Dear Santa

Each December Ben and I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about what gifts to buy our boys for Christmas. Each December the boys spend an equal or greater amount of time telling us they want each toy they see advertised. This year, they've discovered Amazon Wish Lists and they keep adding items to their wish lists in the hopes that we pay attention to them. :-) 

I saw this Christmas list idea on Pinterest one day and decided to print it off and see if the boys would cooperate to fill it out. We encouraged them to give it some thought and it spurred interesting conversation about what they "need." 

 It cracks me up the way Levi spelled "nothing" on the "I'll Read" line. And speaking of Levi, a few weeks ago Ben found Levi shopping on Amazon. He had a shopping cart filled with an electric guitar, a drum set, a keyboard and bench (pretty much everything you need to be a one-man band) and Levi's only question was, "How do I make this ship?"  He had done some good shopping and picked out nice instruments that he was excited to play, he just needed to know how to make them show up on our front porch.

Ahh...Christmas time is nearly here! The excitement is building at our house - now to get all the gifts wrapped that have actually been showing up on our front porch before the boys find them!

Epp Thanksgiving

My energy has shifted toward Christmas and I nearly forgot I had these photos from our Epp Thanksgiving gathering! Unfortunately, I snapped very, very few photos that day - probably because there was lots of commotion and I was more interested in visiting with family than snapping pictures. 

My Aunt Patricia led the kids in a craft - an activity she started doing each Thanksgiving several years ago - and it's now become a tradition. She helped each kid make an ornament showing off their group photo from last Easter. 

 It was a crowded table, but none of the kids seemed to notice let alone mind.

 The younger kids worked hard at following the directions while the older kids breezed through. It's always fun to listen to the kids as they work together.

 And then the older boys headed outside (to brave the cold north wind that was whipping around) to play some football and the younger kids found the dress-up clothes! I LOVE the look Delaney is giving - pure diva. :-)

We ate a wonderful meal together, visited, relaxed and watched football. It was great to be together - we see each other often at church and around the community but it's not too often that we actually get time together to visit and laugh.

Twinkies

No, not the cream filled yellow snack cakes - me and my sister!

Check this out - on Saturday morning we nearly outdid ourselves in the twin department. My sister graciously agreed to sing at our annual women's Christmas brunch at church. We both laughed when we saw each other because we were dressed so similarly. 

 It's been a long time since we took a picture together! Isn't she beautiful?!

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.