Deer Hunting 2012

 **WARNING: Graphic pictures ahead**

Chris started bow hunting this year and he really wanted to get a buck with his bow. So he would take his bow to work with him every day and would scout while he worked. He saw a large 4x4 (four points on each side) so he asked the owner of the property if he could hunt and he said yes. So Chris and his friend went out after work one night and Chris got him!!! He thought it was the 4x4 but after he shot him, he looked and it was a FIVE by SIX!!!!! He was enormous too. 

They brought him back to the house and gut and skinned him. He was so big that he broke an industrial caribeener hook that they tried to hang him on in the shop. They had to use our Dingo (a stand behind digger) to hoist him up. Once they got the skin off, there was an inch or two of pure fat covering the meat. That's how big he was!

When Chris took him to the butcher, he weighed in at 195 without guts, skin, that extra fat and his head and hooves. That's a lot of meat. We got back about 100lbs. The butcher said that he had a trophy buck and he hadn't seen one that big in a long time. I had been telling Chris that he needed to get the shoulder mount done since it was his first buck with a bow and it was so big. Who knows if he'll ever get one that big again. So Chris went to the taxidermist to get an idea of how much it would be and he said it was a trophy! So there was no question about it. We got the shoulder mount and it's in our living room now. haha

Ok, onto the pictures. I won't be mad if you don't want to look at them. I tried to get the best of them but they still be a little graphic for some.

Eggs!

We got our first eggs on October 17th! We were so excited. :) My friend gave us her two hens that are about a year older than our older group. She warned me that only one of them laid eggs and to not worry about it. After about two weeks of getting introduced to our girls, we got eggs... from both of them!!! We think that they liked it here better because there's more nesting boxes (she had two, so they laid eggs in one and slept in the other).

We've been getting 3 eggs for the last couple weeks. But yesterday there were 6 and today there was 7!!! I think Zoe and CC (the two new ones) are teaching our how it's done. :) I wasn't expecting them to start laying eggs for another couple weeks. Yay girls!! So if anyone is local and wants eggs, we're going to start making a list of who wants them. If they keep up these numbers we'll start selling them. Carver's in charge of the selling and he's charging $3/dozen. So he'll tithe a dollar, save a dollar and be able to spend a dollar. The money for the chicken food will come out of his spending jar so he has to re-invest before he can buy something for himself.

Making Apple Pie Filling

The weekend we went to Ellensburg to get Onyx, we clean picked all of the apples off of our trees so that my mom and I could make apple pie filling. I was originally planning on canning it, but freezing was so much faster so that's what we did. 

We got two big boxes - this was the smaller of the two.

 

The Apple-Peeler-Corer-Slicer (by Pampered Chef but they have a knock-off at Target) made the work go by so much quicker. 

 I did the peeling/coring/slicing and mom did all the mixing. We used Cinnamin, Nutmeg, sugar and lemon juice. Don't ask for the amounts, my mom just wings it. :)

 Then we measured out how much for one pie, put it in a freezer bag and stuck it in the freezer. I think we made 6-7 bags! It'll be so nice to just pull out one of these and make a pie... like at Thanksgiving and Christmas ;)

Onyx

We got a new addition to our family at the end of September. My mom had a litter of purebred labs in August and my friend wanted one. So we decided to be in town the weekend she was coming over to get her Scout (a yellow girl) so that we could be there when she came... Then we started talking about how we wanted two more rottweilers around Christmas... Then we looked up how much rotts are (around $1000) and wrote that off... then we were talking about how mom had four boys left (two blacks, two yellows) and how they were only $350... and we were sunk! I definitely wanted a black so we gave them baths and played with them to figure out which one was more mellow and here he is. :)

 He's been so easy to train and integrate into the family. Rocky and Kenya tolerate him and are playing with him more and more. He's spent the last two weekends with my mom so he's been able to play with his sister, Ebony. Last weekend, I was on a MOMs group retreat in Seabrook, WA and Chris and Carver went to my Mom's so Chris could go elk hunting (no luck). Then this weekend, we went to Spokane for my best friend's daughter's 6th birthday party so my mom babysat.

 Did you catch that my mom kept a puppy? Out of the 10 puppies, 5 of them went to family!! My mom kept one, ours, my brother, Jake and his girlfriend got one (a yellow girl named Lola), my mom's cousin got a yellow boy (Tucker) and our old exchange student, Ayami, got a black girl that they named A Lady & a Gentleman and they call her Lady.

 Carver LOVES Onyx and wants him to sleep in his bed with him. It's so precious to see them both sleeping with Carver's arm wrapped around Onyx's neck! :)

Halloween part one

Here's my nails for Halloween this year. :) I just wanted to post this so I could put it on Pinterest for my lovely nail lady who came up with this idea. :)

Fair 2012

Yep... I'm posting over a month behind. For some reason fair weekend is always forgotten on here. Remember last year? Yeah, it didn't get posted. So here goes...

Mom's dog, Maggie, had a litter of puppies and they were three weeks old while we were there. Little did we know, we'd be keeping one of these little guys. :) Ayami and her family took a black girl so they came over for the day to see the puppies. Reina is 11mo younger than Carver. It was a blast seeing these two with the puppies.

 Check out Carver's hands... totally didn't see that when I took the picture.

 Where did my little baby go??? :( He looks like a kid now.

 Carver loved the rides this year. It was fun watching him figure out what rides he did and didn't like. This was in the not like pile.

 A favorite

7 Months

I have a bunch of pictures to post about but I wanted to get the posted today.

Today, Noah turned 7 months old. Walking into this week I was in a really good place. Then I went to Bible Study yesterday. We're doing James by Beth Moore and it's been amazing! Well yesterday was the 3rd video and Beth talked A LOT about turning anguish into joy and was pretty much talking about me. She read a part of a book called I Will Carry You, by Angie Smith (highly recommend it!) and it brought all the emotions back from right after Noah was born. I didn't start crying until after a friend came over and gave me a hug. So the rest of yesterday and today have been kind of down. I'm not depressed, just sad. :/

Ok, let's get out of this sadness. Here's some things to look forward to:
We got a new puppy!
Making apple pie filling to freeze with my mom
Ellensburg fair (from Sept!!)
Carver's school stuff