A Picture Perfect Day

           Today I was able to steal my Mom's camera. And so I took these pictures and many more.

A non lake version of a cattail

           This is some plant that I saw at the top of our hill that I thought looked somewhat like a cattail. (Also known as Mullein or Pioneers Toilet Paper.) And so seeing as it seemed to be posing for the camera I decided to give in.

My shadow is following Me!

           There was very nice lighting and since the sun was going down I found a shadow of Me waiting at  the bottom of the hill for the real Me.

the Moon and A Meteorite, can't get much better.

           Then I saw the Moon with a jet passing and I got separate shots of both but, this one put them together so nicely.

             There was an airplane following the jet about half an hour later and I took a picture of it at Harrison's request.

I'm a Star!!!!

            Then I got all my siblings (We all had been banished from the house by our evil ahem, nice Mother.) To pose for me as I took their picture.

Chocolate! Chocolate! Mustache!

             When we had, had hot chocolate earlier today Gregory had been messy and Mom didn't notice it and so there he went with a mustache throughout the day.

pretty picture

              I was actually able to get them all around smiling (I really don't know what Harrison is up to but, it may be he just hasn't had enough practice smiling with his teeth.) And as I said the lighting was perfect.

I'm a little Egyptian

            Beatrice wanted to pose again so they tried the Egyptian walk but couldn't quite get it right so they look more like little teapots. I have another picture of them doing this but Gregory was in the middle of falling and alone Bea looked like she was trying to model something.

A bad self-portrait

            I had decided that there needed to be a picture of me on this day so I tried to do it by myself and it didn't turn out so well. Oh well.

Natasha's house

            I liked the way the sun was on her window so I took the picture for that reason and only that reason.

  Adios,
Margaret

2011 RePlay

January

 Although I know we must have done many exciting things in January I seem to have lost those pictures. I know we took pictures because Jaten Rae came for a visit with her family and Margaret can't be around her without taking at least a few pictures. We went to the Winter Carnival, froze our feet at the Grand Day Parade and toured the Bakken and did school work.

February

 We had a visit from the Johnsons. Had tea parties. Went bowling, went ice skating and did school work.

 March

 We traveled to Bemidj and attended the annual winter retreat at the church there. Where we sang songs, listened to others sing songs, watched a play, heard good preaching and had good fellowship. Harrison attended a one day band festival, we did school work and were involved with other church activities. Beatrice had a frenectomy done and we finalized our decisions about braces on the children's faces.

 April

 We went on a hike at one of our favorite spots for the first time this year. We played Pooh sticks over the little crick. We did school work. Harrison was in Honor band one Saturday, he was honored by Grandma and Grandpa, Keren and Irindee coming to be in the audience for the evening's concert. We also were honored to have the Cobbs be our guest one weekend. We took the first bike ride of the year.

 May

 Beatrice made the decision to have Christ as her Savior and to follow Jesus for the rest of her life.
Gregory turned into a six year old, he chose to have a pyramid cake and asked his friend Walter to come with his family to make the day more special. We went camping at the Wilderness and had more visits from the Johnsons, among others. We did a little school work, but the weather was getting awfully fine to be committed to wholly to the books. We rode bikes. We took a walk to Cub in a down pour so Martha bought shampoo to use on the way home. We try to keep the neighborhood entertained.

June

 On Travis' birthday the girl's had their music recital. Margaret played beautifully on her violin and Beatrice did amazing on the piano. We did a photo shoot with the soon to be newly weds. We went to Feed My Starving Children a couple times. We went to Sharon Bluff Camp for a week. We visited Grandma Cleone. We played with Pandas for a week at VBS. We finished the Life Group year. Travis got a basketball hoop for the kids to play with their friends at. It has been well used. We took a canoe trip on the hottest Sunday.

July

 We had a blast with our neighborhood shooting fireworks and visiting on the fourth of July. We went to Bemidji and had wonderful fellowship with our dear family who live there and joined us there. Pay Day was the board game of the summer, the boys played it most every day, taking breaks to drive Henry crazy with wild nerf wars through out the house. We went to the zoo. Took a canoe trip. We packed bags at Feed My Starving Children. All four of my offspring played in the Junior Horseshoe league this summer.

August

 My little brother married his Molly Bea. 

 We toured the Landmark and took a picture for old times sake. It was one of the first places we toured when we moved to the area.

 We went to our first Twins game and said that was enough.

 Took a trip down the Cannon River. And packed bags at Feed My Starving Children. Took bike rides. Cleaned our teeth and put braces on them. And we had friends and family come visit us!

September

 Margaret turned 11. We did FMSC. We started the school year. We went camping at our favorite camping spot. We took our final canoe trip and bike rides for the year. We had family and friends visit. We sang songs, we read stories, we prayed. Life Group started up for the  year.

 October

 Beatrice turned eight and Harrison turned 13! I grew older. We played bocce ball. We worshiped the Lord. We learned about bridges and arches and concrete. We took a short trip.

November

 We went to the Minnesota History Museum for like the 5th time this year. We celebrated all of our blessings on Thanksgiving. We harvested the last fruits of our garden for this year in the form of carrots. They were great and we were pleased. 

December

 We traveled a round about route to Indiana by going to Bemidji first to watch Keren perform in the Christmas Carol-so well done. We got to spend time with our grandparents! Such a treat. They are such great people. We have been so blessed to have them in our lives. 

We got to spend time with other great folks too and we are so Thankful for that time. Margaret drove the Polaris all by herself for the first time. Harrison had a Christmas concert with his band. Beatrice drew a thousand pictures. Gregory showered love in many ways, I hope he keeps his sweetness. We dreamt dreams, laughed laughs, cried tears, hoped hopes and shared memories. 2011 has been a good one.
Thank you for sharing it with us,
~Anna

Savoring the end of summer

Here is a 'brief" synopsis of our perfect summer day, in pictures. We have had a lot of wonderful days recently. Weather and activity wise. I feel saddened that summer is coming to an end and the freedom it brings from knuckling down to schoolwork. Learning in a leisurely way is fun, though not productive enough to allow to go on always. I am trying not to feel too sad that we haven't gotten in as many bike rides and canoe trips as I had wanted this summer. Maybe fall will give us several more opportunities for those things.

So, onto today's delights,

We started the day off at the baseball diamonds. It was a sunny, high wind day and so delightful to be out in. Here is Gregory with some of his team mates, the Brown Cannon Balls! They were in great form, all of them, hardly ever getting struck out. The Green Lightnings were playing a mean outfield so they had to run fast to get on base.

This noon Harrison and Gregory were wanting to get right onto the computer when we returned home so I was suggesting books for them to read. Harrison thinks he has read all of the books in this house that interest him so I was trying to give him some new ideas. We have a lot of great books around here that he hasn't read, although he has read a large percentage of them, there are a few gems left. Today however was not the day to deviate from the old tried and true and this time he introduced one of his favorites to Gregory. For an hour after lunch Harrison read out loud the Boys Book of Sea Fights by Chelsea Curtis Fraser. I have never read the book but I think Harrison has read it enough times for every one in this house to have read it at least once. I should look and see if Chelsea has written any other books. This one is a good fit for him, in that it is geography and fighting in one cover.

We played board games and then while I let everyone have their computerized time I ran and got groceries. I have been on an every other week big grocery shopping, little grocery shopping pattern. The little week I just get the basics at Kwik Trip since they have the best price on milk and bananas. This was the big week. Some played dolls. I was the grandma and had to pick the beans for supper with a doll on my hip. Because Suzy wanted to see Grandma. For supper we enjoyed beans cooked in olive oil and a liberal amount of slivered garlic; fresh tomatoes; apples (from our tree) fried in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar; round steak baked in a lovely gravy and mashed potatoes. I actually had salmon since I am not eating beef right now. But the gravy looked and smelled very lovely. All in all it was a yummy meal. Although I threw in a picture of my lemon drop pepper plant we didn't eat any of those, I just like how many peppers it has on it. And they played some basketball.

So the end of a good day has come. I am including a picture from our walk on Monday evening since it fits the theme so well. They have been overhauling the train tracks the last week or so so we needed to check out their progress.

All my love,

~Anna

Snow

This has been the fall for snow. We have now made it into winter for a week or so, but the majority of our snow all came before winter even set in. Pretty amazing amounts. As we are wondering what to do if we get more and space is running out. God will set in motion his own plan that works really well, as always. He'll just melt it. Today has been sunny and warm, not really much melting yet but they say tomorrow things will change and we will see a diminishing of the snow as rain runs down on it. I guess next up, ice. We will see. I had to go down and uncover the street light censor as it had been buried in snow. I don't remember needing to do that before.

Here follows a few of our snow memories for this 2010 fall/winter season of snow.

November 21 the snow is new and exciting and Beatrice has new reindeer antlers she needs to try out so they load up a bag for Gregory to have with him as he rides in his sleigh. The new Rudolph the red nose reindeer and Santa are born. Our next good snowfall came in the afternoon before Thanksgiving and it was the perfect temp for taking an evening walk to Cub to get a few groceries. I love night time walks in a white snow covered land. They are so peaceful, sounds are more muted.

With more snow and bright sunshiny days where better to be than on our hill.

Then the big snow of December 11 came and we were buried. Traveling in it was horrible. Once we gave up and stayed home we went over to our neighbors and had a good evening of visiting over freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee and ginger cookies. What can be better than good friends and that!

When we were properly warmed and soothed reality had to be faced and we brought in wood and scooped the driveway. Here Henry and Travis bring in wood:

Life is hard when the snow is this thick and you have such short legs: It would be fun to have snowshoes for when the snow is like this. It is very dense and there is a bit of a crust. We can scoot across the top using our arms and sitting on the plastic sleds.

Some of the cousins coming into Grandpa and Grandma's after a refreshing sledding adventure on their new sledding hill. December 25.

Enjoying the snow,

~Anna

Remembering An Evening's Walk

We started with a picnic

 Eating lots of pop corn

 And drinking lots of water.

Then we wandered over hill and vale,

Up ancient stairs of crumbling concrete.

By prehistoric rhinoceroses, which we all took a turn at conquering! 

~Anna, remembering the evening of August the 27th, 2010.