Beautiful Bounty...

 This is part of my garage right now.  We picked from a friend's garden who is out of town and this is part of the bounty; tomatoes, leeks, celery, crab apples, and apples!!!!  We got strawberries and ground cherries too.  I made jam out of the ground cherries.  Looks pretty in the jars. 

 This turned out sideways but here is a wagon of cabbage.  I'm making a couple buckets of sauerkraut this week!  Below the cabbage are the largest onions I've ever seen grown in a home garden.  Jordan stayed the week with a family who grew these monsters.  I love cutting up one onion and getting almost 4 cups.  It's so handy.  I usually cut 12-15 of my small ones for the same amount. 

 My laundry room is always full of the leftover picking from market but here we picked because of possible frost warning in our area.  We have enough tomatillos to make a few gallons of salsa verde I think. 

We made some spaghetti sauce and canned four lonely jars of green beans today.  We kept the rest for eating.  We've been covering some bushes hoping for a couple more pickings before the season is completely done.

 It seems we worked quite a long time and only got 5 quarts of applesauce and a small bowl for eating.  Applesauce tends to be a lot of work!

 Finally, we made stuffed peppers!  We like to have them at least once in the season and tonight was the night.   Thanks for the recipe Jan, all those years ago. We sure enjoyed them!  Rice, hamburger, onions, tomatoes and cheese.

 Love those garden meals!  Supper tonight was stuffed peppers, green beans, fried okra, and home made kombucha.

Rebekah, enjoying her home grown meal.  I'm going to miss eating this stuff all fresh picked.  Winter is upon us :(  

  We picked up a sickness somewhere and it had a couple kids down for awhile.  Isaac is still recovering from it.  Gideon is better, just tired and Kevin thinks he has a touch of it but it hasn't laid him low.  Isaac is much improved over yesterday when he couldn't eat anything.  He's slowly working his way up to some real food.  For now it's jello, broth, yogurt and roast chicken and electrolyte.  Sure praying it doesn't go "around" the rest of us!  Because of it we didn't have the babies we watch and it was kind of quiet.  I took a nap even but had a real hard time waking up.  My body protested and wanted more!  This gardening season is much busier than ever and each week I spend a little less time sleeping and it's getting a little more challenging each day.  Three more market days left!!!!!  I keep telling the kids October will be more "normal"  I hope to be canning some more applesauce then but we won't have bread baking or market picking.  Looking forward to that!  Anyone have jars they want to get rid of? or know of someone who is done canning?  I need a few more to finish off the season:) 

Thank You Grandma!!

 Lena was so excited to get yet another present.  We made her wait until all the chores were done and everyone could watch her.

 Opening the card!

 She's waving, "hi" to Grandma.  She loved it all. 

I love new jammies!  Lena sure needed some.  Thank you Grandma Reta and Grandpa Sam!

Horse crazy...

 We went to Jorgenson Ranch Days this weekend and the kids couldn't have been happier riding horse all over the place pretty much whenever they wanted.  The horses there are so well-trained and easy-going.  The kids didn't want to leave.

 Moriah Clara!

 Hayride with friends!

 The hayride took us out to a huge campfire by a lake where the kids roasted marshmallows.

 The fire was a little hot even with the long sticks!

Rebekah!

 Caleb!

 Isaac!

 Church on Sunday!  It was good music, good preaching and we even got to get up and share our testimony of Isaac's healing!  Praise the Lord for giving us something to say! 

 The girls sang, "I Have Been Blessed."

 Jordan acquired a new follower, Clay!  Jordan is staying this week with his family.

 There were some covered wagons for those who didn't ride horse on one of the trail rides yesterday!

 Isaac riding behind our covered wagon. He loved riding horse!!!

 Emily's horse!  These horses could ride around the yard with all kinds of people around and they were always well-behaved.  It was wonderful.

Gideon took Lena for a ride on this little horse.  We would like to take this one home but she's not for sale :(

We had a great time with new friends and old, eating too much, all the games, church was encouraging and uplifting, horses, cows, chickens, turkeys, goats and more.  We slept in a cabin they had there and my boys were up before 7 a.m. to help with all the chores. 

The Ball...

 Em, Caleb, Rebekah and Isaac getting ready to go to the ball.

 The Ball theme this year was the 1940's.  Although my girls' dresses don't quite look like it we did order from a company that said vintage styles and they did look like a lot of dresses we looked up on line.  I think they all look so nice!

 Emily and Mary!

 Caleb and Emily dancing!

 Isaac bowing to his partner.

 Love all this hair!  The girls did a great job on doing it up!

 Isaac!

 The end of the grand march dance!

 Stephen and his accordian shared some music through the intermissions.

 The winners of "who looked the most like the 1940's".

 Jordan and Isaac and there is Rebekah to the left doing the patty-cake polka.

 Rebekah and Caleb!

The very last dance.  Isaac gave the idea to throw their hats at the last moment and they did!

Summer trip...

 We are off...to Wisconsin for a few days of camping and touring Duluth, Hayward, MN and spending time with Grandpa Richard.

 Part of our camping setup.  Kev, Gideon and I had the pop-up, Caleb and Isaac had the tent and the 5 girls slept in a pickup camper that Grandpa just bought.  We were spread out and had plenty of room to breath and move. 

 Wilderness Walk is a zoo in Hayward, Wi.  We went there when Moriah was just a baby so it was fun to go when more kids could take part and remember it.  About 5 minutes into it Lena wanted to go to the playground.  Here is Gideon, Moriah and Lena.

 There is an old town at the end of the zoo part where there is a maze, spooky house, jail, ice cream shop that sells real food, a place to pan for gold and some other fun things.  Caleb in shackles!

 Loved this sign for one of the animals.  Isaac is standing next to "PLEASE DO NOT FEED ME.  I'M ON A DIET!!!!"  How appropriate for Isaac!

 Trying to get a shot for that Christmas card.  It was a hard thing to get them all looking at the camera at the same time!

 There were a lot of these fun cut outs around the zoo.  Here is Gideon!

Here is Gideon again riding a bucking bronco!

Lena loves animals!  She found a deer sitting down resting and went right over to it and sat down to talk nose to nose with her. 

More pictures to come...