The Homestead Journal ~ Week 56~ Welcome to 2013

Homestead Happenings

                                                                                                                We had a beautiful Full Moon. Sunday morning we woke up to a beautiful sky. I do not like cold temps, but I love winter skies.                                         I miss the sunrises at the old place, the sun creeping in the window nice and early.  We are on the border of the time zone, the wrong side IMO and I am having to get use to the very late sunrises. I have been sleeping till like 7:30 am!                                                            ~                                                                                            The sun is behind us in this photo, but when we build the cabin, it will be a much better view. I love the colors in the sky.

                                                                                                Monday evening we enjoyed the last day of 2012. We spent the evening ringing in         the New Year with our friends and their     two little girls. They brought over some games and we had fun. Even with me "sleeping in" it was hard for me to stay awake. But most of us made it till midnight. I really don't get into all the new year hype, but it was fun to hang out with friends.            ~                                                                                  I do use the new year to set new goals. We begin a new calendar for our school lessons and I create some personal goals

We are planning out what needs to be done around the home and property. The children have been enjoying playing and exploring. Ezra is doing great with the new puppy, who is named Alma. 

We also got to meet our new "NEIGH~bors" ;) 

The family next door has 8? horses, who are very socialized. Their fence backs up to ours, and they came over to say hello while the children were outside one day. 

There is so much space here. One afternoon daddy took the other children to go explore the woodsy part, and check out our cave/spring. The littles were sad to wake up and see they were left behind, Urijah asks, "where is everybody?!"  So they helped me make dinner, they did a good job, Urijah helped mix the mashed potatoes and put them in the dish and Ezra spread it out.         I realized that Shepard Pie was not something I make very often.... and I should. It was a hit. 

                                                                                                                                                                                              

A dear friend, gave the boys a rifle for Christmas. They had fun target shooting. They set up these great little targets.

There was quite a bit of lumber hanging around so Saturday, Jacob made me a book shelf. I supervised (watched and took pics) the saw, and held a few boards, he did the rest on his own

What We Are Learning About 

Oh life lessons never stop.  I planned to do some lesson planing and actually sitting down to do some this week. We had other plans. We have been busy all week, but it was a good week!

Our Adventures

We have ventured out a few times this week. We headed down to BG to pick up my last check. We went to our county library. We also made a trip out to drop off some resumes and do some shopping and visit the other county library. Everyone there was so nice. The ladies at the library were part of a sewing guild and were excited to have me join. They meet twice a month. All there places I gave resumes were very excited to get me started, so its good I have options now. A very sweet military lady in front of us in line at Walmart gave Lucas one of her bananas (Lucas was eyeballing them saying "nana" )and the cashier was raving about my family. It's was a wonderful welcoming experience, considering 2 Sundays in a row we were snubbed at church.... I guess it's just the Mormons who don't like us ;) anyhow, it feels good to be getting settled and getting back to real life.

On our way home Wednesday I think, we had a beautiful sight. at first, as the sun was higher, there was a prism reflection just to the right of the sun. As the sun set, we were able to see both ends of the rainbow. And it wasn't till I was able to look at the photos, that you could see the entire bow, even where it was colorless. You may have to click on the photo yo enlarge it

On Our Bookshelf

We borrow a lot of books from the library. The children pick out their own books, and I grab some that I feel they need for school. 

We now have access to two libraries. Both libraries are the same distance and one library gives out of county residents a library card if you are in good standing with your home library. This is a blessing to us, because it opens up our resources and our county library is a bit smaller and seemed a bit more reserved than the other one. The new one was so very welcoming to my family. When we got our cards at the first library, I felt like I was intruding in her home or something. She kind of hummed and hawed at the number of cards I requested.. The other library was super friendly and the ladies even came up to as later and made sure we could find everything ok 

We also picked up this set of country books for .10¢ a piece! 

I didn't have time this week, but I will do our book shelf review next week. We have a ton of new books! 

Abigail and Isaac have been using Book Adventure to quiz on the books they read. Check it out! 

Additional Photos of Our Week

 Quinten and Lucas before church 

Ft Knox... think they have any gold??? Does China own this now? 

Linking up with these Blog Hops