Happy Holidays!

Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!

So sweet! Every Christmas my siblings and I were more excited about what we were giving than what we were getting. My parents started us young, giving a gift to each child. The youngest would give boxes of sugar cookies they'd chosen the shapes for themselves. A little bit older would decorate the cookies for gifts. Then older than that would do handmade gifts, and kids old enough to earn money would buy gifts. That's one thing my parents did right.

Aw, I fell in love with that ram as soon as the page came up. I'm wanting to add a milk sheep or two to my herd of milk goats. It would be handy if I could have one breeding male to breed both sheep and goats. Not that my buck didn't give it a good try with my husband's sheep. http://localfoodblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/oh-dear.html

Beautiful. My favorite times choring are when I can hear my kids playing in the background. That's when I think "*This* is why I make the sacrifices I do. This is a good life."

Absolutely lovely. I dry my goats off in the winter and they start producing again in March, right before warm weather hits. I love milking in the chilly spring mornings with my forehead against their sides.

I have yet to find that doing chores with a cup of coffee in hand is practical. It takes both hands to hold bottles for calves, throw hay, and feed chickens. Maybe when my kids are old enough to help more ...

Your new header is gorgeous! Happy Thanksgiving to you.

I started reading your blog when you were pregnant with him. Time flies! With our birthdays, we keep things simple - the kids get presents from each other, and from the parents they get four things. Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. It's been a nice way to do it.

That is a really lovely sweater. I'm usually not one for 3/4 sleeves (I like my sleeves coming onto my hands), but on this cardigan, they look wonderful.

The elephant and rabbit are divine! So sweet.

Such a cute family of outfits! We were Peter Pan and two fairies.

Good luck to you and the afflicted family member. Sorry to hear that bad health has hit.

Wow - Adelaide didn't just break the previous world record, she slaughtered it! lol

I used to have a surprise box, but then the little ones found the box and it was emptied in record time. We've just moved, so maybe I should start up another one that they won't know about ... Surprise boxes are fantastic to dip into right before road trips also.

Stunning. Thank you so much for sharing.

Those are so gorgeous! And thank you for the links - good stuff near Christmas.

How wonderful that he has a family that honors all of him. I love that you're doing that for him.

Those skeins of yarn make me want some - and I don't even know what I'd do with them!

Fantastic article. Thank you Caroline! Megan, I love reading aloud to my daughters. We've enjoyed the Marguerite Henry books (Chincoteague books), the Little House on the Prairie books, and the Unicorn's Secret series. Oh, and the Catwings series and the My Father's Dragon series. Start with the latter two for younger kids. Fantastic series!

Gorgeous! I just finished Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill. Strong female protagonist. Her life from Africa to America to Canada back to Africa and then to England. Stunning book.

I don't remember any outfit in particular. I just remember that I had a new outfit for the first day of school every year. There were ten kids in our family and little money, so for me, the eighth child, to have new clothes was sooo exciting.

LOL - That is so cute! And it's fun to hear your voice.

Autumn's coming here too. We've had our first frost already. I love autumn, and I'd love winter if it were shorter. As it is, the coming autumn can make me dread the coming winter.

I love the idea of sharing birth stories - no matter the type of 'birth'. Yesterday we went with my husband to look at a bull he wants to buy. While he was talking to the man selling the bull, I talked to that man's wife while our kids played. Two hours later, somewhere in all of the talk about kids and previous residences and challenges of living where we do, we knew each others birth stories. We're women. We share those things.