Winter Days

The longer we're stuck indoors through the winter, the crazier we get! See for yourselves. ;)

Thankfully, spring is drawing near!! I love seeing these begin to bloom outside the dining room window, and all around the farm.

I also love seeing the snowy hills and mountains on clearer days...

Selah is well loved by all of our animals around here. :)

We were in the barn the other day and Lucy was like a moth to a flame with Selah out there. Not pictured in these shots are all of our chickens just off to the side, watching her too. :) It's funny because I loved riding our horses and petting our cats and dog when I was growing up, but I was never an animal adorer like she is! I love that about her. She has a way with animals for sure.

Jude's been wearing his weighted vest each day and it really seems to helps him (sensory integration for his vestibular system). We played catch with this Beaver footfall in the living room for a long time trying to beat our record of never dropping it. We only got up to 96 continuous throws, but had a great time.

We discovered something fun and new about Jude this past week. We know he loves math, and we often give him math problems for fun, but Josh decided to give him a little harder algebra problem last weekend and he solved it no problem.

So a couple of days later he and I were hanging out in the hall while we were at our CC school (he was having a rough morning and wasn't ready to be in class yet.) So I asked him if he'd like to do some algebra for fun and he said yes. So I would write a math problem down and he would solve it in his head. We did this for a little while and he solved all of these in his head! It will be interesting to see at what math level he is challenged. I'm kind of dying to find out. Go Jude!

My cousin Ian came to visit and brought his son Lucas with him for a guys weekend. His wife and daughter stayed home for their girl weekend. I love having Ian around! He, Josh and I stayed up super late talking and I loved every bit of it!

Cousins!

When Josh and I were dating (like 18 & 19 years old) he went on a mission trip to Nepal for about a month. When he came home from that trip he took me on a date to the Beanery and bought me a chai latte, like he had tried in Nepal. It was soooo yummy and I've been hooked ever since. A couple weeks ago on a cold day he took me out for a chai latte and something about the moment took me back to that day in the Beanery and we reminisced about it with hearts in our eyes. :) I love this guy like crazy!

We also spontaneously went into a building that I went into often as a young girl... both sets of my grandparents were entrepreneurs. My Granddad and Grandma created and owned the Inkwell in downtown Corvallis, and my other Grandparents created and owned Corvallis Security company. This was the security office and my brother and I use to love to visit here and play my dad's arcade video game in his office. Any time I hear the song, That's what Friends are For, I think of riding in this elevator. ;)

Our friends Ann & Michael came over for dinner last Friday night. We had such a great time with them playing games, chatting about schooling our kids at home, and eating yummy Thai food. Michael is a wealth of information for us because he was schooled at home (he and Ann both grew up in Spain), and Michael is getting his PhD in Computer Engineering. They are so encouraging and we love to learn from them.

The kids watched Kung-Fu Panda 2, all piled on the couch. :) Selah and Elena are two peas in a pod.

After CC school each week the kids love to play foosball. 

This is Selah's friend Selah. They love that they share the same name. :) In fact, there are 3 Selah's in their CC school! What are the odds?

The kids helped us pick up leaves after trimming some hedges last weekend.

We've been trying to give our kids more grown-up-like-chores lately, and when I came across this recently it made me laugh. Too true. ;)

Alright, I'm ready for some sunshine and the weekend! Happy Friday!