Boys and Books

The new year has started well for our little family--in the normal slightly chaotic way. We're enjoying the coziness of indoor activities this time of year.  But of course when the sun shines and it's not too bitterly cold, we definitely get outside.  And naturally there are times we need to be outside shoveling sidewalks, scraping windsheilds, tending to our chickens or hauling in firewood.  But when we can be inside, it doesn't get much better than to be near our new (to us) woodstove with a warm beverage and a good book. 

2011 Favorite Photos

Each year, I enjoy wrapping up my favorite photos from the past 12 months into one neat little blog post.  Usually I keep it to 10 or maybe 12 of my favorites, but this year I guess I got a little gluttonous and compiled a list of 25.  Maybe I can blame it on some improved photography skills thanks to lots of practice and a class I took last winter.  Whatever the reason, I worked really hard to whiddle my favorite photos down to just 25.  They are the best of the best.  The one's that bring warmth to my heart and a smile to my face.  Most of them have a specific story or memory connected to them.  But a few are just the perfect moment or expression caught at just the right time on the camera.  I hope you enjoy this year's round up of favorites.  If you'd like to see my previous year end posts, look here (2010), here (2009) and here (2008).

So here we go for 2011...in no particular order...

That smile...I LOVE it!  As my mom says, "he smiles from ear to ear".--September

Jingle Bells

I realize that some of you have already taken down your Christmas tree and your thoughts have turned to eating healthier or starting a new habit, but I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and fiddle with a new video recorder we got recently. We shot this video a few days before Christmas, but as usual the hustle and bustle around here kept me from doing anything with the video.

We hope you enjoy this little concert and that your 2011 ended on a happy note. :)
And yes, our Little Miss wanted both of her front teeth for Christmas.

**edited--video is working now**

Growing Up

A week or so ago now, I was taking pictures of the kids for our Christmas card and I decided to take a minute to snap a few more shots of the little miss.  She is really growing up so fast. 

First Haircut

A few weeks ago now, I gave in.  I finally decided the cute curls on our little babe were looking more like tufts or wings.  Shawn had been wanting to give him a haircut about 6 months ago, but I protested.  And officially banned him from going anywhere near the little babe with clippers of scissors.  The first haircut for our little man was a bit traumatic for me--just too big of a change.  So I didn't want to repeat that.
I personally love the curly soft baby hair.  It seems to me that not a lot of babies keep this look for very long anymore.  For some reason, the curly soft baby hair look makes me think of a baby from the 40's or 50's--sort of nostalgic.  And I like it.

But I realized it was time.  And it may have helped that the little miss brought home a picture of her family she had drawn at school.  The little babe character had "wings" above his ears.  So yeah, if his big sister considered his "wings" his defining characteristic, then it was definitely time for a haircut.
I chose the bathtub for our inaugural trim.  I'm not really sure how much it helped, but I'm sure it would have been more difficult if I had just sat him in a chair. 

Chicken Update

 As I too often do, this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for much too long.  So a Friday night with the kids in bed seems like a good night to finally finish this one.  A while ago I realized that my my post categories were heavy on the recipes and light on the other three categories.  So lately I've been trying to at least add to those other three categories.  Finally it is time to talk about the feathered friends at our house--technically our backyard.

If you didn't already know, our family happily cares for a backyard flock of eight egg laying hens.  We've been in the backyard chicken coop club for 18 months now and are entering our second winter with our feathered girls.  When we started this adventure, I never thought we'd enjoy it as much as we do.  And I never thought caring for chickens could be so easy until we started doing it ourselves.  Raising our hens has been an endeavor our whole family has enjoyed.  And yes, we have names for all 8 of them: Rosa, Elvira, Eleanor, Miss Scarlett, Irene, Pattie, Sam and Ella. 

I took the picture above a few months ago, but it tells a couple of stories.   For one, there's a chicken on our back step meaning our girls free range.  They sort of demanded it this spring and summer.  When the spring flowers started blooming and temperatures went up, we noticed the chickens were also "awakening" from their "winter survival mode".  We have two sets of 4 chickens--the older/original 4 (about 3 years old) and the younger 4 (about 18 months old).  So the younger 4 started laying eggs for the first time last fall.  That made them full grown hens.  During the winter, we figured they just all put up with each other and concentrated on the basics: eating, drinking, sleeping, laying eggs, and staying warm.  But when spring rolled around the younger 4 tried to improve their pecking order status.  Two of them were especially aggressive and were pecking one of the older girls (Eleanor) so much that they would sometimes draw blood.  They basically harassed her and bullied her so much she wouldn't leave the nest unless a more dominant chicken came into lay.  She was pretty miserable and it was dangerous for her to be with these aggressive ones.  So we started letting them roam around in the backyard.  That seemed to help them get along.  Eleanor had more room to spread out and get away from the aggressive ones.  And all the chickens have learned to stay fairly close to the house and seem to enjoy being out and about.

Halloween 2011

This year our little gang went trick-or-treating as the peanuts gang: Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus.  Unfortunately they weren't posing very well.  All three of them at least. 
I shared these photos on facebook the other day, but I know that not all the blog readers out there are FB friends with me.  So I thought I'd share them here as well.
The actual costumes were fairly basic and I like how easy they were for the kids to wear and move in them.  They were all tee shirt based.  The boys just needed simple embellishments: a black zig zag for Charlie and a scrap of blue fleece tacked on for Linus.  Even Lucy's dress was made out of a tee shirt--two actually.  The top of the dress is a small shirt and the skirt portion is the bottom of a large shirt.  I cut the large shirt just under the arm holes and attached it to the bottom of the small shirt--no hemming!  The scallop around the collar was cut out of the chest and sleeve part of the large shirt.  And since it's knit and a costume, I just left the scallop edges raw.  Four quick buttons and Lucy had her dress.  Throw in a black wig that we gave a haircut and her look was complete.

Sewing Project--Baby Bibs

A few weeks ago, I was able to celebrate the arrival of a sweet baby girl into our church family.  She is the first girl born from within our church family in two years.  Since that time we've had NINE baby boys born.  So as you can imagine a baby shower with pink and flowers was a welcome change from the marathon of blue and dump trucks that we had going for nearly two years.  Oh don't get me wrong, all our boys are wonderful and they will surely enjoy many fun father-son camping trips in the future, but a little sugar and spice is always nice.

Happy Birthday, Big Boy!

I recently noticed that of the four categories that I sometimes label my posts with, the recipes category has an overwhelming lead.  (Those four categories are listed in the right side barof my home page.)  So I guess that means I better get busy with posting in the other three categories.  I'm planning to add to the other categories a bit over the next few posts.  To start things off, I've got a post on a recent celebration to share with you.

Just a few weeks ago, our Little Man celebrated his 4th birthday.  We all had a great time hosting a party for his friends from Bible class.  I usually don't like to have party themes centered around tv characters, but sometimes it happens.  This time, however, we came up with something that we were confident we'd both be happy with.

Remember this photo from June?

Something I ran across on a  party planning website, made me think of this picture and our Little Man's love for camping.  A few weeks before his birthday he had started frequently asking me a series of questions.  This is usually how our nearly daily conversation went...

LM: Momma, when did we move to this house?

Me: Before you were born.

LM: Wow, our house is getting old. We need to move to a cabin, because the cabins are really nice.

 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

This blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder for four days now, so it's definitely time to get it submitted into blogland.  We have been so busy the past few days.  Over the weekend we sponsored, chaperoned, and led devotionals for our church's youth group on our annual fall retreat.  It was fun, but a lot of work.  I was pretty wiped out when it was all said and done. 

Then yesterday, was Alaska Day.  A day we Alaskans celebrate the transfer of ownership of our state from Russia to The United States back in 1867.  The actual transfer was done in Sitka and we visited the historical park this past June when we went to Sitka to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Our little family celebrated Alaska Day with a hearty pot of Alaskan Beef Chili--also know as moose chili. :-)

Tots and Trucks

A few weeks ago now, Juneau had a city wide day of play.  There were tons of organized FREE activities for families to take part in at just about every facility operated by our city's parks and rec department.  We literally could have spent all day hoping from one event to another. 

But I try to keep our Saturday's as calm as possible.  In many ways it feels like the only day the kids can relax and play without worrying about a schedule.  It's generally a work day for my hubby so staying home as much as possible also means we get to maximize our family time.  And since everyone else in town seems to hit the big shopping stores on Saturday's, it doesn't seem crazy at all in my mind to run my errands on other days.  Of course, we don't always have a clear schedule on Saturday's.  In fact, aside from the usual soccer game on Saturday, we only have a free and clear day about half of the time.

So anyway, we had a day of play back in September and I didn't feel like fighting the crowds for the free hour of swimming at the new pool and some of the activities conflicted with either the little babe's nap or the afternoon college football game I didn't want to miss.  So I settled on the Tots and Trucks event.  It was scheduled for after the start of the little babe's nap but after Shawn would be up for the day, and would end just before kick off.  Plus it was happening close to our house.  Perfect!  So daddy stayed home to wipe the sleep out of his eyes while the little babe slept and I took the older two yahoos out for a surprise outing.  They were pretty excited when we pulled into the high school parking lot to find it filled with all kinds of city vehicles: buses, snow plows, dump trucks, fire trucks, and even a helicopter!

Legos in Your Jammies

The past few days have been challenging around here.  Momma's been sick so everyone has been fending for themselves.  Since yesterday afternoon I've been gradually feeling better and able to do a few more things between naps and breaks on the couch.  Today I'm trying to pretend things are back to normal without over extending myself. 

Shawn has done a great job holding down the fort, keeping the kids fed, changing diapers, getting the little miss off to school, and keeping the peace during playtime.  I'm glad my illness has coincided with his weekend, but feel bad too since I know he had hopes of accomplishing other things this weekend.