Our Family's Table Talk: 2012

God gave you to us, my sweet little boy. We are so thankful to have had you with us, even if it was for so short a time.

It was in August that I suspected I might be carrying you in my womb. Your dad and I were humbly over-joyed to get a positive test result since it had been so long since I had been pregnant. It was comforting to know that God had looked upon us with favor and blessed us with you. Every week that we had you, we counted it a blessing, being thankful for the time God gave you to us.

When you were 14 weeks old, we tried to find your heartbeat. I suspect that your soul had departed at this point, since there was no heartbeat to be found. After the ultrasound confirmed our worst fears, at 15 weeks, we knew that our time with you was over. Seeing your perfectly formed body on the ultrasound was such a precious gift to your dad and me. You were so cute, with your arms tucked in and your legs tucked up. We cried hard for you that day.

Our prayer was that you would be born whole. We wanted to witness God's handiwork. God answered our prayers, over 3 weeks later. It was a difficult wait, in which we sometimes questioned the direction we were to take, but kept resting in God's direction for us. On November 11, 2012, your body was born, sleeping. We studied every part of you. You were perfectly formed. We took pictures. We worshiped your creator. Psalm 139 "I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well."

Your days were short, but they were all fashioned by God. Although it hurts so much to let you go, we're so glad you came.

I love you, my sweet baby.

Mom

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, Slow to anger and great in mercy.
The Lord is good to all, And His tender mercies are over all His works. Psalm 145:8~9

We would like to give thanks to God for His guidance and grace to our family through these past two years of much learning and growing.

In February of 2011 our family moved to Idaho. The Lord provided a 20 acre piece of land in the country with a house and a few out buildings on it. It has a good well and a pretty view and a lot of privacy.

The house is 1,084 sq feet with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and had a tiny kitchen, living room, and entry/laundry room. It took a lot of creativity to figure out how to put a family of 10 in this house.

This was the 2 man kitchen we remodeled.

The bedroom floors had a few waves. The little boys thought it was pretty fun driving their cars over the "hills".

We spent the next 6 months in our camper while fixing up the house. We had to learn a lot about plumbing, electrical work, drywall, love, and were delighted to learn how many mistakes could be fixed with caulk and trim boards.

A layout of our yard before we got the office on it.

The demolition and transportation crew.

After pictures of the kitchen.

The living room before and after (or I guess it turned out after and before:))

We moved Dad's log office to Idaho with us.

Last year, Grandma moved to Florida and mom wanted to visit her so in October Jessica, Mom, and Daniel flew to FL for a week.

Daniel thought the planes were "so loud".

The three buckaroos- we were having our own fun at home!

By April 2012 things were greening up and soon we had 20 acres of weeds to deal with. Cows don't like poky weeds so we got goats. We knew almost nothing about goats and hence we have been learning about (and from) them ever since. Right now we have around 30 goats. We have pens 16 ft x 16 ft made out of ranch panels with a hutch and water bucket inside. We put 2-4 goats in each pen and move each pen daily to fresh feed. We have a rotating schedule so that everyone gets to do one week of either milking, moving pens, watering, or making breakfast and supper.

Our Idaho Quarter Horse?

Daniel and the twins bottle fed 3 baby goats this summer.

Grace was cleaning off the milking stand and got stuck!

Katrina milking a goat. We now milk in a trailer out in the pasture.

Our family also sold at the Farmers Market this year, something we've never done before. The Market started in May and we just finished up here in October. A family from church gave us a canopy and, although it takes effort to put up, it was a wonderful blessing to us. We sold whole wheat bread, rolls, buns, milk, yogurt, cheese, different kinds of quick breads, soap, kitchen towels, and small farm animals. It was a good way to get involved in the community and it helped us with our math,communication, and serving our customers.