Our Four Squaredancers

I have to say that I stole this idea from my friend Annie's blog . After laughing out loud at hers, I just had to make one starring Carter, Myles, Merlyn, and Berkleigh. My parents have really gotten in to square dancing, so now we know that the talent runs in the family (it must have skipped a generation, though!).

Christmas Concert

The Kindergarten Christmas Concert was Friday, December 14th. I had Alison and Aleesa that day, so we took them with us. Here are Aleesa, Berkleigh, Merlyn, and Alison walking out to the truck. This was before the snowstorm -- the sides of the walkway are a lot higher now.

The audience filled the whole cafeteria, and the kids were a little nervous but really cute while waiting to start. Myles is the middle kid in the third row in the first picture.

Each row came to the front of the stage for one song, which was nice because we could see them better for a little while. Myles is the second from the left.

The girls were very good during the concert, and Carter got to get out of class to watch, too. Afterward I drove the girls and Bryan walked with the boys to Alison and Aleesa's house, which is close to the school. The kids got to play in somebody else's house for a change, until Tim got home from work. We all enjoyed ourselves, although Myles said he didn't like the concert because he had to stand up the whole time.

Grandparents and a Gingerbread House

This past Saturday my parents came for the second annual gingerbread house construction with the kids. My mom wanted Bryan and I to be able to get out for the afternoon while they spent time with their granchildren. Bryan cut down a big dead elm tree at his parents' house. I took all the Christmas presents in Rubbermaid tubs and spent the afternoon wrapping at Faye's. I really enjoy wrapping, but it's hard to do at home because we still don't have doors on our rooms. I've had to wait until the kids are in bed, then wrap while getting nervous every time I hear a noise. Saturday was a huge help for me.



















My parents had planned to surprise us by having my dad fix our dishwasher while we were gone. Mice chewed through some of the hoses over a year ago, and we've been washing dishes by hand ever since. After two trips into Massena for parts, the dishwasher still wasn't fixed. We need a special part from Sears, but at least now we know exactly what's wrong, and that it's easily fixable. They say it's the thought that counts, and this was a really sweet and thoughtful attempt to help us out.

We had my mom's macaroni and cheese for dinner. While we were eating, my dad said, "Grandma makes the best macaroni and cheese in the whole world." A split second after, in unison, Carter and Myles both said, "No, Mommy does!". Since I use my mom's recipe, it's really about the same, but the boys' loyalty was quite cute.

Annual Alcoa Christmas Party

On Friday, December 7th, we went to the annual Alcoa Christmas party. I had talked to the girls all day about going to see Santa, and they kept saying they were going to sit on his lap and ask him to bring them presents. (Berkleigh wants a cake, a camera, and Little People, always in that order). Of course, after waiting in line to see Santa, Berkleigh and Merlyn refused to get near him. I sat with them, but Berkleigh was in one of her "I want Daddy and only Daddy moods" and just squirmed to get down to go get him. Poor Bryan had to hold Berkleigh almost the whole time, and she's no featherweight.





















Christina, one of my daycare mothers, painted Myles' face. Usually there are girls that do the face painting, but they had all lost interest by the time we got over there. Myles and Carter wanted me to take a picture of the cookies they decorated. I have no idea why Myles made that face -- it's one of the only pictures I have of him where he's not smiling beautifully.























There's always a craft project to do at the party, along with the visit with Santa, face painting, cookie decorating, dinner, and a movie. This year the kids decorated mugs with special markers. Merlyn spent a very long time on hers; she wanted to use every color of marker. I was impressed with her long attention span and concentration.





















The main attraction for the adults at the party is the craft raffle for various items donated by employees or their families. The proceeds go to the local food bank. I made one of my felted bags, which created quite a stir among the ladies there. The woman who won it was so excited, and the others were so disappointed. Several people have told Bryan I should go into business, and he's spreading the word that I'm trying to. So if anyone would like a handknitted felted bag or other creation, you know where to go. I give family and friends discounts, too!

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

In November the grass was still poking up through the dusting of snow:



















In the beginning of December the snow was more substantial, and the kids got to really play in it:






















After the snowstorm yesterday and last night, we woke up this morning to a lot of snow. The pile of wood in the picture above is now completely buried -- good thing it's for next year!

I drove to the end of the driveway to pick up Grant and Makenzie before Bryan went to work. Christina brought CJ up in her 4 wheel drive Jeep. Chase's mom called me from her cell phone at the end of the driveway to let me know Chase was walking up to the house. Jerry and his friend just came a few minutes ago to plow. I'll have to take more pictures of the snowbanks later. They plowed yesterday while it was still snowing. I couldn't even tell where the driveway was yesterday.


Bryan had to shovel a path to his truck and to the furnace this morning. I like to look on the bright side and say it's a free workout, which is of course easier for me to say since I wasn't the one shovelling!

The school was on a two hour delay this morning, so my schedule was already messed up. I decided to upload some pictures this morning. I've compressed and edited enough for a few blogs, so keep checking -- I promise there will be more than one post this week.

Mighty Hunters

My dad stopped by the Tuesday after Thanksgiving on his way home from a week of hunting down south. He got three deer and my brother got one in that week. My brother-in-law also got three deer down there. On our property, Mr. Bernard got two deer.

So, our freezer is stocked with venison. From Mr. Bernard's first deer we got some steaks and roasts and ten pounds of hamburger. My dad brought tenderloin, roasts, pieces, and enough meat to make thirty pounds of hamburger. We go to a guy who grinds the burger for us for free, which is really nice. I still have to package up the last of the venison from Mr. Bernard. I'm going to make some Venison Guiness pies to freeze.

Thirty pounds of venison burger.

Merlyn loves her Grandpa, the mighty hunter.


So far we've had venison meatloaf, a couple of hearts, and "Ezra's Neck", which is how my dad labelled the neck roast from my brother's deer.
Saturday night Bryan and I went to Plattsburgh for my parents' annual Christmas party. My dad had made three of the venison meat pies. They are delicious -- I'll have to post the recipe when I get it out, since I know some of you may want to make it.

Happy Birthday to Bryan

Today Bryan turns 32 and can no longer make fun of me for being older (until May). He will also be the same age as his older sister for the next three days.
This is a good time to let Bryan and everyone know how much we love him and how much we appreciate everything he does. Every morning he shovels if necessary, feeds the chickens (in the blue coop in the background), and puts wood in the furnace (which involves getting pretty snowy). Before work he also makes his own lunch and the boys' lunches and feeds the cat, dog, and fish. At night he goes back out in the dark to put wood on the fire again. His weekends are spent in the woods cutting down trees and bringing firewood back.

In between all that work he still has to go to his official work, and he still finds time to be a fun, loving, and fun-loving daddy. Bryan is also Myles' cub scout leader, and Berkleigh's favorite person in the whole world. Of course, he's also the best husband I've ever had.

I'm sorry to say that Bryan was a little offended at my remarks about his photographing ability. These photos prove that he can take pictures without shadows. However, whenever we're in the middle of an activity that calls for capturing the moment on film, Bryan himself will tell me that I'm better at taking pictures. That, of course, proves that he's also smart enough to get out of doing something he doesn't want to do while getting on my good side by giving me a compliment.

Happy Birthday, Bryan!

First Snow Play

Thanksgiving weekend there was finally enough snow for the kids to play outside. I've finally gotten around to posting the pictures, but it's better late than never!



Berkleigh was really hamming it up for the camera while they were getting ready to go outside. Bryan took these pictures, which explains the big shadows, which explains why I'm such a camera hog: Bryan's not as good at photography as I am ; )

Once the kids got outside, Berkleigh refused to face the camera for a group picture. This is a prime example of her two-year-old Jekyll and Hyde behavior -- charming and sweet one minute and pouty and stubborn the next.

The first thing Carter and Merlyn did outside was make snow angels. They didn't even wait until they got across the driveway. Merlyn has been practicing her snow angels on the floor for weeks now, asking almost every day if it was going to snow.

Berkleigh was in her Jekyll mode again within seconds of discovering her shadow on the snow.

The kids had left their bikes on the sandy spot near the furnace, so they had to go get them and put them in the old chicken coop that we moved behind the barn. They looked pretty cute trying to ride their bikes in their snow gear. Carter realized that he'd get nowhere unless he pushed the bike. I like the trail he left behind him.


We have a lot more snow now, and I have a lot more pictures, so I will try my best to catch up on my blogging.

Kelley's Questions Answered

There's a radio station that plays only Christmas music from Thanksgiving to Christmas, so that's what we listen to. I guess since it plays all day almost every day, it seems like the same songs to Carter. I don't mind the song saturation-- Christmas comes only once a year! Almost all the cookie dough I made was for chocolate chip cookies, but I substituted different things for the chocolate chips in each one. Here's a rundown of the varieties: Regular m+ms Mint m+ms Butterscotch White chocolate 2 batches of chocolate chip with walnuts 2 batches of peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips Two of the batches I'm going to send to my brother and a friend. Each batch makes about 4 dozen cookies. I also baked a few of each kind so we could sample them, and they were delicious.

Deck the Hall

My favorite season began the day after Thanksgiving at our house: we started decorating the house. Now it's pretty much all done except for the trees, one of which will hopefully get done this weekend. The other has to wait until the weekend before Christmas, when all the daycare kids are gone, since it goes in the playroom.
























We've been listening to Christmas music nonstop, although Carter has complained that the same songs are played over and over. I've also been trying to knit nonstop for Christmas gifts (not an easy task when there's also housework, laundry, and kids to take care of). That's why my blogging has fizzled down to nothing -- getting ready for Christmas is a full-time job! I'll try to set aside some time in the next few days to post pictures -- I have some good ones of the kids playing in the snow. We had our first snow day on Monday. I spent the day making cookie dough to freeze for closer to Christmas. Now the freezer is filled with chicken, venison, and cookie dough!