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?