Shipping Calves...Christmas Baking...ETC

This is kind of a catch-up post! Shipping the bull calves and a few cull cows went good and the prices were not too bad. We only have like 60 days or so to ship cows after TB testing them so it was nice to have that done for another year. And yes, we finally got some snow on December 1st - seven inches of the fluffy stuff. I think it was the nicest fall I ever remember and no snow on the ground till December 1st is almost unheard of. Well, we got some snow back in October but it didn't last long. This stuff will be here till Priscilla's birthday. (No, our cows don't all have horns!)

Miriam doesn't only eat raw chicken legs, she eats fingers as well!! Actually, Silas was making pappenait (I'm sure that's not the correct spelling but it's a German word so I spell it only by sound). He had just too much dough on his fingers before washing them so Miriam helped him out.

Naomi and Aaron are making lefse this evening. We're breaking Aaron into our traditions this Christmas! So far he's been a good sport and even tolerates Silas and Priscilla's teasing and jokes.

Miriam helped me paint the stair walls the same color as our living room. I added a little texture to hide some cracks in the old walls and was pretty pleased.

We had our church ladies Christmas tea this Saturday. My sister-in-law Linda made the delicious lunch and gave a great devotional on the gifts God has given us.

The girls around Priscilla's age sang.

Okay, last year on lefse making day we posted a lefse poem. This year we thought we'd tell you a few Ole, Sven, and Lena jokes. (Very popular jokes among Scandanavians.)

Sven and Ole got a job putting in telephone poles. At the end of the day the foreman asked them, "How many poles did you put in?"

"Two." Said Ole

"Only two?"asked the foreman, "The other men all put in seven or eight."

"Yah," said Ole, "But did you see how much dey left sticking out?"

Lena had just bought a new cell phone and called Ole. "Hi dere, Ole. Guess what? I'm talkin to you while I'm driving down the interstate."

Ole said, "Uffda, Lena, yous better be careful. I yust saw on de news dat dere's one idiot drivin da wrong way down da interstate."

"What do you mean one idiot?" Lena said, "Dere must be a hundred idiots goin da wrong way."

Ole says, "Offda is when you drop a bag of garbage. Ishda is when you have to pick it up."

The first thing to go is da memory. Da second ting is da... da.. what was I talking about?

Sven and Ole were shingling a roof when Sven noticed Ole throwing about half of the nails down on da ground. Sven asked, "Vhy are yous thowing all dose nails down on da ground?"

"Vell," said Ole, "Dey all got heads on da wrong end.

Sven replied, "Dose nails are for da udder side of da roof!"

Have a happy evening! Proverbs 15:13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance..."

This and That...

Somehow, because of the maze, people realized Arthur knew how to give hayrides and so he was asked to give hayrides at our town's Lighting the Christmas Tree ceremony. We thought a few decorations on the tractor and trailer might cheer people up! Good solution too for a trailer with no rear lights! Arthur enjoys that kind of thing and this was no exception. Miriam was assigned to a few painting projects, or rather she asked to be the one to repaint the hall floor and stairs. Our house is about 90+ years old and somehow with our family living in it, it needs constant upkeep and repair. Reminds us of that song, "Ain't gonna need this house no longer, ain't gonna need this house no more, ain't got time to oil the hinges, ain't got time to fix the floor. Ain't got time to do the dishes, or to mend the window pane, ain't gonna need this house no longer, I'm getting ready to meet the saints..." I think those are the right words anyway. Someday all this "stuff" we work hard to keep nice will be worth nothing. Meanwhile we try to be good stewards of what God has entrusted us with!

Naomi is happy Aaron is back after spending a fun Thanksgiving in Williamsburg, VA with his family.....Isaac has a job working for a house siding and gutter company. I think they're siding a barn right now..... Silas is trying to figure out how to get all his school done before Christmas, at least the stuff he's suppose to do..... Priscilla is looking forward to tmorrow when we "officially" can decorate our house..... Arthur is busy pregnancy checking cows and getting his shipping list put together for when the truck comes for the cow sale on Thursday..... Hosanna is working on a "Birthday Party for Jesus" her and Naomi are doing..... Amos and Rebekah and the little tykes come home from Illinois tonight where they had Thanksgiving with her family..... Life is never boring. Me? Well I'm trying to figure out what to buy people for Christmas who have everything. Mmm.

Have a great day and continue being thankful for what God sends your way!

Count Your Blessings - Friday and Saturday

Hello! I posted all of the things I could find pictures for the last few days, so now I'm going to mention some things we don't have pictures for (well, we may, but I didn't want to spend hours hunting through files to find them....)

There's so many people that I'm thankful for - there's no way I can mention them all - besides all the relatives, there's our church family, and other friends all over (North Dakota, Illinois...) and people who have influenced our lives in some way or another. Seeing as how I'm getting married, I thought I'd take time to say a special thanks though to a couple families -

The Garlicks! After Amos and I graduated from highschool, we spent about 5 months working for them in TX at La Espada Ministries. I learned so much during those months - about perseverance and steadfastness, about having a vision for winning the lost to Christ, about personal dedication to Christ, about learning to love work, about God's constant presence with us and so many other things. We were able to travel across the country, to visit many places, to meet many wonderful people, and learn a lot of new skills. It was also during this time that I was thinking through much of my worldview, so I'm thankful to them for providing a godly environment and for opportunities they gave us and for being an example! So thank you and I miss you!

Then there's the Berntsons . Working with CEF for the last 8 years or so has influenced my life in so many ways that it's hard to define, but Doug and Ruth taught me to love children (and other people) and to be concerned about their salvation, to be flexible, to put the Gospel into words that anyone can understand and to tell stories, to let myself be stretched and to meet new people, to be deferent and that God gives strength. They've helped me on my journey to living a victorious Christian life and I'm very thankful to you and to God for you!

I'm thankful for salvation! How do you put that into words!? A home in heaven, forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, peace, a Father above, and spiritual riches.

I'm thankful for my Grandparents and the influence and encouragement they've been to me. My heritage - that my great-great-great grandparents decided to move to America!

For America! Our history, our freedoms, those who died to make us free and those who are still fighting for us.

For telephones, for electricity, for hot running water...

That it's only 6 weeks 'till the wedding :)

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and let you all continue the list in your own mind -

Thanksgiving at the Krahns

Don't worry - I (Naomi) haven't run out of things that I'm thankful for...but today I thought you'd like to see some pictures from our family get-together. Actually, it does go with my series because I'm VERY grateful for all of my Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins - including the ones that weren't there today :) I'm thankful that we can all be together and have fun and enjoy a great meal and remember God's goodness to us.

The food on the table in this picture is actually some of the leftovers - the original meal was served in the garage. Before we eat, Grandpa read Psalm 100, as his father liked to do on Thanksgiving, and we sang a couple hymns.

Grandma went through a lot of work to make it a special day - Thank you!

Priscilla dug out our Pilgrim costume and went around today claiming she was Priscilla Mullins...

In the afternoon we enjoyed playing games - this is Rook, one of our favorites.

Monopoly Deal - I didn't play, but people said it was fast and fun :)

Baulderdash - another favorite!

More Baulderdash....

Benjamin working on a Bible project during "down time" .

Hope you all had a wonderful day as well!

Count Your Blessings - Wednesday

I'm very very thankful for my family!! They've been my best friends and we've had more fun together than any other family in the world :) Probably a lot of you haven't seen this picture - Sorry for the background - it was taken at the county fair in 1996. In case you're wondering Hosanna is the little girl on the chair and Silas is the boy in the back...

Priscilla wasn't on that picture, but yes, I'm thankful for her too!

As well as our new family members :) This is Rebekah and Daniel on Daniel's birthday (There's a picture of David on Monday's post...

The farm - there's no better place to grow up and to learn to work! I'm very grateful for the chance I've had to live in the country. By the way, this picture is from last winter, not this one :)

Our house - we've lived here since I was about 4-years-old and even though I know it's not a building that makes a home special, in the winter, having a warm place to be is definitely close to the top of anyone's list of blessings!

Count Your Blessings - Tuesday

A few more things I'm thankful for..."Our daily bread" - if I were to get into all of the material blessings that God has given us, it would take far too long, but it's sufficient to say that He has always provided what we needed, along with many, many things that we don't need!

I'm very, very thankful for my eyes! (well, these aren't actually my eyes, they're Miriam's...)Not only has God blessed us, He's given us the sight and ability to see His blessings and enjoy them - besides, I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be reading it without eyes :) That goes for the ability to hear and walk and speak and feel as well!

God's Word! What would our lives be without It? This is a picture of some of our familiy's Bibles - mine, Isaac's, Dad's, Mom's, Priscilla's, Silas', Miriam's, and Hosanna's - however, some of them have other ones that they use a lot as well - That reminds me to be grateful for the fact that we are freely allowed to own Bibles - in our own language!

This day that the Lord has made, and His mercies which are new every morning!

Count Your Blessings - Monday

Hello from Naomi - I know I haven't posted in a while, but this week I hope to write a few times. We thought, since it's Thanksgiving week, that it would be fun to put on a few things each day that we're thankful for. Several years, Mom and Dad made us kids make a list of those things and I like to do it on my own now - just as a reminder. God is so good!

This of course is David :) We're very glad that God has given our family a new little baby to add to our list of blessings, an heritage from the Lord.

We're thankful that God kept us all safe during hunting season and sent some deer to us - Isaac and Dad are great hunters, but good hunters or not, God controls the deer! Today, Dad, along with Jonathan J. and a few of the cousins processed them.

The picture above is just a picture I found in our files that I thought would work to represent our church! We're so thankful for our church! It's such an encouragement to have fellowship with God's people, to hear God's Word preached and taught, and to sing to the Lord. You could say that it's not just the church that we go to, it's our family! I'm so grateful for the chance I've had to grow up in a church where people loved me and where I learned to love the Lord, and where I could learn to serve.
Then there's Aaron! He's so wonderful! Talk about blessings! (By the way, these items are not all in order of importance...)
Also, I'm very grateful for the BEAUTIFUL fall that we had! We had sort of a cold, wet spring, and so God had mercy and gave us one of the nicest falls we've had for many years....It's supposed to start getting cold now, but we can't complain!

So hopefully tomorrow, we'll list a few more things!

TB testing, Other "Stuff"

Well the TB testing of the cows is over for this year. Here's a few of the cows and a customer that came to buy flax straw. I love this time of year and I love the warm weather we're having. It's suppose to get up to 50 today! The winter is going to be a whole month shorter! The guys are doing the last of their hunting today.

Naomi and Aaron have been working on a few cakes for a triple baby shower our church is having today. Cute!

This is cute too! Amos and Rebekah, Daniel and David, and Aaron came over for supper last night and Daniel found out what headsets were for.

Isaac with a grandaddy cyote! This guy was almost as tall as Isaac and has really nice fur.

The families in our church are doing mission displays tomorrow. Priscilla has been working on one about the local Laotion community in our area. (with some help) Anyway, today we have a group of Laotians butchering a cow at the farm. Yes, she'll get some pictures I can share. They are very resourceful and use basically the entire cow! They even eat the hide! They build a little fire and eat some as their working and Arthur has gotten in on some of these delacacies! (not sure I spelt that right!)

So we've been doing lots of thinking about how a person reaches out to those that live in thier community when they have a hard time understanding English, at least some of them. The ones that have been through our school system and grown up here do fine with English but many of the older ones don't. For today, they will visit and leave them a Lao gospel tract.

Have a great weekend and share the gospel if you get a chance! Our time is getting shorter!

II Corinthians 6:2 .. behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Wedding Shower / Hunting

Naomi had a really nice shower Monday night. Her aunts were in charge and Naomi's cousin Rachel organized a "How well do you know Naomi and Aaron?" game. They worked really hard to find obscure facts that very few knew so that was fun. Arlette B. gave a nice devotional and after cake Naomi opened her many nice gifts.
Cara made Naomi this cute cake made out of dishtowels. Very creative!

Everyone watching Naomi open her gifts. Naomi said being on the opening end was way more fun than watching! Peoople were so generous.

Rachel wrote down what and who the gifts came from.

Cake pans, towels, cookie sheets, bowls, utinsels, gift card, wedding album, etc. Lots of thank you notes to write, Naomi!

Naomi's cousins, Rachel and Hannah came up for the shower with their mom and sisters. They, along with Rebekah worked on making the wedding invitations. Thank you for coming so far for Naomi's special day, Louise, Rachel, Kaleigh, Hannah, Abby, Libby, and Elianna!

Last Saturday the guys, along with the J. guys and the M. cousins, went on deer drives. A drive is where they post a field with a few guys and then the rest space themselves out and walk through the woods with the hope of chasing the deer toward the guys posting the field. This is Jonathan J.

This is the whole crew listening to Arthur filling everyone in on what's going to happen. So far I think we've gotten five deer this season.

Happy 20th Birthday, Isaac!

Wow, Isaac is already 20 years old! Isaac was one of my very overdue babies but he quickly made up for lost time and walked at 8 1/2 months! Actually, I think he ran not long after that! Of all our children, Isaac probably needed discipline as much as all the others together. It must've worked because Isaac is a great young man today that loves God, is gentle, thoughtful, a hard worker, giving, patient, good with children, great brother, and great son. His future plans? Well, if life were perfect he'd live in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere with a wife and live off the land. (similar to what his dad thought when he was young). Anyway, he's waiting for God to give him direction whether it be ministry, farming, fish guiding, forest living, or whatever. For now he works hard on the farm as he builds up his own herd.

So happy birthday, Isaac! May God bless you as you seek his will for your life. We love you very much!!

It's going to be a really busy week! Today the guys are helping TB test buffalo, tonight is Naomi's bridal shower, and the rest of the week is packed as well. Hey, if you're in the area, feel free to come to her shower at 6:30 at the church tonight.