The life and times of a busy homeschooling mom to 11 earthly children and 3 waiting for us in heaven. Trying to balance God, family, work and everything that comes with it.
We lost a dear friend today. He loved to be included in our family, played Frisbee with the kids, went to get our Christmas tree with us and never minded a good practical joke.
He came to us via some friends of my mom's, Linda and Jim, who allowed us to spend the last 8 1/2 years with the best dog God ever created. You hear the saying, Gentle Giant and Rocky was just that. At 125 pounds this yellow lab was crawled upon, visitors had to step over...he would never hurt anyone that came to our farm.
Rocky would have turned 13 in July this year, which is old for a large farm dog. In January of 2010 he got very sick and we almost lost him then but with determination our kids would have him stand and they'd massage his legs. After laying flat out for 3 weeks he came around. His eye sight and hearing were failing terribly and he never saw our daughter backing out of the garage 10 days ago and he walked right behind the car. She never saw him either. Since then, he's been in the barn resting with the cats. He started sitting up again and we thought he was going to recover. Today after dinner Mark made the announcement that Rocky passed away.
When Rocky first came to us the kids quickly discovered that he could play Frisbee. Every morning and night they'd play with him. In his younger days he'd jump in the air to catch it, as he got older he'd let it fall and lay next to it. Even when he lived in the house with us he knew the best place at the dinner table was next to one of the little kids...they always drop food. So he never needed to beg. Jason would tease him with treats and balance them on his nose and Rocky had to wait for Jason to say "OK" Then he'd snap it up into the air and grab it with his mouth.
He gave our kids some of the best memories anyone could have asked for...you will be missed.
This morning I got thinking of things coming up and decided to ask the family if they'd like to go hiking over at Devil's Lake, Baraboo WI? We figured that it had been about 10 years since we've ventured over there. During our drive over we picked up munchies and drinks, at this time the mood was upbeat and full of laughter. Little did any of us know what was in store for us.
The day was beautiful, a little humid but under the coolness of the trees it felt perfect. So on our hike we went. Climbing up and up and up. Mom, Dad and 8 kids in tow.
We kept climbing up until we saw this...
To the right you can see the brown building where we started out. After sitting there a while we noticed a pair of bald eagles flying around...how cool was that? That was something none of us have ever seen before. Then it was onto the rest of the trail. We wanted to circle around the whole lake. So we moved on...right on off the path and into a patch of poison ivy. Luckily no one was affected. We were standing right out in the middle of no where. Mark walked away and found that we were 300' off the path. That's what happens when everyone just follows the front person. As the old saying goes "what goes up must come down"...down happen to be a path straight down some tumbled rocks and a waterfall.
We gingerly made our way down this...every step was thought out. Then we hear the lead person yell, "I see the bottom"...that was music to our ears. We never felt so good about walking on flat land. We climbed up 334' and had to come down 334'...all in this one path.
This is what we see at the bottom. Beautiful, flat marked out paths!!! At this point we aren't half way yet...but the rest of the hike is FLAT!!!
So we continued on our way.
This was the rest of the hike, in and around boulders. All in all...great day. Hiked over 3 miles and it took 3 hours and 15 minutes. By the end it was more like 8 kids with mom and dad in tow. LOL Now we are talking about taking grandma and grandpa along and spend 2 days.
Earlier this past spring I picked up an Amish cookbook. I'm always a little skeptical about their recipes because if they are anything like me you cook with a "little of this and a little of that". Sometimes the recipes need to be tweaked just a little to get them to actually turn out. This recipe for Cherry Pie Filling turned out great!!! I decreased the sugar and that's all I did to it.
It's easiest to start off with sending out the kids to pick the cherries and pit them. :) They actually enjoyed this job because it wasn't strawberries.
Karlie (6) and Livi (3) enjoyed pitting the cherries that their big sisters picked.
I'm sure you want this recipe.
Cherry Pie filling
8c. tart cherries (pitted)
3c. sugar
Mix and let set overnight. The next day, drain the juice (set the cherries aside) and add enough water to the juice to make 8 cups. Bring to a boil.
Combine:
1 1/2 c. perma-flo
3c. of sugar (this is the sugar I omitted)
Add enough water to make a thin paste. Slowly add to boiling water/juice. Stir briskly. Cook for 5 mintues on low heat.
Then add:
cherries
1/8 c. cherry jello (I didn't add this because it was plenty thick enough)
1 tsp. almond flavoring
Put in jars and process for 10 minutes. Yield 4 quarts
You might at this point be asking..."where can I get perma-flo?" I buy mine from the Amish. It is equivalent to corn starch but CS tends to separate after it cools. Clear-jel would also work but is tricky to work with. clear jel cook type I highly recommend you to stay away from the instant clear jel...it thickens up very quickly and is difficult to work with. The link I provided is a source for the cook type of clear jel. It is much easier to use. Have fun and happy canning.
I am very excited to announce my very first sponsored giveaway: countrysoapsbymarlen
Marlene is the mastermind behind countrysoapsbymarlen and she is a wonderful woman who is very talented when it comes to her goat's milk products. Not only are her products beautiful, but they are functional, fairly priced, and made with great attention to detail.
^ Berries & Pears Goats Milk Soap
Marlene is the very busy mother of 11 children, (some of their adventures are shared on her blog, http://thegrahnhomestead.blogspot.com/). She stumbled upon goat's milk products when some of her children got into raising goats - which produced a lot of milk. This caused Marlene and her children to become very creative making cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and now beautiful soap and bath products. Marlene and her family create and test the products themselves which are made of 100% goat's milk.
^ Cucumber Mint Shampoo Bar
countrysoapsbymarlen is becoming quite a successful little shop. Bar soaps are the most popular item in stock and there are a multitude of fragrances. I got really excited when I found the soap of the month club. For either 6 or 12 months Marlene will send you a new bar of soap, this also includes one wooden soap dish.
^ Unscented Body Lotion
Marlene is an Etsy shop owner who is very committed to her craft and pleasing her customers. She finds inspiration in comments and suggestions that she receives. Etsy has been a challenge for her as it is for many, now a shop with over 300 sales, it took countrysoapsbymarle 8 months to make her first Etsy sale! Now she is a frequent vendor at Farmer's Markets and she may soon have her products featured in local WI stores!
^ Soap of the Month Club - for 6 Months!
Now that you've learned a little something about countrysoapsbymarle I'm guessing you really want to be her friend, oh! and you probably want to try some of her products. Well, here's your chance!
For your chance to win $15 to countrysoapsbymarle this is what you can do: There are 6 chances to enter:
1) Go to countrysoapsbymarle and pick out your favorite item, heart it, then post the item here. 2) Give Marlene's shop a heart, post that you did so here. 3)Tweet about this giveaway and Marlene's lovely shop, post link to tweet here. 4)Blog about this giveaway, post link to blog post here. 5)Follow this blog, mention in post. 6)Purchase from Marlene's shop, receive awesome wedding favor free gift with purchase, and post link for transaction here.
This giveaway will begin at 8 am 6/7/2010 and will end on 6/13/2010 at 8 pm. The winner will chosen from a random number generator and will be announced in a post Sunday evening.
Living in a house with homeschoolers means research...if we don't know something, we look it up. Throw a wedding at us...you guessed it, we researched. We've attended weddings, stood up in them but never had a child get married.
Then the subject of hair comes up. What do we do? Our girls all have long hair and they are satisfied putting it up in a ponytail. We've tried flat irons, hot rollers, curling irons...you name it, we've tried it. One thing we learned real fast, each of the girls hair responds differently. After googling wedding hair do's and watching rosebud on youtube we think we have it figured out.
The girls played around yesterday and these are the results.
To the right is Hannah. She will be on of the bridesmaids. Her hair is very straight and stubborn. We tried more stuff on her hair and within 30 minutes it was gone. The curls would fall out that fast. The kids googled and found directions on how to do this style. It stayed all day and even through chores!!! SCORE!!! We were very excited.
To the left is Heather, another bridesmaid. Her hair is thick and has natural curl. A few weeks back I layered her hair to help thin it somewhat. We still weren't real sure what to do. The girls did the same thing as they did to Hannah. Another style that held during chores!!! This was a classy farm last night with the girls doing chores with their up-dos. LOL
To the right is Emily, one of the guest book attendants. She is the one that started this whole up-do thing. Her hair is extremely thick and long. Hearing the forecast of 85 degrees and humid she wanted her hair up off her neck.
Now you maybe looking at Angie's hair wondering what we did or what you are looking at. She is another guest book attendant and wants to be different from her twin sister Emily. We dyed her hair, I cut it and layered it. She has a nice natural wave that does anything she wants it to do. Angie has decided to leave her hair down, again being different than Emily. :) We will be using the flat iron to put gentle curls in her hair.
Now you are probably wondering how these up-dos were done. The girls used the flat iron to put curls all over the whole head. Next, they gently put it into a ponytail. Then they used bobby pins to place the curls where they wanted. The final step was to use hair spray.
Great times, great food, great weather...what more would you like?
Hannah and her cake. It was suppose to be maroon frosting...looks brown to us.
The kids decorating the garage.
We had plenty to drink and eat. The sad part is, we didn't get any pictures of the food.
Then the people came and came and came. The party went from 1 in the afternoon till 11 that night.
Angela, Emily and Aimee worked on 3 scrapbooks that people enjoyed looking through during the day. They also put together a bulletin board with Hannah's awards and acceptance letters.
This is what we all felt like by the end of the day...Olivia fell asleep on Heather's shoulder.
