New Babies!

New little Lydia being enjoyed by her sweet sisters!

Lydia is Aaron and Naomi's little girl. 

Last night we had a baby shower at church for Rebekah and little Ilana. Great Auntie Linda got the honors of holding Ilana.

And Ilana will be one well dressed girl with all the fun clothes she got! Happy Mama, happy baby!

Tomorrow our family is on lunch at church. Hosanna is making birds nests for dessert. At least we can pretend it's spring!

With three fairly new little babies in the family, we've been doing a lot of babysitting. 

Arthur got me a new sewing machine for Christmas and I finally had time to get it out and test it out. It has an embroidery feature that I can't wait to learn how to use. Meanwhile, I just made an apron to test it out.

Okay, I know this was a short post but I really felt like I needed to do a post, even without a lot of words!  Have a wonderful day enjoying God's blessings everyone! And if you don't have a place to go to church tomorrow, visit ours!!

Early February

Last week we had the privilege of watching Aaron and Naomi's three oldest for a few days. As a girl, Priscilla had these Indian dresses she lived in, and is really excited now when her nieces love to wear them! They also dressed up in some clothes from the "dress up trunk" so we could have a tea party all fancy dressed like.

I had no idea when I made homemade play dough that Aaron would play with this stuff for hours! He just couldn't leave it alone. It made for some easier days watching this little guy!

The kids loved getting sled rides too! Both Arthur and Eli read lots of books to them as well.  So, it was a busy week, but fun.

Other than that, we've had some colds in the house ;(

We've been working on the Valentine Banquet at our church this coming Sunday. You're all invited! It's on the 12th at 6:00 pm and is for the whole family. We'll have a banquet meal followed by a program. Please RSVP though if you come!

Arthur has been diligently getting cattle separated and making plans for shipping the calves on Thursday. A yearly highlight! We won't have as many to sell this year because he is saving most of the heifer calves.

I really wanted to do more Bible memory this year. The last few years I've been doing various verses in the Bible but really wanted to tackle a passage. I decided to go through Scripture Memory Fellowship and learn the Ten Commandment passage, Exodus 20:1-18. I'm sure I've learned it before, but still have so much trouble remembering from day to day what I learned the day before. Teach your children a lot of Bible memory when their young! I'm convinced that those who learn their Bible when young remember so much more than when you wait till you're my age to learn it!

Well, you all have a wonderful week enjoying God's blessings!
Count them, and name them one by one!

It's a Girl!

Julia Ruth
8' 5 oz.
Born to Aaron and Naomi yesterday, November 1st!
It was a fast delivery for Naomi but it went well and Mamma and baby are doing great!



This precious little girl has some very doting aunties! 

She has more blond hair than any of their other children had.

We took the girls down to see their new sister after church yesterday.  She will be one happy little sister with such good big sisters who adore her! Little Aaron on the other hand will need to be watched!  It's so fun to poke eyes you know!  Ever wonder why that's the first thing children do when they get a doll with eyelids that move? 

Congratulations, Aaron and Naomi! We love you all and think little Julia is an adorable gift from God!

Keeping Busy - Farm, Trapping, Home, and Church

Isaac has been busy since the rivers opened up doing some beaver trapping.  I can't help but love those long teeth they use to cut down trees!  Hopefully Isaac and Matthew M. are okay.  They've been out in the woods since early yesterday morning doing a really long trapping route.

Arthur has been working almost nonstop checking on beef cows, helping cows calve if they need it, making sure the new calves get the hang of drinking from mama cow, vaccinating them, keeping up the records of which cow had what calf, and so forth.  

Aaron and Naomi and the little ones are staying at our house while they get Isaac's trailer in livable condition for the summer.  We had a birthday party for Naomi and some watched Aunty Ellen win many rounds of Boggle :)  Naomi had a good birthday!  The little girls aren't feeling good and just want to be held so we all keep busy passing them around along with sharing baby Aaron Joseph.

This is a posed picture of Priscilla taken right after her piano recital.  She played her solo beautifully and then did a nice duet with her cousin Elizabeth.

Yeah!!  Our church is getting new carpet!  A bunch of the guys showed up to help take out the old carpet and move pews and stuff around.  If anyone needs some used carpet they could probably get some. Talk to Arthur or my father-in-law or Mr. J.  Lots of the pieces don't hardly look worn at all.  Mr. J. and sons painted the walls earlier since that needed doing as well so everything looks so nice. 

There's a little snow in the forecast so when that's done I'll change the header!

I need to go.  You all have a wonderful day enjoying God's blessings! 

Trip to Tennessee

Arthur, Miriam and I headed down to Tennessee to visit Aaron and Naomi and the grandchildren.  One thing the girls love is Arthur reading to them. Actually, they like anyone who will read to them!  

We thought we would get away from the snow for a few days, but no, they got snow right before we came.  Arthur couldn't resist sledding down the hills around their house but first gave Esther and Anna a ride. 

And then there is sweet little baby Aaron!  What a happy little guy!  We held him, and held him, and held him as much as we could.  I wish I had better pictures of him but our camera just didn't do so good.  He has cute little dimples and a sweet little smile.

They had snow down there but I couldn't resist getting a picture of the green perennials starting to come up.  What a joy to see green!! Those of you further north than Tennessee know what I mean!!

The picture doesn't capture it but there is a nice coating of ice on all the trees and it was so pretty!  The roads were another thing.  We just don't get roads that terrible around here!  They get snow covered but  because its so cold they really aren't all that bad.  The colder it gets the less icy they are.  But down there the back roads were really, really slick.  I don't think I've ever been that terrified of being in a vehicle!  Course up here if you go in the ditch you simply get stuck in the deep snow. Down there they have all these steep hills dropping off beside the road and I could just see us rolling over and over down the hill.  God kept us safe though and once we got to their house we stayed there till the roads had cleared some.

The little girls love their Aunty Miriam.  Someone to tirelessly play with them!  

Esther crawled under a blanket with Miriam.  You can tell she's pretty pleased and thought it quite special!

Arthur with grandson number five.  

We tried hard to get a picture of all the grandchildren together.  Getting them all to look at the camera at the same time with a smile was very difficult but that makes it all the more special!  These kids sure have fun together!  This picture was taken at Jordan P.'s wedding in Illinois.  We stopped by for the wedding on our way home.  What a beautiful wedding with an awesome couple that loves God!!  We are so glad it worked out to go!

Pastor Aaron holding little Aaron at the wedding.  He's one happy dad!

And one more of the little guy.   I wish it was clearer but I couldn't resist posting one more. On our way home Sunday morning we stopped by a church in Duluth. It's amazing how good of fellowship you can have with other believers who you've never met. We were blessed by the service and their hospitality. As much as we loved our trip and had a wonderful time, it was good to get home and hear all the news and things that happened while we were gone.

It's Been a Long Time...

...since we've posted on the blog.  We have been really, really busy, but not so busy that Arthur couldn't take a morning off to do a little of his very favorite hunting with Mr. C. and Matthew C.  Lots of geese and ducks.

The maze is over.  It rained five of the eight weekends but it still went good and we're content.  We'd try to be content if it didn't go good too!  I liked this photo of Priscilla and a bag full of popcorn balls.  I don't know the exact number but I know Hosanna made way over 1,000 of them and used over 11 gallons of unpopped popcorn!!  Miriam filled over 5,000 water balloons, and Priscilla made hundreds of pretzel sticks and cookie dough brownies.  

Aaron and Naomi and the girls came up for a visit that we enjoyed greatly!  The cousins enjoyed being together and having Naomi read them books.  It gets pretty wild around here with six little people having fun together!!!  I love it!  Such sweet memories are being made!

Amos and Rebekah, and Aaron and Naomi and the little people all enjoyed the maze and hayrides.

We enjoyed a visit from Cora and Andrew B.  God sent them at just the right weekend when we were short of workers and some of this family was sick.  They were a great help at the maze and we had a lot of fun with them playing games,  watching videos and visiting of course! Thank you Cora and Andrew!

We finished up the maze with a clean up day with most of the maze workers.  In just a few short hours they managed to take down things and put everything away so it's ready for winter.  THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!  Most years we clean up by ourselves and it takes us days to get it all done so this was a really blessing.

Yes, we will do the maze again.  Yes, we have an idea of what we'll do next year! Yes, it's a secret!

Isaac has been helping with the sugar beet harvest west of here for the last few weeks with Silas helping a couple of days. There's thousands and thousands of acres of sugar beets grown in the Red River Valley area and harvest time is pretty intense for those involved and the people living in those areas.  They came home today.

Arthur has been dealing with cattle lately - moving and feeding, trying to finish up some flax straw, and spends quite a while everyday chopping corn.  He graciously took yesterday, well, most of the day, off to head north with me to go to one of my great uncles funerals.  He was 98.  Uncle Detray was one of my favorite great uncles and he had kids that were my age so as kids they were like cousins to us and we saw them quite often.

 I enjoy heading north to Canada once in awhile and I told Arthur I kinda feel like I'm going home when we head up to that part of the province.  So many people with the same background as we have and people with the same last names as our families eating the same food we grew up eating.  We did have one lady tell us she liked our accent.  Ha!  If we go too far south they think we have a Canadian accent!  Funny how different people talk that live just miles apart from each other.  We get a lot of Canadians at the maze and we see them enough in our area that you can always pick one out before they even talk!  I'm sure they do the same to us!

Well, you all have a wonderful evening enjoying God's blessings!

Farm Work - Corn, Tractors, Hay, Fishing, Legos

I don't know if you call this farm work but it does go against the norm to cut down perfectly good corn!  Hopefully we will finish cutting the maze this evening.  The heat has made it really hard for me too spend too long out there at a time. Yes, it was taller than "knee high on the 4th of July".

You might not call this farm work but we do!  It's Arthur's way of educating kids to farming and agriculture!  We had the privilege of watching my niece's son for a day and he loves tractors!

Baling square bales.  Jonathan J. is driving, Isaac, Caleb J., and Matthew M. are on the trailer doing the stacking.  It really doesn't look "too hard" but with the heat we've been having along with high humidity, it's almost too hot to stand outside let alone work.  Thankfully, they got the job done safely.  They're out raking more today.

Cowboy Matthew standing on top of the hay trailer.

Silas took this photo from on top of the hay wagon.  The cut hay did get rained on several times one day when the forecast said clear and sunny.  The cows won't complain.

Isaac took a couple of his nephews and their grandpa and Aaron fishing. (Isaac figures fishing is a type of farming.  You know, getting food :)

Daniel especially just loved being out on the lake.

Grandpa N. hanging onto David.

Aaron should be happy.  They only caught two fish all morning and Aaron got one of them, also the biggest one.  The girls think their brother-in-law makes a pretty good cowboy in the white hat.

Just waiting for a fish to bite.

No, the addition isn't done.  We moved the legos to the new room and so the grandchildren have a place to play where we don't have to worry about the little ones eating legos.  That room is much cooler than the rest of the house so it's a nice place to be. Legos could be farm work if they would make farm lego sets with tractors and farmer people!  If anyone has free time and enjoys taping and puttying seams, I sure could use help :) I have a hard time doing anything over my head and I'm not sure I'm patient enough to wait for Arthur to have time next winter!

Esther and Anna both love Rosa.  Miriam gets the girls to sing with Rosa and visit with her.


4th of July photos coming soon when I get a chance.  Have a wonderful hot day wherever you are.  Remember that God is in charge of the weather, whether rain, shine, or snow and sends us what he knows we need!

Our Trip to Tennessee

Mom here - We put on a lot of miles in the last week and a half.  First we headed down Chicago way to drop Priscilla off  at the IBLP headquarters for the Vessels of Honor program. (The picture was taken there.) It was hard to leave her but sometimes we have to do hard things in order to do the right thing!  Then we headed down to North Carolina to drop Hosanna off at a chalk talk class.  While she was there Arthur and I headed west of Nashville to visit Aaron and Naomi and the sweet little girls.  I'm not much of a traveler but you couldn't help but be awed at the glory of God's creation.  Those Smoky Mountains are beautiful!  So was the snow and thunderstorms!  I think we saw snow in every state except Ohio.  Anyway, it was beautiful and we enjoyed seeing a little taste of spring before heading north again.  We picked Hosanna up and made a stop at the Creation Museum.  We also enjoyed Steak and Shake (the nearest one is hundreds of miles from here), a Bass Pro shop, The Smokey Mountain Knife Works store, and of course we enjoyed all the southern drawls.  I enjoyed doing a little shopping with Naomi, and we loved spending time with Esther and Anna.  I wish I had pictures but Hosanna had one of the cameras, Priscilla has one, and Isaac has one.

Meanwhile, back at home, it snowed, Silas kept the farm going with Miriam and Amos' help.  Today we have a federal dairy inspector coming.  You can pray we'll pass the inspection!   It's the first time we've had a federal inspector here, usually it's just state ones.  Okay, I'll turn it over to Hosanna because the rest of the photos are of her part of the trip.

Hosanna here- Here I am working on the black-light  image for a chalk talk. When the normal light comes on all of the chalk you see glowing now will disappear.

This is the same picture that I was working on in the above photo. I actually did this one in  our church  but we used different colors, and changed a couple of other things.

I met some great people while I was there, and made some friends. Here I am with  two sisters that were there together.  Their easels were right next to mine so we got to talk together quite a bit.

It was fun looking around the room and seeing everyone's chalk drawings of the same thing. Some of the people there were really good

This is the picture of our whole group. The man standing on the far right hosted the classes, and the man standing behind me and to the right is Matt Bowman, our teacher. He is a great teacher and I learned a lot from him. He not only teaches how to do gospel chalk talks, and travels around doing them, but he also makes the chalk. We learned how to do six different chalk talks, and how to come up with our own. I thank God for the opportunity to be there and learn more. Please pray that I would be able to use it in the way that God would want me to.