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Tag Archive for Family

Grandma’s Childhood Home

Posted by html404 on May 13, 2010
in Family Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

In April we made the six hour drive to Rice Lake, WI to visit my mother-in-law’s childhood home – thus the title of our Wordless Wednesday post. We were quite happy to report to her that it has been very well kept, as you can see from the photo. It was a beautiful drive up north going through all the farming communities.

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Rice Lake is only a town of 8,000 or so but compared to some towns with the population of 8,000 Rice Lake seemed to have the monopoly on business. We assume it is because of the distance that everyone has to travel. I mean they had a Super Walmart, a health food store, a Farm and Fleet and a bunch of other stores that we were surprised to see in a town of that size.

The town has changed in big ways since the 30’s and 40’s I am sure, but my mother-in-law was unable to make the trip with us to tell us exactly how it had all changed.

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It was an incredibly windy day (but sunny and beautiful) the day we visited, but we managed to show the children how to “skip” rocks despite the choppy lake. We had a picnic lunch which kept blowing away, but we endure it to make some happy memories of our short time in Rice Lake.

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Wordless Wednesday – Grandma’s Childhood Home

Posted by html404 on May 12, 2010
in Family Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

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A Funny Story about the Spring Tulips

Posted by html404 on May 6, 2010
in Family Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

There is a funny little story behind our spring tulips from our Wordless Wednesday photo which we think are beautiful signs of spring.

Several years ago I had the children help me plant tulip bulbs in the fall of that particular year. However, I neglected to instruct or inspect their work before they covered the bulbs up. It took these tulips forever to come up and for couple of years all we had was the green leafy part of the tulips. Then this year we actually had four or five tulips total, so we were excited!

We figure some of our tulips could be half way around the world now trying to find their way to sunlight since they were probably planted upside down!

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Farmland and Mentorship

Posted by html404 on May 3, 2010
in Family Stuff

We still have not worked out details of the farmland that we went to see a few weeks ago. We are waiting to hear back about pricing and we need to get the soil tested to see if it is even good for farming. That is the “limbo-land” that I just followed up on. I do know where we can get a soil testing kit for free and where to send the soil for a minimal testing fee, so I have been learning as we go along here in our search for farmland to rent.

Farmland

Image: Tom Curtis / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Last week we inquired about another piece of land that is being offered “rent free”, yes that was a rare opportunity and one we could not just pass over. The landowner is looking for produce in exchange for rent, so it is an exchange really. We went to see the land the other night and meet with the owner. The plot of land is 200 x 80, so it is a good size for a family garden, which is what we’d like to start with. This land is farther away making the distance a definite downfall, however, for the use of equipment etc. for just this year seems like an opportunity we had to investigate.

We also have a farm mentorship in the works through our Stateline Farm Beginnings Class, which we graduated from in Feb.-March. Just waiting to hear back from our mentors. I am sure they are amidst their busy planting season.

Update: We have officially accepted the offer of the land that is farther away. The rest of the spring will be busy learning to ride a small tractor, tilling our growing field, purchasing seeds, planting, watering, weeding, mulching and working on supplying our family with farm fresh veggies – grown by our own hands! We will only be using half of the growing field to start to see how we manage that first. We are excited about this opportunity and will keep you updated on our progress as “produce growers”.

We also found out the the first rental property will not be able to be farmed in the future due to sewer work that needs to be done. Too bad and I am so glad we had the other field to fall back on!

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How Do You Tuck in a Superhero? – Revell Book Tour

Posted by html404 on May 1, 2010
in Books

I received the following book in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of the book.

How do you Tuck in a Superhero

I mentioned that I had started reading a book back at the end of March about Life with Boys and have been trying to finish it up amidst everything else so I can post my review. So here I am on the last day of the Revell Book Tour posting my review. I have thoroughly enjoyed Rachel Balducci’s book, How Do You Tuck in a Superhero? It has been a very good book. Rachel knows what life with boys is really like since she has five sons. In her book, she shares the mysteries of raising a crew of boys.

This book isn’t about her spiritual journey in raising boys, so don’t expect to see great exhortations about how the Lord has inspired Mrs. Balducci to parent boys. It is a book about the nitty-gritty details of boyhood. How Do You Tuck in a Superhero? is a refreshing look at life with boys. As I have stated, I have grown very frustrated with my boys on more than a few occasions. Mrs. Balducci helped me see the beauty and the normal-ness of what if means to be a boy. Like I said in my March post, I grew up with ALL girls. Having an all girl family is much different than having and all boy family or even a mixed gender family – so many differences that affect the dynamics of family life.

I loved the short chapters of the book – I think Mrs. Balducci realizes how busy we parents are! The short snippets of stories about her boys gave me a chance to either laugh or ponder the incredible task we have in raising boys. Her experiences also made my life with my own boys seem almost normal too. I love the fact that Mrs. Balducci has embraced her calling as a mother of all boys because I think it is important for us as mothers, as parents, to embrace the family He has blessed us with. He didn’t make a mistake when He put our families together, but sometimes I think we can mistakenly think that when the going gets rough. If only we could all find joy in the tough, real moments of living together, how much better would those “bad” days be!

I think this book is a must read for anybody trying to figure out the male gender. As Dr. Kevin Lehman is quoted on the back of the book, “This book is a celebration of boyhood in all its glory.”

“Available April 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

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Twin Princesses

Posted by html404 on April 29, 2010
in Family Stuff

Our Wordless Wednesday photo this week is of our niece and youngest daughter playing dress up this past weekend. It was cute because shortly after we got to the “cousins”, Cousin Blondie remembered she had two Sleeping Beauty dresses and said, “Me and ‘Blondie’ (using her real name of course) can be twin princesses!” Our Blondie wore her outfit the whole time we were at the cousins.

It had been awhile since we had seen my husband’s brother and sister-in-law. We had a really nice visit watching a movie, well, the younger children and men did. The older ladies – meaning my sister-in-law, mother-in-law and I along with a couple of the teens remained upstairs and chatted. Then we had pizza and dessert before heading home for the night.

Weekends have been incredibly busy around our house lately. This weekend we have the opportunity to go to a CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) Field Day, but I think it is suppose to rain. Or we could go to a used curriculum sale. Then there’s church on Sunday morning. Plus, there is a Green Fair at an organic farm an hour or so away on Sunday afternoon, so we could potentially be out all weekend if we choose to do so. We love all the activity, but we are really zonked at the end when we go out full throttle. And the weekend is only two days long!

Our summer may hold an adventure we did not expect, so stay tuned to find out what that is…..

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Wordless Wednesday – “Twin” Princesses

Posted by html404 on April 28, 2010
in Family Stuff

Two Princesses

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Glittery Shoe Art

Posted by html404 on April 22, 2010
in Family Stuff

Don’t children do the darndest things? Some of those things are pretty creative. Take the “shoe art” from our Wordless Wednesday photo. Our daughter thought her army green tennis shoes (keds, sneakers, whatever word you use to describe this kind of shoe) looked too boyish, so she took some glitter glue and applied some shoe art and voila! She now has girlish looking shoes. The shoes were given to us and were not a good pair of shoes, so when some of the children came to me to “tell” they did not get the reaction they were expecting. Quite frankly, I thought she was ingenius and was proud of her ability to create the kind of shoe she desired without grumbling about wanting another pair of shoes.

Now, if they had of been a new pair of church shoes or something, I might have had a negative reaction. But her glittery shoes are very attractive on a young girl’s feet.

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Wordless Wednesday – Shoe Art

Posted by html404 on April 21, 2010
in Family Stuff

Shoe Art

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Big Brother from Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on April 15, 2010
in Family Stuff

Our Wordless Wednesday photo was taken last Saturday when our family went to the Zoo. We had a picnic lunch and beside the picnic area was the small wooded area where the children found a great place to play! All of the children had come back to the picnic area and Noah, currently our youngest at 2 years old, ran back to into the bushes to play – with a bright smile on his face! His big brother, Jerbear, ran after him and grabbed his hand to go with him into the little area that is filled with rocks, sticks and all the fun stuff boys love in nature. I didn’t have time to get our camera out and snap a picture of them going in, so when they came around the bushes holding hands, I acted fast to catch the moment so we’d have it as a precious memory of big brother looking after his little brother.

Looking at the picture still makes my heart swell because we didn’t ask our son to run after his little brother. He did it all on his own. I love it when the children do things like this and can only hope and pray that their relationships will only grow in love and devotion towards one another.

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