15 pies and a peach cobbler



Barry wanted me to include this picture of Ben. The red on his face is blood. He was playing outside with sisters and the dog on the pile of leaves and started to cry. Sympathetic mom that I am, I told him to stop crying. He responded with, "but I'm bleeding!" He came over and we stopped the bleeding, then he was off to play again. He had hit his nose on the dogs head.

Mindy has an interest in cutting hair, so after watching me cut Ben's hair a few times, I let her do it this time. Ben was very patient with her and she did a good job. When she had finished and I used the clippers to even it out a bit, Mindy grabbed the scissors and asked, "When do I use these?" I responded, "It's a buzz cut, you don't use scissors."

On Wednesday of this week we woke up to a cold house; our pump went out on our heating system. That night the glass broke on our wood stove (back up heating). To make matters worse, we woke up to a snow storm Thursday morning and thought we might not be able to go to Spokane to visit family for Thanksgiving. Well, we braved the roads (which didn't end up being that bad, especially since Barry had already put the studded snow tires onto the van.) We were able to see cousins we hadn't seen for a while, enjoy yummy food. Avery made Aunt Sally's famous Thanksgiving orange rolls and the Jensens made and bought enough pies to feed a small army.



Uncle Joel and Uncle Scott cut the 15 pies.





watching a movie



We've had snow everyday this week, and with more in the forecast. That has meant about an hour a day for us to shovel and about 2 hours a day for Barry to plow. Last night we explained to everyone that we most likely would have to get out and shovel the snow before church. The children were concerned about "breaking the sabbath", but we explained the whole ox in the mire, snow removal required to get to church idea. I thought they understood, but this morning I told Kayla to get dressed in her snow clothes and help shovel snow she said sleepily, "but it's the sabbath!" She must have forgotten what day it was by the time we finished shoveling because they spent a fair amount of time playing in the snow, too.

Makayla slides down a pile of snow

Chicken Pox, Leaves, & Christmas Presents

Monday morning I found out that my niece Emilee(7) had chicken pox, so I dropped everything and took Marianne(8 mos) to Barry's sister Rebecca Jensen's house. Marianne is our only child who has not had chicken pox and I didn't want to miss this opportunity to get her exposed. The Jensen's live about an hour and a half away, so leaving the children at home with Maddy in charge (Barry was helping a friend sand drywall) we basically cancelled school and the kids had fun having a pajama day. They were still overcoming the effects of too much sugar on Halloween, so I'm not sure it would not have been a very successful school day anyway.  Emilee was such a good sport and sharing her germs: licking spoons, sucking on Marianne's pacifier, holding her. I should have really gotten my money's worth and had Emilee change Marianne's diaper!

We spent time this week gathering fall leaves from our friends who live in town and have big beautiful trees (mostly maples).  We do this to compost into dirt for our garden and yard.  They appreciate it as well, as they have no place to put the leaves once they bag them.  Over the past two weeks we have collected 20 garbage bags full of leaves, and we're picking up 9 more tomorrow.  The kids enjoy playing in the leaves (of course).
        

Saturday morning Barry took everyone except Makayla and Marianne to help a lady move to Spokane.  They were gone all morning.  Makayla(5 1/2) spent most of the time at the kitchen table beading necklaces and bracelets for her siblings (yes she made a necklace for Ben - - a blue one) and wrapped them for Christmas presents. We are encouraging all of our children to make homemade presents for each other this year. It will mean so much more for them.

Have a great week!