Amish Neighbors

The boys and I went with one of my new friends to visit and sight see our Amish neighbors.  I didn't realize they lived that close to us.  My friend knows several of them personally, so we were able to stop at a couple of farms, talk with them, and buy from their shops.

  Amish do not like for you to take their pictures so I made sure to try to respect that.  I did catch one couple working in a field when I was taking a picture of her house.

Click the pictures to see close-ups :-) 

Recipes

Click here if you are interested in the new recipes I just added to my home-maker blog

Incentives for Children

I don't normally like to do a constant stream of incentive activities because I believe children should help around the house, and work because it's expected and right. We are training them to be service and ministry oriented.

Yet I do think it is a good thing to do incentives occasionally. We all need something new and different sometimes... right? Balance is key, I think.

The boys wanted to do something like this again. I found this neat website where you can print mazes. I printed three of the mazes. I cut everything out and used mod podge to decoupage them to a heavier paper. I used scotch tape (sticky tack works great) on the back of the bug cutout so he can move to each number.

Mod podge is a WHOLE lot easier than trying to laminate.

My plan is that if the boys complete the chores and work listed on their clipboards by a certain time each day, they get to move to the next number (I wrote these in randomly) on the maze.

When their bug makes it to the ice cream cone, we go out for sundaes or something like that.

Anyway, thought I'd share this just in case there may be a mom out there who needs a change of pace.

If you click the picture of the maze, you can print from the new window. If you want a different theme, try this link. Go to "mazes" at the top :-)

More snow!

You can tell how much more snow we have by the amount on the trees.

This is the pasture.... You can't see them, but there have been a lot of tiny little birds out there.

The driveway (where'd it go?)

Steve's puppy

Steve's little Westie. His name is "Hunter".

I didn't even know I had recorded this on my camera, but here it is...

Snow pictures

It has been snowing most of the day. I took this looking out my kitchen window.

I took this out of the sliding glass door.

Running water is a blessing

It has been an interesting couple of days. The other day when we got our water bill, we noticed it was high. Then yesterday when Michael got home from work, he noticed water coming up out of the ground. After a lot of investigation he found not one, but two broken spots.

Michael and Joe are working outside to dig up the pipes and replace them. Thanks to Joe (our brother in law) who has been so helpful today.

We have no running water in the house at this point, but thankfully we do have a well hooked up to our barn. I have been trudging up and down the hill getting buckets of water, boiling it, and straining it so we can drink it.

On the negative side of things, Ryan has been sick with some type of virus. So thankful for that well water and thankful he is feeling better now.

We are supposed to have freezing rain and between 4-9 inches of snow. It was supposed to start this morning, but it hasn't! The Lord has been so kind as to answer prayer and hold it off for us! Thank you Lord!