We went to my grandmothers house for Easter, so we had to visit the old cars of course!

Here's my favorite photo of the boys.   It seems like sometimes the best shot is the first or the last.   In this case, it was the first.   Baby was sleepy and the boys were tired, so this was the best I could manage:

We have two kittens that we will be selling in a few weeks.     They are what we call "siam-dolls".    The mom is a Siamese and the dad is a Ragdoll.    They are 5 weeks old now and cute as buttons.     We are asking $100 each.    We live north of San Antonio in the Texas Hill Country.   Hopefully I can find a couple homes for them before putting them in the classifieds.     The two we will be selling are females.    They all have beautiful blue eyes and white coats.    I think the two girls we will be selling have what is called blue points?    OK... so I'm not a breeder, we just let our cats have one litter of kittens so the boys could experience the whole birth process and we could raise one litter (shocking... I know!)   

Of course, they have all been handled (a lot) and are extremely friendly, energetic and playful!

Here are a few pictures of the lot.   They were not easy to photograph, they kept jumping out of the basket!

I'm adding a few photos of the mom and dad for prospective buyersl.   This is the Ragdoll dad, Fluffy:

and the Siamese mom, Angie:

I posted this on Facebook a while back, thought I would post it here since I haven't blogged in a while.

25 Random Facts about Me

1) I really don't have time to be writing out 25 things random things about me, but I will make time for it. I also make time for walks w/my sister, dessert, time on Facebook and editing photos even when I technically do "not have time".

2) I love my four boys, and I'm sure God gave me boys for a reason. I probably wouldn't know what do do w/little girls.

3) I love homeschooling. I never, ever thought I would HS, as I liked public school, I was involved in sports and was a teachers pet (not completely, but lets just say, teachers liked me). Now I find myself reading classic books of literature as read alouds, looking in our microscope at blood cells from a drop of my own blood, and exploring life w/my boys and I'd have it no other way (unless God leads us another way that is).

4) I just got a dachshund puppy for Christmas, he is my 7th wienie dog to own. These were/are their names: Snoopy, Carmel, Peanut, Husky, Toblerone (Roni for short), Weenie, and this one, Schnickel Fritz.

5) My dream home is a log home in the middle of the Rocky Mtns, off the grid and energy self-sufficient, complete with great wildlife art paintings, a maid, & a Jeep Wrangler in the garage.

6) I must just be too creative for housework. I really don't like it. I force myself(sometimes), but my house is usually only really clean when we invite someone over.

7) I love the color burgandy, purple irises, mountain meadows, chocolate, sunflowers and star-gazing.

8) I am a country girl through and through. I know how to fish, clean a fish, kill a deer, make homemade jerky and sausage, and I butchered a duck in my master bathtub the other night. I know the words to that Hank Williams Jr. song. :)

9) I love singing praise and worship music, even if I'm not a great singer. I love to crank up K-Love in the van, and I especially love it when I can hear Morgan singing along to Chris Tomlin or Brandon Heath at the top of his lungs.

10) I pray that someday my boys will be responsible, loving, serving, men of integrity who love the Lord and want to live for Him above all else. Sometimes I think we are getting there, other days, I just say, "Lord, they are all yours."

11) Jesus is my Lord and Savior. My relationship with God has changed over the years from one of performance to one of a relationship with Him, and BECAUSE I love Him, I want to serve Him and follow Him, and I love living for Him.

12) I would love to do a short term missions trip sometime in the near future. I'll take my stethoscope and my camera.

13) Ever since I decided to give God the steering wheel to my life, things have never been the same. Sometimes its a joy ride, and sometimes its like going down a bumpy dirt road in the back of a bus with bad shocks. But I always know He knows what He is doing, even if I don't... after all He is God.

14) I work one night a week with moms who just delivered and newborns. Sometimes I love being a nurse, at other times, it makes me want to be a Wal-mart greeter.

15) I am married to a genius. A computer genius, a literary genius, and a philosophical debator genius. But I still always win all our arguments (yeah... right!)

16) I love reading Confessions ofa Pioneer Woman's blog. She can make me snort. And we are alot alike: we both live on ranches, both love photography, both homeschool and have 4 kids, both love to cook, she is married to Marlboro Man and I'm married to a pipe-smoking man; and she has thousands of devoted readers, and I have ...226 friends on Facebook and 30 friends here on Homeschoolblogger!

17) I love photography. I have found my passion. I have a wish list about 300mm long of lenses, cameras, software, that I want.. but for now I make do with my new Canon and make my kids crazy by making them smile as I follow them around. Someday I'd love to retire from nursing all together and be a real photographer.

18) I have a reoccuring dream where I get into a game of volleyball, but can't serve the ball over the net. I'm not sure if its based on reality or its just a nightmare.

19) I once lived in a tool shed. Now who can say that?

My dad gave us a deer this year, so we cut it up a couple months ago, and then made sausage this past Sunday.   A few people asked for the recipe, so thought I would post it here with a couple pictures.

Here's the recipe I got from my sister:

36 pounds of meat (venison/beef or venison/pork is usually what we use)

3/4 c salt

1/3 c course pepper

1 c minced garlic

1 1/2 T cayenne

3/4 c sage

1 1/2 T allspice (I didn't put this in mine)

1 1/2 T onion powder

1/3 c Thyme

If you wanted to just make a pound batch with hamburger meat for pan sausage, this is the recipe for one pound:

2 T grated onion

2 cloves garlic

1 1/2 T sage

1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

1/2 t thyme

1/8 t cayenne

1/2 t allspice

you could also add 1 med apple grated for an apple sausage

Thankfully, we have a heavy duty grinder and sausage stuffer that everyone uses when we are making sausage.   I didn't think to take pictures during the actual sausage making process...maybe next year.  Here's a pic of our smokehouse:

with a close up of the sign on the door:

and the sausage hanging to smoke:

 I vacuum packed my pan sausage without the casings, left my cooking sausage in to smoke for a day and then froze it, and I'm still smoking my hard sausage, but its taking awhile because it has to be cold smoked, and it really warmed up this week.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Here's a copy of  one of our Christmas cards (I had two versions):

and a couple others from our beach camping trip in November:

It looks as if Luke has 3 arms in this one:

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.   We went to my grandmothers and had a yummy dinner like always.   Of course I took my camera and snapped a few photos.

My grandmother has some awesome very old trucks at her house, that make great backdrops for pictures.   She may not agree, but I think they are very cool:

Tristan:

Sawyer:

Another of Sawyer, showing off  his "outie":

Kevin had brought a remote control airplane that they enjoyed:

Z is now taller than his dad, and he's only 12 :

my sister in law:

my neice:

and nephew:

and Kolin:

We woke up the other day to a gorgeous rainbow.   It wouldn't all fit into my camera viewfinder, so I put two photos together.   PLease ignore the obvious seam that I just don't have time to perfect.

Our ducks are almost five weeks now.   Tristan lets them out to run around every day now.  They all stay together in a flock.   Sawyer loves them:

 and the boys let them swim in a little swimming pool one day.   Of course, later, they found other uses for the water hose and swimming pool:

I had wanted to take a photo of the boys on this old tractor on our ranch.  I finally  tried it.   I did get one decent shot of all four, and then a red wasp came out of the little smoke stack on the tractor and stung Tristan, so that was the end of the tractor shoot for the day.    Here's the one with all four:

I don't have much time to post, so I'm combining several events and news in one blog.

Couple photos of the little squirt:

and Sawyer at Ink's Lake eating his favorite thing to eat:

Guess what we have at our house?   aren't they the cutest?   Tristan has always wanted some ducks, so we bought some day-old ducklings, picked them up at the post office.  We have white pekins and Khaki-Campbells.  These were taken the day we got them.  They are now two weeks old, and about 5 times as big:

This past sunday, Morgan asked to be baptised at our church's 2nd anniversary celebration and baptism at the river.   Over 30 people were baptised!   I was thrilled!   Here's a few pics:

Our homeschooling is going well, using Sonlight 4, singapore math for Luke and Morgan and Teaching Textbooks for Tristan.   Of course, we hare studying ducks right now though!

Again this morning I got a email from Classmates.com that someone signed my guestbook.   Yes, I do have a profile on classmates, but I also refuse to pay to be able to communicate with others and see a full profile.   So even though 21 people have signed my guestbook, they will forever remain a mystery to me.

However, I recently discovered facebook.com and am having a blast getting in touch with college friends (about 50 so far), friends I grew up with from church, and even a high school friend that moved away in high school whom I hadn't heard from since.    Its free, you only add friends who you want to be friends with (I personally have a policy that I only add friends whom I know in real life).   You can add photos, etc. etc.   Its also private, so although I do have my full name on there, you'd have to know me in real life to find me.   And I can set my settings so that only those who are freinds can see photos, or my profile, etc.

I haven't really checked out myspace, and perhaps its similar, but facebook has much more of a professional feel about, it in my opinion.

So check it out, and if you know me in real life, look me up, and we'll be friends!  :)

I tried taking some photos of the boys this weekend.  I'm not going to even include the fifty shots of all four boys, where 3 cooperated and one little tyke was grouchy and squirmy and very uncooperative.   But here's one that I thought turned out really nice of the older 3 boys:

and same photo in a chocolate b&w version:

Last week we went peach pickin' in Fredericksburg.   Its the end of the season, but we got some great peaches.   My mom and sister joined us, and we ended up picking 7, 1/2 bushel boxes, including some for those who couldn't come along.   I got a 1/2 bushel box of Ouchita Gold for $15 and a 1/2 bushel box of Dixielands for $20 (we got a bargain - end of season, weekday and multi-box discount.    You think you know what a peach tastes like, but you really don't know, unless you've eaten a tree ripened Hill Country peach!  (ok, so I'm biased).

Sawyer rode in the baby backpack, and enjoyed picking a couple peaches as well (every once in a while I'd feel a peach hit my shoulder! :)

Real yummy peaches:

Picking peaches:

Sneakin in a bite:

Putting these boys to work:

We were able to put away 23 pints of peaches in the freezer, we ate several fresh ones with our cereal,  and I've already made a couple quarts of yummy homemade peach ice cream (that lasted all of about 5 minutes!)    Thankfully, we'll be able to enjoy these all year for tapioca pudding, peach cobbler, peach pie, peach ice cream, etc.   Mmmmm.

A few more "summer fun" photos.    The boys participated in the local library's children's program this summer, including some puppet shows:

A visit to our local fire department:

A swim party at our pool on the last day with 23 local children.   We live in a very small rural community, yet we have quite a few homeschoolers.   Of this group, 14 are homeschoolers:

Morgan:

Tristan and cousin Zak:

Luke:

the local crew:

And Morgan jamming out to Guitar Hero during our trip to the coast.   This is one xbox game I actually enjoy, but we'll stick to the picture of Morgan here:

and the little monkey, getting himself into a jam.   He's climbing everything these days, chairs, sofas, tables, walkers:

Chase: