Where does time go?! I can't believe it has already been 12 days since my last entry! I've been busy, but not much is new. I painted one of our bathrooms that desperately needed it. It was the first time I did any household painting. It's funny, because my dad is a professional painter and here I am, his daughter, who has never painted a wall until now! I can paint a little over half a gallon in a day where he can handle painting at least 5 gallons a day! I'm hoping he'll be able to help me with painting my kitchen. It's a big kitchen and would probably take me a week to paint!

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a lovely October! I'll try to think of something more interesting to write soon.

My Walking Baby

Robby (about 3 weeks ago) just decided to walk one day. He had been casually practicing here and there, but wasn't making a ton of progress. I could tell he just wasn't determined yet. Well, about 3 weeks ago my hubby decided it would be fun to put Robby's little shoes on and take him outside for a little walk around the yard. The day after that, on September 22nd, Robby decided it was time he learned to walk. I have a hunch he decided it would be fun to be allowed out more with his siblings! Anyway, here are some pictures from September 21st:

Awkward steps.

Walking with daddy.

Carefully walking over the hose with a little help from his daddy.

Bending over to pick up rocks.

Picking up rocks quickly became a game he enjoyed.

A campfire my children and I started for fun. Take note of the little guy behind Ethan and Madeleine. He noticed all the stacked rocks (Ethan and Madeleine made those rock "walls" for fun) and decided to add to them. He picked up small rock after small rock and piled them on.

Winter

At this very moment I have a pot of beef stew cooking on the stove. Outside we're getting our first snowstorm of the winter. It's supposed to snow all weekend and by Sunday night the low is predicted to be 12 degrees! Things are feeling cozy (besides my cold nose and fingertips). There is something about the first snow each year that is so exciting no matter how much you prefer warm weather. This winter I'm guessing I may gain a few pounds, though. As everyone living in this country knows, every form of heating is going up. My family and I, unfortunately, live in a 5000 square foot rental that uses heating oil. Since there is no affordable way to keep this house cozy warm this winter we'll not only wear layers, but I also plan on doing extra baking. I plan on staying nice and close to my oven baking cookies, bread, rolls, pies, cakes, muffins, cinnamon buns, casseroles, roasts, etc., etc. Winter is sounding downright nice to me right now thinking about all those warm goodies!

Another thing this first snow has me thinking about is Christmas. I think this year I'll make a good portion of my gifts as well as all of the cards I send out. I guess I had better not make a list of what I'm going to be making since certain receivers may read this. ;o)

This week I ordered everything I'll need to begin a new craft - felting. I'm really looking forward to using up wool from our own sheep to make things with! Hats, bowls, ornaments, slippers, you name it! I really didn't need much to begin this craft since I already have plenty of wool and other common items used in felting.

Well, I had better get ready for bed. I'm adding extra blankets to all the beds tonight! Brrr!

Windmill

Windmills can't handle extremely heavy winds, so have safety brakes for times like those. Here's what happens when a windmill's safety brake fails:

Plans

When I started this blog I chose the name based on my reasoning for even starting a blog - I wanted to continue my magazine. Plans certainly don't always pan out. The reasoning behind my halt on writing the magazine was lack of time and funds. It wasn't cheap and it took way too much of my time. I thought with a blog I'd be able to work at a slower pace and save money. However, I've ended up mainly writing about my personal life instead of all the informative articles I had planned! Ah well. I'm okay with this. I just thought I'd better explain myself to those of you who don't even know about "The Wild Truth Magazine" that I produced for 2-3 issues. My magazine began due to my passion for creation science, health, family, etc. I had a lot of fun with it while it lasted. The name of my blog wouldn't make sense unless you knew a partial history behind it, so I felt a need to explain. :)

Found!

We finally found out sheep! It took quite the adventure to find them. My family and I had to drive up the very steep, rough, rocky hill behind our neighbor's house to finally catch sight of them. The children and I got out of the car (we were nervous it wouldn't be as safe going over the slope over to the other side as it had been up to that point) and walk down the hill, then got back in the vehicle to drive over to the sheep and llama. We chased them over to the edge of the hill towards home. It was too steep there to drive any farther, so I put Robby in the backpack carrier, and got out of the vehicle with the children. My hubby had to drive back around to get down the hill/mountain. It started to rain as I trekked down the gravely hill side as quickly as possible to herd the animals in the right direction since they were headed the wrong way. It was quite the hike/run. I held onto Madeleine's hand, carried Robby on my back, kept and eye on Ethan, and all the while ran down the steep slop as fast as possible without falling. After we got to the base of the hill we ran to get in front of the animals to head them off and get them turned in the proper direction - towards home. Not too long later my hubby showed up and together we got those sheep home. It's so nice to have them back. We had a good amount of prayer into that search! My parents, three friends, and us! It really was an answer to prayer that led us to them, because I really felt we should go over that hill even though it seemed too risky with the vehicle (if we had gotten stuck no one would have gone out to get us out - that's how far up we were and how rough it was). I'm so glad we did, though, or we may never have found them! They sure had gotten themselves lost. I sure hope they don't pull any more shenanigans like that when my hubby is away to start his new job!

October

The peak of autumn is quickly passing by. The golden yellows will soon turn to brown and then the trees will be bare in the blink of an eye. I miss the eastern autumns where you get to see trees in every shade of yellow, orange, and red. Autumn is one season that isn't quite the same in the west. Still, I get to see high mountains with their uppermost peaks covered in snow and along the bases of these majestic mountains are many golden trees and orange-ish, reddish bushes. You don't get to see anything like that where I came from. I'm hoping that this winter we will get more snow that stays on the ground. For the past two winters that I've lived here we have gotten our most snow in November, then it seems to be all downhill from there. It's the wind... it blows and blows as soon as it turns cold out. I'm hoping, though, that this winter will be different. That there will be calm. That there will be enough snow on the ground all winter to play in.

Thanksgiving will be here before we know it. I plan on making a late Thanksgiving dinner - around December 1st when my in-laws arrive. There will be warm, homemade pies: pumpkin blueberry, and apple. I plan on making mashed potatoes, gravy, baked sweet potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, a big green salad with all the toppings in little separate bowls - tomatoes, cheese, black olives, green onions, cut baby carrots, radishes, and (of course) cucumbers. I'll make a plump roasted turkey that we raised ourselves here on our little farm. I'll make fresh, homemade bread rolls that we'll spread plenty of Amish butter on. Yes... it will be a Thanksgiving to remember. It will be nice to have my in-laws here with us to celebrate the holiday.

Now that I've sat here dreamily talking about autumn for two paragraphs I'll bring up the bad news of the day: at least 30 of our sheep disappeared. We haven't seen them since Saturday night. We've figured out that they crossed over the fence in the back of our property over to the land behind us. My husband came across one Shetland ewe and our llama, Oscar on that property back there. He figured he'd come back to chase them home and went farther back to look for more sheep. When he came back, though, they were gone. He came back home and we packed up the children into the vehicle and we looked for the sheep together. We searched until it was nearly too dark to see out. We finally retired from our search for the night, ate our dinner in silence, and went to bed. I keep hoping they'll turn up. We'll search more today. It's just so strange that a whole herd could disappear like that. They must be out there somewhere...

Well, I better go get ready for my day and prepare for the search. Until next time...