I take them and pick them up. Although they are only 3 doors down, it’s about a half a mile. Here’s some of the discussion they reported to me as of late. We all found it quite humorous, similar to what my older son experienced at his place of work:

Last week, their [adult] son moved back home. He is helping with the sanding, as are the woman and the the man of the house. The woman is QUITE A CHARACTER. Today, the son finds out we don’t have a tv. “You mean, you have NEVER watched a video IN YOUR LIFE?”

My son, Joe, says, “Well, I did see a short one in hunter’s safety class.”

“Yeah,” he replies, “but that’s EDUCAAATIONAL”

So he asks, “have you seen Star Wars?”

“No, but we have the book.”

“Have you seen JRR Tolken’s stuff?”

“No, but we have his books.”

“How about CS Lewis?”

“No, but we have his books and I’ve heard audio tapes.”

“AHA!” He exclaims, “So you ARE lazy!” So he asks, “Do you play VIDEO GAMES?”

“No.”

The son tells my boys that he has over 300 dvd’s. He said, “I’ll find you a “good” one to watch.” Then he turns to his mom and says, “Mom, which dvd should I show the boys?” to which she replies, “Remember, they aren’t allowed in the house.”

He says, “I’ll bring the tv out here!”

So the woman says to the boys, “I was thinking of your poor mom and how much work kids are with all that cooking and cleaning.”

My son, Joe says to her, “Oh, my sister cooks all the dinners and we take turns with lunches.”

“Oh, but the dishes!” She exclaimed.

“We have assigned chores.”

Evidently, she wasn’t going to be happy with any answer he gave because the next thing she says is, “When I was growing up, we had a neighbor that had 16 kids! They were treated like SLAVES! They never played with us. Well, ONCE, they played with us.

Joe told me he set her straight. But then she asks him, because she and the husband argue all the time, “Do your parents ever fight?”

“No.”

“You mean they NEVER fight?”

“Not that I know of,” Joe replies.

Joe said that she laid down the law to her husband NOT to curse in front of my boys. She keeps scolding her son when he cusses and yet, SHE does it! “OOPS! Don’t tell your mother! That’s the ONLY one I say.”

Yesterday, when I picked them up, they told me the last thing she said to them as they said good bye was, “Remember, don’t tell your mother ~wink~”

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Humorous Story From 2005

I am so excited to share our big news! Our second son, third child, is now engaged to the sweetest young lady! And look, I have a few photos for ya!

First, the couple!

So now you can see what a sweet gal she is

and what a clown I have for a son. ~grin~

Ahhh! This one’s a bit cuter. Don’t you think?

The ring!

Okay, so she took it of for just a *minute*. It was for the picture. It was for you.

She put it back on. Don’t worry.  Breath a sight of relief now.

Now, with my new daughter-in-law’s permission, I get to share with you  something she wrote up to share about how they got together.

Did I mention their names? Forgive me! My son is Joseph and the young lady is Kathryn, otherwise known as Joe and Katie.

Without further delay:

Joe and Katie’s Story by Katie

Some of you have been asking about how Joe and I met. Joe and I met two years ago at our mutual friends’ house and later God provided ways for our families to get together and I got to know his sisters. After that, Dad and Joe got together for lunch on a weekly basis for several months. It was a good time for Dad to get to know Joe and for Joe to get to know Dad because they were able to talk freely about their beliefs. These are some points that I’ve kept in mind and that I believe are very important in relationships.

I believe that dating is dangerous because it encourages a false sense of feelings. In dating, there is a greater chance of getting physical before the proper time. Also, when people date, there is no real commitment to each other. People sometimes will date several different people before they marry anyone and by then, they’ve given a little bit of their heart away each time.

I believe that God’s timing is always perfect. When we give ourselves and our relationships to God, He will bring things to pass when it’s best. It is important to always give everything to God, not just in relationships, but in all of life. When we give something to Him that maybe we really want, He will bless that. He will either give it back to you, or He will give you something far better! God knows what is best.

God’s hand has been so evident in my relationship with Joe! He knew just when for us to take each little step. After each step, I would pray that if this wasn’t God’s will, that He would end it right there, and He never did! He continued to open doors and we continued to go through them.

It is very important before even considering someone, to make sure that they are a believer. If they aren’t it causes so much pain and trouble in the long run. 2 Corinthians 6:14

I also believe that parents need to be involved. Joe first went to his Dad before he went to my Dad. Everything we have done has been with our parents’ permission and approval. Parents have so much wisdom and God has placed them over us to train us and guide us. They see things that we don’t, so if they say, no this isn’t a good thing, we need to listen to them and trust them. Proverbs 23:22, 24

One thing that our culture doesn’t seem to understand, is that love is not a feeling. It’s a decision. There are times when we don’t feel love for people, but we must love them anyway. I believe that we must be able to think rationally before we allow feelings to come out. In dating, I think feelings become involved so soon that people are unable to see what the other person is really like. Dad and Joe were able to talk about things and think rationally before feelings came into the picture.

I also think that getting physical too soon is very dangerous. Even something as “innocent” as holding hands, if done too soon can cause problems. It can cause feelings (there they are again!) to show themselves.

Most importantly, I think that in everything we do, our ultimate goal should be to glorify God. If we seek to do things for our own glory or if we do what we want, when we want instead of in God’s timing, he can’t bless that. I have prayed through this whole process that God would be glorified in all that we say and do.

“Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” 1 Timothy 4:12

Rejoice with us!

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Engagement!

If you would rather watch it on Blip, here’s the link: http://blip.tv/file/1774653

If you prefer You Tube, here’s the link, as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GKFnqXrsUU

Post from: But First, We Have Coffee

Video: Men In The Kitchen

Click on the link below and enjoy! Don’t forget to view the video of the moose!

http://www.allanne.com/hunting-2008-part-one

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Hunting, Come Take a Look

Horizon Wireless

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In Lieu of The Upcoming Hunting Season

Anne created the fried ramen noodle recipe and my son, Joe, created the green bean and bacon topping.

Anne Fried Ramen as told by Joe
Servings: 5 or 6 people (maybe 7 or 8 for people who eat a little)

5 packages of pork or oriental flavored Maruchan Ramen packages
7 to 10 eggs (generally you use two eggs to one package of ramen, but I like it a little less eggy)

You may crunch up the noodles before you cook them, or you can leave them long, but you’ll chop them up anyway while frying them. It’s easier to handle them when they are crunched up. Put all the noodles in a pot of water and heat it short enough not to bring it to a boil but long enough to separate the noodles. While that’s cooking, crack the eggs in a bowl or blender and purée them… the eggs that is. Not the blender. Once the noodles are done cooking, strain the water out and put them back in the pot you cooked them in, add the puréed eggs and mix well.

Put a table spoon of oil in the bottom of two frying pans and add the egg and noodle mixture. I like to cook on high and after a while turn it down to medium to let the sliminess in the eggs cook out a little. While frying, use a pancake spatula to chop and turn the eggs. Sprinkle the flavor packets over the noodles to taste (I do two to each pan while the egg is still cooking then I might add another afterward if needed). Once the egg is cooked, the fried ramen is complete.

Green bean and bacon topping
Serving: 4 or 5 people (or more)

Bunch of bacon (I use bacon ends)
Couple hand fulls of frozen green beans
Couple hand fulls of chopped and diced onion. You can use rings if you wish, although I’ve never tried that. It’d look cool.
Salt
Dash of garlic powder

Optional: Bell peppers or jalapeños (not pictured). You’ll add them when you add the green beans

I like to cook this before I cook the fried ramen and use the bacon grease to cook and flavor it later.

First you’ll want to chop the bacon in to bite size pieces. In a frying pan cook the bacon and onion. When the bacon is half cooked, add the frozen green beans and a few dashes of salt and a dash of garlic to taste. When the beans are cooked and hot all the way through, scoop them out of the frying pan (leave the grease) and put them in a covered dish and fry the ramen in the bacon and onion grease.

Once everything is done, top the ramen with the bean topping and don’t think about how fattening this is. Just do a couple jumping jacks after your thirds to justify it.

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Anne’s Fried Ramen

My boys did a lot of labor in order to bring this baby home for us. It’s beautiful! It’s a restaurant-grade Vulcan stove range!

This thing is mammoth! It needs a lot of cleaning up!!! It has 2 ovens, side by side. There are only 2 burners, which are in the center with 2 huge griddles on both sides. The splash guard comes with and includes a warming shelf above. The below photos is the closest I could find. It is iron like the old fashioned cook stoves, and ready for propane.

This is something we would have for years to come!

It means we get to go back to having hash browns! It means… we get to sit down and actually eat fresh pancakes together… or bake multiple pizzas at the same time, instead of a lot of waiting!

The biggest problem now is finding a place to put it!  We have to tear something up to install it.
It is very heavy! We don’t have a place to set it up right now. We’d have to maybe add onto our kitchen so it could be on a cement floor. Our kitchen floor would would not handle it!  We are considering waiting until we move, which we are hoping to do sometime in the future.

Thanks for looking!

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Show And Tell

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Weekly Round Up In Photos

Too much excitement before 5am

My alarm didn’t go off at 3:50 like it was supposed to in order for me to take my oldest son, Ben, to work. I did awake to Ben knocking on my door at 4:10.  I hurriedly jumped out of bed and got dressed.  We left as soon as I got my coat and shoes on.

Thankfully, he started the pickup for us an hour earlier, which didn’t do a whole lot of good because the draft in the pick up is so bad, we shivered the whole time.  It was somewhere around 15°.

I got him to work fine, but when I came up our driveway, there was a huge snow drift that I got caught up in and lost it. I was stuck in the snow.

I went into the house. It was 5 am by this time and I was supposed to wake Dennis, anyway. I told him about it. I tapped on the boys’ bedroom door to wake up Joe and Eric.  Nephew Steven woke up, as well and between the three of them, they shoveled me out.

Dennis was up by this time and went out to check on things. He moved the [unstuck] pickup, then found that the door had froze open.  He couldn’t get it to loosen, so he headed over to the other pickup (the one with little to no brakes) and began to get it started.  Meanwhile, Joe took a screw driver to it and got it releasing fine. Dennis came back to mess with it and found that we had no tail lights or dash lights.  Evidently, we blew a fuse.  At the time, he thought it was wiring.

His car is in another city, the van’s battery is dead, the other pickup has no brakes, David’s van is at the motel with his folks. What was he to do?  Dennis starts to unthaw the older Chevy pick up, which has no brakes.  We couldn’t find the window scraper, remembered the flashlight is in David’s van…at the motel.  The good news is, though, that this pick up has 4 wheel drive, so off we went.

Our driveway goes down hill with a drop off on both sides, then heads back up with a curve in it, so Dennis, not wanting to get stuck, gooses it. I gasped, as I hadn’t gotten my seatbelt latched.  The three boys are in the back seat.  My nephew begins sweating.  Dennis stops! He backs up the driveway in the dark, then goes for it again.  He tells me he was carving a way through that snow drift for when I come home.  Okay… good…we need a path to get home.

We get to where Dennis’ truck is parked.  He set my brake. We all went into the little store because Dennis forgot his coffee and the boys and I went in to find a scraper. We go back out, said our good bye’s and pull out onto the street.  I almost immediately turn right and proceed onto the on ramp of the freeway when suddenly, this overwhelming cloud overcomes us all. Steven rolls down his window right fast and I pull over on the on ramp.  I tell the boys to (in the dark) run as fast as they can back up to the truck stop and catch Daddy… but don’t get hit! Remember? It’s about 15°. Nephew, Steven, is wearing only a sweatshirt. It’s black.  Joe is in his jammie pants and his hunting snow outfit, which keeps him warm and is hunter orange, so we thought surely Dennis would see them his headlights even shone on the boys, but HE DIDN’T SEE THEM!  They were waving at him and he drove on by.

Fortunately, before I left, I saw my mil’s cell phone sitting by our phone and took it with me, “just in case.” So, seeing the boys’ plight, I called my brother-in-law, who was snoozing peacefully at our house and woke him up. I told him what was going on. I didn’t know whether to move forward or what.  I didn’t want to burn something up! He finally told me to move a little while he was on the phone with me.  I did and it was fine!

We came on home.  No problem… until the driveway.  I did the turn and gassed it.  I aimed for one of the tracks Dennis made for me but instead, I must have caught part of the drift and it sucked me in. I gassed it more and made it up, up, up… then it died.  It wouldn’t start again, but we were home and all thankful!

There’s really more to the story. It has turned into a bit of an ongoing saga. Let’s just say, as it stands now… It’s a week later and the van is still dead, with one battery removed (diesels have two batteries), the pick up with no brakes is sitting up on our road, broken (probably a fuel filter), the yellow pick up has been pretty good…after we dug it out of a snow drift and in spite of it’s draft, and God is good to take care of us.

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Too Much Excitement Before 5am

In theory, it’s supposed to streamline and organize your family.

Reality is another thing…or is it?

This year, I sat Anne down with me to help me work out our schedule.  You see, the main reason we’ve been using the MOTH is because we have 3 networked computers and a handful of students and I needed a way to coordinate everyone doing their Switched on Schoolhouse Language Arts and their DIVE math CD in order to do their Saxon, not to mention all the “earned” computer time and educational “stuff.”

We got the schedule down.  It looked like a dandy!  It was beautiful!  I was pleased.

A few things have changed since last year due to Benjamin graduating and working full-time, as well as Anne taking on a new job of sewing hunting decoys for MT Decoy and Cabela’s.  (She does this from home)

The first day of our schedule arrives.  We are poised.  Mom is excited and motivated to take on the days ahead!  The schedule has been gone over, checked and rechecked.  By the end of the first couple of hours, it becomes very apparent something’s amiss!

I knew that something was wrong when Emily came to me and said, “Mom, you forgot my SOS.”  Ok.  I could deal with that minor oversight.  Another child came to me and said I had forgotten to schedule them for a bathing!  Hmmm  Later, Elizabeth came to me and said, “Mom, you forgot my SOS, but put me down for reading three times.” (Poor girl. Imagine that! What a rough schedule when reading is your very favorite thing to do in life!)

Of course, I got the usual complaints, “Mom, can you reschedule us to feed and care for the chickens at, say, 7:00?  6:30 Is too early.  “No, sweetie.  If I did that, then you couldn’t eat breakfast.”  “Mom, I don’t like that my ‘free time’ is scheduled.  It doesn’t feel free if it’s scheduled.”

Back to the drawing board…or in our case, Excel.  I work our MOTH in Excel.  Since there are so many of us, it seems to work well.  Some great ladies at the Titus2 forum, since closed to any ol’ yahoo, helped me out to learn how to monkey with the cells to get them to conform to my likeness. At least that is the hope.  In the past, I color-coded everyone, but this year, I am trying something new by color-coding times in which a person is on a computer in order to keep it all straight! It also helps that each of our computers have names.  My computer is fondly called “Mother” or “Mothership.”  Since the other two computers came from our office, we lovingly named them after the people who used them, “Darren” and “Valarie.”

I finally made the unfortunate decision to delete Abigail (1) and Jayden (2) off the schedule since we were hanging off the edge of the paper and I couldn’t find my tape to print more pages to put together like a puzzle.  I didn’t want to attempt “landscape,” for this old brain of mine just couldn’t handle further confusion.

Well, after a week of stumbling through my first draft of the final schedule, or was that the final draft of the first schedule… I sat down and revamped it once again.

Of course, there is an exception to every perfect schedule and our exceptions are those of Thursdays when one son has guitar lessons, every other Wednesday, two sons work in the morning, they just began a job each afternoon at a neighbors “until the snow starts flying”, Monday’s Daddy’s home, so we have to remember that we may not always follow schedule on Mondays…shall I continue with the “exceptions to the rule?”  Of course there’s sick babies, and sometimes, sick mama’s.

We used to have a “loose” schedule.  Up by 8 o’clock, chores and fed by 10 o’clock then start school until lunch, finishing in the afternoon.  When baby number 9 was on his way, I knew a few things had to change:  One, we needed curriculum that freed me up a bit, and two, we needed more order and discipline in our lives.  However, many other benefits have come from this schedule:  I can make sure we are doing everything Daddy wants us to get done in a day, if laundry is sitting there, I am assured it will be taken care of “in it’s time.”  You know the old saying, “A place for everything and everything in it’s place?”  Well, using this MOTH schedule is like that.  We could say, “A time for everything and everything has a time.”

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MOTH “A time for everything and everything has a time”