Decorating the tree

The Farmer and I debated for a little bit as to what all we wanted to do for Christmas this year.  But really, there was no question.  We have four beautiful children here with us who would be very disappointed if we did nothing for Christmas.  And truly, it wasn't a question because we needed to move forward in our healing.  Sarah is with Jesus...what better place is there to celebrate His birth and salvation!  Though we miss her, there is no question that we'd not want her to sacrifice her time with Jesus just to be here with us.

So, we hauled up the tree (making sure it didn't house any snakes this time) and set to decorating it with music blaring in the background:

Had to switch to the iPad for pictures because the camera
battery died...not the best sorry!

Each of our kids has their own First Christmas ornament.  Though Sarah is not here with us, I felt she still needed her own ornament.  So we got here these precious little pink slippers.  On the bottom of them, it says her name and her birth date.  The NICU doctors also sent us an ornament with her name and dates.  You can barely see it above the slippers on the top picture. We also had the open heart ornament to hang that was given to us from the Hospital.  The smaller center heart was buried with Sarah...and we kept the open heart to remember our love for her.

Abi wanted to help hang Sarah's ornaments!

 One might think that this night was a sad time, but actually we had a wonderful time and it was so much fun to see the joy in the children as they went about decorating the tree. Our God is so gracious and good to us.

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved MMFarmlife - Melanie Schlatter

Thanksgiving 2012

Thanksgiving this year was with what we call 'The Sisters'.  This is when my sister Roxanne and her family get together with us - the M&Ms.  Rox and Jeff had been having their kitchen/family room renovated and it was touch and go as to if it would be done before the actual meal. But in the end, it all turned out.

Unfortunately I don't have alot of pictures from the weekend because I forgot my camera and only had the iPad with me.  We also had a shorter weekend because Grandma Ruth passed away earlier in the week and we had to get back for the funeral on Saturday.

Still, we could be very thankful and grateful for the many blessings of family and fellowship.  We ate a relatively healthy Thanksgiving dinner (Rox and I are both on restricted foods and made some adjustments to the normally high carbohydrate options.  I even made a whole wheat pumpkin pie with honey as a special treat.)  

After lunch we went for a walk around town and then came back to play games for the afternoon.  In the evening, we headed out to North Platte for some early Black Friday Shopping.  The funny thing is we ran out of gas on the interstate and we had to wait for some friends to come help us.  It was pretty memorable and something I doubt any of us will forget for awhile.  

New open concept...LOVE IT!

Ethan helping himself to the fudge Grandma Makey brought!

Oh what a mess he was...the picture doesn't do it justice!

The kids got into a wrestling match...then went to jump on the tramp:

We hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving and remembered to give Thanks for numerous blessings!

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved MMFarmlife - Melanie Schlatter

L.I.G.H.T. November Meeting

The November Homeschool Group activity was making gingerbread houses.  

The first thing the kids did was to make these harvest corn pins:

Waiting for instructions

Having a hard time staying out of the decorations!

Umm...what am i doing?

All Done...Cheese!

 After the buttons were made, they allowed the kids to start digging in to the decorations and building.  Since our kids are some of the youngest, we actually sat at our own table.  I had brought all kinds of things that we don't usually have and the kids enjoyed snacking as they decorated.

The icing I brought took a bit to dry so we had some chalenges, but they still had a lot of fun making the houses:

Abi's flat roofed ranch house with sidewalk and porch.
She also had a garden out back...you can sort of see the orange reflection.
And she put bushes on the far side.

Jonny's house.  He also had a garden of pumpkins and
a snow man with Reese Peanut Butter Trees.

Nathan's house: Snowman out front, and a bridge over a pond.
Unfortunately, I did not get a good picture of his pond, but you can see
the two yellow cookies that made his bridge.

The kids had fun and got to see a few people they know and possibly made a new friend too!

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved MMFarmlife - Melanie Schlatter

Pictures

The Farmer and I celebrated 10 years of marriage this year!

As I was looking around at the various pictures we had around, I realized that we really didn't have any pictures of just him and I since our wedding. This got me thinking and I decided I wanted to have professional pictures taken this year (to help me get caught up on the kids' yearly pictures as well as to get some of the Farmer and I).

A very nice young lady in the area just started up a photography business and so we decided to help her out.  You can check out her Facebook page here.  She did a GREAT job and we had a terrible time picking which ones we wanted to print.  I've got a few ideas for some special surprises, but I can't tell you about them or they won't be surprises!  LOL

One of the awesome things about Laini's Photography is that she will sell you a zip drive with the pictures on them and they are yours...she gives you a release and you can do with them what you like.  So, that is why I can put them all on here.

I chose some of my top favorites to show you.  You can also see some of her favorites on her Facebook. If you'd like to have a copy of any of the pictures, please leave a comment on this post with which picture and what size you'd like  - make sure you put your name so that I know who requested them.  I'll print them and mail them to you!

A1

A2

A3

A4

E1

E2

E3

J1

J2

J3

N1

N2

N3

N4

F1

F2

F3

F4

F5

F6

F7

K1

K2

K3

K4

M1

M2

M3

M4

We had a BLAST!  It was very fun and everyone enjoyed themselves...even our sceptic...Nathan!

Again, if you'd like to request a printed copy of any of the above pictures, please just leave me a comment with the number (or description) and the size you want. :0) We will be sending a family picture in our Christmas Cards this year.

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved MMFarmlife - Melanie Schlatter