Schrag Thanksgiving

Last week we put our house to the test and hosted Ben's entire family for Thanksgiving! The house passed with flying colors and we had a wonderful time.

Tim and Sue came early in the week and got to attend Grandparent's Day in Noah's classroom. 

Aunt Sara arrived next and she got to enjoy/endure a lot of quality time with Noah and Levi.

Sara dubbed Levi "Sticky Paws" years ago and the name stuck and it's strikingly accurate. :-)

We played several rounds of Quarkel,

some games were enjoyed, others ended in tears...

Our Thanksgiving dinner was good - really good. We cooked and baked collectively and the results were yummy.

We enjoyed a long walk out in the country - and even Mr. Otto came along to enjoy the adventure (a far cry from his usual Chicago adventures!).

We found animal parts!

So gross and so cool, all at the same time!

The boys had a wonderful time with each of their aunts and uncles. We're all together only once (maybe twice) a year, so we do our best to soak it all up.

Levi had a fantastic time tossing popcorn for Josh to catch in his mouth - it's great to see and hear Levi laugh really hard.

Friday we hosted Tim's sister's family, all together we were 18 plus a baby! We feasted on rice & beans and salad - another fantastic meal!

Here we all are! Levi's wearing Sue's glasses...just because...? :-)

They are such rascals, sometimes.

The boys, Lia and I all learned to play Farkel. There were some seriously intense games - in this one Sara and Levi teamed up, Sara as the "brains" Levi as the "luck."

And it worked! They ended the game with an enthusiastic victory dance and lots of laughter.

Saturday morning was fence building morning.

And Saturday afternoon, since it was incredibly nice outside, was Christmas tree cutting time! We took Sue along to help us out and we found just the right tree. Noah gave sawing a try, but soon turned the saw over to me.

And then we worked together to haul the tree to the barn.

After the tree got a good shake to get rid of loose needles we headed for home!

We did so many fun things, had so many good laughs together and ate so much good food! The time flew by and now it's hard to believe that a whole week has gone by already. We were happy to host and it is not lost on us that everyone else spent significant resources to travel to our farm, that's humbling and we appreciate it.

Food & Fence for the Ladies

Call us crazy, but we started growing some food for our chickens. Sprouts and meal worms to be exact. I forgot to snap a photo of the worms, but we currently have a big rubber container in our sun room with worms crawling around in it. 

I have to admit, the sprouts are more eye catching than the worms. 

 We purchased a set of trays designed for growing sprouts and after soaking the seeds for a few hours, then spreading them out in the trays and watering them regularly,

 we ended up with a clump of yummy sprouts. These are exactly the kind of sprouts humans eat too, so if we want to add them to a salad or sandwich we certainly could.

 The Ladies were very curious, but tentative at first.

 Then they figured it out and dug in! We're hoping to get a good rotation going on the spouts so that every few days during the winter we have some fresh greens to feed them. It's kind of crazy, because they'd be fine simply eating feed like they did last winter. But we're enjoying growing the food and watching the chickens enjoy it.

 And speaking of the chickens - while Ben's family was here for Thanksgiving we started putting up a fence around our future garden to keep the Ladies OUT. :-)

 Without too much trouble, Tim, Ben and Andy got all the post holes dug (the skid steer hole digger attachment sure made quick work of that!)

 and then set the posts in concrete.

 Levi and I hung around for moral support...

 and once the concrete has cured more we'll attach the fencing to the posts and call it good!

Now to start planning out this new garden space!

Settling In

Settling in to a new house is a challenging activity. In many ways it's fun, but it's also awkward and consumes more time and energy than seems reasonable. 

It's not just the physical activity of settling in, either. The more challenging part is teaching our minds to recognize opportunities in the new space. For instance, we tend to end up all in the office. Or at least the three guys are in the office and I'm nearby in the kitchen. At our old house we were always all together in one room because we didn't have any other option. Now we have to learn that it's possible and okay to be in separate spaces. Believe me, Ben and I have proved to be much faster at learning this than the boys have. ;-)

Settling in also involves making this house feel like our home. Our own space not only in the fact that we designed the space and decided on the paint and lights and trim and on and on, but a space filled with our things that makes us feel relaxed and rejuvenated. That takes time! And I gave myself that time this weekend. I was determined to put all my stuff (all the non-essentials that have been packed away for three years) to good use. So I unpacked it, remembered what I own, and put out the odds and ends of stuff that I wanted to look at. Then I turned my attention to the stack of artwork and other variety of things that are meant to hang on walls. I spent hours this weekend carrying artwork around the house, figuring out where it should go and then eventually getting it put up. Let me tell you, Command strips are where it's at. Love them. I'm not completely finished, but this house has come a long ways in the "feels like home" department this weekend.

Also...we're in the midst of a polar vortex, which brought a thin layer of sleet on Saturday morning and then a thin layer of snow on Sunday morning. The polar vortex can go back to the north pole as far as I'm concerned.

While Noah was at basketball practice on Saturday morning, Levi headed outside to shovel the sleet pellets off the driveway. I was hugely impressed with this since he rarely goes outside by himself. Bonus for me since I had plenty to keep me busy inside.

 Just after I snapped these photos Levi got the deck shoveled off. I hope he's this helpful when it snows more this winter!

 Inside, I'm holding on strong to fall. I refuse to make the season change inside the house until after Thanksgiving.

 Oh but outside it's looking quite bleak and frigid.

 By Saturday afternoon the sleet had melted away and the boys convinced us it was baseball playing weather.

 It was a struggle, but we stayed out long enough for each boy to get several good hits and then we ran back inside. Playing baseball when it's 30 degrees just isn't my idea of a good time.

 But see? The boys thought it was great and were not happy with us when it was time to go inside.

 The ladies were out and about on the farm Saturday afternoon too...so far we haven't had too much coyote trouble...although we know they're in the area.

 Soon enough we'll have to seriously restrict the amount of time the ladies get outside the barn each day simply to keep them alive.

 It's not only the four of us humans who are settling in these days. Our cats and chickens are also trying to figure out where we went and what the deal is. The cats immediately figured out where their food moved to, but where do they go when it's cold? At the old house, they could be in the garage, but not anymore. Now they claw at the doors to try and come in.

And I can tell that I'm spending less time visiting with my parents. At the old house, we'd often go over to their house just to be in a bigger space. The wonderful bonus was that we'd usually get to visit with my parents too. Now we have space, so we don't go over to their house as often and I end up feeling like I hardly see them anymore.
We're all adjusting, and there are times I can tell that the four of us are cranky with each other because we can't figure out what or where or how we're supposed to be. But we're figuring it out and new ways of life are becoming routine.

Halloween Party

The day after getting back from Pennsylvania was Halloween! Oh my. What a way to return home. There's nothing normal about Halloween. The kids were a little nuts with excitement and I had to provide drinks for the 1st grade class party. I thought Levi and I had agree on a green punch that we'd call "Bug Juice" but the night before the party he declared it had to be blood red. Ok! I was up to the challenge. :-)

The party was fun - Levi's got a fun class that was ready to have fun but were also patient and good listeners. 

 Levi, aka KC Chiefs player #13, and his classmates had fun with the games that were organized for them. Levi took the candy walk game very seriously.

 Actually, all the kids did! They concentrated on stepping on the squares they were supposed to and were careful to listen for when the music stopped.

 They were even patient while they had to wait for their turn at the next game!

 Ring toss was a hit. And who doesn't want a juice box as a prize?!

 Snacks were cupcakes with plenty of creepy, crawly critters on the table.

 Levi decorated the orange cups with googly eyes weeks before the party and was proud to serve blood red punch in them to all his friends. The punch was simply strawberry lemonade with strawberry Fanta mixed in. It was entirely too sweet for my taste, but it was the best I could do shopping in our little grocery store on the day of the party!

 He even managed to eat his cupcake with his helmet on. Ha!

And...I never got a photo of Noah in his costume. I know, parent of the year award for me! He decided to dress up as a Goessel baseball player.
Halloween evening was chilly, but we put a couple extra layers on and headed for town. We quickly met up with some friends and by the end of the evening we were a group of almost 20! The boys ran up and down the streets with their friends and after quite a while we all decided it was late, dark and cold so our Halloween came to an end.