My Shadow

Jeremy took this picture yesterday of Annalee. I was trying to make a pot of coffee, and she found me in the kitchen and used me to stand up on. She was content to just stand there, so before she could move on, Jeremy took a few pictures.

We officially started school this week. We try to school during the summer, so that the boys don't forget everything, and it's not such a shock in the fall. But this summer, we took a break for the VM conference in June, and never quite got around to doing school again. So Tuesday and Wednesday, the three boys watched movies that we have borrowed and needed to return. The Planet Earth series is excellent, and we really enjoying watching them. They seem to learn a lot from them as well. The photography is excellent, and the boys like watching the diaries part where they talk about filming the movie. We groan and roll our eyes every time they talk about millions of years, but overall the series is very good. Today, they actually did some bookwork. Rob did some math, and bemoaned the fact that he missed 7 on his math lesson today. So I encouraged and reminded him that we haven't done school in two months, and that he will get the hang of it again soon. Before we quit in June, he was doing all of his lessons with only one or two wrong. He really seems to do good in his math...a lot better than I remember me doing! Oh, yes, I said three boys - Silas is now in the bunch! I let him stay up from taking naps with his younger brothers, and he and I work on his school. I have a couple of books that I use with him, and he is so excited to be doing school like his older brothers. I just have some workbooks, but think I will need to work with him on letters, etc. He is really wanting to learn his letters, and wants to know what everything spells. I'm not sure he's quite ready to learn to read, but I think he's getting close.

As for our new, healthier diet, Jeremy just found a way to make us milkshakes with no sugar or ice cream! He blended up a drink for me the other night, and it was delicious! So we shared it with the boys, and they loved it, too. He uses bananas, frozen grapes, lemon cucumber, milk, ice, cocoa powder, and vanilla. For Silas' birthday, he wanted a cake with no sugar (he remembers when he had too much sugar, and it made him throw up!). So I found a recipe in one of my cookbooks for a chocolate cake without sugar, which was really yummy! I didn't have all the ingredients on hand for the icing, so we had to use store bought icing, but once in a while is okay. We also made ice cream using agave syrup instead of sugar. I found a recipe for single serving ice cream, so we put the ingredients into Ziploc bags, put them into a bigger Ziploc bag with ice and rock salt, and shook them for 10 minutes. Then we put them in the freezer to harden up a bit more. That was also a hit with everyone. Jeremy and I liked it so much we had to make some for our friend from Yale when she visited us this weekend.

My husband just came over with another milkshake. Gotta go! ;-)

Visitors, Visitors and More Visitors!!!

Annalee in the new dress Nana and Papa bought her. Isn't she beautiful?

Silas, with the birthday hat on.

Silas, with a big 5 year old grin!

All of the kids with cousin Erin. Oh, and Daisy, too.

The last couple of weeks at our household have been a whirlwind of visitors and activities. About a week and a half ago, my parents came down to visit us for a week. While they were here, we celebrated Silas' birthday - he turned 5. (Where have the last 5 years gone? It doesn't seem that long ago that we were living and ministering at Yale!). The day before Silas' birthday, we took the boys to Bounceapalooza. It's a place in the mall that is full of bouncing castles. The boys all had fun. But Silas tends to overheat quickly. He spent at least 15-20 minutes of the hour we were there laying on someone's lap. Last Thursday, my nephew came up from the San Francisco area to visit with us and my parents. It was great to be able to see him, too.

My parents and nephew left here Saturday morning. Later that morning, we went to the parade that was here in town. Labor Day weekend was Big Foot days. It was a fairly short parade, but afterwards, we went to the park. They had a fair type thing going on. It's as much of a fair as our small town has. There were vendors, and lots of food vendors. They had one bouncy castle, and one booth of games. But we had fun anyways.

Sunday afternoon, our friends from Yale came to visit us. So far, they have been down every few months. They only come to stay for one night, but they make stops along the way. The boys really love their visits! This time, they stayed Sunday night, and Monday we all drove into Redding together. We let the boys play at a park that had a water volcano. They really enjoyed that. After lunch, we went to Turtle Bay - a hands-on discovery place similar to OMSI. Jeremy and I purchased a family membership, so that anytime we are in Redding, we can take the boys for free. After that, our friends left for home, we finished our shopping and came home. The next hurdle is school....

Canning

Josh and Zeke enjoying watermelon at the church's 4th of July picnic.

Robby and Josh taking turns holding Anna.

The boys (minus Micah) at the sign to a hiking trail we found near the park in Eureka.

Phew! We have been very busy lately canning all of the goodies that are coming our way. I am enjoying it very much. It is so rewarding to see that we are not wasting the bounty of food that the Lord has provided. Last week, Jeremy and I were working on harvesting all of the blackberries on the church property. It is disheartening to see all of the bushes around the community where the berries have gone to waste. Over by the river access across the street, there were just thousands of berries (literally) that were not picked, and are now dried and shriveled. We hope to get out there sooner next year to pick lots more. We got quite a few from the bushes on the church's property, but they were pretty overgrown. So as we picked, we also cut way back. So we hope to have more next year. Also, a man from the church has been bringing us lots of things. He brought a bunch of tomatoes (4 boxes) that we turned into seasoned spaghetti sauce, and also yummy salsa! We got those canned up last week. Then this week, he brought over a bunch of peaches. We all enjoyed eating lots of fresh peaches. Yesterday, I even turned some of them into peach butter! And I experimented with only using half of the sugar and half apple juice. Yum! Jeremy and I think that living in Alaska has taught us to appreciate "living off the land." If there is food growing, we should do something with it, so it doesn't go to waste!

Annalee is getting so big! Everyday it seems she is trying new foods. Yesterday, she tried pieces of Jeremy's chocolate chip muffin. She made quite a mess of it, too. It was so cute - she looked like she had a goatee - a chocolate one. But Jeremy fed her peach yogurt after the muffin, and she didn't have as much chocolate on her face afterwards. So I missed the great photo op. We are still making her homemade baby cereal. I had to make more the other day. This time, we just made it with brown rice flour and a little white bean flour. And as often as they can, Zeke and Micah stand right beside Jeremy while he feeds her to glean any little bites that their daddy might afford them. It is really funny to watch them!

The heat has seemed a little easier to bear ever since we have returned from up north. I'm not sure why that is. The boys do very little playing outside - at least during the hot part of the day. But if I don't cook, the house stays fairly manageable. We were doing our canning outside on the portable grill that Jeremy bought for camping. It worked pretty well so that we didn't have to heat up the house. It was supposedly 114 on Monday - or at least that's what the forecast said. I have no idea how hot it really got. But today and tomorrow are supposed to be 107, before it starts to cool down to the mid 90's on Saturday. That will be nice.

We are having company again starting next week. My parents are coming down to visit us a week from Saturday. And the kids are all excited! They will be here for Silas' birthday, which will be fun for him. Sometime after they leave, I think our friends from Yale are coming down to visit again. It is always fun to have them. I think they are on their way to Disneyland, and we are just the stopping off point! ;-)

Anyways, our summer has gone well - except that the boys haven't gotten as much school done this summer as I wanted them to. Right now, we are gearing up and trying to get ready for fall. We will probably start again once all of our company leaves.

From Cranberries to Blackberries

There are several blackberry bushes on the property at the church. We have been enjoying their fruit for several weeks. It has been so much fun to just go out the front door and pick some fresh fruit to go in our yogurt! But yesterday morning, we went out and picked a big plastic container full of them. We had all of the boys out there helping, too. When I say helping, I mean watching. Well, Rob and Josh helped, the rest watched. And Jeremy was out there with the snippers, snipping back the bushes with no berries. But we thought back to last fall when we were in Alaska picking cranberries. So we went from picking cranberries to picking blackberries. There are lots of blackberries across the street by the river access, too. Last month, the access was closed as it was being used as a helibase for the forest fires. Now it's open, and there were lots of berries there last time we saw. So we're hoping to go this week, and that they're not all picked over. I hope to be able to make jam with them. Does anyone know any good blackberry jam recipes without sugar?

Vacation

Ezekiel and Anna - the boys all love their sister!

Our roosters!

I think I forgot last time to tell you about our new roosters! After Jeremy was finished building the chicken coop, the boys had fun climbing up in it before we put the chickens in. And they looked so cute with their feet dangling out of the bottom of the coop, too.

Shortly after my last entry, our family took off north for a vacation. We went to Cannon Beach to meet up with Jeremy's family that was there for the week. We camped in Seaside, just north of Cannon Beach, and really enjoyed our time camping! Jeremy's parents helped out so we could go to the sessions if we wanted to - but it was more for the boys to be able to go to the children's sessions and play in the game room. We enjoyed the time on the beach. We got to see our new niece, and we even got to see Jeremy's sister before we took off. We drove through The Dalles, OR, stopping to see our friends there. We even got to see my friend's husband, who has been deployed since last Thanksgiving. He was home for two weeks. It was great to be able to catch up with both of them. From there, we went to Baker City, OR. We got to visit with my two brothers and their families. My parents also came down to visit with us there. My nephew, who has been deployed to Afghanistan for the last year, was there, also. From there, we went home, but not before stopping by quickly to see two other sets of friends on our way home. We had such a good time of visiting. And the camping was really relaxing for us, too. We discovered while we were out just how badly sugar affects our kids. We have been virtually without sugar for a while - we still have some on occasion, but not nearly as much as we did. While we were out on vacation, one night my brother gave Silas a cookie shortly before bed. It was after most of the week with sugar in various places. Anyways, not 10 minutes after having the cookie, he complained of a headache - with crying and fussing. So he went right to bed. He was better by the next morning, but was difficult for him. The next day, as we were driving through Portland, visiting some friends, we took our kids to Costco for dinner. I bought my kids hot dogs, which came with pop, and frozen yogurt. In the middle of the night, we woke up to Silas throwing up. Too much sugar for him. So after our nice trip, we are glad to be home with our healthier diet. For those of you that we got to visit with while we were gone, we really enjoyed our time with you! I got some pictures, and will try to post them later.

Catching Up

Our new chicks.

Our first dozen eggs from our chickens!

The chicken coop that Jeremy built (didn't he do a good job?).

Our new puppy, Daisy.

Annalee standing tall. She can pull herself up on things now.

I can't believe that I haven't blogged since July 2. Lots of things have happened since then, and I guess I'll have to share them all with you now. My heart is heavy tonight, because I lost my temper with the boys tonight - several times throughout the day, actually. I apologized for my anger, and told the boys that even when I lose my temper I still love them, but I still get angry at myself. On days like today, sometimes my mind even starts wondering why God has given my children and allowed me to be a mother. I feel like all I'm going to do is ruin them. So I try to remember to rest in the Lord (once I have asked forgiveness for my temper and bad attitude), knowing that He is in charge, and my kids will turn out to be what He wants them to be. I don't know if anyone can relate with me on this or not.

On to brighter subjects...I think I last shared that we had been given two chickens. Since we knew that two chickens (even if they were both hens) would not provide us with enough eggs, we picked up 11 more. We now have 4 laying hens, 7 older chicks, and two that we believe are roosters. We are really enjoying them. The boys are, too. They enjoy checking for eggs. Not so much the helping to feed and water them, but they help anyways. We have been advised by several people in our church and community that we need to have a dog to help protect our children from the cougars in our area. So after thinking and praying about this for some time, we started researching which would be the best breed, etc. We also didn't want to spend a small fortune for one. But the Lord provided. We were given a puppy last week from someone in the community. They had had a litter, and at 5 weeks, the mama dried up. So they started giving away the puppies. We got the last one. It's a girl, and we named her Daisy. She is such a cutie, and is so tiny right now! Her mama had yellow lab, black lab, red nose pit and blue nose pit in her. The daddy was a mix of Chihuahua, Pomeranian and Jack Russell terrier. So she has the genes to be big or small. It will be interesting to see.

Our church had VBS last week. Our biggest day was around 57 kids. We were excited with the turnout. Jeremy helped with the daily skit, and we both chaperoned a preschool field trip to the helicopter base across the street on Thursday. They took the kids to see the helicopters that are used in helping to put out the forest fires down here. It was really fun.

Next week, we are heading up north for a little bit of vacation. We are going to Cannon Beach to see family, and then over to Baker City, OR to see more family. We will get to see a brand new niece, and a nephew back from a military tour overseas. We are also looking forward to a visit from my parents in September. They are coming right around Silas' birthday, and he is excited about that. We have told him that maybe we'll have his birthday party at Bounce-a-palooza. It is a place in the mall in Eureka that has lots of blow up bouncy castle things. They want to go every time we go to the mall, but at $6 per child, we have to say "no". We thought maybe it would be okay for a birthday party.

I think I forgot to mention that the church has a temporary youth/associate pastor. The man that was here as an interim before we got here stayed to finish off the school year (he was teaching at the Christian school). The board decided to hire him on during the summer to see if the church could afford his salary, and also to see if they think the church needs a second pastor. Whatever happens, we are enjoying having him here. He used to confuse my mom when she would call, because his name is Josh - and she didn't remember our Josh sounding like that!

I think I will close for now. I feel much better now than I did when I started. I guess I get to see everything that the Lord is doing right now, and that I still have so much to be thankful for!

Of Hamsters and Such

The boys trying to keep cool in the sprinklers.

Our family - taken in front of our house in May.

We have lost our hamsters. Josh's hamster, Obadiah escaped out of his cage on a few days ago. We looked high and low for that hamster (he did this about a month ago, also, on a Sunday morning. But after looking for a while, we finally found him). All to no avail. But we found him early yesterday morning. We had a big box fan in front of our room trying to keep cool while sleeping. At 5 am, Jeremy and I woke up with a start. We had heard a loud thump. We finally found the cause of the sound. Obadiah had found a hole in the fan into which he climbed in, and was hit by the fan and knocked to the side of it. Poor Obadiah is no more. Josh was so sad, but we told him that next time we go into town, we will buy him another one. Then later yesterday morning, Robby tells me that his hamster, Ginger, is also missing now, too. We haven't found her yet either. But Jeremy was smart enough to cover up the hole in the fan so that she wouldn't meet the same fate as Obadiah.

We are planning on getting a dog soon. A woman in our church told Jeremy about a week ago that she thought we should have a dog. She made us aware of the cougars in the area, and thought that it would be better to have a dog to help protect our kids when they go out to play. So we thought that maybe that was a smart idea. However, now we are trying to figure out what kind of dog would be best for our family. We found a border collie puppy on Craig's list, but now hear that maybe they're not the best with kids. So I thought if anyone out there can tell me what they think of particular breeds as far as kids go, that would be wonderful. Does anyone have a preference about what kinds are better than others?