And The Tradition Continues......

Have I mentioned that we are a family that LOVES traditions??!!  Well, if not…we are!

Here are a few more of our Christmas favorites….

*Nativity scenes….LOVE them!  I especially love collecting them from different places we have traveled to.  The one below was given to us when we married 20 years ago!  It had more animals once upon a time, but even being short a few from the herd, I think it is beautiful.

 

Obviously these two were some that we collected during our travels.  I love how they each show the nativity in relation to that locations culture.

 

 

*Next would be Christmas cards!  We love to receive Christmas cards and we keep them every year.  I have a basket full of cards from the past 10 years and each year we enjoy looking through them.

Some are picture cards from our friends and family and those are really fun to look at how everyone has changed.  Sometimes there are cards from people who no longer will spend Christmas on this earth and those can be kind of sad, yet also neat because they always get us started sharing memories of that person!

This year we are doing something a bit different in sending out our cards.  We are slowly going through out list and making a couple of cards a day.  We are spending time praying for that family and trying to put some time into each one before we send it out.  That has been really fun!

 *Now we have our puzzles!!  We buy a new Christmas puzzle each year, put out a puzzle table, and get busy solving it!!  The girls are really good at the puzzles and we are already on a second puzzle this year!

 

*Books!  Every year we purchase a new Christmas book to put under the tree.  It is fun to look at the changes our books have gone through.  We started with board books, then to picture books and now novels that we read together over the holiday season.

 

*RACK….this is our newest tradition….Random Acts of Christmas Kindness.  We plan out an act of kindness to do each day during the Advent season.  These have ranged from taping quarters to gumball machines, to spending an evening praying for friends, and even handing out hundred dollar bills to random people.  We have learned to step out of our bubble and make an effort to become more involved in the lives of others through this activity. 

This year we decided to recycle our Thankful Tree and turn it into our RACKed Advent tree! 

 

Click HERE to read about how we displayed our RACK Advent last year!

The neat thing about this tradition is that the Lord changes it each year!  This year we have been doing something a bit different, but I will share that with you tomorrow!

Traditions are a great way to make life comfortable, peaceful and joyful, but remember that sometimes traditions become stumbling blocks and keep our focus off of what it should be on.  It is always fun to look at new traditions and try some, but every family is different and what is fun for us might be a burden for you! 

Thank the Lord we are all so different because this would be a pretty boring world if we were not!

Cinnamon Ornaments

In our chat yesterday about Bumpkin Farm's Christmas tree traditions, I told you that I would give you more info today on how to make cinnamon ornaments.  Being that I am a farm-ess of my word, here ya go!!! 


First you start with 3 cups of cinnamon and 3 cups of applesauce.  I was able to get my cinnamon at Dollar Tree!!  Whew!!  That could have been expensive!

Then you mix it up! 

I started with a spoon and eventually went to using my hands because the dough became to thick. 

Oh, you should also know that the batch in the pictures is a double batch so you won't have as much dough.

Then you grab some cute helpers and some cookie cutters!!

Sprinkle a little cinnamon on the surface you plan on using just like you do when you make biscuits. 

Then you plop the dough down and start rolling it with either a rolling pin or your hands!  I prefer the rolling pin, but....there is a girly that lives in my house (otherwise known as my daughter) and she likes to use her hands!

You flatten it out at whatever thickness you want your ornaments to be, but remember, the thicker the ornament the longer it takes to dry.  Then you get cutting!! 

Be sure that you keep some extra cinnamon around to use when things get sticky!!

Then beautiful cinnamon ornaments begin to appear in your kitchen!!

After cutting them out, make sure you use a toothpick and make a little hole at the top for the string, ribbon or hanger!  We forgot this one year....Oops!

Stick them on a cookie sheet once they are cut for about an hour to allow them to harden up just a bit.

 

 

 

You will notice that about this time your house starts to smell REALLY yummy!!  Our dogs started to think there might be something good for them in the kitchen.  They are not allowed into the kitchen so they were both sitting at the entrance just hoping someone would share!

Tank really, REALLY wanted to help!!  He thought they smelled REALLY good!!!!

So after an hour on the cookie sheet, move them to drying racks where they dry for a few days.  It was funny because I had these racks in the corner of my kitchen during Thanksgiving and because of the yummy smell, everyone tried to grab the cinnamon "cookies" during our celebration!  They taste GROSS...trust me ;)

After they are dry you string your hanger of choice in the hole.  We use twine, but ribbon is really pretty too!! 

Then you can either paint them or leave them the way they are.  We usually do a little of both!

I think they look lovely on the tree and they make the house smell yummy all season!  And, when you go to open your Christmas boxes next year the smell of cinnamon instantly gets you in the Christmas mood!!

This is a really simple project to do, yet yields a great return!!  Super fun, beautiful in a simple way, and a fun tradition to have.

Blessings my blogger friends!!

Christmas Trees on Bumpkin Farm: Christmas Traditions

After Advent, I would say that my next favorite family Christmas tradition is the cutting and decorating of our tree.

The day after Thanksgiving we head out to find the "perfect" family tree!  Now, perfect is relative cuz I could tell you some crazy stories about trees past!

Unfortunately, where we live there is no place to just head out in the woods and find a Christmas tree, so we head to a tree farm to find it!

We usually walk around for a couple of hours going from tree to tree declaring each tree's perfection until we see the next one.  Then about two hours into it my back hurts and everyone is getting a little dizzy from all of the trees so we just pick one and begin cutting!

Christmas tree cutting this year!! 2013

Tree cutting from 2011!!

Tree cutting 2010!!

We load it up and carry it home, set it up in the living room and allow a day for all of the branches to settle, or all the insects to wake up from their slumber!

Then the following day is probably one of my top five most favoritest days of the year....tree decorating!!  The Friday night before we decorate the tree, we spend time decorating the house and Farmer Willie puts the lights on the tree so then once Saturday comes....BAM, we decorate!!

It is a decorating party!!  We have a spread of finger foods, always have some chips and queso, red and green M&M's and Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes.  There is usually some fruit and raw veggies with dip thrown in there too.  And finally......Christmas punch!!!

After we spend time eating and visiting we begin decorating!!  We usually put up three trees.  The main on in our living room we cover with ornaments that we make.  This year it is mostly cinnamon ornaments and boy does our living room smell good!  (I will show you how to make them tomorrow!)

The other tree, usually in the dining room, we hang our yearly ornaments.  Each year one of the girls and I will go and pick out a special ornament for each person.  Sometimes we have a theme and other years we get ornaments based on things that each person was interested in throughout the year.  We label them with the year and the name.  We started this about ten years ago and the plan is that when the girls leave home they will be able to take their special ornaments with them to hang on their trees!!

We also hang our travel ornaments on this tree as well.  Each time we travel to a new destination we try and pick up a Christmas ornament as a souvenir!!

You can imagine how much fun this tree is to decorate!!  It brings back tons of memories and fun stories!!!

The final tree is really just there because we love Christmas trees!  This year it is decorated in red and white and is in our library.

You will note the cat at the bottom, Aslan, thinks he is the best gift of all!

We keep the lights on the trees going as long as we are awake!  I love the mood that it sets in the house!! 

We don't really do presents, so under the main tree we have our Christmas books, under the red and white tree we have some homemade gifts for each other and  we don't put anything under the memory/travel tree.

So....what traditions do you have with your Christmas trees??!!

Advent on Bumpkin Farm - Christmas Traditions

Christmas is coming! 

I know, hard to believe isn't it?  This year has flown by!!

Our family is one that loves tradition!  Probably a little too much :)  But during this time of year our traditions abound and frankly, we like it that way!!

One of our favorite traditions is observing Advent. 

What is advent?  It is traditionally a time of expectation and waiting for the celebration of Christ's birth.  It is a time to focus your attention, thoughts and actions on things that are everlasting as opposed to short-lasting.

In order to do this, we have nightly Advent readings that include the lighting of the Advent candles, a short lesson, reading of scripture, singing, and prayer.

Our advent wreath is simple greenery with four candles in the middle, three being purple and one pink.  The purple candles are the color representing royalty and penance and the pink, being that Advent is partially patterned after Lent, represents joy . 

Week 1 stands for Hope, and week 2 Love. Week 3 stands for joy and week 4 peace. In the center of those candles is a short white candle that is lit on Christmas morning representing Christ!

Different churches and different denominations observe Advent differently so we have just picked what makes sense to us and gone with it!! 

I remember when growing up, the Baptist church we attended observed advent and each Sunday we sang the following song:

Light One Candle

1. Light one candle for hope One bright candle for hope He brings hope to every heart He comes! He comes!

2. Light one candle for love One bright candle for love He brings love to every heart He comes! He comes!

3. Light one candle for joy One bright candle for joy He brings joy to every heart He comes! He comes!

4. Light one candle for peace One bright candle for peace He brings peace to every heart He comes!

He comes!

 Because this song has a lot of memories and meaning to me, it is one of the songs we sing each Sunday when we light that week's candle.

Do I think you have to observe Advent?  Nope! 

But for our family, it is a way that we can come together each evening and bring our busy, excited thoughts all back to the reason we are rejoicing and celebrating in the first place.  That God...GOD, chose to become a human and come to earth and live just to sacrifice himself for ME so that not only we can spend eternity together, but so that we can have a relationship now!!

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Care Packages for College Students

I came across an article on msnbc.com today taking about sending care packages to college students.  It was kinda funny that I ran across it because we are finishing up a little Halloween care package to send to Brianna today!!

Most of the people that the author interviewed (parents of college students) were pro care packages, even if they themselves did not have the time or money to send them.  I was surprised to find that some parents thought that they were a waste of time.

They said things like "they are too old for silly stuff like that" and that college kids were "not at a summer sleep away camp." 

Humph!!  I am in my forties and I still LOVE getting packages!!

And I must admit, I really enjoy sending them.

I think it lets Bri know that she is loved and thought of daily.  It gives her a little hug from home in a box!!

I enjoy the process of purchasing items for our care packages, and her sisters like getting in on the action!!  I feel like she is an active part of my day when I am able to search for and put the items together.

The first package we sent her was full of things she forgot to bring as well as lots of candy, treats and surprises!!

The second one had some fall décor in it, fall baked goods and some trinkets.

The one we are sending today will be for Halloween!  It has Halloween treats, a little pumpkin, a Halloween straw and some souvenirs that her sister and I picked up for her last week in Belize!!  Oh, also a couple of long sleeve shirts she asked for due to the cooler weather :)

Brianna's care package that is going out today!!

This is her first Halloween away from home and though I know she will have a blast with her friends, I just want her to know that she is on our minds as we head out to trunk-or-treat at church!!

Chickens and Poison Ivy

**Picture warning....there are a couple of gross poison ivy pictures at the end of the post!!**  :)


A little over a week ago we decided to up our chicken flock by four.  After buying the chickens we brought them to the back of the house and let them go.  Only then did we realize that we had made a bit of a mistake!  They would have no idea where to go in the evening!!

I guess we just thought that they would know where the coop was by osmosis or something!!

Anyways, we realized that we needed to round up the chickens and start them out in the coop.  Easier said than done my friend!!  Boy howdy were those girls flighty!!

On top of the new girls being skittish, one of the old hens was MAD!!  I tell you, she was squawking up a storm.  She followed Farmer Willie around the yard yelling at him for about 30 minutes.

 

Well, the new hens were sooooo fast!  They were running everywhere!!

So imagine us all running around trying to catch these four hens that absolutely do NOT want to be caught.....Oh wait, I can help you imagine it!!  I snapped a picture! :)

After chasing for a while, one of the farm cats decided he would help, so he started running around trying to attach the chickens.  This led to squeals from the peanut gallery and a new sense of urgency to catch them!!  My sweet germ-a-phobic DD #2 even went running into the brush to try and help get them.

So FINALLY we were able to get all four into a temporary coop connected to the hen house.

Of course, two of the older chickens thought it was really interesting to watch the new ones inside the run!!

Well, you know how I mentioned DD #2 pitching in and even going into the brush to try and save the chickens?  Well, I should also mention that she is EXTREMELY allergic to poison ivy and going into the brush, while well intended, ended up being a REALLY bad idea!!

Two mornings later, this is what she woke up to!

One more day passes and it progresses to this....

My poor baby girl!  All she was doing was trying to help!!

Well, her reaction just kept going and she ended up with blisters.  One area of the blisters looked like this....

Soon, she could not move her fingers because of the blisters, so we headed into see her pediatrician.  They cut the blisters opened and cleaned them out really well!

Ended up she had the equivalent of 2nd degree burns due to her reaction.  It has been a rough week and weekend for her, but praise the Lord, she seems to be doing better now!!

So the lessons we learned on the chicken poison ivy day are:

1.  When you get new chickens, start them out in the coop for a bit so they know where to come home to at night.

2.  Play with your cat for a while before you go chasing chickens, or he will think it looks fun and try to chase them with you!

3.  Don't go into the brush if you are allergic to poison ivy.

4.  Roosters help protect hens from playful cats!!  We got one the next day thanks to our awesome neighbor!!

A Day of Practicality!!

Okay, those of you who know me know that practicality is not my strong suit!!  But...I occasionally come up with a good idea that is also practical!!

We are on the cusp of a graduation ceremony and party for our oldest daughter and my lack of practicality is coming back to bite me in the tushy!!

Big plans....but no way to carry them out.  Yuppers, story of my life!

Anyway to remind myself that I do come up with an idea that is capable of being carried out, I will share some of them with you!!  (Okay, some of these might not be TOTALLY my ideas, but I have no idea where I got them from!!)

*  Let your children work out their issues with their siblings without your involvement.  Now, before you go thinking we just let the girls duke it out in the boxing ring, we do have certain parameters that if crossed, we will intervene.  But for the most part, we stay out of it.

*  Mom is not a short order cook!  I will not cook-to-order our meals.  We have a daughter that is a vegetarian.  When we have hotdogs, raw veggies and baked beans, she has invented the bean dog! 

She will take a bun, fill it with beans, add a little mustard and Wahlah!!  She has a bean dog!!  Put that with some of the raw veggies and she has a meal.  Not one single child has distributed signs of starvation and in fact, they now will try almost anything and enjoy a wide variety of foods!!

*  Chores!!  Don't shy away from sharing chores with your children.  When they were young, I explained that they were learning how to be wives and mommies by my teaching them how to run a household.  As they got older, chores were a tangible way to show them that they were needed in our home and that we all had to work together to make things run.

*  Colors.  What??!  Colors!!  When the girls were young we assigned them each a color in order to keep toothbrushes, hairbrushes, towels, etc. separate.  I must give credit for this one to a sweet lady that I went to church with who had 12 children!

*  Teaching them how to choose appropriate things to watch and listen to.  Now this is a whole other blog post that I am working on for next week. The gist of it is that we teach our children when they are young how to guard their hearts and why they should, so that when they are teenagers, they can regulate themselves.

*  A time to sleep and a time to rise and most of the time, the time to rise is earlier than they might like!!  The girls have always had a bedtime and wake up time that we try very hard to adhere to.  My oldest has told me that this is one of the skills learned that she is most thankful for.

*  Travel as much as you can.  We can't hop across the ocean and tour Europe (though we certainly would love to!), but we have found other ways to travel and see the world.  For us, this has been camping in state parks, flying to NYC, taking a family trip to Alaska, going to Oklahoma City, and so forth.  Just go!!  Traveling pulls your children out of their comfort zone and it allows them to see that a world exists outside of what they see every day. 

 
*  If you don't want to share it, don't keep it out!  This was our rule when the girls were young and struggled with sharing their toys.  We did not make them share everything as most of us have items that are special to us.  But if they did not want to share it, they had to put it up when friends came over.  If it was out, it had to be shared!!

Well, I feel better now and more able to go and conquer the world of high school graduation celebrations!! 
 
I probably am not going to blog anything else this week so that I can concentrate on getting ready for our get-together, but I will let you know how it all goes next week!!
 
See y'all then!!