Saturday, October 31, 2009

a family affair

The last day of October - Halloween. And though we never have "made much" of Halloween, we do enjoy the regular traditions... jack o' lanterns for one. Sadie decided this year to do something a little different with hers - and Abbie's... and carved their names in each one. Maybe next year, we'll have better luck in growing our own pumpkins (the wet spring really took a toll on our garden) and if we do have better luck, I may "pre carve" a couple of pumpkins with names on them (an idea I "stole" from my friend, Kim).. we'll see, next year seems like a long ways off just now...







Tuesday (the 27th) was my Dad's birthday. Sadly it was also the day of Uncle Paul's funeral, so, needless to say, it wasn't a day to celebrate. And being a "week" day, it's always hard to pull the family together, so we opted for a birthday celebration last night.





"happy is the house that is filled with family"...
and the little sunroom at my parents house last night was certainly filled, not with just "us", but my Mom's cousin, Judy and her husband Gary, also joined us. It was a wonderful meal together and we are truly blessed to be able to enjoy such good times with each other!!!!







Here, "Beepa" blows out the candles with the help of Naomi. by the way, Beepa gets his name from Kassy.... people ask me "what is Abbie going to call you" and I answer, "we'll know when she can talk".. because that is how it went when my parents became "grands"... we let Kassy name them!!! Where did Beepa and Meme come from... guess Kas is the only one that could answer that!!!!





Everyone got to spend some baby time with Abbie... Uncle John (who is Rachel's hubby/Naomi's Dad) just loves holding his little niece.. he even opted out on dinner so that Sadie could have a hot meal... but somehow I don't think he minded his dinner being "cool"....






the ever "famous" four generation picture.. actually when I was born, I made the "five generation" .. and we have a picture of that . Life is so precious, you have to grab the moments when they come!!!!!








And here are the "aunts" great aunt Rachel, Aunt Kassy and great aunt Becky!!!!












And the cousins, Kelsey and Naomi -- (told you our family was filled with girls!!!!) My parents have three daughters, five granddaughters,and one great granddaughter!!!

so, from each one of us... "HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEEPA" and we want to spend many many more with you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!














comin' to a close

The month of October is fastly coming to it's close and in looking at the calendar and it's events, November and December promise to be busy!!! I have completed the quilt square for next year's Acton Fair quilt. This year's theme was "school days"... and (forgive me for saying this) we had the usual ugly piece of fabric to work with. I don't mean to be cruel, but honestly, I wonder where they find some of the fabric that they want us to work with, and I also wonder if they purposely do that, just to see if we can come up with something. The fabric this year is what I made the letters out of, then, I cut the other "decorations" out of the cloth and got all the little books and apples. It was mailed yesterday, and now all I can do it wait for the fair (next August) and see what other quilters came up with for their designs. This is the fourth year that I have been a part of the "fair quilt"... and it's the sixth time they have had one... if I had known of it before, I probably would have done the other two years as well. I didn't place the first year, but I have each year since then, so that's a pretty good record.


Well, with the help of Rick's good dump truck Ed has spent the past few days finishing up on dirt hauling. Not only did we need some filling in on the driveway, but there were some places around the barn that needed some fill.








One spot was directly in front of the stalls There had been a big loam pile there when we first built the barn, and when it was moved, the digger went a bit too deep into the ground, thus creating a very wet and mucky spot. The horses didn't mind it, but it was hard to keep things picked up and clean over the summer, so Ed got that area filled back in.











And the "road" going out to the manure pile had another mucky spot there as well. So, Ed dug a "bucketful" there as well. Pretty good horse training, they hardly picked up their heads as the dirt came sliding out of the truck and then the "crash" as the tail gate closed!!! Wish I could do this sort of training on a daily basis....
The earth will need some settling in time and will hopefully do that before everything turns into the deep freeze.. but it's (almost) another thing we can check off the list........