My pictures are taking too long to upload tonight, so I will just share one with you, as well as my November calendar with a photo for each day.
Category Archives: Everyday Life
Tomatoes in Late November
Aaron’s family has a “hoophouse”, a type of greenhouse where they can grow some produce year round. The tomatoes are really thriving in there. We went out today to take a look and the kids helped their uncle pick some.
In case you wondered what it looks like at night…
And, if you look really closely in this one, you’ll notice a ghost dog.
P.S. I didn’t entirely forget about Imperfect Fridays, today. But, I did forget to take a picture for it! I will share that I got one of my nicer pairs of shoes completely muddy and gross today. Mud on the outside AND inside. I wore them to walk the dogs in a field, because they were all I had, and the last part of my walk was incredibly muddy.
This was before they got muddy today, but you can see where this is going. And, just so you know how weird I am, I often take photos of my shoes while I’m out on walks.
Thanksgiving 2013
The internet is a bit slow, so please forgive me if I am unable to post tomorrow or Saturday. But, I’ll do my best!
We spent Thanksgiving with Aaron’s family. They have a family reunion with his extended family on Thanksgiving.
To quote another one of my children, “That’s all?!?” Don’t worry, there was plenty to eat. Gus just wasn’t impressed with what was on his plate at that moment.
I love this photo of him. He looks at me like this often, usually when he is puzzled by something I just said.
Aaron, his grandmother and Lena.
After lunch was over, Gus and I snuck off to a little playground. This is a very small town, and as it turns out, they have an old fashioned merry-go-round. I saw a really awesome photo recently, taken on a merry-go-round and I thought it would be fun to try. We weren’t going quite fast enough, but you can get some idea of how it would look.
Gus needed a nap after lunch, so…
Aaron and his brother played cards. These two are ridiculous together. If you’ve never heard Aaron get loud, put him in a room with his brother and a deck of cards.
Lena played blocks with her great-grandmother.
And Reed and I played Legos together.
Because Aaron’s parents live in the middle of nowhere, I snuck out with my camera for a bit tonight after the kids went to bed.
Have I ever told you guys how much I love night photography?
Preparing for Advent
Last week, I saw this neat Advent calendar idea. In short, you can purchase a digital download of a “random acts of kindness” cards, which benefits the Cystinosis Research Foundation. It’s a cool idea, so I purchase the download. But, I realized I can’t do a random act of kindness with the kids each day. There are days where we only have an hour and a half to eat dinner, do bedtime and spend a bit of time together.
But, I loved the idea of random acts of kindness in the Advent season. I decided to use the ideas from the RAK cards for some days, and fill in the rest with Bible verses.
The cards for Monday-Thursdays are Bible verses related to Christ’s birth and why we need Him in our lives. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are a random act of kindness that we will do.
I had to gather some supplies.
I wanted to stamp the envelope with the date, but apparently stamps are crazy expensive at Hobby Lobby. Not happening. I should have printed the date on them, but I ended up hand writing the date on each.
In Photoshop, I made the actual template for the cards. I was inspired by the RAK cards one, but that ones says “Random Acts of Kindness”, so I wanted to make one that was accurate to what we are doing.
I know the little symbol in the middle looks like a sun, but I’m calling it a Moravian Star.
When I went to print them out, I realized that I had no colored ink cartridges. Only black. Oh well.
I could only find 2 finish nails, so I had to hang the two strings from the same nails. It would look a bit better and the cards would overlap less if I had 4 nails.
Can’t wait to start! Anyone have any fun Advent traditions of your own?
Dog Shaming
Have you heard of it? Although only effective if your dog follows the website himself, but it is good for a laugh. This is my recent favorite.
Anyways, I have a dog in need of shaming.
We were already having a rough afternoon when we got home from picking Reed and Lena up from school. I opened up the back door, only to find I couldn’t get it open more than a foot. While we were gone, a certain set of canines jumped on the bench by our backdoor and knocked the whole thing over, wedging it shut.
While I was able to squeeze through the door to pick the bench up, I had to set a shoeless Gus down. And, a certain dog, obviously quite guilty, quickly leapt through the small opening, knocking Gus over.
Gus was fine, although very, very unhappy.
Any guesses on who the dog was?
I just wish I had remembered the sign.
Disclaimer: No dogs were actually punished in the making of these photos. Photographed dog is currently laying next to me begging for a belly rub.
Also, about the second part of my story about Reed and Lena’s adoption, which was scheduled to be published today, it seems to have disappeared. I have NO CLUE where it went. If it can’t be found, I will re-write it this weekend. You will have to remain in suspense until then, sorry.
a moose in moscow 