Update and Christmas traditions

Hello everyone! I am so sorry I have not posted in such a looong time, our family laptop died so Moms is the only working one in the house. I meant to do a post about our recent reenactment and was in the middle of making a picture movie for it when the laptop flunked:( Well I hope to get it on here soon or I will just download the pictures on here with out them being in a movie, but I think the movie idea is better seeing as we took 1,778 pictures during the reenactment! Besides that we have been busy getting ready for the Christmas season, advent, and all our family traditions. One of our favorite traditions goes like this... Each person (over the age of five) including the parents draws a name (a name of some one in the family), who ever they drew they have to do things for them and be extra nice to them (without letting that person find out you drew them), until Christmas Day when everybody tells who they drew and what they did for that parson. It is a really fun tradition and if you really want to not let that person guess who you drew, you can do extra things for other people so that person wont guess you drew them. Of course there are those times where it will go wrong, like last year Dad drew me so he bought me a kolache from the doughnut store and him not wanting me to know he drew me sent one of the little boys out to give it to me, well me not knowing Dad bought it, had no idea it was bought for me and so I sent the little brother inside to give it to Mom thinking the little brother wasn't supposed to bring it to me. So what special Christmas traditions does you're family do?

WOW

WOW! I haven't posted in quite a bit, I've been really busy lately. So I just wanted to say sorry about that and to say that I probably won't be posting till after the 19th of this month, So till then Bye

WOW!!!

Wow! Don't I have an amazing looking Dad?

I love you Dad!

Kinda awkward

Awkward happening #1 Walking in to our front room and having our family friend who is visiting us, look up at me and say ''What are you doing here?'' Ah... standing there trying to figure out how to respond when she starts laughing and telling me to go milk the goats, ah o.k. kinda strange. Awkward happening #2 Walking out of the milk barn and seeing a frog, just as three barn cats go jumping at it, I chase the cats away and follow the frog when at the same time calling for Sara to come save the poor helpless little frog, I mean come on cats it's not like we starve y'all, you don't need to eat the poor hopping little thing when it's done nothing to you! Still standing there waiting for Sara to come and save the itty bitty frog, because I can't abide trying to rescue the little things and you go to pick them up to save them and they try defending them self's from you by getting you're whole hand wet, which usually ends it up thrown down on the ground as I go running in the house to wash my hands! Oh and yes, Sara did end up saving the frog from a lifelong death. Awkward happening #3 Stepping out side and seeing Timothy holding an ice chest. -Hey Tim, can you bring that to the dairy so I can wipe it out? -Sure Honey bunches. -Ah....?

Happy Birthday Noah!!!

I meant to post this yesterday, but was not able to get the pictures on until today, but they are still really bad quality (which is driving me crazy), but I hope you enjoy this post.

 

So today it is Noah's eighth birthday, but we celebrated it yesterday instead of today.We invited a few friends from church over and our adopted Grandparents. Noah wanted to grill for his birthday, so that's what we did, we had burgers, fruit salad, chips, pretty much the normal birthday meal. For his desert he wanted a cake decorated like a farm, unfortunately the cake was eaten into before I could get a picture so I'll just explain it. I made a plain vanilla cake, then Mom got some coconut flakes and dyed them green for the grass, she then made a little loafing shed out of graham crackers and frosting, there was a small pond made out of a pile of blueberries, then there were the goat animal crackers, and the trees were made out of small heads of broccoli, and the fence around it was made out of pretzel sticks, it was very creative. Now today on his actual birthday he has gone to get a hair cut with Timothy, Judah, Seth and Grace, Grace however is not getting her hair cut, she is just there with them to keep them out of trouble. Mom, Christin, and Sara went to pick up animal feed in college station and to make a stop by Hobby Lobby (one of our favorite stores). We who stayed home (Dad, Emma, Liberty, and I) chased the hogs around trying to get them back in their pen as Dixie sat on the swing set observing. I was also left having to keep an eye on the feta and culture it. We then got to enjoy left overs from yesterday for lunch (prepared by Emma). Here are some pictures from the party, sorry about the bad quality pictures, we are working on getting a good (really good) camera.


                            This is the only pic I got of the cake.

     Yes, it did get  kinda cold out side so a lot of us went in side to thaw out.

                           Grampa silliness

Desert contest

On Sunday our church had it's annual desert contest after the evening service , we usually don't go in the evening but Dad said we could go this time. So Sara, Emma, Timothy, and I decided we would make a desert. Sara and Timothy together made a cinnamon apple cake with ice cream and cajeta on it. Emma and I made (one of my favorite deserts) molten chocolate puddin' cake with ice cream on it. Unfortunately we were not able to get pictures of our yummy work (we don't currently have a working camera), but they tasted really good! Well Sara and Timothy ended up winning the grand prize!!!! But everyone liked mine and Emma's cake so I hope to bring it to our church lunchin  next Sunday.
CONGRATULATIONS TO SARA AND TIMOTHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

George Eliot

     A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead.
- George Eliot

This is a post from Christin's blog

 This is a post from Christin's blog

http://sewnarnian.blogspot.com/

 

*GASP* 

Woohoo! I did it. I actually did it. I just sewed a ball gown. A civil war ball gown made out of taffeta. I remember telling myself that I would NEVER sew a ball gown. Much too complicated. And I would never sew with any thing that was slippery. No silk, no taffeta, no satin. Nothing like that. I was quite sure that I would mess it up. And then Sara gave Grace, Linnea, and myself some taffeta for ball gowns. Great! Now I had to use that slippery stuff. I came up with every possible excuse as to why I couldn't do it. "The fabric was too slippery." "So what? Figure out how to work with it. And hurry up."
 "The material was too cheap looking. It might shred and then it would have been a waste of time." "Well you'll never know what it will do if you don't use it. Hurry up and start sewing." As you can see, my sisters were not going to take  "no" for a answer. So I began with Grace's gown. She had bought a simple pattern from Period Impressions. So we washed the fabric and began to iron it. That was were I hit my first "speed bump". This taffeta was 100% polyester. I took the iron and placed it on the fabric and....... it melted. My room stank of melting plastic for two days. Okay, lesson learned. Do not use your grandmothers 15 year old iron that is no longer adjustable. So I bought a new iron that had settings that worked and started over. Got it ironed and I told Grace to start cutting the material while I got the machine ready. Problem was that I had never done this kind of thing before (as I've already said) and I didn't know that you couldn't just cut it out like you would with regular old cotton. First you have to layer the material with tissue paper so the material doesn't slip and come out in funky shapes. So we re-cut the fabric and got ready to sew it. It was a lot easier than I thought that it would be. The hardest part was figuring out how to fit 180" onto a waistband that's made for some one with a 26 1/2" waist. We ended up doing a triple box pleat all the way around. Half way through sewing the bodice together Grace held it up and said "You know what? I think this will actually work and that it will look quite nice." Thank you for the encouragement Grace. All the way through sewing this dress Grace was right behind me, encouraging me. So now, almost 9 months after I first started on this project, it is finally done.
                                                                     
                                                        

The front of the gown.

Back of the gown.

Close up of the front.

Close up of the back. We are eventually going to add lacing to the back. Half of the girls like it as it is now, with hook and eye closures. Grace really likes the look of the lacing.

Gown from the side.

The antique lace that we dyed to match the binding, which we also made.

              
One ball gown done,three more to go. And all before November  17. I better get movin'. :)                                                   

A somewhat normal day

On a somewhat normal day we start by getting up at five o'clock and get dressed, clean our rooms, and sit down for breakfast (Emma usually makes it and Dad has left to drive the school bus), that is also the time we have our meeting for the day, discuss what we got done yesterday and talk about what needs to be done today. Then Christin, Sara, Emma and I go out to milk the goats, depending on who's day off of milking it is that person has to clean up from breakfast and get the little kids dressed and ready for the day. Now that Katarina has gone back up to New York to work at another dairy it is Grace's chore to work in our dairy, so that's what she does when we are milking. By the time we are done milking it is about eight o'clock, Dad is home from driving the bus and we all have street time, run, walk, roller skate, or ride one of the two bikes we have (and actually we haven't been doing street time that much lately due to us not finishing milking to about eight thirty). Then it is nine o'clock and SCHOOL TIME!!!! Yes I love school, we are currently doing year two of our curriculum and learning about late explorers, but this has probably been the most boring week of school we have done so far this year. We do school until twelve then it's dinner time which is our main meal of the day. Starting at one is our free time, where we can do things we want to do such as sew, ride the horses, or blog, free time goes on until four o'clock, if we want to we can switch our free time and school time in case we want to do something for free time that requires us doing it in the morning. Then at four we have to get the milk stuff out and start milking, we finish around six, then we have to clean up from milking.We eat supper and at seven we have family time whether it's playing a card game, playing capture the flag, or watching a movie. We then have bible study, and at eight the little kids go to bed, the older kids and Dad and Mom go to bed at nine (though lately we've been going to bed much later then that). So that's our somewhat normal day, of course there are times when we have to switch it up a bit, like on Friday when we have to get ready for Saturdays market, or when we go to a friends house for the day. So today I worked on cleaning out the burn pit, Christin started working on a 1860s ball gown for me, Dad and Sara went to our Wednesday Houston market, Mom and Grace went to our Austin Wednesday market, And the little kids did the normal. Good bye for now.

A slice of our history

One hundred and fifty years ago today was the battle of Sharpsburg. I was nine years old when we went to Virginia, I remember going to sharpsburg, seeing the church with blood stains on the floor, walking through the corn field, and walking down bloody lane, and I remember it very well! I love history, mainly on the war for southern independence and I hope one day the southern soldiers who went to fight  to try to preserve their freedom will not be seen as traitors but heroes!

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/17/161248814/antietam-a-savage-day-in-american-history

BLT and my garden

About a year ago, Sara told me that the next time I went to Braums I needed to get a chicken club, only I hadn't heard her right, so when I finally was able to go to Braums I ordered chicken strips. As I was eating I looked over at what Dad had gotten and thought it looked really good, It was a BLT with chicken in it, when we got home I told Sara how I had gotten the chicken strips like she said to, she then corrected me saying it was a BLT with chicken in it that she thought I should of gotten. So when Mom went food shopping yesterday I called her and asked her to pick up stuff for us to make chicken clubs for supper, hoping I would finally get one with out having to go all the way to Braums, she said she would, but we didn't have the time to cook  the chicken so we decided to use sandwich turkey slices, so I cook all the bacon and and toast all the bread only to find out we don't have tomatoes! It's this time when I wish I hadn't let my  garden go up in weeds! In the end the sandwich tasted pretty good but I wouldn't consider it a real chicken club! I don't know why I'm putting these up here, maybe it's so I can see how nice the garden looked back then and try making it that nice now. These pictures were of my first year of gardening in 2010, hopefully next year it will look nice again!


                                  There is actually a fence around it now.

                                        Oh look tomatoes!

                                                 More  tomatoes.

 

                                        And lettuce!

               
                                         More lettuce.

                                                        Onions!

                                           Little cucumbers!

                                         A anaheim pepper flower!

                                          Would ya look at that!

                                         

                             
                                                strawberries!

                                          

                                           More onions.

 

                                             Thyme

                                             

                                              Oh look Due berries behind the garden.

                                              
          Well good bye for now, hopefully next summer I can put up pictures of it then.

Reenacting

I know this might be kinda random since we haven't reenacted in over a year, but maybe its because I miss it so much that's why I want to write about it.  Last year due to historic drought, our main reenactment (Liendo plantation) was cancelled, but we still reenacted a bit at Washington-on-the-brazos. Now this year, we are no longer in a historic drought and we are really looking forward to Liendo plantation. Which will be the weekend before Thanksgiving, perfect weather!



                             Here are some pictures from Washington-on-the-brazos.

 

Walking up to the house.

                                            This was when Dixie was little.

                                                                               
                                                             
                                  Noah trying his hand at wood work.                                                            

                                                                                  
                                                            
                                                                                
                                                                 Sara

                                                                                     

                                                 Judah lookin' at the pigs.

                                                                          


                                                     Me cross stitching.

                                                                           
                      
                                        Not sure what's going on in this picture.

                                                                                                                                                        
                       Looks comfortable and actually it didn't feel that bad at all.

                                                                                 
                         
                                                               Demonstrations

                                                                              
                 
                                        A view of the kitchen.

                                                                            

                                      It's really fun to cook in here.

                                                                          

              That's my Dad, as you can see, he didn't dress up for the event. 

                                                                           
                                                       Funny picture.

                                                                              

                                                  Another pic of me.

                                                                               
                                                                           
                                    Seth trying his hand at washing clothes.

                                                                     

                                                      The dog-run.

                                                                            

                                                         Christin

                                                                                 

                                           Emma watching a demonstration.

    

                                                                                
                                    Liberty trying on one of their hats.  

                                                                                

                            This is one of the headdresses Sara and I made.

                               We have some available if you would like one.  
 https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/HeritageHopes/preview