It's time to start blogging again! What we've been up to...

It's been weeks and weeks and more weeks and I haven't gotten a post up. Life has been going at full speed for so long now that I think we've begun to forget what it looks like to slow down! But it's all good, because what's been keeping us busy are the kiddos and learning how to be more self sustainable on the land we moved to.

Our first eggs from the chickens we've raised and oh how good they were!

I hope this will be the first of many posts to share what we have been learning about and boy learning is something that we have been immersing ourselves in.

learning how to...

• home school our children
• create a healthy environment for our chickens
• build a chicken run and how to most effectively use it
• slaughter and butcher our own chickens

My children are learning first hand where their food comes from and we showed them how to slaughter and butcher the chickens they've been helping us raise.

• gardening using the Back To Eden approach (thank you to the person who shared this approach with me on FB)
• make a root cellar in our home
• preserve food in more ways
• butcher a pig and turn it into all kinds of delicacies

My husband and brother butchering a whole pig we purchased. My brother has been staying with us and helping us our. It's been a wonderful blessing.

• use all parts of an animal so nothing goes to waste
• use our land to raise other animals next year
• hunt small and large game

My husband's first deer and the beginning steps of butchering it for our dinner table.

• utilize what we have and being content with not having more
• help others with what God has given us 
• build what we need or want with our own hands
  

  

  Building a new kitchen table for our growing family.

Even more importantly learning...

• to be well balanced parents who are patient and loving and who focus on raising our children to know, love and understand who our Lord and Savior is
• how to completely and totally rely on the Lord for His guidance and wisdom in all parts of our lives
• how to have fun and enjoy all that we are doing, even when tiredness would cause us to feel and think otherwise

Besides learning we have also certainly been enjoying ourselves.

• Seeing our children run and play covered in dirt and full of imaginative play
• Watching our youngest make her first smile and seeing my oldest make her laugh for the first time

• Opening our home to a beautiful couple and watching them walk down the isle and commit themselves to one another before the Lord

A beautiful wedding in our backyard.

• Harvesting our own food and for the first time in our lives enjoying meals where everything on the table was grown and harvested by us

Unearthing sweet potatoes.

• Taking walks through our woods and land and seeing the many wonders of God through His creation
• Celebrating birthdays and new life

I had fun making these cute lego cupcakes for my son's birthday this year.

• Watching the sun rise and starting the day in God's Word
• All running to the windows or heading outside in the evening to see the amazingly beautiful sunsets that happen just about every day
• Watching the geese fly over, the turkey and geese mothers and their babies walking by on their way to who knows where, the snapping turtles wondering up the driveway, the deer grazing nearby, the chickens making themselves at home, the herrings roosting in the trees and the many other animals that make a frequent appearance
• Seeing my children use their imaginations as they play with sticks, rocks and sand and watching them explore what is around us

Looking at the sunset out our front window.

These last months have been both amazing and joyful, filled with thankfulness. But to be fare I don't want to make it out that life has been perfect, while it has been wonderful in many ways it has also be exhausting. I have squeezed a lot on our plate trying to prepare us for some goals for the coming year. More than one tear has been shed on my part and there have certainly been many a day where I've wondered if I can make it through it when all I and my husband want to do is collapse on the couch and take a break... oh and sleep. I had forgotten just how tiring it can be to be up all night nursing a baby (yep my little one still nurses several times a night) while trying to pack in an extremely full day. I have struggled with not knowing where everything is at and not being organized since we are still making a place for things since our move. It hasn't all been fun and games and it's been a lot of hard and tiring work, but it's been good... very, very good.

Stay tuned as I begin to share more of our experiences and of course a mix of recipes and some crafty and artistic creations. The posts may come far and few between at times, since my relationship with the Lord, being a wife and a mother all come before anything else and take a good deal of my time, but the posts will come.