Happy 10th Birthday Luke & Noah

Luke & Noah are into the double digits! Sometimes it seems time is moving too quickly. On the morning of their birthday Luke went with Jason to Sheila's house with the YM in our ward to clean up her leaves. I was proud of him that he would choose to give service on his birthday. Before they left we had a special Birthday breakfast together.

When they got home Jason took the boys fishing. Luke has been asking to go fishing for the past few weeks. He has been watching fishing shows on tv and wants to learn how to fish for bass. They went to the Bennett's, friends from our ward who have a pond,  and fished for a few chilly hours. A few small, big mouth bass were caught and one blue gill. One of the bass swallowed the hook too far to release back into the pond. Jason taught Luke how to cook it when they got home.

We went out to lunch as a family and then to WalMart to pick out new bikes, then came home to open other presents. Noah asked for an icecream cake and I finally got it right. It was delicious! Luke has let me know for months that he wanted a Packer's Cheesehead cake. I used fondant for the first time and it turned out better then I expected.

I love these boys. I love the goodness if their hearts and the love of life they bring to our whole family. I love that Noah always wants to play as a family and Luke's silly jokes. Both are super awesome dancers who make me laugh regularly with their smooth moves. I am blessed that my Heavenly Parents allowed me to be the earthly mother of these 2. It seems like not long ago that they were little dudes climbing into things and getting into mischief.

We watched all of the Lord of the Rings triology on the boys birthday and the day before. It was super fun, all of them enjoyed it, no one was scared and it was fun to share something that Jason and I enjoy so much. It was interesting to see how many gospel truths are taught in a series that focuses on good and evil and imperfect people doing great things.

Happy Birthday my awesome boys!

Merry Christmas 2017

The official 2017 Christmas eve pic. I'm not sure why Molly looks so guilty...maybe because it is obvious she has sneaked a bit too many treats!

The real picture from Christmas Eve. After opening sib gifts and reading Luke 2 we put on A Christmas Carol. Noah turned to me about half way through and said he was so bored that he was finally feeling calm.

Grace got a total of 13 books! She carried them downstairs in this blanket to show Sheila at dinner time. We call Sis. Koch our NC Grandma. She was going to be all alone today. I couldn't believe none of her kids wanted her with them. We were super happy to have her join us for dinner. Jason made an even more delicious turkey - I think he has just about mastered it. 

I made everyone take a picture after church. We figured out how to use our self timer for the first time. I made the mistake of telling Sophie she could hold her hamster in the picture. If you look close you can see her little head trying to escape on Sophie's shoulder. The girl's played viola with a group of youth during our Stake sacrament meeting. I was so proud of them I cried! They played Still, Still, Still. It wasn't perfect, but it was beautiful. Feeling very blessed today. Merry Christmas!

Mendenhall House

Jamestown NC was settled in the 1700's by a Quaker family from Pennsylvania, the Mendenhalls. This house was built by Richard Mendenhall in 1811, and has come to be known as the Mendenhall Plantation. It was not ever a plantation, Richard was not a slave owner. He and his Quaker family and friends were an integral part of the underground railroad before the Civil War. It is amazing to me how a well built house has withstood 200 years!  You can see the hand hewn beams, orginal doors, windows and hardware through out the house. I have been to a lot of historic houses and this one is by far the best in my opinion!


Upstairs in the main bedroom is a small access door to the porch. A similar Quaker home 5 miles away has a documented underground railroad hiding place exactly like this. There is no record of the Mendenhall's being a part of helping escaped slaves to freedom, it was illegal and no written records were kept. It is known that the Mendenhall's were abolitionists. Interestingly we learned that  not all Quakers were against slavery.  Beneath is the door from the outside under the porch. Of course there would have been a ceiling on the porch creating a small, hidden room. I read a slave memoir where a women hid in this exact spot in a home in northern North Carolina.

 

There are several original outbuildings including the barn, smokehouse, spring house (of which I envious, things spoil so quickly here! A building that was used for a school is now a small museum. It has amazing things, just in this little back shed. The kids LOVED this pump organ. I loved the the historian doing our tour let them play it. I laughed when I heard Olivia and Grace playing the Star Wars theme!  It was sobering to me to see slave shackles and common coins with notched edges - how a family would know who to take in and hide.

This bell is original to the property, again the kids all got ring it! Richard was a tanner, he and his wife Mary built  a general store, a pottery, a milliner and something else I don't remember on their property. Richard's brother George inherited slaves through marriage to his first wife. Many of these slaves learned trades from the Mendenhall's and then were driven to Ohio to become free. I think up to 60 ish.  There are records of George buying slaves in order to keep families together and at the request of the slave, but never selling them. I am sure it is not all clean and tidy. But I have never heard of a family like the Mendenhalls and how they fought slavery on such a personal level. 

 This is one of the few remaining false bottomed wagons documented as being used to carry escaped slaves. This wagon was not owned by the Mendenhalls, but another local Quaker family. It was driven to Ohio by young men several times. It was thought that the young drivers would not be thought of as carrying slaves. It is so important to me that we remember and learn from our history. Besides sweet Olivia Powell , my kids were not all that interested in all of this. Maybe as they mature they will recognize the significance.

When the girls were 4 and the boys 2 we had pictures taken on this bench. Of course I had to recreate it ! If, when, my stupid printer will talk to my computer I will add the original.

Pumpkins & Football

Grace carved our only Jack O Lantern this year. We just got busy and the kids were not thrilled about using our homegrown pumpkins. They are a mellow, light orange, really pretty, but I guess not as cool as the bright orange. I asked the girls to sit down and look normal. This is Sophie's normal.

The boys had playoffs today for football. Their team won their first game. Both boys had some great plays, Noah got creamed really hard once - no call- I keep telling my kids officials aren't perfect and it is just part of the game. Luke scored a touchdown! He was qback on a pass play that didn't work out and ran the ball in to score. It was fun. And cold for the first time this year.

Grace, Sophie and Jason were the line markers. It was quite the learning experience for the girls! At least Sophie couldn't complain of being bored. I have pictures but I am too tired  to try to figure out why they aren't loading right.

It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day. Girls went to the temple this afternoon, boys to a birthday party and Jason and I split and stacked wood. Goes SO fast when you have a splitter! I can see why Jason wanted one so badly.

Halloween 2016

Ghoul, Crazy Taylor Swift, Peacock, Day of the Dead Senorita, Sniper

 

Noah was smart and chose a gillie sniper suit for his costume. Everyone thought he was Sasquatch which was fine too. Luke always has to go creepy. I made him smile for the picture! We did Grace's face with tatoos, it looked really cool. Sophie was trying to recreate a scene from Taylor Swifts Blank Space video, Molly is supposed to be the white deer behind the crazy Taylor Swift singing about how all her ex lovers think she's insane. If you look close you can see the mascara all down her face. She worked on this costume for 2 months, funny kid. The girls went to their first Halloween party. It seems like such a teenager thing to do. Of course it was in Abby's garage with all girls so I guess it was not that grown up!

Steelers Football

 Luke and Noah had their last regular season flag football game today. They played Jacob Arny's team. They won!!!! I loved Luke and Noah's congratulating Jacob when he made good plays even on the opposing team.

 Luke playing quarterback 

(green and black shorts)

Noah at the beginning of a 40 yard run. He got through all those players and almost scored! He is number 13, orange and gray shorts.

The Steelers, well most of them.  A few boys were missing.

Outer Banks with Grandma and Grandpa

 Last week we went to Duck, NC on the Outer Banks for 4 days. This is Wednesday afternoon when we got to the beach. It was the tail end of a tropical storm and still really windy. We found all sorts of cool things on the beach - shark or skate egg sacks, beautiful drift wood, tons of crabs, huge horseshoe crab shells, a huge dead ray (it was 4 feet across at least) and the most shells I have ever seen. If you look in the gazebo you can see Luke rejoicing! We are a family that seriously loves the beach!

This is the only picture I have of all of us together. I was going to crop out the Birthday message fro Lindsey, but I'm too lazy to care that much :)

 I am surprised I didn't get a picture of Jason with Luke. Along with Craig, they fished most of the time we were at the beach. Luke caught a small Sheep's Head (?) no one else caught anything. But they had fun!

Wright Brother's Museum and Memorial

 Duck is about 30 minutes north of Kitty Hawk. We actually came here with Heather and Eli and baby Issac years ago. I wanted to get a picture like the one I have, boys in the stroller, girls on either side. You can see how  helpful Sophie was being.

Noah and walked out the full distance of the 3rd and farthest flight in 1903

 I can't find some of my pictures. This is a replica of the Wright Brother's first plane, well first plane that accomplished manned flight. Noah and Jason went on a small sightseeing flight and the pilot let Noah control the plane of the Wright memorial. So his first flight is where the actual first flight was! Noah was beyond enthralled. He talked all of our ears off about it the rest of the trip.

I think this is my favorite picture of our trip. With our new pick up we can drive miles out on the beach. You really are all alone, it is so amazing. There are other people sprinkled here and there, and huge crazy big vacation homes. Luke got really carsick and did not have fun this trip on the beach. We had just finished our traditional seafood lunch, his didn't sit too well. Other 3 kids had a ball.

 
 Wild horses, luckily we saw them right away once we turned to go inland. Luke was soooo sick. Poor kid. These pictures look so wild and remote. The rest of the herd across the street , which to be fair was only sand, was grazing in someone's front lawn, junky cars in the background. It was really cool to see, especially for Grace.

 

Sophie is lots of amazing things. Good at jumping pictures she is not. Noah and Grace cracking up makes me laugh every time!

 

Our last day at the beach Sophie and Luke figured out how to catch the ghost crabs that were all over the beach. She kept this one as her pet all day and mightily tried to get me to let her bring it home. It was really cute, when sand got in it's eyes it had small arms that looked like windshield wipers to clean itself.




Craig and Dessa drove Jason up to Philadelphia and the kids and I stopped by one of the NC aquariums on our way home. It was fun, small, but had some cool things we hadn't seen before. Good trip, lots of fun memories.