16th birthday for our son Isaac!

 Jordan made him this wonderful gluten-free cake with delicious home made frosting.

He got the Lego mindstorms (with his brothers) for a gift.  You build robots and they move and do things!  Pretty fun and takes legos a step further to learning how to program them with a computer, ipod or smart phone.  Had fun with some friends at his birthday!

Merry Christmas!

I kind of forgot about this blog.  At the beginning of November, Emily and I started a new cleaning job.  It is three days a week and although it doesn't take much time out of our day it makes it a little more busy around here. We had a nice Christmas over at my mom's.  Jordan was sick at home with a fever and had to miss out on Christmas Eve.  Christmas Day was at home just our family and she felt much better after sleeping the whole day before. 

 Lane and Lena!  Cutie Pies!

 My three sons!

 Lena, Moriah and Rebekah all dressed up for Christmas.  Lena likes to be a clown during picture time :)

 My brother and his lovely wife!

 Hunter and Caleb are waiting to see what they got!

 Emily surprised Mom with this picture.

 Levi and Lane!

 Brayden waiting also for the present opening to begin!

 Kev!

I'm sitting in the spot I always sit on Christmas, Christine joined me this year. 

 Emily, the photographer, got a watch for Christmas!

 Grandpa Sam sitting in his chair in the corner watching the goings on!

The girls got American Girl dolls.  Several times a day Moriah lets us know how wonderful, excited, happy and elated she is to have Marie Grace.  She thinks she is beautiful and loves her ringlets and can't believe she has her!  It's been fun around here to see someone so taken by a gift!  Rebekah got the Rebecca doll and was very happy as she'd been dreaming of that for a long time.  Lena likes her doll, Caroline, very much and also loves the husky dog she got.  She threw him at me last night and told me he likes to be played with a lot and it was my turn to play with him!  She's so funny! 

The ball and such...

 The annual Roise Ball was held again in a little bit warmer weather.  It's something we look forward to all year.  It was Rebekah's 2nd year.  She looked so lovely this year as did all the kids.

 Rebekah and her best friend Maggie.

 Emily taking a turn around the dance floor with a longtime friend of the family.

 Isaac loved all the dances. 

 Jordan, so poised and lovely.

 Goofy guy!

 Dads talking while kids danced!  Love it that we get to be a part of the whole thing!

My bubba boy!  He's taller than all the kids now and just has a few inches to beat his dad!

We are so busy with school, cleaning jobs, Jordan's lessons and nanny job and the other things that get a family going!  The boys have been working at Grandpa Sam's some cleaning up and some fencing.  That's where they are today with their dad.  Jordan is gone to Josh and Annie's (her nanny job that is every other weekend from Friday to Tuesday), and the rest of us are cleaning bathrooms, washing floors and decluttering.  These things get left far too often and it gets away from us too quickly.  We have a wedding to attend later so we don't have too much time to do it :)  I keep hoping with gardening over we will slow down and get to stay home but it doesn't look promising.  We still have some gardens to clean up for winter and to cut down all the raspberries!  Snow will come too soon.  Blessings to all. 

Market is over!!!

 We are still enjoying our home grown produce.  The other night we had rice/hamburger,tomato stuffed peppers with steamed cauliflower (from our garden) and a veggie tray that had peppers, radishes, cucumber, and zucchini all from our garden!  I found some radishes which made one market customer very happy on Thursday. 

 Thursday, Oct. 3rd was our last day of market in Wahpeton.  It was the first time I went without baking any bread and it was wonderful!  We sold a lot of spicy pickled carrots and quite a few jams.  I had 24 varieties of veggies and fruits!  It was a beautiful varitey of veggies.

 It was a great last day of market.  It was cold and rainy but the customers were there and steady.  Kale and tomatoes were the top sellers.  Gideon cut three baskets of Kale and one customer bought 4 bunches!  It was a very popular vegetable.  The carrots, tomatoes, grean beans, squash, leeks, cabbage, kohlrabi, and radishes all sold out and most of everything else.  I had a great time selling at market this year.

 Even though the hail took out some of our crops we had a productive year.  We just had a lot less of some things. 

 I actually need to buy one more table for next year.  We can't quite fit everything on our 3 six foot tables.  It's a good problem to have! 

The kids were so great this year.  They each had a veggie or two that they were responsible for and Rebekah got to help a lot with taking money. Customers were so nice and they'd give her a 20 and help her figure out the change.  She mostly did customers who only  bought bread.  She learned how to display the veggies and the jams and breads and enjoyed that part of it.  Thanks to the kids and their hard work this summer we were able to go to several camps, put money away for music lessons, school books, and other things.  I'm proud of the kids and hope they are up for another year.

I'm also happy and relieved it is over for the year.  I commented to Emily as I was washing laundry and making supper yesterday and having a "normal" day at home with the kids that I felt so relieved and "normal" again.  I missed having those kind of days this summer.  There really wasn't a day that was free of market duties; either canning something, weeding, picking, planting, or cleaning someone's elses house.  I spent most of Monday and Tuesday this week cleaning the house and it feels "normal" again without the market supplies everywhere.  Now onto the best adventure of the year: schooling the kids.  We've got some great books to go through this year.  It's Emily's last year and Lena's first!  Praise God for his goodness this summer! 

Boat builders...

 We went to family camp this last Labor Day and one of the activities was to give each team (about 17) a pile of cardboard, 2 rolls of tape and one utility knive and about 1 1/2 hous to build a boat that could float. 

 It took us about 45 minutes to devise a plan and then we discovered we used way too much tape at the beginning because we ran out of tape. 

 Our boat was one of the smallest.  Your boat had to hold two people from your team.  Isaac and Rebekah got the honor of being our representatives in the boat race.  Isaac had some design ideas and Jordan used some tips she learned in sewing to put the front of the boat together. 

 We named our boat the Mighty Mrs. Sip after Mrs. Sip who puts on the camp with her family.  She's pretty amazing.  We call her Mighty Mrs. Sip at our house sometimes so thought it was a good name.

 Ready to launch. 

 A few boats sunk right away although I was too busy watching our boat that I didn't notice.  We were number 4 across the finish line!!!  After the race, all teams were instructed to come back towards shore for a battle to see who could be the last boat on the lake.  We did not win this part as our boat was small and tipped easily.

 Here is it getting down to just a couple teams.

A lot of wet, soggy cardboard was the end of the activity.  It was great fun!  We came home Monday quite exhausted from the swimming, rollerskating, tubing, eating, walking, etc.  Gregg Harris, home school giant, was the guest speaker and he was excellent.  I have some of his family's materials but have never heard him speak.  It was wonderful. 

A very Happy Birthday for our Lena...

 We were camping in Wisconsin when Lena turned 5.  Emily put together a scavenger hunt and made it a bit like the "Amazing Race".  They ran from clue to clue gathering the gifts Em had acquired for Lena.

 She's five!!

 Silly fun!

 Her birthday present was a violin!   Hoping for some lessons from big sisters!  She wants to play it all the time so I'm thinking she'll catch on quickly.  In 15 minutes she was doing a song already by plucking not with the bow.

 The favorite gift was a sock monkey that is currently misplaced.

 Silly Lena!

 Boyka and Lena.  It didn't take long and he had the hat off :)

 Thanks to Grandpa and Don for the beautiful birthday cake.  She loved it!

Sisters who look so much alike sometimes!