11 Acre Wood Blog

The guest of honor got first dibs on the lovely spread of food. (It was all gorgeous and tasty, Rachel)

Kressant and little Carlos.

Catching up.

Amanda with her little sister.

Rachel thoughtfully planned and coordinated the shower for her sister.

“Do we know each other?”

Too excited to see one another and be together.

“Whatz up?”

The punch corner.

We played the clothespin game. If someone caught you crossing your legs, then they were able to take your clothespin from you and vice versa. Whoever ended up with the most in the end, won. Campbell had been rackin’ up until Bekah ‘stole’ them from her. J   

Now comes the Ooooo’s and Ahhhhhh’s. 

Laughter (I’m so creative J)

Cutesy.

Sweet sista-Bekah.

Jo.

Our lovely hostess.

Reviewing funny pictures captured. 

Addie, a dear friend and fellow family blogger.  

Drooling over all the attention. 

Such a variety of expressions. Love it!

Can you guess who the winner was?

Everyone left at the end who still held claim to at least one clothespin (or more).  

I don’t even remember this picture being taken, but it’s fun anyway.

Mothers in all seasons of life.

Grace and Marty having camera wars. Here Marty is taking aim while Grace ‘fires’ a shot.

The Girls (or as many as we could find before taking the pictures).

Somehow, these poses came more naturally. J 

It looks like Grace is Campbell’s breathing mask and Norma’s not quite sure what to think about the situation. LOL!

Saying good-byes. 

Momma taught them how to make clothespin bombs and so you can only guess how the next 30 mins was spent! Raging battles and then a clean up of the ‘battlefield’. J 

“Am I in the spotlight or something?”

“Pleeease….no more pictures!”

Third daughters, what else can be expected? J 

Deer in the headlights.

Dais’ in a daze.

Daddy didn’t want us making the drive back home that night, so the Roberts were gracious to let us stay the night with them. They fed us a yummy supper and then we gathered around and watched The Widow’s Might that someone had brought at the shower for them to borrow.

Noah wanted me to take some pictures of Edgar’s garden. So these are some of the pictures I took the next morning.

The Roberts had decided to swap around everyone’s rooms, for a change. So we stayed to watch the show help some before having to head back home. I’m not quite sure how much of a help we were, but we had a good time!

Two girls not quite awake yet. 

Ashburn.

All the older four girls moved into the master bedroom and Mrs. Conley and Mr. Fritz moved upstairs to the bedroom with a fireplace. J 

On the way back home, we stopped in and saw Momma’s Great Aunt Mary (MeMe’s sister). We didn’t stay long, but it was a good visit. 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

Last Friday the whole Fam went up to (play in the mud) tackle some jobs that needed to be finished at the property. We older ones were down in the garden site (because that was the place where the creek, and the MUD was) supposed to be working on the fencing around it most of the day, Momma Daddy and the little guys worked on mulching the blueberries in the orchard (I guess Momma didn’t want em dirty or something) and Nehemiah took himself a little nap in the shop (I mean, why did nobody want to get dirty except me?).

On a mission. 

Our Kubota- kinda handy. 

Noah explaining the procedure to our “ground staple team”. They then set off to start on the creek bed side of the garden.

Noah and I worked on stretching the fence and securing it with zip ties on the big hillside. We could hear them on the other side working and were hoping that the deer were somewhat intimidated by all the abnormal commotion (aka Singing heard a mile away, blonde jokes being yelled down the fence line to one another or mud fights) by our “ground stake team”. J 

Getting restocked.

Quite the stylish worker.

Later in the afternoon Noah worked on the cattle panel gate (we don’t use that road very much, but didn’t want to to have to cut the fencing someday if we eventually needed access to that road).

Eman was my little helper in hand seeding all the garden beds in a cover crop of rye. 

This is one of the beds Noah tilled. Looks really good. Some places are still a little muddy in the garden….

….and I just happened to slip on the side of one of those beds when we were planting and fell right into the mud. LOL! I couldn’t catch myself since I had a handful of seed, nor get up. J Quite the sight I must say, but Manuel came and helped me up so I could finish planting. MUD….it’s just fun.

The ‘gate’ worked out pretty well.

Hopefully we can keep out the deer as well as we can keep out these…well I don’t know what to call them. LOL!

…And it did….sadly………

“I promise I won’t eat your lettuce!”

Problems….problems…..

“Well, what can I do about it?”

“I dunno! But….”

“….I just thought I had problems until I met this girl.” J 

“What’s wrong with me?”

“See, I’m perfectly NORMAL!”

“Do you know these people?” J 

“Ello Poppet”

Tug-O-Stick.

“Any sympathy here, people?” 

“This is a little more entertaining than when I come up to work by myself.” 

Pretty sky.

“Need some help?”

“Can’t stand ‘em when their dirty and nasty!” ~S&S

Dusk…….  
Well, everyone have a blessed day!

Over the past couple of years, our family has cut back more and more on the old “Christmas Traditions”. Instead of focusing and getting all stressed out about finding a gift for someone who doesn’t NEED anything, we want to use the busy time to focus more on what Christ has done for us, making special memories with our family and finding ways to minister to others. It’s not that we discourage one of our little ones from drawing pictures or notes for someone, but we’ve just set the expectation that we aren’t focusing on getting all these gifts and trinkets. A famous saying in our family is: “Expectations ruin relationships”. 

Since December is usually an easy time to get caught up in a whirlwind of activities, our family has set different goals each year that help us stay immersed in the Scriptures. One year we had a chart on the wall and everyone kept track of how many hours they spent each day reading or listening to the Bible in the month of December. And I think one hour was the minimum everyday. That was really great and we spent a lot of time in the Word, but it was easy to give into the temptation to be motivated by competition, which was not the goal at all. This past Christmas season, Daddy decided that instead of focusing on the birth of Jesus we would study the example of Humility He set in coming to earth as a little babe (Philippians 2:1-11). We figured out that if everyone in the family each read five chapters a day from Scripture, then as a family, we could collectively read through the entire Bible that month. As we read, we would take a few notes on examples of or verses related to pride and humility from the chapters each day. We would then share them with everybody in the evenings. A little chart that had all the chapters in the Bible on it was printed out and put up on the wall. That way you could mark what chapters you were reading and nobody got confused about what had been read or not. It was such a blessing to work on something and learn together as a family!

As  I mentioned above, we did lots of fun things together as a family that we don’t normally do in our everyday schedule. We had euchre tournaments, watched movies, ate snacky foods, etc.. Daddy and Noah also brought our ping pong table up from the barn which we had tons of fun with!

Noah and Aubie watching the game. (We volunteered to keep Aubie for a couple of weeks in December when some friends went out of town for the holidays and didn’t have anyone to watch her.)

Showdown.

Aubie wanted to play too. J 

Ya want to join in the fun?

Eman awaits his turn to play.

We enjoyed the company of the Morton kids one Friday! They came up for the day and the girls and little boys stayed here at the house while our older guys went to a shooting class at a local military base. In the picture above, we girls are learning and practicing the dances for the Ball. The little boys mainly ran around outside and we girls also had fun playing cards and ping pong. 

Grace and Martha (both the youngest daughters in their family J)

That night we got pizza and watched Zorros.

It was a fast, but delightful visit!

A nice taped up box!

They could be twins except for the fact that they’re 2 1/2 years apart. J 

Aubie was Noah’s friend during her stay. If he left to go somewhere she would look out the window and watch his truck leave down the driveway. LOL!

Even though we didn’t do gifts, we still like to have our Christmas morning Orange and Cinnamon rolls and sit around while Daddy reads the Christmas story.

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world….” 

Sofa Snuggles.

We did do stockings this year where everyone got their favorite candy…

…and the boys (Daddy down to Nehemiah) all got guns from the dollar store. J 

So of course, battles ensued.

We girls were happily surprised to each receive wooden cutting boards from Daddy and Mommy that were made by our friends the Whatleys! Wood has so much character. I love it!

What fun!

A shot of a shooter.

Enjoying the scrumptious spread of food that Grandmother made.

Still kinda wakin’ up.

Papa plays us a his famous ‘shave and a haircut, two bits!’

Discussions with Uncle Todd.

It was a relaxing morning. All the extended family didn’t arrive until the afternoon.

“I’ll give you a smile as long as I don’t have to take out my fingers…”

Reading aloud the Scriptures.

Art.

Gabriel entertains us with some Christmas music on the player piano. 

Love the toes. J 

Isn’t it cute? Gabriel wrapped up a coat hanger as a gift for Grandmother to make it look like a Christmas tree. He’s our little gift giver. 

Motion.

All the boys got fishing rods to use at the pond.

Hmmm….what have we here?

Aunt Christi poses with her teacup.

Granddaddy (far left) with his two brothers.

Father and Sons.

Momma and her siblings.

The whole crowd (minus a few people who weren’t able to come or who hadn’t arrived yet).

We’re so glad you’re a part of our family. May you continue to grow in the faith and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We love you, Bud!

The Birthday Boy.

Opening presents.

“I’m four!”

Some Playmobil Knights.

That evening, back at home, we had his birthday dessert.

“Do we have any matches that work?”

Excitement!

If you wish, you can wish our little man a Happy Belated Birthday. 

By now things have picked back up and we’re sorta on a tight schedule for getting the garden planted. Here at home we have seeds started on top of the refrigerators, dryer, etc… Last week our hoop house was delivered in one, 1,000 lb box which Noah and a friend went up and managed to get in the shop to store until we’re ready to put it together. Noah, Daddy and Eman are up there today and are going to start putting up fencing around the garden site and work on the gates. 

I just unloaded my card from the past three times I’ve been up to the property. I’ve arranged the pictures in chronological order so you can see the progress that’s been made. Enjoy!

Noah was spending the day making several trips back and forth with loads of manure for the garden beds. On one of the trips up he made, I came along and was able to get some pictures. Here we first stop and Mr. T loads us up with nice composted horse manure. 

Very handy piece of equipment. 

Manure doesn’t slide out as well as other, less compact, materials. We had also gotten rained on, which didn’t help much.  

Our little piles of ‘gold’.

Noah’s done a really good job preparing the beds. 

Up at the shop Noah shows me the progress that’s been made. Here Daddy had added trim to the windows and started on our floating laminate flooring. He quickly had found out it wasn’t a one person job. J 

Working station. (For those of you trying to get your bearings, the door shown leads out to the large ‘workshop’ area.)

This OSB board was put up for strength and insulation. 

Here is our orchard that was just planted (or the top part at least) in blueberries.

We planted five different varieties: Premier, Climax, Tifblue, Powderblue, and Centurion. 

I believe they planted just over 300 plants. 

Just this month we’ve gotten around 6 inches of rain up at the property. Noah went up one day and found the garden site pretty wet. At first we were afraid it wasn’t going to be fixable and that brought up the possibility of might having to move the garden site. 

So last Wednesday Daddy, Ethan, Noah and I went up to scout out the area to see what needed to be done. 

The first thing we saw was that for the most part there was only water in between the beds, not over them and that was only surface water. It wasn’t like the beds were saturated. 

See?

Some spots were worse than others because of slope, or lack of slope.

Our creek was very high. 

Diggin’ around a bit.

We were grateful to find this out before the garden was planted. To see it at its worse possible ‘wetness”. I’m grateful we didn’t prepare the garden last winter when we were in a drought and couldn’t have discovered the nature of the drainage! 

Scouting out where to put the gate.

Helicopter flies over. 

Snoozin’ in the warm sun.

Waitin’ on Noah and Daddy as they were discussing plans. 

At this point we think, Lord Willing, that with a series of drainage ditches we can fix the drainage so it won’t damage our crops. Praise the Lord! It’s just going to take a little more work than we had first thought.

The rest of the afternoon Daddy, Ethan and I laid this flooring while Noah made a trip to the Tractor Supply Co. 

This past Saturday the whole Fam spent the day at the property. It was definitely a wintry, wet, rainy and dreary day out, but we mainly spent our time in the shop. This room (above) is pretty much finished. Looks really good with the baseboards that Daddy put up. Momma then mopped it and I installed the door handle. Lets see, then I think next, Noah put together the futon we just got. 

Here is the finished result. Now Noah has a place to sleep when he needs to stay overnight when working on a project. Last week he went up there everyday to work.

Watching Swamp Fox.

Here is the middle room mopped and cleaned up.

Doesn’t the mirror look good?

It’s a big milestone to have the shop pretty much finished now. Daddy and guys worked hard, learned a lot, had fun doing it together and did a great job, I think! Don’t you?

Granddaddy & Grandmother and…

…their children.

Visiting and relaxing.

Carlos has grown so much!

After breakfast discussions.

Mrs. Lisa looking at the photo books we put together from our trip this summer.

Girls in the barn.

Gracie.

Inquisitive Bret.

“Hey, wait for me!”

Bekah.

Bethany.

Darthy and wittle Joseph.

Grace.

Mariah.

Abbi and Marty.

Range Hot!

Momma was really good!

Gibbie.

Sightin’ in.

Campbell’s camera angle.

Girls+ music+barn =Fun Memories (we tried different variations to the dances we’d done the night before. Some worked and some didn’t J)

This one’s not in the books. LOL!

…we have a battle raging. J 

Charge!

 (Editor’s Note: I don’t have pictures of everyone because most of these picture were taken after midnight when a lot of people had already left or gone to bed)

The evening started off with introductions of each family by Alan and Cleveland. You were suppose to come dressed as a historical figure, time period or just formal dress. 

Everyone looking at the wonderful costumes the Davis family put together.

The Alan Smith Family (with third baby on the way).

Our hosts, the Morton Clan.

Our family had been introduced first so we got to enjoy seeing everyone else all dressed up!

Mr. Fritz introduces his Fam. I believe the girls were Medieval and the boys were “Scottish Guys”. 

Mr. Frank pointing out how his wife had put together all their family’s costumes for only $30.00! 

Once the introductions were finished, you can see where this little guy went. LOL! “I’m just here for the food!”

The dancing begins….

Michael Jr. and Kressant.

It seems that some little cowboys, Scottish Guys and even the Apostle Paul have become friends. J 

After a little confusion as to how a certain dance was done (I believe it was the Duke of Kent), two experienced couples demonstrated for us.

Viking Andrew.

Motherly Conversations.

Different camera angles.

Takin’ it all in from the sidelines.

Will Rogers (yes, all you who guessed were correct) dances with a fair maiden. 

Steppin’ it up a notch with the Virginia Reel.

Corner Conversations.

Marty and me.

Around midnight we gathered around for a time of singing and praying. Then most went out to watch the fireworks before taking little ones to bed.  

Jammin’.

The most handsome brother of the evening! (I’m not biased or anything. J)

After midnight fun & craziness….

Sisters…..

Reviewing funny moments captured by Mariah.

Gracie dear.

An impromptu sibling performance that never came about for lack of being able to choose a song title to sing. J Fun times…

The remnants of delicious delicacies. 

Everyone’s sorta getting the glazed look by now…this picture was taken around 3am.

Mr. Frank

A few last minute shots before headin’ off to bed: 

All tuckered out.

What a blessing it was to attend a party where femininity…..

….and masculinity were evident.