January 2014

Welcome to January 2014.  The start to our new year found us sledding a few miles from our house.  Love this picture (above) of my family enjoying the cold, sunny day together.  A good way to start the new year.  I would say January wasn't the best month of my life, but, there was a lot of nice things to remember too...

Colter and I celebrated one year of home-schooling together.  I can honestly say that I learned so much myself, mostly about teaching with patience, giving more of myself, making more time for important things.  I didn't pass all of my tests, but I've been rewarded beyond measure and I'm loving being a teacher...

These two goofy girls kept us entertained (even if they were supposed to be cleaning their rooms!  Hey, I didn't realize they looked SO MUCH alike!

 January's temperatures were very cold, but we were rewarded with some of these beautiful sunsets throughout the month...

I got rear-ended one day.  Here is the tow truck picking up our van to be worked on at the body shop.  It was judged to be unsafe to drive because the back door wouldn't latch.  Three weeks later, to the day, I was rear ended again while driving the rental car in town.  I got to go through all the mess again, of working with police, insurances, rental company, etc.  Thank goodness I got my van back the next week, all insurances came through for me, and we were able to leave the whole thing behind us!  Just thankful that, although I would not wish to go through either experience again, it was not worse than it was...

Then we began science fair projects for the year.  Here Kyla and Randy are working on constructing a cell phone microscope together...

And here Colter and Randy are working on constructing a paper airplane launcher together for his science fair project...

Then we had sickess at our house.  :(  I think most mothers would understand this night time scene...

Randy and Colter got in some more snow mobiling rides in January...

And through it all, the sun kept on shining.  We even got to see it a few times...

Now it's almost October.  We're headed toward that dark and dreary part of the year again.  But I'm sure we can keep the sun shining through the days ahead.  :)

Here is whats going on here today... Just made Chili from scratch, from the tomato sauce from our garden, to cooking the beans, to the elk burger from Randy's elk last year to the pork sausage from the farm down the road.  Then the younger 2 girls helped me make apple sauce from the apples that Colter helped me pick on the neighbors tree the other evening.  Corn bread will be added to our supper tonight.  That's a whole lot of home-made goodness, and I love that!

I will continue to try and update this blog.  Thanks for stopping by!  Alison