May you have
the spirit of Christmas
which is Peace,
the gladness of

Christmas
which is Hope,
and the Heart of

Christmas
which is Love .

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

The Mills Fam!!

Here are some random pictures taken this last week.

C4 helping move laundry from the laundry room to the folding room, aka my bedroom!

C2 and C3 reading together

Cheesy smile from C4

Mommy and C4

We made some yummy cookies the other day. Here are some pictures.

Daddy helping with the mixing of the frosting colors

Sampling the frosting - yum

C2 and C4 decorating some cookies

C4

Can I have one for breakfast??!

Some of the cookies

Thanks Jennifer for the recipe it was loved by all!

Getting our tree was quite the adventure this year! We went to a tree farm down the road and every tree that we found that was "the one" did not have a tag on it! Ugh! We went through the whole farm and did not find one tree! We were also freezing, it has been unusually cold up here in Washington. So we left that tree farm and headed to Costco to buy a fake tree- they were out! So we headed home with some pizza instead.

We tried again the next day - we drove up to the tree farm close to our old house and we found one! Yay!

Cutting it down

Timber!

C3 freezing!

Bringing it in the house

In the stand and waiting to be decorated

The decorating crew

The baby who stayed good the whole time!

C3 being goofy! The traditional candy cane from the tree farm.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. David's dad was here for a visit, it was so nice to see him again so soon after the last visit.

We had a chinese food feast with David's dad and our friends the DeB's. My good friend Leigh was also in town (sorry the reason for the visit wasn't more pleasant). We had a wonderful time together and enjoyed wonderful food!

The spread!

Appetizers- shirmp egg rolls, potstickers, and Coconut Shrimp Cakes

White rice and fried rice

Sea Scallops in Sweet Chili Sauce and Szchewan Shrimp.

Leigh and me

Thanksgiving day was wonderful we got together with another wonderful family (didn't get any pictures of them ). We shared the cooking so it really took the stress off the day. It was nice to come together and have some nice fellowship.

David and his dad with the naked bird!

The very hunky hubby with the very yummy bird

The girls and I made some pies and a pumpkin roll.

You can have a chance at winning a beautiful quilt! Just pop over to the marie-madeline studio for your chance to win!

We had a surprise visit from Grandpa Tim. We were all so happy to see him. The children enjoyed having him around - we don't get to see our family enough! We hope to see you again soon!

Reading

With the girls

The ladies over at marie-madeline studio are having a giveaway, leave a comment and you could win a gracie pattern and the fabric to make the skirt!

How cute is that?!!

We went on our first field trip with our homeschool co-op to Bob's Amazing Corn Maze. We had a great time and we are looking forward to going again.

We got to take a hay ride over to the maize maze (he he).

We walked around the back of the maze to set our stuff down at the bonfire.

And we explored the maze

We made it out no problem. Going back through we hit a couple dead ends!

My little savenger!

The girls would pick up the ears of corn that had fallen on the ground.

Uncle John enjoying the corn, too!

We roasted hot dogs and had smores - they were so yummy!

I loved that this corn maze had no witches, goblins, or jack o lanterns!! We don't celebrate halloween so it was nice not to see that stuff!

This what we saw instead! C3 wanted a picture with the calf! Notice the corn in hand!

Me and Baby C - bonfire is behind us.

The Mills Fam - one of these days we will have a picture where everyone is looking!

The children keep finding caterpillars and bringing them into the house! The kids and Uncle John were cracking up at the caterpillar traveling the world!

The kids made a home for the caterpillar

But later in the day we realized they had escaped! One was on the floor and the other we eventually found...

We did look up what this caterpillar would become and it is a Tiger Moth.  We let the caterpillars back outside so they could hibernate for the winter.

I love fall in the Pacific Northwest! The colors are amazing.

We had a burn pile going this morning, mostly our leftovers from making the coop.

David explaining about the fire, steam, smoke, etc.

The boys intently watching

C3 not wanting to be near the fire!

The children were excited to go see if we had eggs, here is a picture before we went to look for eggs in the nesting boxes.

At the nesting boxes

Eggs!

New hens

Surprise attack!

Tonia and Baby C

Swinging on the gate

C2 lost another tooth!

Uncle John

Blowing grass

Eating grass!?

Awwww

Blowing dandelions

We planted one bagof  our bulbs today.  

Here are some pictures from today!

Team work!

C3 with a bounty of tomatoes and snow peas from our garden. I couldn't decide which picture I liked best so I put both!  We want our girls to know how to garden and grow food for their families when they have them. C3 helps me with the harvesting. I am going to have her help me with the planning for next year of what we are going to plant.

Dahlias - aren't they pretty?

Caitlin is learning the art of flower arranging. This girl loves flowers. I want to have a cutting garden next year, I love fresh flower bouquets too!

Shucking corn

C4 watching intently!

The children shucked the corn and mashed the corn. I rolled up spoonfuls in the husk and baked it.

The finished product, Kneel Down Bread. It is not really bread but more like a corn pudding. It was called kneel down bread because the women would have to kneel down to mash the corn and then it was baked like bread.

They all enjoyed eating their 'bread'.

We are getting our wonderful activity/craft ideas from a book called More Than Moccasins.

C3 turned 4 today! I can't believe my baby girl is 4. She is such a delight and brings a bubbly happiness to our home!

Opening presents this morning. The boys got her some new crayons. One of her favorite things to do is color.

 C3 loves flowers, so we bought her a couple packs of bulbs that her and I will plant together.

Uncle John got her some My Little Pony's. she is in her ballet clothes...

She wanted a purple cake! You can't really tell by the picture but the cake is purple.

There were some magic relighting candles on the cake so she had to keep blowing them out. C2 was looking at all the smoke!

Oh no! Our two dominant hens are roosters!

We are studying Indians for a couple of weeks. Here the kids are making vests out of paper bags. I think it took longer to make the vests then they wore the vests! Oh well they still had fun!

Modeling their vests.