysha decided that she wanted to bake and decorate a cake, I thought that was pretty sweet of her. She did a really good job, I might add. We also made him a special b-day dinner of grilled rib eye and all the trimmings, very yummy.

drawing the camera

decorating

frosting the cakethe birthday boy"Have a picture perfect day"

trevor's song

Trevor brought me this piece of paper the other day and said "I wrote a song, Mom". I was very impressed with the words that were given him. It proves again that God speaks to our children.

Jesus Saves us all

Jesus has come to make you new.
He will save our soul we might not sin again.
But we all have been born again.

Jesus, Jesus we will praise you an say holy, holy are you.
Bless you in the name of God.
Jesus has come to make you new.

Jesus, Jesus you are the holy one we will praise you and adore you.
Jesus, Jesus you are the holy one we will praise you and adore you.

christmas cookies

we continued our tradition, making Christmas cookies...

Drew gets his deer!!

Drew shot his deer this morning about 7:40am. He had a nice 40 yard heart shot! He was very excited.

Here he is getting a taste of field dressing his deer.

work in progress - part 3

We thought the zip-line was going to get finished on Saturday, no such luck. They put a 60# weight on it to test it and was doing fine until the anchor started coming up out of the ground, not good. Safety first, so they will have to redo it :(the lineDrew cutting down a tree that was in the path of the lineHe did it!!Grandpa tightening the line

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a very nice day at home today. We started with brunch this morning and then pulled all the Christmas decorations out and the kids put up their tree upstairs, while I was restringing the tree downstairs :( that was not a fun job. I had to cut all the old lights off b/c half of the lights didn't work and I couldn't just replace them because they were the frosted lights. So I/we (Alysha helped me) spent half the day replacing them, argh! Tonight I cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, salad and dressing (mom you should be very impressed) my mom always makes the dressing, since the rest of us don't really know how. It was actually pretty good, still not as good as my Mom's. We topped it all off with pumpkin pie.

Darrell and the boys spent a good part of the day working on the zip line. Hopefully it will be done soon.putting up the tree

Drew carving the turkeyour yummy dinner

day 1

It was a good day for hunting at Beachy Creek. Darrell and Drew were out in the stand by 5:30 this morning and it was veery cold out. They had to wait until 9:15 for a buck to make his way past the stand, they almost missed him. Darrell had dozed off and Drew was on the lookout when he saw this buck come up behind them, so he woke Darrell and the rest is history. Drew couldn't shoot b/c he only had a doe tag :( So, tomorrow will be Drew's lucky day!
Drew had a great first day of hunting and is ready to go again."the big one"

work in progress - part 2

Darrell and the boys (& Grandpa Beachy) have been working hard to get this zip line done. Drew is very anxious to try it out.

nailing down the first floorfirst floor platformlearning to use the saw
team work
floor joist for second platform - yikes it's high!
They just need to get the floor nailed and some steps built and then they will
be ready for the cable and wheee.........

skeletons

Trevor's class has been making skeletons this week, they are pretty cool. They are made out of paper plates and they also have to label all of the major bones of the body. Drew and Trevor love science.

wild wednesday

Alysha and Drew had "wild wednesday" at church last night. They looked a little wild. They had so much fun getting all their clothes and dressing up. Drew got comments of looking like Steve Erkel.

Alysha and her friend Kayla
they were the "rejected supermodels"

drew - the geek

Trevor couldn't be left out...

sniff...:(

Our hamster, Piett, died on Sunday. So the boys dug a grave for the poor little guy.
Our animal cemetery keeps getting bigger.
We are down to two cats and a woodchuck who lives under the barn.

work in progress, part 1

For the past several weekends Darrell and the boys have been working out in the woods. They are building a tree/zip line stand. It will be a 30' tower with a zip line attached to it. You will sit on a board and zip down the line approx. 200' :) sounds like fun to me! It started with cutting down some trees to make the path and then holes were dug for the poles and today they are working on the platform floor. Dad and Doug came last weekend and helped put in the poles for the stand.

cutting down trees

digging the holes for the posts
they also used Uncle Fred's post hole digger (much easier)

making the seat

ta-dah, the seat

boys vs. wild

This morning I looked out my window and saw Trevor holding a stick with a 2' snake wrapped around the end of it, it was dead, thank goodness. They had been out to the creek and came across this snake, so they took rocks and threw it at it and killed it. That's my boy's! They have learned from me that the only good snake is a dead snake! Can you tell I HATE snakes!! They were quite proud of their kill. They even buried it and gave it a head stone :) I did not take pix because that would just be wrong.

apples

After 6 years, we finally have apples on the tree! Well, we did have. We had to put a brace under the tree because it was about to break the limb. The boys and I picked them in about 15 min. it was a lot of fun. The boys especially liked climbing the ladder. The apples are beautiful, we only found one with a worm, yuck!

the tree

team work

the final count

Volleyball

Alysha has started volleyball again. She is a started for JV and a bench warmer for varsity.
They have only had 2 games and one tournament and so far the varsity is undefeated! This weekend they got first at the tournament in Pana. She got to play a little, and did very well. She has definitely made improvements from last year.

curtains

I am so excited! I finally got my curtain and new blinds put up.
I think it makes the living room feel so much warmer.
I nearly put my shoulder out trying to get them put up :( so Darrell
(my dear husband) came to the rescue and finished it for me.
I love it!