Giving Thanks

I am thankful every day; however, with the Thanksgiving Holiday coming up next week, I wanted to take a moment to remember some of the things I am most thankful for. I'm sitting here in a cold living room, but thankful that I'm expecting an oil delivery tonight and will warm this place right up. I'm thankful that we are able to surprise our kids with satellite TV this afternoon - they have patiently (and some times not so patiently) gone along with our plan of staying away from cable for a while. We recognize that cable is surely not a necessity; however, it is a nice extra, especially for the winter, when lots more time will be spent inside.
I'm thankful for my home. I'm proud that we have this beautiful home and have already shared so many memories here. I'm thankful for all of the new animals we have added this year. They make me laugh every day. It doesn't matter how shitty my day is, I can go and spend some time snuggling a cat/kitten or watching the animals in the pasture and it warms my heart.
I'm thankful for our plan of adding honey bees and chickens next Spring. Fresh warm honey and home grown eggs sound amazing.
I'm thankful that we will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner, here at our home. I love that our dining room will be big enough (hopefully) to seat all 24-25 people here. To look around the room and see the faces of the people that I love most is amazing.
I'm thankful that my cousin and her family will be coming here tomorrow, from Jacksonville, Florida. It's been a few years since I've seen her and have yet to meet her youngest daughter. Having my cousin, her husband and three daughters here will boost our count to 10 (plus family coming and going) for a week!!! It will be hectic, busy, awesome and fun.
I'm thankful for Mark...we've gone through the most difficult seven months of our entire relationship. Most days continue to be a struggle for us, but we are pushing through. He loves me and I love him - I hope that is enough to keep us going through the rough days. I am thankful for our happy times, how he makes me laugh, and how he calls me at lunch to let me know that he's thinking of me.
I'm so thankful for all of my kids - they are all so amazing, hilarious, successful, beautiful/handsome and overall awesome. I absolutely adore them.

Random Days

Whew! What crazy days we have behind and ahead of us.
First - after an extremely close election, I'm happy to announce that Obama will represent this country for another four years. I like him and his wife. I think that they are good people. Genuine.
Second - my Drake celebrated his 12th birthday yesterday. 12! I am so honored that my children picked me as their mother. I just honestly have the best kids. Drake was born at 36 weeks and two days, meaning four weeks early. His lungs weren't developed enough when he was born; however, since I was having my second bleed out from my placenta previa, they knew it was time to take him via C-section. He had a rough start - he wasn't breathing well on his own and had to be ventilated and medicated. He blew out some of the alveoli in his lungs and developed a nasty case of jaundice. He also was born without his sucking instinct. Drake isn't like other babies...he pulled out his vent tube, he pulled out his IVs (several times) - he was strong and even as an infant, we wouldn't let anyone tell him what he was and was not capable of. I'm proud to say that Drake is just as strong now. He's caring, beautiful, intelligent, kind, adventurous - he's a great soul to have in our lives. He has no lasting effects from his rough start, you would never know that he was a preemie. So with that said, we had a party at the farm for him yesterday - we had family and friends out to celebrate Drake and all his awesomeness. His friend, Eion, came from Dayton (their birthdays are just two days apart - Drake spent Friday night at Eion's to celebrate HIS birthday and Eion came here Saturday night for Drake - they are a good pair, those two and we really like Eion and his family). Of course I wasn't prepared with my camera, but I know that Mark got a couple good pictures - so I'll have to steal his and post them later. BUT what I did have my camera ready for is a few of the other cool things that have happened here over the past week.

One fun thing - we fed our pumpkins to the animals to see if they would like it...Um...they did!



We fed our Halloween pumpkins/gourds to the animals - this is Jester enjoying his.



Jester and Itty enjoying brunch together

Ollie, pretending that he likes pumpkin...(he really doesn't Shhh!)

This might be the first really good photo I have of Flora :-)

Ollie Loves Daddy

Ollie says "Mmm...this pumpkin is delicious?"

Everyone loves the pumpkin! Except Steve - he's in the barn...but isn't a pumpkin fan.

Another group shot!

Feeding frenzy

 I was pretty sure that Captain, one of our outside kitties (Runt, Bella and Lockhart's mom) had ANOTHER litter of kittens...I was right, but we could never figure out where they were. FOUND THEM! During Drake's birthday - I was walking with my mother, to show her where we had found a foundation to a shed that was part of the underground railroad, and as we were walking back toward the house, I saw two little kittens near our blue shed. Check out this cuteness...

Four kittens - three black and that sweet little back and white one.

Captain has striking yellow eyes - she's just beautiful.

Eek! Look at that face!

Yup, I'm a cat person for sure.

Mark and I have also been working on clearing out the back corner of the property - it was about chest high with sticks, twigs, logs and trees (and some trash, from the previous owners) - I know that there were several trees tossed in that corner along with a mess of broken sticks. We've had two burn piles going and I think we've done a pretty good job (Mark did an AWESOME job...and well...I helped a bit).

This is Gage standing near the far end of the pile, last Jan.

Mark and burn pile number 1

What a mess!

It's coming along

Ohhh la la - artsy picture of the smoke!

Burn pile number 2 - it was easier, once we had a portion cleaned out to just start burning right there, that way, we could rake right into the fire.

Ahhhhh!!!!! SO much nicer! Yes ladies, that's MY man working on the burn pile in his PJ's - I think he's so sexy :-) But the pile has been taken down (mostly) to dirt/compost. It is supposed to rain tonight and we are hoping that will loosen things up a bit and allow us to flatten the space out even more - but I'm SO happy with the progress we have made. It's hard to tell in these pictures...but trust me - it was a HUGE task!

Off topic - but another awesome thing that happened on Drake's birthday...we saw three deer in the field, right behind our house, near our well. Gorgeous!

Gage, Drake, Cora and Drake's friend, Eion took the metal detector out in the field and came back with this HUGE horseshoe, along with another smaller horseshoe and misc. metal tractor pieces. It's pretty cool to own pieces of history (there used to be a blacksmith shop in that field behind our house, so from time to time a shoe gets turned up in the field.)

Speaking of history, our town was a significant stop on the underground railroad. We had heard that there was a concrete base of a shed in the wooded area behind our house, that was used to hide slaves when they would come and do a sweep of the homes in town. After taking down that wood pile - we finally found it! Um how awesome is THAT!?

I thought I would share how my cat, Freak, likes to sleep - as long as you are comfortable Freaky!

And to counteract the not so attractive picture above, I thought I'd add a nice picture of me too LOL

I apologize for this post being so random, but that truly is how our life has been lately, very, very, oh, so, random! This Saturday, my cousin, her husband and their three little girls will be coming to the farm and staying for a week! I'm SO excited! I haven't seen my cousin in a very long time. It will be nice to have her family her and celebrate Thanksgiving.

Vote!

Proud to be an American today. Being a female and having the ability to vote, especially in a swing state - I'm honored that I'm able to voice my opinion. Go Obama!!!

I voted to protect the rights of women. I voted to protect the future of my children and their education. I voted to protect the rights of the LGBT community in hopes that we'll continue to move forward to marriage rights and human race equality. I voted to show that there are things more important to me than money.

This is Halloween

Wow everyone...what a crazy time for the East Coast. I feel very fortunate that our family and home only experienced high winds and cold weather and no real damage from Hurricane Sandy...I wish that people closer to the coast could say the same. It's heart breaking to see the photos of the complete devastation. My heart goes out to everyone and I hope that the recovery process for NYC and NJ is quicker and more painless than I think it will be.

We've been in Halloween mode for the past week...last Sunday was pumpkin (Ok, this year, everyone got large gourds instead of pumpkins) carving, followed by costume making and trick-or-treating. We debated on where to trick-or-treat and decided to walk through our own town and visit this homes of our neighbors. It was a nice, calm walk with lots of laughs, cute kids and yummy candy. Now, our focus is turning to Thanksgiving - a holiday where we host everyone at our house. This year, we'll have my cousin and her family coming to stay with us for the week and it will be so great. It has been a while since we've all gotten together like that. I'm excited to show her our home and meet her youngest daughter.

Just wanted to post a quick note and share some pictures - Hope everyone is doing well in BlogLand...

Hi Ollie!

Ollie is getting to be such a big boy!

We harvested two pounds of pecans from a tree in our front yard - originally, we were told that the tree was an Elm tree that needed to come down - THANK GOODNESS we didn't take it down...because it actually grows delicious Pecans that taste like warm honey!!!

Last week was Halloween - Drake (left) was Dr. Who, Cora (middle) was Fluttershy, My Little Pony and Gage (right) was the Happy Mask Salesman from Legend of Zelda. We had a nice walk through our town - it was definitely one of the coldest Halloweens that we've had in a while...thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy also brought a beautiful sunset.

Drake's pumpkin

Gage's pumpkin

Cora's pumpkin

Kait and David's pumpkin

 

Mine and Mark's pumpkin

Our kids are awesome LOL

I just love how much they love each other.

Pumpkin Love

I leave you with the look I usually get from Josie LOL