Sending Out Arrows: October Summary

Since we're trying to get everything tied up for Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought I'd just finish October out with one post summarizing everything. What a whirlwind it's been! Visiting friends and having friends visit (what a blessing!), adding to the farm, school, doctors, and regular activities have kept us quite busy!

The little children are growing rapidly and I'm starting to realize what Mommy means about us growing up too fast. Elly likes to come up to me, measure herself against me, and say, "I'm almost as tall as you!" While I think I still have several inches on her, I know it won't be too long...

Wallace has started school and is well on his way to reading. He has several of his favorite stories memorized and likes to "read" books to the other boys. He can pick out a few easy words is other books, too. He still loves firemen, police officers, and cowboys - he alternates his days of which he pretends to be!

Knox has quite the vocabulary of animals - horse, dog, goat, cat, chick - but he will not say Mommy or Daddy! He went through a phase where everything was a "dog," now it's "horse!"

Calvin follows in Wallace's footsteps. He loves for Wallace to read to him and, of course, he loves anything cowboy, fireman, and police officer!

Selah is a very quiet girl who has taken an interest in kitchen affairs. She loves to help with baking cookies or hand-washing dishes. She and Elly recently chopped up all of the cranberries for over 30 loaves of pumpkin-cranberry bread!

Sydnee and Sherrod are very helpful around the house. Sydnee is enjoying bee keeping a lot! She recently completed her second harvest, which was much easier this time around with an extractor! We gave away over 24 pounds of honey and haven't yet weighed our leftovers, but it's quite a bit!

Sherrod loves to carry Knox around and he will often refuse anybody but her! She is becoming quite a good cook, too! She does not like wearing it, but she recently got a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) that reads her blood sugar automatically every 10 minutes. Her hA1c is lower than it's been in years since getting the monitor!

Abby is still quite the farm girl! She milks the goats, trains the horses and dogs, gathers eggs, and does all of the feeding. She is studying to become a hippo therapist. Recently, she killed a snake that was in the pasture. It is SO nice to have someone willing to do that while Daddy is at work! She turned 16 in November and, instead of a "Sweet 16" party, she opted to have Daddy take her deer hunting for her birthday!

I really enjoy being in the kitchen, cooking, trying new recipes, and keeping up the home. I love organizing and daily housekeeping tasks. I am also enjoying learning to drive under my two wonderful teachers! I still make some mistakes, but I am improving! Abby and I recently went on a trail ride at a friends' ranch. It was a lot of fun!

Our farm is growing! Lady will be having kids in January!

Faline is growing bigger everyday...it is hard to imagine that she was the same little goat that might have died from shock! Thanks to Abby's diligent care, she is now as big as her twin brother! We are hoping to put Tramp in the freezer early next month. If you've never tried goat meat, you should! It is really good!

Ida's puppy, Cannon, is as tall as Ida now! He is somewhat ornery and we've had to scold him for getting after the chickens once or twice, but he's doing better!

Bandit is a sweet little dog, but it's a good thing he seems to be helpful to William, or I'm not sure Mommy would tolerate him, especially in the house! However, he does not like the cold and Mommy's heart went soft for him one day and she bought him a sweater! He looks so cute in it!

Abby has Ranger doing quite well! He's taking riders again, on lead. Mommy and Daddy aren't willing to let us free ride quite yet, though. Marshall takes riders, too, but he's still learning what to do with his feet and is a bit clumsy, so he's not the most comfortable horse to ride...he'll get there, though!

We've had several baptisms in our fellowship recently:
Benjamin

Keziah

Micah and Jonah

Sydnee and Elly both recently got new hair styles. Sydnee got a perm...

Before

After

Elly changed the style...

Before

After

The "Kidder" family had a party for Catherine's graduation and Elizabeth passing her NARM (midwifery) test. We had a wonderful evening filled with sweet fellowship, volleyball, and Scrabble!