BUSYNESS

Wow, once again I say "Where is time going?" I keep waiting for things to slow down....but now I am beginning to wonder if they ever will!!!!

I am noticing that we are in a new season in our lives. One that seems to be a little busier. Not that we have taken up anything new, but just that LIVING is busier.

Of course having many children always makes for busy....but this is a different kind of busy...and not even one that I can put my finger on! But as our children grow, they each spend time developing their gifts and talents that God has given them.....making us busier!!!! Not sure if this makes sense??????

And then you add some wonderful little grandchildren on top of that...yes, different season....busier! It seems that having your own children it just comes naturally that you spend time with them throughout the day as they are around all the time....but with grandchildren it is different. Time spent with them doesn't just always happen, sometimes you have to make it happen!!! Again, a different kind of busy....a wonderful, super duper busy!!!!!

And as our boys grow up, things are not just as simple as making sure they are fed and clothed any more.....there's the matter of keeping them without too much EXTRA time on their hands and helping them to be productive with their time. And as they grow up a little more time is spent with them to listen, help, encourage, train, disciple.

And then of course there are still the little ones who need the cuddles, loving, discipline and training! We still have them too!!!! Busy???? Yup....but I wouldn't want it any other way :)

But that is what makes life so fun and enjoyable. I always used to think that someday I would miss the hustle and bustle of the busyness in our home.....but now I wonder if that day will ever come? For there will hopefully always be some child to visit, make meals for, babysit for.......I think this is our new busy......and I like it!!!!

So even though somedays I feel like my head is spinning and I am needed at 10 places doing 10 different things at one time.....my heart is full....and I am satisfied!!!!

Nothing will ever replace this time in our lives. It will never be the same again as it is TODAY....things are changing all the time. And so I will live today like it will never be the same again. I will enjoy what God has put on my plate today, and be thankful for the busyness in my life right now. Because this is where God has placed me, this is what He chose for me, this is His perfect plan.....and I am glad :)

And as I finish up this post...one of my dear children ask me, "Are you busy still?" Yup...my point exactly!!!!!!

So if you don't hear from me for long periods of time, chances are.....I'm OK....... just busy :)

Where Has Time Went?

Wow, just realized it's been over a week since my last post!
Where does time go anyway?

Well here is some of what has happened around here in the last week:

We got our machine shop cemented 

(Yeah for that being done and yeah for all the helpers....it was a big job!)

We celebrated our grandson, Andy's 2nd birthday. 2 years ago from now we were wondering what his future would be like. Being born 10 weeks early, plus being diagnosed with 22q deletion syndrome a little while later was all something we were not prepared for. But God in His mercy has brought this little man so far! He is growing, walking and I'm sure it won't be long until he is talking! All glory to God for this precious little guy!!! We love him to bits!!!!

We welcomed a new little niece to our family. My brother Jeremy and his wife Laura waited 6 long years for Elyana to be born! What an amazing answer to prayer! We went to visit her yesterday, and she is truly a little sweetie!!! I had fun making this little hat for her :)

We got the last of the cows home. And everything went great! We chose to chase the herd home again this year. We had 3 vehicles, a four-wheeler, and a tractor with a bale of hay on the back. Last year it didn't go so well....this year....IT WENT GREAT!!!! So much easier than hauling them all, as long as it goes well! So all the cows are safely home and munching happily on hay :)

We started a parenting class. We are excited once again to be able to mentor young families in raising their families according to God's Word. We always come away from teaching these classes feeling like we received more than we gave. What a blessing to be able to do this!

We butchered the last of our chickens. This was a job that I was not looking forward to, but on Saturday we were motivated by the forecast (SNOW!) and figured we better get it done. As usual the thought was worse than the actual doing it. So glad they are now in the freezer :)

First snowfall happened on Sunday. We are thankful the weather has stayed so nice this long. But looking outside I am thinking winter might be here to stay!!!

Rebecca's due date was yesterday and we are still waiting to meet our 2nd grandchild! Looking so forward to another little one to love on! Please keep them in your prayers!

-My pregnancy is going well. Baby is growing and moving lots! I am feeling very well. So far my blood pressure is behaving itself. I am trying to walk 2.5 miles every morning and I am hoping and praying the exercise will help me stay healthy.

-Tomorrow we are going into the city with a group from our church to record a few songs. I am most excited to see how a recording actually takes place. The girls and I have wanted to record a cd for many years now but have never known quite where to start. I am hoping tomorrow we will find out if this is something we really want to pursue!

So that is our life in a very quick nut shell this past week. Of course there was the regular every day life that we lived besides this, making life go by very fast! But it's better to be busy than to be sitting around twiddling your thumbs wondering what to do with yourself :) I don't see those kind of days being in our future any time soon .....and I am glad :)

We're Stumped!!!

Last week went by like a blur as we were busy getting ready for winter.

We have 2 wood stoves to heat our home and so lots and lots and LOTS of wood is needed to be gathered.

I think this "wood" probably be one of our favorite work projects together as a family!

We get to enjoy the great outdoors, everyone can pitch in...even the toddler :)

It's kind of like were on an adventure!

And what a great sense of accomplishment when we see all the wood we have gathered, split and stacked.

Below is a photo journey of what we did most of last week.

Here's Mark our main chain saw guy. He had to work fast to keep us all busy!

Josh was our second chain saw guy and helped out when he could....bless his heart :)

 For some loads we brought the log splitter right to the bush and split them before loading them on the truck.

We used to split our logs the old fashioned way, with an axe! But a couple of years ago we purchased this wood splitter which makes the splitting a LOT easier!!!

The reason we split the logs is to make them small enough to fit in the wood stove.

Also when the logs are split they burn a lot easier and start a fire better.

Jen was our bush log splitter.

Here is everyone carrying logs.

It didn't matter your age or size, if you could carry one log or 6....

whatever you could do was a BIG help!

Mikaya was a trooper and spent a lot of time out there with us.

Brooke...don't let her size fool you!

By the end she was showing up some of her older brothers pretty good!

We probably went through a lot more food this week with all the big appetites we had!

Talking about food,

Kerri was the one who stayed home and took care of the littles and kept us all very well fed!

Thanks Ker.


Nathan....probably is wondering about now when lunch is!!!

Jesse reminded me of an ant in the amount of logs he could carry!

This guy carried lots and lots of logs!

I would load him up and he would just stand there and give me that look of....

more please!!!

So I would give him more!

I think my little boy is turning into a man!!!

My job was to keep the crew going! I would follow Mark around with the chain saw and load the kids up with logs. I also inspected the wood to make sure it was good. When a tree has been dead for too long it gets too rotten and is not worth taking up space. These logs burn too quickly and are often soggy. So we try to find the most solid logs that are worth taking up space! Logs can be so deceiving. They can look great on the outside, but a rotten in the inside. I'm sure there's an object lesson in there somewhere!!!

Here's yours truly carrying a tremendous amount of logs!!! Meg sure knows how to capture me working :)

Here we are back at home splitting and stacking the wood. Again, every hand was well appreciated!

Even Josiah was carrying logs!

Nathan or Jesse brought the logs to the back of the truck.

I sorted out the ones that needed to be split and the ones that were small enough to be stacked.

Jen and Josh would split them.

Mark would load up the kids.

The kids would bring the logs to the wood room.

Megan would stack.

And here's our stacker herself!

She would stack the trucks at the bush and then when we got home

she would stack the wood in the wood room.

She had to be pretty quick with all those wood carriers!!

And once 13 loads of wood were cut, split and stacked, this is about how happy we were :)

I Wonder Why?

It's truly amazing I don't have more gray hairs :)

And this is just a few days after Zachary announced to me that he figured out why he wasn't growing very fast. According to his theory, he hurts himself so much that his body concentrates on healing instead of growing! I wonder why he hurts himself!?!?!

Thanks Zach for fixing my clothes line. But next time you have to reach so high....maybe you could use something a little safer....like a LADDER?????

Feeling Blessed

Do you ever have something happen to you that just makes you feel loved? Loved by God, loved by someone?
This happened to me yesterday.

You see we have this garden.....this really big garden. And then we have this other garden.....this little bit smaller than the really big garden, but still a big garden.

And then we have these weeds. These "getting bigger by the moment" weeds. These weeds that were making the garden look like a jungle rather than the sweet little oasis that it should be.

And then we had this tiller. A fairly new tiller. A tiller that used to work very well. A tiller that used to make the garden look very respectable. But right now, a very broken down tiller.

Then we had me and my daughters who felt totally overwhelmed at having to hoe this entire BIG garden and the other still big, but a little smaller garden, by hand. An especially overwhelming and back breaking task this year due to all the rain making the ground very hard!

Then we have this "fix the tiller" man. A man who said it would be 2 very long weeks before the very broken tiller would be fixed.

Then you have me. Me who was getting a tad anxious about this overgrown garden. Me, who is already having a very frustrating gardening year. Me, who was having a very, very BAD ATTITUDE. Me, sharing complaining to a friend about a very broken down tiller

Then you have a God, Who loves me in spite of my weaknesses. A God Who loves me too much to leave me in my discontent. A God who gently points out to me that the discontent in my heart is not pleasing to Him.

Then you have me. A very humbled me. A very repentant me. A me who has an attitude change....from very BAD....to trying her very best to be CONTENT.

Then you have a very wonderful God. A God Who cares about even the smallest details of my life.

Then you have very sweet friends. Friends who made my day!

Then you have this tiller.....this very, very oldish looking tiller. A tiller that you CAN NOT judge by its looks! A tiller that beats the newish broken down tiller (even when it is functioning at it's best) by a long shot! A tiller that the same very sweet friends dropped off at our place yesterday.

Then you have me. Totally, totally, totally BLESSED! Totally THANKFUL!

Then you have 2 gardens  that no longer look like a jungle. 2 gardens that are looking more and more weed free.

Then you have me who learned a few very big lessons this week.

1) Never underestimate the power of an older looking tiller!

2) As hard as it is sometimes, it pays to be content. Not only does your heart feel good....it feels GREAT!

3) A great lesson from a young couple who chose to be a blessing....even if it meant going out of their way to help someone out.....May I be like that!

4) It's just not worth sweating over the small things. They will not matter in eternity....but my attitude will.

A big thanks to Mike and Jeanette for lending us your tiller. Words cannont express how much it meant to us :)

Good Excuse?

We were on our way to church on Sunday enjoying the drive when all of a sudden Mark put on the brakes and started to back up the van. He said he thought he saw a turtle on the side of the road. And he did....a big one!!!! So we stopped the van, let the kids take off their seat belts and admire this amazing creature!!! He stared at us all gauking at him as if to say,

" What's all the fuss about!"

This extra stop made us late for church but over the years we have learned that sometimes you just have to stop and enjoy the little things in life :)

Mother's Day

I had a great Mother’s Day, thanks to my wonderful husband and kids.

We had a nice day enjoying family and friends and of course eating together.

And I also got many great gifts. Flip Flops, CD, book, hummingbird feeder, chocolates :), a beautiful bouquet of flowers and 3 roses.

As great as all those gifts were, my favorite is the one I will receive in November (Lord willing). Check out here to see what it is!!!!

Hope you all had a great day celebrating motherhood!

How We Do Things

It's come to my attention that people are interested in the way we do things around here. Day to day things. To me life is just life and we live it every day....pretty much normal. But I do remember being kind of fascinated of other large families when I was a young mom and so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people are curious about us. I know I have mentioned this before, I don't often think about the size of our family. In fact sometimes I will look at a photo of our family and I am kind of taken back and say "Wow, that's a lot of kids" :) Yup, this is just what normal is to me!

On that note I plan to do a few posts on how we do things around here. Again, if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer.

Lets start with daily chores.

Our oldest three girls take on either laundry, meals or helping with kids each week. When the week is up, they rotate. I try to help them out when I can, but most of the time they are on their own. It is a great help for me to know that these major areas of our household chores are taken care of. In the afternoon they do their house cleaning jobs. We deep clean 3 rooms of the house every day (except the weekend). I used to have Saturday as our cleaning day but I like this better as it doesn't feel like the house is so messy by the weekend. And of course now that our girls are older, they take personal responsibility to tidy up throughout the day and see what needs to be done and do it (and they also get the littles to pitch in).

In the summer the work load doubles as we have 2 big gardens to take care of, a yard to maintain and flower gardens to make look pretty! Not to mention helping out their Dad when he needs an extra hand around the farm.

Our girls also take care of the milking chores morning and evening. Jen most often milks and Meg and Kerri take turns going out and feeding, watering and cleaning out.

Caleb, Zachary, Jesse and Nathan take care of our laying hens, turkey, goat and broilers (when we have them). They do most of the chores in the morning, except for picking eggs till mid afternoon. They also have to clean their room, organize their clothes (we have them on shelves in a closet), put away their laundry, make their beds, comb their hair, brush their teeth, take out the garbage, plus do some tidy up jobs around the house. This is all to be done by 8:30 am. After meals they clean up the dishes, put food away, tidy our mud room (yes, needed to be cleaned twice a day. I think it's part of living on the farm!!!), and sweeping or shoveling off walkways and the deck.  After dishes are done, they help the older girls do their house cleaning job, and anything else that they need help with. I dodn't make this a rule, but they just kind of keep helping!!! Most of the time they are more than willing to lend a helping hand and are often asking, "Is there anything I can do?" Now they don't always like the job they get, but they are learning if they are faithful in the little things, they will be entrusted with the bigger things! And now that things are getting busier around here with seeding hopefully starting soon, the boys will be helping their dad and doing yard and garden work as well.

Brooke cleans her room, makes her bed, does her hair, brushes her teeth and organizes her clothes before 8:30 am. After lunch and supper she wipes down the bathroom and the laundry room (which is a half bath) and washes all of our white doors in the house (man they get dirty fast!!!). And throughout the rest of the day she pretty often sticks by my side, or the older girls and helps out where she can.

Mikaya doesn't have any structured jobs right now. She of course is expected to clean up after herself and is often found being our go-pher-it! 3 year old legs can save these old legs a lot of steps :)

Some of the goals we have in teaching our children to work:

-That they would do all their work as unto the Lord
-That they would have a cheerful attitude while working
-That they would do their jobs quickly, thoroughly and completely
-That they would develop the ability to see what needs to be done and do it
-That they would know that work is 'not' optional
-That they would feel a part of the family because they help out
-That they would be in training to someday, Lord willing, be a godly spouse, father/mother and/or employee
-That they would know that "a little hard work ain't never hurt anybody" :)
-That they would get their work done before play

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23

Mr. Cool Dude

Hi! It's Me Megan again! :)
Can you guess why I am posting again? Ya, you guessed it....I have pictures to share! :)
This morning Jaden was drinking his bottle and Zach decided to put his sunglasses on him! I was surprised Jaden did not try to take them off or anything...
I think He must have liked them! :)