Wednesday, February 26, 2014

The Sunflower/Sunshine Reward


This blog has been awarded the Sunflower award!!! Thank you Aspen for nominating us. It is a huge honor to receive. And like Des I did some research on this award, but I must admit that I didn't get as far as you did. To find out the whole story on this award go to Des's blog here. Now if you like the short story version of it..... about five blogs ago the Sunshine Award changed to the Sunflower Award. So I'm going to go with both :)
 The rules are:
1. Share 11 Facts About Yourself
2. Answer Questions Set By Your Nomination Blogger
3. Nominate 11 Bloggers
4. Set Questions For The Nominated Bloggers
So 11 Facts About Me:
Since this is a family blog, I'm going to name 11 facts about our family.
1. My dad was from Wisconsin, My mom was from Colorado, and they met in Oklahoma 
2. None of us were born in a hospital
3. In 2010 we went through one of our hardest tests of faith, Zach had his foot ran over with a Bush-hog lawnmower 
4. Our family leads an outreach of the B.R.I.G.H.T. Lights ministry
5. We love creating things 
6. We are all have very close friendships in one another
7. We love to do English Country Dancing, Swing Dancing, and some 1860's dancing
8. We live on a little farm in west Texas
9. We all love to sing and play instruments
10. We all love being out of doors
11. Our female dog just had puppies 

Questions set by Aspen:

What is your favorite Era?
I must say that our favorite era is from before the Civil War through the end of the cowboy times.

If you could choose, where would you live?
Oh, that is a good one. Each one of us has a different place we want to live so I'll name them all :)
Daddy and Mommy want to be in a place where Daddy can spend time with his family. Janessa wants to live in a place where she can best serve her Lord as a mother and a godly wife. Kacy wants to live in the wide open on a ranch. Zach wants to live in the mountains of Colorado and run a self sustaining ranch. Shea wants to live where he can be inventive. Garrett want to live near Houston where he wants to work or in the mountains of Colorado. And for right now Gabriel wants to live near Mommy and Daddy.

What is your favorite outdoor activity?  
We all like working outside with Daddy, riding horses, climbing on things, sometimes taking long walks with the family, and playing baseball.

What are five words that describe you?
Close family, exciting, busy, non-boring (does that count as five words)

Would you rather live in the city or the country?
Country without a doubt for all of us

Now to nominate 11 bloggers:
Atlanta Goodwin
Grace Mally
Anne Voscamp
Allison Whisler
Tara Janelle
Mrs. Windy Shannon
Carissa 
I can't come up with eleven people to nominate, the only other two people that I can think about is Aspen, who has nominated me, and Des, who has already received this award.

And my questions:

What is your favorite past time?
When reading the bible what part of it has hit you the most?
Could you give an answer for the faith that is in you?
What has happened in the past year (from today through this time last year) that has made you smile the most?
In your entire life what has God done to bless you the most?

Thank you again Aspen for nominating me! 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

February 24 - Dad's Day Off!!!

Dad works eight days and has two days off, the first day is our Sabbath day and the second is the day that we work around the house and yard. Today we worked on the fence. Pulling and straightening posts and putting them back in. 

Zach got in some roping practice.



Unique picture taken by Janessa.





It's not all work, the boys played on the pivot sprinkler system when they were not working.



What do you do on your Dad's days off?

Monday, February 24, 2014

February 23 - Act of Kindness

While Janessa was at church today, Gabe made her this banner and made her bed for her. 




It seems like it is always the little things that make someone smile the most. What are some acts of kindness your have done or someone has done to you?

February 20 - A beautiful day in February

It was such a beautiful day so we all decided that we would take our afternoon nap outside in the sun.
Kacy in the hammock. She is working on a baby blanket.

Garrett in the shade of the shop. And he is reading.


Gabe in with the puppies, and being the smart kid that he is, he is sleeping.


Shea took his nap out in the sun, and he did a lot of different things.
Zach was out painting fence and Janessa was inside. What kind of things does your family do on warm days?

February 19 - Feeding the Sheriffs Department and a Long Walk

 Janessa and Kacy went to go help our church feed the Sheriff's Department this afternoon. It was a thank you gift from our church to them for serving our county so diligently.
Later that day the younger boys went for a walk with the German Shepherd, Reacher. They went about 3/4 of a mile from here to a farmers tank. Being early spring, the farmers hadn't started irrigating yet, so the tank was full of slime. The boys got in there, as did the dog. The difference is, the boys could get out whereas the dog couldn't. Kacy came over on the horse and got him out. We all had a lot of adventure today.






This is the ladder they were trying to get the dog to climb out on.






The sky is so beautiful today. Shea captured this beautiful picture of God's handiwork in the west Texas sky.


So what adventures have you been having today?

February 18 - Fox Hole

The younger boys went out this morning to build a fox-hole, for the purpose of using it in our future air-soft wars. They had it done in no time, and they did an excellent job. They did it completely by themselves





Do you have trenches, fox hole, or things of that sort all over your back yard? 

February 16 - It's Great to be Eight!!!

Our dear, sweet Gabriel turned eight today. He has been such a wonderful blessing to our family. Garrett arranged a treasure hunt and a crowning for him.

Gabe's two, fearsome guards. (They wouldn't let anyone get within a yard of him...which made it very difficult to crown him)
Gabriel, king birthday boy!!!!


Dad needs to hold the "robe" on.

He had his favorite breakfast, homemade doughnuts.

This is the first clue. I'm not going to take you through the entire treasure hunt. Garrett did a good job on it an it is really long, but I will hit some of the high points. See if you can guess where the next clue is hidden?

Gabe's birthday card from Shea. (It is sill stuck to his dinning room chair)

One of the clues took us all outside. I took this picture of a boy and his dog.
The clue stated that he was to go around the house three times, so these next pictures are what the rest of the family did while he was doing that.
Zach did a pull-up onto the roof.

Enjoying this nice day.

Waiting for them to come around...again.


He found the clue.

His treasure!!!

They didn't lose any time putting it together.

We're half way there!!
It's done!
Now it's time to open presents.
An air-soft gun from Zach, that I think he likes just a little bit.


Band-aids for all the booboos he gets while playing air-soft wars. (That was he can keep playing without having to go in.)

This one was a lot of fun to unwrap, it hat four layers of paper that he needed to get through.


Whatever it is, I think he likes it.

It's a pocket knife!

Gabriel has really gotten interested in Anatomy recently, okay he has been interested in it for about three years. He has gone through every book we have on the subject, taken every class in GRACE in it. So we got him his own build-able body and brain. 

I think he likes all his presents.
Blow!!

Those trick candles just won't go out.





Lol, Lots of love.


Janessa made the cake and because she had to run errands in town, Kacy decorated it.
This little boy is growing to be quite the young man.

Happy Birthday Gabriel!!!

So what is some of the things that you have done on an eight year old's birthday?