French Braids!

I was so excited when I realized Josalea's hair was long enough to 

put in french braided pigtails :)

                             

                                                      She sat pretty still for me, 
                                              with a little distraction as needed :)
                                                               

                                                        She is a smiler for sure!

I love her tiptoes! She likes to check out what Big Brother is doing 

and doesn't like him out of her sight for long :)

Josalea Kate's first birthday!

We celebrated Josalea's first bithday with Grandma and Granddad Wilkie

and, boy, did we have fun!

                                                                     

Josalea loves elephants and makes a very

cute impression of one. :)

So I made her an elephant cake and she

loved it!

I had a lot of fun making it too. I think the first year cake

is more for Mom than anyone else. ;)

She was very excited when we put the cake

and the candle in front of her. :)

She loved to hear us sing to her...

...and then she reached...

...and grabbed herself a handful!

She wasn't shy when it came to digging in

and getting messy.

She's quite the little charmer :)

  

Daddy got the honors of getting her out of 

her highchair and into the bathtub.

Notice the similar expression! :)

She loves her bathtime

She got a new bath towel for her birthday,

an elephant of course!

She enjoyed the bow more than opening the gift :)

She's definitely a girl...she likes her shoes already!

They were both pretty excited about this new elephant book!

This is the, 'give me back my book' face.

We all went swimming at the river for her birthday too.

Swimming is one of her favorite things to do! 

She is quite a little fish and has no fear.

She was pretty worn out by the time we took this picture,

little sweetie. <3

(And notice the studly man in this picture as well ;)   )

Fun times!

Goofy faces! :P

At the end of the day she got to try her first S'more.

It was a big hit!  She sat in her highchair for the longest time

and finished every bite!

What a joy is our little Josalea Kate! We are so very blessed by her

and thank God daily for the amazing gift of our sweet, spunky, quick to give a smile, little girl. <3

Hello! My goodness it has been a long time since I was on here!
First of all I'd like to explain the distraction. :-) See photo below:

14 1/2 weeks along!


I'm sure most of you know already,
but we are expecting a baby on December 9th!
We are so excited and all is going very well.
I have felt great (other than feeling like I could sleep all day!).
Much to Brandon's relief, I haven't felt nauseas or
had the normal morning sickness that usually goes
along with pregnancy. I just thank God
for that, as does Brandon,
and enjoy feeling good and energetic while it lasts.
I hear that all changes before too long. :-)

We have been busy thinking about names,
planning our schedule this summer, as things change a little
when there's someone else to think about :-),
and just being so very excited, humbled and in awe.
I'm not sure it has completely soaked in yet that we're actually
going to have a baby! It's beginning to though. :-)

God is so good and we just continue to pray daily
for His direction, preparation and protection on this
new little life as he/she prepares to enter this world.

We'll keep you posted as to our progress! :-)

It began snowing yesterday morning
and it was still snowing when we went to bed last night!

It seems like winter doesn't want to leave and, though
we are anticipating spring, we are awed and God's creativity

This is our kitchen window from the inside.
The wind blew the snow and it stuck on everything!


So, we had 8 inches of snow on the ground, we were getting a little
cabin fever, and craving something sweet.
So, we decided to make Snow Ice Cream!

It turned out sooo good and it's extremely easy!
Brandon went out and gathered a big bowl of fresh snow.
We started throwing stuff in and ended up with
a sweet bowl of what tasted like homemade ice cream.
We like to call it Snow Cream :-)

Here is the recipe if you have some fresh snow on the ground:

A big bowl of snow
1-2 cups milk
1/2-1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

Stir in just enough milk to make the consistency of ice cream.
We added some half and half too to make it more creamy,
but you don't have to.
If it gets too runny just add more snow.
Add sugar and vanilla to taste.
You can add other flavorings like strawberry syrup
or chocolate syrup if you like.
The vanilla tastes like homemade vanilla ice cream though
and its really good :-)
Stir altogether and enjoy!



There's some left in the freezer from last night and it may
be gone by the time Brandon gets home from work ;-)

In September of last year an 18"x 18" box of peeping chicks
was delivered to the our post office.
There were 26 of them packed in there and they
were as lively as ever!

We prepared our little chicken coop and got them all settled in.

Brandon was their primary care giver and so they came to be very good friends with him.

Maybe friends is an understatement... He can't go outside without be chased by the entire flock!

Well, five long months later the eggs finally began to arrive. We get about 17 of them everyday!

Does anyone need eggs???

The eggs are a huge blessing and the chickens have been so much fun to raise. Poor Brandon is just going to have some company everywhere he goes!

We had a beautiful snow last night and were

privileged to wake up to this!

Our chicken coop with the hens and rooster gladly staying inside


Hadassah, Brandon's mare




All the barbed wire on the fences is topped with snow



It's exciting to think that spring is around the corner, but the
winter weather is beautiful and there's nothing like
getting snowed in and enjoying a quiet day at home. :-)
I think I'll go make cookies!