Dehydrating today...

Did a little dehydrating today - cannot wait to see how the agave, cacao, cinnamon banana's turn out!!!

Had a helper or three....
jay, being the baby - he is such a doll!

Photo Shot....

Since Katie and Card were dressed up for yearbook pictures - I decided to snap a few of my own after their "offical" photo shot....

Sarah's B-Day Continued

Bella gets in on gift time...

Mom-Mom and Jay

Itsy Bitsy Spider??

Mom, Jay and Lenka

Cousins!

Sarah 1st B-Day!!

Our little Niece/Cousin is 1 year old!!

Sarah bear in her rocking chair..

Sarah and Amy the Gorilla....

Annual pumpkin carving

everyone is cleaning out their pumpkins

Dad-Dad helps the smaller ones :)

after the cleaning, Dad-Dad carves a face in each pumpkin, mommy toast pumpkin seeds and usually cooks down the pumpkin insides, sometimes even makes pumpkin pie out of the insides... not this year though....

not a yearly tradition, but after pumpkin carving this year, we went out and hung some sheet rock - hopefully we will not have any to hang next year!

then we lite our pumpkins and let them glow for a bit - in order from l-r - Jack's, Bella's, Card's and Katie's (which she did all by herself this year)

Thanks Dad-Dad for the fun time and thanks Mom-Mom for finding such a great deal on the pumpkins!!

When you are down and out

you let your 2 year old do your homework....
and play peek-a-boo with him

totally messing your covers up - but the 11 year old is happy to fix them for you again :)

spend some time the kids - after all, you are all locked in the house with rain, rain, rain anyway

and your kids eat all your eat and drink all your drink

Happenings around here

Card lost his first tooth - on accident...he ate the concrete a little too hard a few days ago...

My raised bed - lasagna garden style this year. Will is running the sawmill and these boards are made from trees from our farm, run through our sawmill, and assembled in our barn...we did not, however, make wooden lug nuts..yet.....

one of my lovely squash plants

Jaybird - all dressed up with somewhere to go - of course, right after these pictures he turned his head and spit up right in his cute little hat - so he went out, minus cute little hat.

being Jaybird - the boy already has such personality. He loves to laugh and make others laugh.

Red Pepper Curry Soup

Folks have been asking for some recipes... here is one of our favorite raw soup recipes:
(adapted from the Raw 50)

2 red bell peppers
1 apple
1 ripe avocado
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1 cup pine nuts
1/3 red onion
3 tbls yellow curry (we prefer a sweet curry)
1 tbls salt
2 cups (more or less) water
2-3 tbls coconut oil (or to taste)

Put everything except water in Vita-mix (if using a regular blender, I would core apple and bell peppers). Add small amounts of water until it is your desired consistency. You can blend until warm in the Vita-mix (but make sure it does not boil!). If you like, you can set aside some finely sliced apple, pepper and avocado to add after blending.

The kids LOVE this, especially Jack who seems to have a taste for curry!

Just as the Barnes about this here soup.....

The Other Birthday Boy.....

I forgot to post Jack's b-day "party" - just his mama, daddy, brothers and sisters - all having a blast eating his favorite meal of hot dogs and ketchup and then a cake with blueberries- his absolute favorite fruit of all time!

Yep son, there really is meat on that bun!

He was delighted with the cake and really LOVED the decorations - we went all out!

He loves getting new trucks!

and he drove them all over his cake - he did not even want to eat it, just to drive on it! We did eventually cut it and eat it with fresh, homemade, real ice cream made just minutes before with cream ,maple syrup, vanilla, and arrowroot.

Had to throw one in of Jack's all time favorite baby brother. All ready to go hunting with Papa!

Lookey Lookey who is 3 months old!!

Our Little Jay Bird is 3 months old!!

Swimming with the fishes....

We are ready to learn Ms. Darcy

Blowing bubbles

more bubbles

Nutrition 101

We are doing Debra Raybern's Nutrition 101 class with the Schnakenbergs. This was our second class and we made Greek Salad

The girls cleaning up

and the big kids....supposed to be cleaning up :)

State Railroad #2

We encountered some difficulties on the - including a tree across the tracks. The Conductor whipped out the old 1900's chainsaw and we were on our way again soon after.....

Dad and Katie talking with the "outlaws" that were "robbing" our train

On our way back to Rusk - you will notice we are sitting in some padded seats this round!

Katie and FRED

Some pictures are just priceless....

My dad kept reminding me that there were signs saying to keep your head, hands, etc.. inside the train :)

Texas State Railroad #1

We rode the steam engine on the way to Palestine

The group waiting for the train


Finally on the train! For some reason, we sat right behind the engine in the hard wooden chairs on the way down

You can see how thrilled Jay is with the whistle

The Birthday Boys!

Jay Bird...

Jay Bird and his Jay Bird....