First Day of School

Friday the boys had their first day of school.

Connor is a freshman this year.

Really hard to believe this is Nolan's senior year.

To commemorate, I'm sharing all of his first day of school pictures.

Preschool

He went to the Lutheran preschool in Rensselaer.

Kindergarten.

Monnett Elementary, Mrs. Tonner

1st grade

Monnett Elementary, Mrs. Tonner.

2nd grade

homeschool

3rd grade

homeschool

4th grade

homeschool

5th grade

homeschool

6th grade

homeschool

7th grade

homeschool

8th grade

homeschool

9th grade

homeschool

10th grade

Tri-County Junior Senior High School

11th grade

Tri-County Junior Senior High School

12th grade

Tri-County Junior Senior High School

Preschool and senior year.

Wow.

None Whatsoever

So all week I have been reading posts on Facebook about people going to their local feed stores for feed and leaving with ducklings. Every post made me chuckle. I was joking all week to Dwayne about needing feed. At the time we didn't need duck feed but we did need dog food. :) The store that we buy our dog food from happened to be stocked with little critters. We didn't know this until we walked in and heard the cheeping and peeping.

Uh oh.

I knew we were done as soon as we heard the peeps.

We have no willpower against ducklings.

None whatsoever.

Seriously, what duck owner can resist this bin full of cute little fuzzy, peeping ducklings?

Certainly not us.

Dwayne looked at me with a goofy grin and told me to do "whatever seemed right to me" and

left for another part of the store.

I mean the man disappeared. I briefly looked for him but couldn't find him.

He left me standing there with two boys begging me to get some ducklings.

Yes, the almost 13 year old and almost 16 year old were literally begging.

What was I supposed to do? No was not an option at this point.

I truly think this was Dwayne's plan all along.

His brilliant idea had me as the fall guy for buying ducklings.

Maybe it's the dog's fault for eating all her dog food!

I'm still blaming Dwayne ;)

(Where was Dwayne you ask? He was off looking for the

bedding we would need to bring home ducklings.)

The innocent box I had seen over and over again on Facebook by duck owners getting "feed".

We did remember the dog food.

So we justified buying two more ducks.
Willpower? No.
Restraint? Maybe, we only bought two!

Besides, we have four growing in the incubator. 

In case you're wondering...and I know you are.

They are Khaki Campbells.

We've named them Hardrock and Coco.

We're really hoping both are hens.

Although we wouldn't mind if one is a drake.

Our total critter count:

7 chicken hens

13 ducks (2 Pekin, 3 Khaki Campbells, 8 Indian Runners)

4 ducks in the incubator

Oh, and one crazy dog.

And possibly one or two crazy duck people... OK maybe four.

Mini Snowstorm

Over the weekend we had a mini snowstorm.

If we have to have a snowstorm that's the kind to have.

Almost all of our snow had melted away in the previous days.

Saturday afternoon it started snowing giant flakes.

It kept snowing.

And snowing.

The next thing we new the ground was covered.

And it kept snowing.

And snowing some more.

By the time it was done we had a good three inches.

It was incredibly beautiful.

The best part about it was that our forecast was for the middle 40's the next day.

Haha snow, you're short lived.

This was taken at 3.

This was taken at 4:40.

Connor's snow pillar.

It morphed into several different things.

I think it started as a snowman.

Everything was caked with snow.

Ducks don't mind the snow at all.

In fact a few times this winter we have seen them trying to take a bath in the snow.

It's quite funny to watch.

I think they were expecting some peas.

We took the dog for a walk in the woods.

She was so excited.

I'm not sure who ran around more, Connor or Pepper.

The camera never does this kind of snow any justice.

There was no wind.

Giant snowflakes kept coming down.

Occasionally chunks of snow would fall from a tree.

I'm really hoping this was the last big snow...but I know it's probably not.

It seems like there's always some kind of snowstorm the first week of March.

We'll see.

Plugging Away

Not much going on around here.

We are enjoying a reprieve from the deep freeze.

It's nice to have temps above freezing even if it's for only a short time.

We got a pool out for the ducks to enjoy until it gets too cold again.

I recently finished sewing all the rows together for the jean quilt.

We threw it on the bed to check out the size.

We thought it needed one more row for the length.

I quickly added a row after this photo was taken.

I finally decided on this newsprint fabric for the border.

I have all the strips cut.

Now they need pressed and sewn to the quilt.

I'm hoping I can sew them early this week so I can have it basted soon.

This quilt is getting really close to a finish!

I'd like to have it done soon so we can use it.

It's a heavy quilt that's perfect for winter... and I know we're not done with the coldness yet.

Before the snow melted away Connor made this really cool bear head snow sculpture.

He did an amazing job.

Speaking of great jobs our boys recently got their first semester grades.

Between the two of them they got all A's and one B!

We're a little proud of them. ;)

Quilt Quack 7

It's time for another installment of the Quilt Quack Chronicles.

It's been a while.

The temperatures finally warmed up enough to enjoy the snow.

They were wrestling and she stopped to lean on Dwayne.

She was eagerly waiting for more.

Silly dog.

And since the temps were around the freezing mark we drug out the hose and the pool.

The ducks were actually afraid of the pool at first. How quickly they forget!

Once one of them figured it out and then there was a line to get in.

At one point there were five ducks in that turtle sand box.

It was quite the pool party.

The water was very dirty when they were done.

 ____________________________________________________________________________

On to quilting!

I got my blue jean quilt back out.

I started it last year and put it on the back burner.

I did that because I knew the size was going to change.

I ended up resizing the quilt in my quilting software.

It made it so much easier to do.

I needed to add sashing to 224 squares.

I chain pieced them.

That means you sew one right after the other without cutting threads.

It saves time and thread.

Chain piecing also means that they need to be cut apart.

Luckily I had some eager volunteers!

One of the many things I've learned while piecing this quilt is that it is messy.

There are a bazillion little white threads all over the living room from the jeans.

They stick to me too.

I look like I've been shredding jeans.

It's a small price to pay to quilt using old jeans.

 I have all my rows sewn together and sashing along each row as well.

The next step is to start sewing the rows together.

Can't wait to have this one done!

Christmas

We had a very nice Christmas this year. Low key just how we like it.

We had a beautiful snowfall perfect for Christmas morning.

(Pretty time is over, the snow can leave now...)

We had a great visit with my mom.

We were thankful the snow stayed away until after our visit.

It was nice of the snow to do that.

It's not the greatest picture but it's Pepper on her new warming blanket.

We moved it to her doghouse the next morning.

For Christmas morning I made Grandma Schultz's cinnamon rolls.

I finally got them right!

Someone was excited to get Jim Carrey's Christmas Carol.

Oh look, more books on writing.

We also got him a book on writing fight scenes.

You need something to use those weapons for...

That would be Connor's itty bitty flash light that is from his new knife.

And yes, there's a stuffed duckling stuck beside his face.

I took the boys roller skating.

I brought along my hand quilting project to do in the snack area.

As much as I love quilting, I would have loved to have skated with the boys.

My foot is slowly returning to normal... very slowly.

Someday I'll be able to put my skates on again.

Sorry for the fuzzy picture.

He was squatting not falling.

The last several years the boys have not exchanged gifts with their cousins.

We have done an activity instead.

This year we went bowling and had a blast.

OK, I watched and the rest bowled but it was still fun.

Spare!

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It was a nice several days with food, family, and play time. I was hoping I would escape this holiday season without having a major mourning moment. I made it all the way to the evening before Christmas Eve. Then I fell apart for a short time that lingered into Sunday morning worship. I had a couple of sad moments before then but not the onslaught of tears like this time around. I'm pretty sure it was the predicted snowfall that triggered memories with my dad on Christmas Eve. I should have expected it. It's part of life. It's good to have good memories of a missed Papa.