Thursday, December 1, 2016

Where do I begin?!

 Tessa around 8 months. Beginning to almost crawl.

I am acutely aware that I have not written a blog post since June!! So, where do I begin? I have been wanting to share our day to day with you. The main reason I have not been doing so, is that it requires  me having free time to do so, of which I have very little. I don't like to be looking at a computer screen while Tessa is awake. I spend her nap time either in one on one school time with the kids or bustling around in a frenzy trying to clean up from the last meal and prep the next one. By evening when she has gone to sleep, I have no motivation left and I usually follow her to bed fairly quickly. 

So, quick recap: We had a wonderful summer. Tessa went from being a helpless baby who found it too bright outdoors to open her eyes all the way, to a rolling, grass pulling, leaf eating baby by the end of it. We had perfect gardening weather and an early start to the season followed by a very rainy middle and a decent finish. The heat lovers needed the heat during the rainy time so they didn't do great, but everything else did well. A surprise to no one; I ended up planting the whole garden. Thanks to Dustin watching the baby on the weekends of May, I got a decent start to the season and managed to stay on top of the weeds early at least. 

The kids and I spent our mornings relaxing and doing house chores, afternoons in the garden and later afternoons and evenings enjoying our back porch while we shelled peas, sorted blueberries, read Harry Potter, grilled dinner and watched a bare bottom baby get filtered sun. My mother-in-law visited us from Florida. My grandparents visited us from Maine! We spent as much time enjoying our family as we could. 

This fall we celebrated Avery's 8th Birthday! We wrapped up the garden in record time as I did not want to be digging or pulling crops in the late fall cold with a baby. We dove into our school year head first. Both kids decided that they would like to learn an instrument this year. So Noah began guitar lessons and Avery began taking piano lessons. She loves her piano lessons! We are currently borrowing a keyboard. If anyone has a piano to sell for cheap, and you are in the Interior, let us know!! Our house has literally been filled with the sound of music all fall and it has been lovely. 

Noah has been taking blacksmithing classes at a nearby farm. He is also taking an ongoing woodworking class with the folk school. These are great opportunities but it has been a lot of driving and sitting around for the girls and I, so we will be taking the holidays off classes so we can stay home and do some fun things here! I am looking forward to having time for baking and crafting.

Well, I had better wrap up before this babe wakes up and I never get around to posting. The only reason I'm sitting on my duff on a Thursday afternoon is because Avery had the stomach flu yesterday and is recovering. Noah said he is feeling out of sorts. So we are taking our first full school sick day today to rest and hopefully the rest of us don't get the flu!! I hope to start posting regularly again. And gosh I'd like to find time to check out some of your blogs as well for those of you who keep them. Here a few recap pictures of our last several months. Enjoy!

 Recent Tessa picture. This is her nose wrinkle face that she does when she is proud of herself.

 Green Garden!

 The kids are such a huge help. They love to walk with her in the Ergo carrier.

 My blue eyed girls and the biggest wild blueberries!

 Happy me and my baby!

 Avery riding her first real horse and not just a pony at the fair!
(my daughter is horse crazy just like her mom was)

And my birthday girl on her 8th birthday, standing next to her garden. 


Cheers!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh thank you so much for catching us up with your family. I kept checking back every couple of weeks hoping that you had posted an update - and just as I was making a list of those blogs I would delete from my "Favorite list" - you popped back up. She is such a little doll and that scrunchy nose face is the cutest thing I've seen in ages. So glad you've enjoyed your down time - got so much accomplished and really enjoyed the updated pics of your young ones. Hope your Thanksgiving was blessed and that you will have time to really enjoy the Christmas season. I can't wait to begin baking cookies with my 7 yr old granddaughter - we've been making toilet paper roll candles with flicker lights in them for my front living room windows - I love holiday crafting! Take care dear family -

Unknown said...

So wonderful to find your post! Blessings to you and your beautiful family.

December said...

Your children are BEAUTIFUL! I just discovered your blog and very happy I did. We are a soon-to-be-homesteading, eventually homeschooling our son, and generally loving and living naturally in Meadow Lakes area here in Alaska and your blog is so inspiring. Thank you for posting despite being so busy.

Anonymous said...

Looks like a lovely life u have! Such a cute Tessa and ur other children! Humongous garden! Wow! God bless - Bevy