Merry Christmas 2014!

Christmas Morning

I woke up at 6 and couldn't go back to sleep so I went out to read my scriptures and enjoy the quiet of Christmas morning. Noah heard me, he was awake too. So I went upstairs and read in he and Luke's room. Christmas eve we just read Luke 2 and the kids asked about the wise men. I explained a bit about the gospels and how they don't all have the same information and that the story of the wise men is in Matthew.  The boys and I had 30 minutes to wait until 6:30 when the festivities would begin. Noah asked if I would read to him about the wise men. It was so sweet. He and Luke listened so intently. We read Matthew 2 and discussed the wise men, and then a bit about Zacharias, Elizabeth and John the Baptist. It was an amazing beginning for Christmas morning. The kids decided to close their eyes until they were in the family room, I think the girls just couldn't wait!

 Having Sam and Dessa here made Christmas a lot of fun!

Noah and Luke both got football jerseys. Luke the Packers and Noah the Seahawks.

 

The boys also got long awaited pocket knives. By the end of the day they had both cut themselves. Live and learn I guess.

 Give Molly a squeeky plush toy and she is in heaven! We will see how long this ones lasts. By the time she destroys them I am so done with the noise of it, I am happy to throw them away!

 Luke painted this fresco for Jason and I at school. We opened it as the first present from under the tree. He is so proud of it and was so excited to give it to us. It will become a treasured part of our Christmas decorations now!

 

 This pin toy from Grandma Smith was a huge hit! It has been played with by all of us all day!

Santa brought the boys and Jason remote control helicopters. The boys, Jason and Sam included, played with them all day. They are harder to fly then you would think, but by the end of the day they could all land on the piano bench some of the time! Noah's crash landed one too many times and Jason found out he can order repair parts on line for just a few dollars. Good thing. I see lots of helicopter repair in his future...

Sam left right around noon to fly to Florida. I am happy he can relax on the beach but we will miss him. We had a yummy ham dinner, and waaaaay too much sugar and treats. Luke and I made a tuxedo cheesecake and I baked a pecan pie. Plus Santa brought a huge box of chocolates along with all the other goodies and treats. I remember once at Christmas as a kid that someone gave our family an enormous box of chocolates. I loved it! Reading the lid map and figuring out what to try. Putting a half eaten chocolate back that you didn't like...

By the end of the evening the kids were actually asking to go to bed! We had sunny, warm weather. I always miss the snow at Christmas, but I am grateful for all we do have. It was a great day.

Christmas Eve

 We made Gingerbread houses on Christmas Eve this year. It was a bit of a bust. I got a kit of 4 small houses to make a village like we did at Halloween. It ended up looking like a  village  which was hit by a small tornado. Everything kept falling apart. Next year by unanimous consent we will go back to a big house we decorate together. It was fun to have Grandma Hardy here to help. Uncle Sam mostly watched. It has been so fun to have him here too. His gift to me was to fix the shelves in some of my kitchen cabinets and take apart, glue and redo all the screws in the stools for the island. Whenever I have family to visit I remember how nice it is to have family here!
 We had our 1st Annual Hardy Family Carol Sing Along! Each of the kids played a carol they had prepared (except Luke. He did not practice his at all. So he and I played it together, his hands on top of mine. Hopefully next year he can remember and be ready) Craig skyped in and I promise Sam enjoyed himself...

 Noah played Away in a Manger, Grace did Jingle Bells, Luke and I did Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Sophie played What Child Is This, Angels we have Heard on High and the First Noel. Dessa contributed Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  I found a great website with free simplified carols and Primary songs both. It was fun to sing together and I am so proud of how much the kids have learned in less then a year of piano.

 Christmas Eve with Stockings

Christmas Eve with true craziness showing..

We read Luke 2 as a family, opened sibling gifts and had shrimp dinner. It really was fun to have Sam and Dessa here. Makes it all much more Christmasy. Grace made sure to leave some toffee out for Santa and carrots and oats for the reindeer. She has watched Santa tracker all afternoon and had us on a countdown to 8 o'clock bedtime to be asleep before Santa got to NC!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Jason turned 43 on the 22nd. He and Sam celebrated by getting up early and hunting in our woods. They actually ended up going for a few days. Deer won this time. Girls were super relieved to be honest. We celebrated with Ting and Wacky cake. Jason also got a bow. He and Grace have been shooting together and are both hooked.

 I took some pictures of the boys for invitations for their baptism and the chickens photo bombed. It is hard for me to believe Luke and Noah are almost 8.

Greensboro Christmas Parade

Last Saturday Sophie was in the Greensboro Christmas parade with her dance class. It was cold and rainy, but still fun. Gracie spotted a place under a bit of roof and we stayed mostly dry. Sophie got a bit wet, she had layers on under her tshirt and was dancing the whole time so stayed mostly warm. Sophie and Grace's good friend Caroline is in the black hat to the left of Sophie.

 This was my favorite balloon. It is fun to be at a parade that has helium balloons. Luke and Noah loved the bands. Some of them were pretty good. I remember the last year we went to this parade it was warm and sunny and we didn't bring anything to drink and ended up super thirsty. This year we stopped by McDonalds on the way home for hot chocolate. No one was impressed, me included. Not as yummy as I remembered.

                          Sophie, Noah, Logan, Luke, Devon, Bishop Williams and Tanner

Sherman Williams and each of his boys in succession have been our home teachers since we moved here to NC. We have watched each of them grow up and home teach us with their dad, our former bishop. Logan just returned home from France on his mission, Devon just became a deacon a few months ago and Tanner is a junior in high school. I love these men and boys. They have been faithful and consistent and I know I could call any time night or day to ask for help and they would be here as quickly as possible. Once when the kids were super little Bishop overheard at church that a tree had fallen in our yard. The next evening he and his family just showed up, chain saw and ice cream in hand, to clean up the tree and share a treat. My kids have grown up seeing first hand how home teachers help and bless in the Lord's place here on earth. The Williams boys have been an incredible example to us and I have enjoyed our time together. I hope I can post a picture like this after Tanner returns home and then Devon too.

Thanksgiving 2014

It is a special Thanksgiving for us this year. It was just over a year ago that we moved here to our little woods and farm. We still don't have a fun or cute name for our land, but we do love it here. For the first time in my life, I really felt that I was celebrating a harvest. For Thanksgiving dinner we made pumpkin pie and cheesecake from pumpkins we grew and eggs from our chickens. We had green beans and the last squash from our garden this summer. Fresh spinach salad from our winter garden along with rosemary and parsley to season the turkey and stuffing. Homegrown and homemade pickles and honey for the rolls. Next year we hope to add potatoes and onions to the list of things on the Thanksgiving table we grew ourselves. Maybe a turkey. We haven't decided on that yet.

I cooked everything this year. Jason is out with my flu. Such a bummer. He helped get the turkey ready last night. We brined/poached it and let it soak all night. It turned out fabulous. Super juicy and seasoned. It was a lot of cooking...but I said a prayer this morning and was so grateful to enjoy the day. Work in the kitchen and all.  We had the Elders over, Elder Smith from Seattle and Elder Nelson from St. George. They are good missionaries and it is always nice to have them in our home. I got their mom's email addresses and sent the pictures from today and a short Thanksgiving note.

Our annual Hardy Family Football game was short this year. A sick dad and super cold windy day put a damper on the fun. At least for Grace and Jason. I took Grace to the minute clinic last night because of an ear infection, she is not feeling 100% and the cold wind hurt her ear. Maybe if the chickens could join the girls team we could beat those darn boys. Or if Grace and Sophie would practice catching...

 I finally remembered to do a Gratitude Tree with our family. Every year I see the Kroeber's and think we need to do one. This year we finally did! Some of my favorite things on the tree were: Grace - socks, Emma and Joseph (Smith), toilet paper, Sophie - George Lucas, Beef Jerky, scriptures (Sophie has been reading daily on her own as a goal. She doesn't want to talk to me about it at all. Just her thing.) Noah - Henry (our tractor) and our woods, Luke - music, he was the only one who thought of music, and video games. I swear Luke would spend all of his days attached to a screen if he could.

Grace found these fox salt and pepper shakers on a random shelf at Walmart yesterday. I told her if they were less then $5 we could get them after the girls told me they had never used salt and pepper shakers. We have just had the grinder things from Costco their whole lives. Poor deprived children! The fox shakers were only $1 and Grace was super excited!

We planted our orchard this week. I am so excited for our heirloom trees! It is a challenge to grow fruit in our area because the trees are susceptible to disease. Heirloom trees are much more resistant as they have been here for sometimes more than a 100 years.

We have 3 peach trees, a Hale Haven, Red Haven and Elberta. A Shinto asian pear and 2 local pears, a Keiffer and Plumblee. We have a Granny Smith apple, an Arkansas Black,a Blacktwig, and  a Liberty apple tree. The mature tree we already have we think is a Gala or Fuji. We also have 2 huge over grown ancient apple trees on the edge of the woods we are hoping to use to make cider next fall. We lost every single apple this year due to a late frost. Hoping on at least the mature trees to get some sort of harvest next fall. It would be fun to have an apple pie for Thanksgiving with apples we grow ourselves!

Today especially I am grateful for my kids and husband. How blessed I feel to be the mother of this family and how unqualified. As we were saying what we were grateful for at the table today Jason said he was grateful to learn things from our kids and Noah was surprised. He said that he didn't know we learned things from him. I am sure he has no idea, but being parents have taught Jason and I more then anything else in this life. I feel blessed today and grateful for the abundance the Lord has given me in my life.

Halloween 2014

 We made these fun Halloween houses from a kit. I think it will be a new tradition. Super fun! Candy corn teeth and all. I loved that the kit was a Halloween village so everyone could do their own house.

 Grace, Sophie, Noah and Luke's pumpkins

I have never seen a kid so gleeful as Grace about carving pumpkins. She LOVES the guts and mess. Cracked me up. She helped everyone else clean out their pumpkins after hers was done! This is the first year for a long time Luke has not asked for a green pumpkin, not sure if he just didn't think about it this year, or if they just did not have any green ones at Walmart the day we were there. I would love to be able to figure out how to grow jack o lantern pumpkins here without pesticides. Seems impossible at this point, dang squash beetles get them every time.

Autumn Princess, Harry Potter, The Grimm Reaper, Molly as cutest dog ever & Masquerade Ball Sophie

 Our ward had a trunk or treat the day before Halloween. With that and trick or treating our kids have never had so much Halloween candy. Grace weighed hers, after taking out all of the things she didn't want it was 6 lbs! Holy cow. I loved that Grace and Sophie wanted pretty costumes this year. They saw these masks at the Halloween store in September and used their own money to buy them. We ordered the dresses online, Sophies was perfect. Grace hated hers when it came. It was originally all gold. So she and I got some new fabric and I remade it for her Autumn Princess dress. It turned out so beautiful, leaves and all. It was totally Grace's ideas. she even had leaves in her hair. As we were getting ready for the Trunk or treat Sophie asked me to iron her dress and I melted it, right in the front. Poor kid. She handled it really well. Went outside to cry on the hammock where I wouldn't see her. Luckily there was a sheer overlayer and she and I said a prayer and then patched it with fabric from a blue princesses dress I made her when she was 4. I was sad to cut it up, but it was totally my fault. Sophie was happy with the end product. It was a good lesson for both of us. Seriously! How long have I been ironing?

Conference Weekend

 Jason and the kids cooked our traditional conference morning breakfast in the dutch ovens. It is always so delicious and begins the day wonderfully. It was 40 degrees this morning and the kids thought it was freezing! We laughed at all their layers and winter clothes. Grace even found a coat for Molly. Having traditions has created a very special weekend for us a family. It was especially nice as Jason has been out of town for more then a week in Sweden. He is not very jet lagged and has been able to enjoy the day with us.

 The weather was beautiful today. It is always so refreshing when fall temperatures cool things down here. I finally got our hammock set up. It was on my to do list all spring and summer. The kids have been playing on in between sessions. Jason was on it playing with all the kids too, but as soon as I climbed on with a few kids we collapsed and I got a chain to the back of my head! Being the intrepid farm girl that I am (not) I took the hook, put it in Jason's vice, and fixed it with the hammer.But no more piling on the hammock.

 The kids found a dead blue jay this morning. We think a fox got it. Grace and Sophie buried it, complete with a plastic bag to try and keep the chickens away. Not much deters chickens we are learning. They promptly scratched it up. I think the bird seed scattered on top maybe was not a great idea. The girls reburied and put rocks on top. Again, the chickens got the rocks off and dug up the bird. So a small fence was made out of sticks and string. We will see if it lasts. I am actually hoping the fox comes back tonight so I don't have to look at a nasty dead bird right by my house.

Just keeping it real. In case anyone wonders if our weekend was only peace love and harmony. The boys had a great soccer game yesterday morning. It was soooooo nice to watch them and not drip sweat! The boys had several shots on goal and played great defense. I am glad fall is finally here.

The messages at conference were wonderful, as usual. I especially like Elder Oaks talk on love and Sis. McConkie on sacrament. Lots of good things!