SUPER cute!

Alright, I know I'm a little bias... but I pulled out the walker for Abby to use this past week... and she has been SO HAPPY playing with it! You just gotta watch the video and look at the pics.

It's good that she has some helpers! ha ha

Thanksgiving

... yes, I know it was about a month ago we celebrated this wonderful holiday; but, still it's fun to post pictures and reminiscience about the wonderful time we had.

We were able to visit my parents down in Colorado Springs from Wednesday thru Friday evening.

Abby planning out her Black Friday shopping

Happy Granddaddy with Happy Abby

It was a nice time of cooking, crafts, watching football and some great movies, chatting and of course, eating yummy food!

My sister and her son are in town for awhile (as my brother-in-law has been deployed for the next few months), so it was great for our family to spend time with them. Jonathan hadn't met Jackson yet (as he is only 5 months old); luckily he loves babies so he give him enough attention to last the rest of the year. ha ha Catherine, too, adores Jackson and give him quite the attention.

Yes, Jackson is a boy. And, yes, he is in a pink bouncy seat... but he liked it!

The trend, too, these days is not only time with Grammy and Grandaddy equal extra special yummy goodies, but also really fun crafts.This time around my mom bought treasure chests to be painted. Once painted they got to fill them up with chocolate coins!

After the weekend, we found ourselves extremely thankful for the families God has blessed us with (near and far)... our children, parents, siblings, grandparents, etc... Happy (belated) Thanksgiving and thanks to you all for your love, support and prayers! We love you!

Great helpers!

Lately, I've been super (a word that Jonathan uses many, many times a day) appreciative of the older kids assistance around the house. Take for instance last night, after dinner Catherine jumped up from the table eager to help put dirty dishes in the dishwasher and condiments back in the refrigerator. Or, today after lunch they both swept the floor of all the crumbs. I'm really hoping and praying this excitment for being "super helpers" will continue for years to come (but, probably not... I'll take it while I can, though)

Another adorable thing that Jonathan has been excited about lately, is giving Abby her afternoon bottle. He loves it! Abby loves it! And, I love it! It frees me up to finish important things, like my afternoon cup of coffee. ha ha Truly, it is adorable!

Happy Abby

Someone asked me the other day, after viewing some of the pictures on the blog, "Is Abby really that smiley?" And, I have to admit that she is... except when she's tired, hungry or has just been hit on the head by someone or some toy. :-)

Here are some more pictures to prove it.

I think she's mostly happy in this picture... Jonathan and Catherine thought it would be cute to "dress her up," with some bling and a hat! I thought it was hilarious!

Funny Faces!

So, the other day the kids wanted to make funny faces in the camera... I gotta say some of them are pretty hilarious!

Wait, this isn't a funny face... it's a cute face. :-)

Homemade Beef Broth

For the past several years we have been buying a quarter of a cow (which is about 130 pounds of beef) every year from The Abbey of St. Walburga, Benedictine nuns, in the northwest corner of Colorado. They are a cloistered community, which means they spend their time in silent prayer and work; and usually don't leave the confines of their convent. They are some truly wonderful, holy and joyful women! But, they raise their own cows. Several years ago they decided to try to sell some of the beef that they raise, and we hopped on board the first year they tried it out. Obviously, since they are a convent they don't have a "high tech" operation of raising their cows, but the result is succulant beef! When we decided to purchase the beef I was curious as to whether there really would be a difference of yumminess in the meat... but, I was convinced in the first bite of the ground beef I made up. I used to not like stews, but the stew meat is so full of flavor and tender I get excited to make it now! The steaks are to die for, and a lot of fun to grill out in the summer times. Ever since our first purchase, I have been convinced of "organic" beef. Plus, we support such a wonderful community that is making such a difference in the world with their prayers!



It has been fun the past several years learning more about different cuts of meat, how to cook them, what they are used for, etc... But, one of the things that I have done a few times is make my own beef stock with the soup bones I get. I kinda of forgot about them this past year, but since we are getting another 134 pounds, to be exact, of new meat in a couple of weeks I have been scouring the deep freeze for anything that we have to use up, and soup bones was one of them. So, the other day I made up beef stock:





First, roast the soup bones

Next, saute some carrots, celery and onions and add some garlic and tomato paste

Add seasonings such as bay leaf, garlic, peppercorns, a little bit of salt, etc... (I like to put them in a little "packet" made of cheese cloth so that the straining of the broth later goes a little quicker and you get a more clear broth). Add the roasted bones, tomatoes, red wine and lots of water to the stockpot and let it simmer for several hours (it doesn't look appealing so I didn't take any pictures). Finally, strain in a fine mesh sieve and store in containers.

The end result is about 16 cups of rich, flavorful beef broth that will last for several months! YUM!

Crafts, crafts and more crafts

Yes, we've attempted to be a bit "crafty" around here lately; especially since Jonathan can sit at the kitchen table for hours coloring, cutting, pasting and creating. Catherine, is interested too- but for not such an extended period of time. I've found "craft time" to be a great way to spend some quality time with them both recently. Some of the crafts we have completed have been great, others score a "lame" rating on the scale. Read on...

The most recent was some "decorate your own turkeys," that I found in the dollar section of Target. I was pretty elated to score such a find (or so I thought)! It was fun, but mostly frustrating. Since it was only a dollar the stickers were hard to peel off and ripped quite a bit, and in the end the turkey didn't end up standing like it should have. (We did this project on Tuesday, by Thursday the turkey's had been trashed)The finished products, they did look cute for a few moments!

Another project that we did was one that Jonathan thought would be fun in his High Five Highlights magazine, entitled "Mushrooms." Ummm.... if that's any indication to you of where this is going. ha ha So, the idea of the project was to collect a number of toilet paper and paper towel rolls (which took about a month) and decorate them. The second step was to hole punch cupcake liners and then place them on top of the decorated rolls. Viola! There were ( or supposed to have) your mushrooms!The kids were excited about putting them together, but were fairly disappointed about the end result (I was shocked! he he)Here they are- the finshed "mushrooms." A little strange, I think. So, instead of them being mushrooms, they turned them into homemade bowling pins! It was a game that actually kept them occupied for quite some time, surprisingly.

Another recent "craft" was design your own toothbrush (found in the kids tooth care isle). This was something I did just with Catherine- as I'm really trying to do something special with her on Wednesday mornings as Jonthan is at school and Abby napping. She had a great time putting all the stickers she wanted on this toothbrush. It has actually got her VERY excited every morning and evening to use something she created! It's pretty cute.The last one that I have pictures of, was actually something Chris did with the kids (he is really a GREAT dad!). He helped them make some Halloween masks. Here is Catherine's:

"Long and Lean..."

...was one of the doctors' description to me of Abby at her 9 month check up. "Just like the rest of the family," he commented. I was recalling at that moment when I had taken Jonathan in for his 9, 12 and 18 month check-ups and the same doctor was worried about how thin he was (he too was and still is long and lean). And, I just reiterated to the kind doctor that the fact is that on both sides of the family our nieces and nephews are the same way.

I got (and still get) the same comments about Catherine in her check-ups... Now, Abby isn't so thin as she is on the charts, unlike her counterparts. YEAH!! She is 17 pounds (in the 25th percentile) and measures 29 inches in length, putting her in the 90th percentile. Not too bad, I don't think.She is still a very happy girl! She is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up. This past week she started standing on her own; Jonathan and Catherine have been encouraging her greatly to start walking.She's eating like a champ- she loves feeding herself cheese and any other little toddler pick-up foods I can find.

Abby is also fairly vocal- shocker, I know... if you know anything about our family. :-) Her words include: all done, more, mom and milk. I guess with all of the other talkers around here she needs to get her two cents in too if she wants to be heard.

She is still so sweet and super happy. I just shake my head in dis-belief, though, that she has been in this world for 9 months... time sure does fly (especially when you are having fun)!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

There's nothing better to me, than a warm, homemade batch of chocolate chip cookies (made with real butter, of course) on a tough day. The other day I was feeling a bit down and frustrated, as the kids were a bit trying. So, to lift my spirits I made one of my favorite comfort foods. It really did brighten my day- and the kids!

Halloween

We had a nice Halloween. The weather was the perfect autumn evening- as two days later it snowed about a foot- and the kids has been looking forward to the night for a long time. They were excited both to go Trick or Treating and handout the candy. We now have enough candy to feed an army, a couple of times, as they went from house to house for a good hour or so. Then, they were able to give candy to quite a few youngsters who stopped by our house. For someone who doesn't like Halloween very much, I've gotta say I had a great time too!

Chris dressed up as a spider, Abby a tiger, Catherine was Mary (the Mother of Jesus) and Jonathan was Mr. Incredible (his black mask is on the top of his head- it makes the outfit! But, he didn't want to wear it in the picture)

Abby was a super happy tiger!

Jonathan got these steller glasses in his treat bag from his Halloween party at school.... pretty nice, huh??

Halloween Preparations

The kids and Chris were pretty excited about carving pumpkins we got at the "farm" down the street from our house. Being that I'm pretty big party pooper, it did take some convincing for me to join in on the fun... I'm so glad I did. The kids were excited to scoop out the guts and tell us what kind of faces to cut- scary or nice.Here we are prepping- gotta lay down the plastic on the table, sharpen the knives (something Chris was excited about) and put on aprons (again, Chris's idea)

Jonathan scooping out the pumpkin Catherine and I were working on


It's starting to look like a jack-o-latern! Jonathan wanted a really scary face!

Jonathan decided his still needed more scooping!

Catherine wanted to scoop too

The finished products!

It just snowed for the second time in a week... so we'll see how much longer they last.