Riding a Donkey

Cute and fluffy baby donkey, "Rosie". She was born without anyone having known that her mother, "Daisy," was even pregnant...a huge surprise! She's a few months old now.

This reminds us of the donkey that Mary probably didn't ride to Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph couldn't afford to sacrifice a lamb so they sacrificed doves...how would they have been able to afford a donkey? How did Mary walk all that way?...must've induced labor...hence Jesus born in the manger in Bethlehem...a wonderful gift from God!

JB and Gloria rode on the donkey for the first time. You can see Sunflower Velcro in her new surroundings (and her new home) in the background.

The donkey foal follows close behind her mother.

Christmas Day

Benaiah received a lot of things with wheels this year. JB and Gloria both got lots of cool things in their stockings as well as presents. Grandude read them some Christmas story books that helps to direct their attention toward Jesus rather than just themselves. We have had a wonderful time visiting and being with family!


Gloria got a new princess dress, which Gramma Shell so lovingly sewed as a Christmas present. We'll see if this one lasts longer than the other one she received last Christmas. It is meant to be a little bit big for her so that it fits her in case she grows, given she doesn't wear it out like she did the last one. I think Gramma Shell is just happy she gets so much use out of them.

JB's Birthday

Hold Your...Chickens?

JB and Gloria have a thing about chickens. JB comes a long way since the Rooster "got him" (after he got slightly attacked by a rooster, but still traumatic for a three-year-old JB).

Here Kitty Kitty

The kitty was in the barn earlier, but ran away when I came in the barn. I heard Benaiah saying "here kitty, kitty" and I just had to record him saying it.

Having fun wears him out...

Benaiah loves to pour things into things. Since he kept wanting to pour things on the side of the tub and would sometimes miss, I put a table in the tub so that he could do his pouring on the table instead of on the bathroom floor. This is only his second bath since he got his bandages off. With the bandages we pretty much only bathed him once a week by putting saran wrap on his leg and "sealing" it with medical tape. Then we stood him up in the bath and soaped and rinsed him quickly. He much prefers the traditional bath. His leg is healed but still looks bad since different parts of his skin are all different colors depending on the depth of the burn on different areas. It's so good to see him get new skin...Who (or what) other than a Divine Creator of our bodies could design so well? no one, nothing.

Enjoying the train

Old Train

This train set is at least 75 years old. Max and his brothers played with it when they were little and got it from an older man that played with it when he was a little boy. Looking at how much dust had collected on it (and considering that it was the Bremer boys that had played with it) it was hard to believe that it would work again. But, my husband is talented and did some electrical rewiring and got the electric trains working again. Here is a video of JB and Gloria enjoying the newly set up old train. What a treat.

Ready for the Christmas Party

Max and I went to the SAASS Christmas party on Friday night. The babysitter's mom took these photos after dropping off her daughter. I rarely take a lot of time to do my makeup and hair and Max rarely wears a suit, so this was one of those rare opportunities for a picture in front of our fire place. I'm not sure why the second photo has spots in it, perhaps we need to clean the lens.

This Christmas party was different. It was semi-formal with a cocktail time, a dinner, then just socializing. Normally with the Air Force, the Christmas parties are packed to the brim with activities and by the last one or two activities you are wondering when it's ever going to end. This time I was surrounded by many people (SAASS guys, their wives, and SAASS faculty) that are way bigger thinkers than me, but it made conversations interesting.

Just Swingin' in the Forest!

Yes, More 4-Wheeling.

Some people have horses, we have 4-wheelers.

This is not too far from the house. The area around the house is very hilly and great for learning to 4-wheel over varying terrain. The kids certainly learned faster than I did...just not fair.

Cutie Patootie

Can you tell he likes a lot of stuff in his bed? He's the cutest thing in there though...

Owl

This owl heard we had a kitten at our house and was wondering whether she would come out and play...No such luck

A carpeted house for kitty.

"Sunflower Velcro" (the kids picked the names) plays in a duplo lego house.

Pop! Goes the kitty! Sunflower Velcro is soon going to go to live in Colorado as a barn cat. She started out as a one week old orphan kitty at our house, but indoor cats and the Max Bremer family don't really go together, so hopefully she will have fun catching lots of mice in Colorado.

Sweet four-wheeling

Did the princess hurt her fingers? Daddy always takes care of boo boos.

So, Benaiah, this is how you use the break on the four-wheeler....Benaiah, are you listening?

I know what you're thinking...they're obsessed with four-wheeling. It's just a lot of fun. Benaiah begs to go for a ride. When I'm just going up the driveway to get the mail or deliver the garbage trailer, sometimes I let him hold on to the handlebars and ride in front of me. Gloria rides on the back of a four-wheeler pretty much only when her little red one runs out of "juice" (battery) or when we are going for a longer family-four-wheeling ride where hers and JBs wouldn't make it. I don't know where else we could live that has such a perfect four-wheeling set up. It sure helped that Max cut trails and is currently scheming up some new trails, ones easier for the kids. It also gives him the excuse to get outside and work and also to use the chainsaw.

Benny-and-the-Box

Pop!

The turkey fight/dance

I'm surprised this turkey still sings and dances. It's been around for three or four Christmas' now.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

As you can see, we decorated the tree after the kids got ready for bed and while Max was reading with Nutcracker music in the living room. The tree is in the dining room, where you can see it right when you walk in the house and where there was plenty of room for a tree (and where there was no carpet to get wet).

This is the first year in three years that we have bought a Christmas tree. In the past three years we were in Kansas for Christmas and brought a cut tree home from the woodlot we have in Palmer Lake, CO after we visited Max's parents for Thanksgiving.

This year we had Thanksgiving with our good friends who are stationed with us here, Wedge (Dennis) and Amy and their baby girl, Faith. We had a good time and are very thankful for friends and many other blessings from God!

Burned boy

See, he can still squeak out a little smile. Actually, he has laughed many times since Thursday and has been enjoying the extra attention. After 2-3 weeks of healing, his chubby little leg will have skin as good as new...we look forward to that...thank you God!

You won't believe this...

We are now a family of FOUR 4-wheelers! Remember how I said this place was just too perfect for 4-wheeling not to have two big ones - a Mama one and a Papa one? Now there is one for brother bear and one for sister bear. See for yourselves...

Benaiah either sits and watches or I pull him around on this wagon or he rides with me on the big 4-wheeler. Why the long faces?, you ask...well, Benaiah got second degree burns on his leg and toes after going into the brush fire-pit the day after it had a fire in it. The hot coals were hiding under the ashes and Benaiah managed to find them...painfully. This happened Thursday and with on and off Motrin or Tylonol with codeine he makes through the mornings when the skin starts to tighten and it hurts to move it and through the painful wound-clinic visits (2-3 more weeks of those).

He is doing amazingly well for a little guy...still as active, just careful not to put pressure on the leg with the burns. I could post pictures of the burns that Max took while at the wound clinic, but they're a little too "owey" to share with everyone. If you would like to see them, I can e-mail you the pics. God is healing him though...and has given me the strength to forgive myself for not watching him more closely while still learning a lesson the very hard way. Anyway, why this rambling is in the middle of a 4-wheeler post, I'm not sure, but now you know the story.

Back to 4-wheeling...
So far JB and Gloria are just riding in front on the gravel driveway and JB rides on the paths that Max has made in the circular area in the middle of the round driveway. JB has already gotten good at handling his little 4-wheeler and Gloria is getting more confident too although her little electric 4-wheeler needs a new battery if she's going to make it up the hill more than 4 or 5 times. This is why I am towing her up the hill...going down is a breeze and a lot of fun for her, but the poor battery doesn't keep much charge (we are in the process of getting a new one from the company).

The weather is still perfect for being outside...50s and 60s.

Give a little prayer for the Benny boy...thanks.

Pecan Picking

I'm part of a couple of Prattville Homeschooling "Yahoo Groups" from which I get a lot of e-mails of what's going on from other homeschooling families. One of the homeschooling mom's parents own a bunch of pecan trees that have produced an abundance of pecans this year. Amazingly, we got to have the fun and experience of picking pecans and keeping half of them for free! Yes, we did some of their work of picking pecans, but I'd say it worked out for both parties involved. We were very grateful to come away with 11 lbs of fresh pecans almost right off of the tree!

Why are the pecans more tasty when you have to go through the work of cracking and prying open the shell? Or maybe they just are more fresh than store bought and therefore better-tasting. Cami, any ideas?:0)

Pioneer Couple

This is at the bottom of the hill that the house is on...actually it is a ravine that has a hill on either side. We are not lacking in firewood!

Fall house pictures

Max and I have been very impressed with the fall around here. Not as vibrant as New England or some other areas of the country, but for being in the deep South, I think the colors are beautiful plus the fall is nice and long! Kansas and North Dakota, two other places we have lived, mostly just had yellow leaves. I believe it is due to the lack of trees in both Kansas and North Dakota and the abundance of trees in places like New England and the South East.

One thing Max has done that has made this place even more beautiful is thin out the trees in the backyard where we have the swings. There are still plenty of trees, but it looks a lot neater and more intentional. We can now see over to the other hill, which has a beautiful big oak tree on it. Now that it's fall we can look out the windows and see the different colored leaves as well as leaves falling with the breeze and it's just beautiful. Last night there was more wind than usual and some rain, so we about doubled the leaves that were on the ground and the deck over night. The only place we feel the need to clear the leaves away is on the porch and the deck. Acorns rain down all over too.

Sometimes is sounds as though an army of squirrels is attacking the house with acorns!

A four-wheelin' afternoon

Since Max made trails on the property we rent and there are other four-wheeler trails that we can get to from our back yard...miles and miles of them...we just had to get two four-wheelers so that we could 4-wheel as a family. I don't do anything too risky with Benaiah on my back, but I have gotten pretty good at riding, even on hills and slants (depending on the degree of slope). We went out this day to see some of the pretty fall colors...yes, there is quite a beautiful fall here in Prattville, AL.

Benaiah's catch...

...a Daddy Long-Leg spider. He was so proud of himself. He brought it to me smiling and I immediately said "go show Daddy! At least he didn't try to eat it.

Fall Festival (on Halloween night)

Benaiah was a lion and devoured his prey...I mean popcorn.

Sorry, I'm just now putting Halloween pics on my blog. I thought October would be my crazy month, but November has had some challenges of its own...which I may get into later.

Anyway, we've definitely had some great times too, like on Halloween night when our church did a fall festival. Our small group did a "trunk or treat" (I think that's what it is) booth, where trick or treaters can come through and get candy from the trunks of dressed-up cars and people at the church parking lot. Our "trunk" (the back of a pick-up) was decorated like a kitchen counter like in Veggie Tales...I dressed up as Laura Carrot and Max dressed up as a Cucumber who was one of the "Pirates that don't do anything". The kids did their own thing...can you guess what Gloria was...a princess! JB, a pirate, and Benny, a lion.

There were also games to play and inflatable bouncy things for the kids. It's part of the church's outreach to the community. Why stay totally away from Halloween, when maybe we can bring in some people to the church and show them Jesus' love?

More Butterfly Fun

She must be sweet!

Picture with the grandparents and a very wiggly Benaiah.

One of my favorite pictures of JB and Gloria.

Gloria's getting used to being landed on...

Mom, kids, big black butterfly and a leaf...