Caleb's DOUBLE DIGIT Birthday!

On February 21, our spunky and energetic son entered double digits. Ten years ago during a crazy snow and ice storm he entered the world. His birthday also marked the beginning of my journey as a full-time stay at home mom. It's impossible to count the blessings that this whole journey has granted me. I am thankful for each trial and triumph all the same. 

Caleb enjoyed a fun sleepover in honor of his birthday, complete with Lemon Cake and Cookies and Cream Ice Cream.

 As a ten year old Caleb loves building Legos, listening to music, he is learning a few chords on the guitar. He loves our puppy dog Jasper, and reads to him nearly every day during school.

 He also thought Jasper should enjoy one of his favorite gifts. A hand me down IPOD shuffle loaded with hundreds of songs! Caleb your growing into a great young man, we love you very much.

Snow Much Fun

This winter hasn't given us as much snow as my family would prefer, but it has provided enough on occasion for some entertainment.

 Lance is heading up the sledding party

 I barely caught this separate incident on camera...

 Project snowman demolition quickly followed! They are so proud.

 Ta-Dah.....Look what we did, Caleb exclaimed.

 I simply LOVE this moment...It looks like a warrior call, don't you think?

 I hope your enjoying the hopefully fleeting days of the winter months. Now that March has rolled around we are getting very excited about Spring! 

100th Day of School!

It's always such a happy day when we reach our 100th day of school. It's has become a tradition to do something special that day, and we continued that tradition this year. First, the kids did a writing  exercise. The kids got to choose from two story starters.

 #1: If you had $100 dollars, what would you buy and why.

#2: If you were 100 years old, write a story about your life at that age.

 Each of the kids wrote their story then shared it with the class. Julia was so cute with her illustration and the story she "wrote". I even got video of some of them sharing.....so sweet.

 Next we got out the mini-marshmallows and toothpicks to prepare for the next activity.

First everyone made piles of ten till they reached 100.

 Then I gave them the freedom to start creating whatever they wanted.

 Zach is playing it cool while he is building his masterpiece.

 Caleb was making some kind of structure with interesting angles.

 Lance is an engineer at heart, he loves constructing things.

 There you have it, a peek into our morning of fun with 100. It always feels like a we are on the home stretch with the school year when we reach the 100th day. It always strikes me as crazy that we have completed over half of our school year at this point. This is my 7th year as a teacher to my children, and the 7th year we have celebrated 100 days of school. I can't tell you how unbelievably fast those years have flown by! This will be Lance's last year to celebrate the 100th day of school, since he's on to middle school!! I'm thinking he might be to cool to participate with us next year. Although homeschooling my children has been a major sacrifice on every level, and their have been several occasions where tears have flowed, I wouldn't change our decision even for a second. When I ask my kids they say the same thing. I totally understand that homeschooling is not for every family, but it sure has been a gift to our family.

January in Review

The month of January was fun for all of us. We got to celebrate my sweet Hubby's Birthday! I'm not sure how many men ask for a pad for their tractor seat, but he was tickled to get it. That made us all very happy to get it for him.

 We always celebrate at my in-laws house with cake and ice cream!

 He got this vintage t-shirt of Waylon Jennings. It's incredibly soft and feels wonderful. Again he was thrilled, again I wondered why.

We got to go to the Shrine Circus! This was the kids first time to go to the circus and they enjoyed every minute. We have a really great time! I forgot my good camera, so we just got a few pictures together before the circus started.

 

 Since Justin is still healing up, we've been doing more relaxing than usual. Julia and Daddy spent some time just hanging out and watching a little show.

 We have been spoiling Jasper and he has enjoyed cuddling up with the kids while they read. He is currently taking some dancing lessons from Caleb, shown here. I'm still trying to decide whether he is thrilled or really wanting someone to send him outside.

We also celebrated out 100th Day of school.......lots of pictures to come.

Quilting FUN

This winter I have been able to make a little progress in my quilting studio. This is a baby boy quilt I gave it to a girlfriend who just had a bundle of joy.

 All I used is a little charm pack. I love the blue and brown together.

 I went to a quilting retreat in January and I ended up working on this project. Great big 25" star blocks, both of which I LOVE. The colors are yellow, brown, oranges, with a white background. I still have some work to do on the blocks, along with adding some sashing as well. When it's all finished it will be a queen size, and have a new home on my bed in the fall seasons.

 Miss Julia has always been interested in my quilting, but lately she has really been struck with the bug of wanting to make things herself. She also has a complete LOVE for fabric. After brainstorming with her we have decided that we will make some baby doll quilts to sell. With that money she wants to buy her own sewing machine (with protective guards) for her to sew along side me.

 She has been sitting on my lap doing the actual sewing herself while I control the speed and foot pedal. She giggles a lot, she asks me how she's doing, and then admires her work.

 We are having a lot of FUN and enjoying our time together.

 After several hours of sewing (yes she actually will sew with me for hours), this is what we came up with for our second quilt. We used some 5" squares to make this bright baby doll quilt. Now we need to sew the rows together!

 Julia and I also attended a quilt club meeting this week and scored some really great (free) fabric! This is just what I collected.....she had her own stash she collected. She came home flying high and ready to go back again next month.

When we finish a few more baby doll quilts we will be sure to post them here in case any of you are interested in supporting her sewing machine fund, and fabric accumulation habit.

60 degrees in the Middle of January!

Say what? Topping out around 60 degrees in the middle of January in Indiana just doesn't happen.

It did this past Saturday though, and I took advantage of it and headed out with my neglected Canon Rebel. (Since inheriting my Iphone I've been lazy at getting my "big camera" out and using it.) So here we go on our stroll of the homestead on the beautiful, but unusual January day. I followed my hubby out to woods without him knowing it. I loved this shot of him got hanging out looking over things.

 Flowers blooming in January...seriously? Yep in my little chick trough feeder...LOVE IT!

 I know this picture is a little weird to some, but it's really exciting to me.....COMPOST BABY!!

 When it gets as warm as 60 degrees my girls decided to come out and enjoy the sunshine. I can't even  begin to tell you what an blessing this was to me. I haven't been able to check on them at all since I harvested honey in September. Once the temps stay below sixty your not suppose to open the hive box anymore (to cold for the bees). I still didn't open the hives up this weekend,  but to see so many of them out flying around was just about the best thing ever! The fact that I know they are still alive and thriving makes me so very grateful!

 I love looking across our 24 acre field beside us and seeing GREEN! I has all kind of beans and greens that were planted last fall to help replenish the soil with nitrogen naturally.

 There is something that gives me warm and fuzzy feeling about seeing all the wood piles we have around the homestead. I'm thinking it has something to do with my LOVE of a good campfire. My father in law says it might have something to do with me not cutting the wood, but burning it at a rapid pace. Ya maybe, but who's keeping track right?

 Jasper thought the whole day outside with all his favorite people was quit grand....

 I think this picture should be calle, "Where there is a will, there is a way." I'm sure others might have an entirely different name for it. I think it's awesome: Crutches, feed sack over his foot, and riding one of his favorite toys. I'm thinking this is what memories are made of!

 Our egg laying ladies are so happy to see the snow melt and scratch at the ground again! Our rooster, "Feather Foot" is keeping his ladies close, he's not sure about the weird lady with that black thing in front of here faces following them around.

 Our Ducks seemed to jumping out of their skin with excitement. Quacking the whole days while milling about from here to there. They found a little water wallow where our 4-H pigs were last year.

 I didn't take them but a second to decide it was a perfect day for swim. Unfortunately, warm weather in January was never expected to last and now we have highs in the 30's all week. It was great while it lasted, and I think it's safe to say EVERYONE at the Homestead took advantage of the day!

For the rest of January we plan to maybe visit the farm show, order some flower seeds for our nectar loving bees, amd order our veggie seeds as well. If I get really ambitious I might even start to map our layout of the veggie garden.

 

Christmas 2012

I know everyone has moved on  and is over Christmas, but I couldn't let the whole month of January pass and not post anything. We love to start off our each Christmas celebration reading Luke 2.

 Caleb was excited about the Lego set he scored.

 Julia loving her Hello Kitty slipper

 Zach sneaking a peak into what he might have under the wrapping

 Lance was glad to add a hatchet to his tool collection

 My in-laws got a beautiful quilt from Grandma Gaerte! The picture doesn't due it justice at all.

January 2013: The Game Plan

It's been awhile since I've logged onto my blog. Not because of lack of want to, but mainly because of time retraints. If I'm being real honest since starting school in September and schooling all four of the kids extra time has been hard to come by. I knew schooling all four of them would require some sacrifices in some other area, I just didn't know it would be my blog that suffered the most. I love blogging, aka: scrapbooking, but I refuse to feel like I have to do it all and run myself so thin I have nothing left to give my family. Thus my reason for being A-Wall for the last month, give or take.

At the end of 2012, three days before Christmas, my sweet hubby fell off the attic stairs backwards and broke the heal of his foot, and my oldest two sons had a severe allergic reaction to poison ivy after a day of woodcutting. At the same time, my oldest son was suffering from severe somach pains which led us to the pediatrician on Day 6 and the to the ER on Day 7 and then two more days until he found relief. The verdict: a weird virus which brought no other systems other than stomach pain. After a couple days of thinking we were on the road to recovery for everyone, I had a puking daughter, and a son with an ear ache. I know it just keeps gettting better right? So there you go all my excuses wrapped up in one big sob story. Although it sounds like a horrible senerio, it has been a priceless time of our family really working together to help serve one another.

On a happy and encouraging note, we had a lovely Christmas with family amongst the "mess". I have been able to work on a few quilting projects....yahooo for me! I finished a baby quilt for a dear friend who just added a fourth child to their family. I just finished binding my first ever mini-quilt last night. I also currently have a lap quilt top in the making. This has been the most quilting I have done all year long! It feels great to ecaspe life for little bits of time to be creative and make something beautiful. I am looking forward to next weekend when I am whisking away to a quilting retreat with a great friend and my mother-in-law! This will be my second year at the retreat. If only I could figure out what I wanted to create. Then if the fabric would just go ahead and cut "itself" out, that would be just lovely (thus the reason I adore pre-cut fabrics). I can't wait for what God has in store for us.

HOMESTEAD GAME PLAN:

I'm very excited with what 2013 has in store for us. Justin and I had a little farm meeting and set some goals for our homestead. We have made our list of projects we would like to check off our list. We have even made our list of "garden must haves". We plan to start on these lists once we get our first hint of Spring weather. (It might be a while we know.)

BLOG GAME PLAN:

I will blog when I can, which might be slim in this season of my life. Then again maybe we will continue to improve our daily school schedule which would allow for more time for me to blog. We shall see. Serving my family must come first, scrapbooking has to be later on the list. Thank you to those who follow us on our adventures and encourage me with your comments.

 

Much Love, The Gaertegang Homestead