Back by Popular Demand!

As I type this, a myriad of excuses rise to mind as to why we have been so negligent in our blog duties these past few months. None of these excuses sound remotely acceptable, therefore I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to imagine what sort of horrors must have befallen us during our absence.

We last left off in August, where the temperatures in the day were (fine, I'll admit it) hot, and the nights were silky smooth. But it was not to last, for at around mid-October the warm days of summer quickly faded into the semi-warm days of Fall. The sweaters are out of the back of the closet, and winter is on its way!


A month or so ago, the Philen family gave us a pair of adorable semi-matching dresses. Here are Eve and C. modeling them at church. Thank you Philen Fam.!

Colder weather means it is time to prepare the garden for our winter veggies. This photo was taken on a warm Saturday in November, when we decided to move some more barrels to the garden for extra growing area.

Right now the garden has broccoli, brussel sprouts, garlic, onions, peas, beets, carrots, turnips, kale, spinach, lettuce and bell peppers (they are producing like crazy... who would have thought I would need to be looking up recipes for peppers in November?). My favorite veggie right now is the lettuce. We have about 10 different varieties growing, of all different colors and shapes. This one is called Little Gem.

The lemons and limes are ready! We will use some fresh and then juice the rest up for later in the year.

Here is the newest addition to our garden. Some pesky birds started eating our precious plants, so we decided to use an age old method to scare them away... meet Sid (think Toy Story). Sid has been our little soldier these past few days, keeping constant vigile and never leaving his post. So far the birds have been scared away... how about you?

This last week we celebrated a birthday. Rach is now 16 years old, and she is just as sweet and silly as before! This present ended up being a beautiful necklace from our Grandma, but we took this photo when the box was still unopened.

Eve is the girl who always wants the presents from her opened first. Here she is helping Rach unwrap the special gift.


I believe this photo is of Rach opening a present with an empty envelope inside. It was quite funny to watch her look for the present. It represented, in fact, the hope chest from Mom and Dad which was still on its way.

Here we are at Rachel's surprise party with the B. and W. families. We had an awesome time playing ping pong, Empire, "I have never", Don't smile, eating food and just having buckets of fun. Rach is blowing out the candle on her platter of birthday cookies... gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate (hence the white).

We are playing Don't Smile in this photo. The object of the game is simple...I'll leave it to you to figure out! One by one, as each person smiles, they are eliminated and they then assume the fun job of trying to make the remaining contestants smile themselves. Here are the Walkers, competitive as usual! Hey, I think Corey is bitting his cheeks!!!

Um... I think Kevin is out...P.W. is assuming a villianous air....

Now on to one of the best holidays of the year! Rach made these cute place markers this year, and I think this may have to become a traditon.

The table had a few extra seats.

Mom made the stuffing and it was AMAZING! This shot is funny, because it was totally candid. I was going for a natural, working photo, but right as I pushed the button Mom laughed at something and looked straight at the camera.

Fun games with fun friends! The M. kids came over and we had a lovely time.

We made a butter, herb turkey this year with herbs from our garden. It was very good, and the stock we made from the carcass was nice and thick (I'm assuming thats good... right ;-)

GRAVY!!!!

We will make this one a caption contest... What is going on in this photo

These past few months have been wonderful. Stick with us and we may post more as the Advent season rolls on.