Some Things I Love About Christmas, by Joy

Now that it is Christmas, I would like to share with you some of my favorite things about Christmas.

• I love the smells of Christmas. Smells of hot cocoa and hot cider. Smells of chocolate just beginning to harden, and cinnamon wafting through the house.


• I love the feel of Christmas. While everything outside is cold, inside everything is warm and everyone is full of good cheer.


• I love the memories of Christmas. Memories of getting together with family and sharing the season. Memories of going caroling with the church in Bristol, VA.


• I love the tastes of Christmas. Chocolate covered Oreos, peanut butter balls, cheese straws. I could go on and on.


• I love the sights of Christmas. Wreaths on the windows, candles in the windows, Christmas trees in the windows...are you sensing a pattern here? I also love our nativity scene.


• I love the spirit of Christmas. The spirit of giving and not receiving. Although we receive gifts too! And I'm not saying I mind!


• I love the sounds of Christmas. Carols, Christmas piano recitals, Christmas wishes, laughter, Salvation Army bells. Christmas sounds are so pretty.


• I love the true meaning of Christmas. I love that Jesus came to earth as a little baby, born in a stable in Bethlehem. I love that it's CHRISTmas.
  

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Joy

Kittens!!!! (and roosters)

We have kittens! This morning Daddy fed the chickens and cats, and when he came inside he told us we have kittens! We have three black ones, and two black and white ones. That's the same as last time. Exactly.

Today we went to Brownsville and visited all the family there. George, Anna, and Delie are still there. George went with Big George to "The Farm" , the family hunting farm, to take care of things there.

And that brings me to the roosters. I love chickens. In general. But I'm a little, well, scared of the roosters. Needless to say, I was glad when we killed six of the roosters in September. But we still have three more. Samuel and I went out there today to see if there were any eggs. We got three and were walking hand in hand back to the house when one of the roosters attacked Samuel. Well, it pecked him and flapped his wings and jumped. I picked up Samuel (we were both screaming) and we ran to the house. Oh, and tonight I am making rooster pot pie. Samuel says it will make him feel better. I hope so.

Joy

Moore pictures

Yay! I finally got the pictures up. Thank you Daddy and Aunt Renie (http://mosshouse.blogspot.com/)


On the front porch. Front row: George, Samuel, Dobson, Daylie, Dandle. Second row: Daddy, Delie, Anna, Dain. Third row: Mommy, Me (Joy) , Thomas, Dane', Delane, Darbie. Back row: Delight, Uncle Shane, Demie, Aunt Edee.

Darbie riding the Zip Line.

( Left to right) George, Dain, and Darbie on the Trampoline.

Demie and Dane' playing the dulcimer and guitar.

We caught two frogs. They both died, so we had a funeral.

Christening pictures are on Aunt Emily's blog (http://jamiecarpenterfamily.blogspot.com/)

Joy

Catching up (by Joy)

Hello Everybody,
Sorry we haven't blogged in so long. In the past couple of months:

>Anna won the pie contest. Toll House pie, yum!

>I went to a math conference with Daddy in Clarksville, TN.

>Our chickens are laying. Oh, and we (well, mostly Daddy) killed 6 of our roosters. We ate them.

>Our cat Maggie is pregnant again.

>Our dear friends, the Moores, came from Virginia and stayed 5 days. We had 19 people here.

>My cousin Amy was christened, and her older sister Martha had her third birthday.

I hope to add pictures, but Daddy hasn't taught me how yet. Hope to be back soon.

Joy

Mmmm, blueberry pie

We love blueberries, and we planted 15 blueberry bushes this spring. We won't be getting lots of berries from them for another year or two. We've only gotten about 20 blueberries this year! That didn't go very far in our family.

Last week we went to Beverly's aunt's farm to pick blueberries. They planted 200 bushes many, many years ago, and they produce huge quantities of blueberries. We left here about 6:00 so that we could pick early since it's been so hot. Everyone except Thomas had an ice cream bucket - Thomas fell asleep on the way there, and we let him sleep as long as he could. George picked almost a whole gallon, and Samuel added the few berries that he hadn't eaten, so the boys picked a gallon together. Anna and Delie each picked a gallon. Joy picked two gallons. And Beverly and I each picked a little over two gallons, so that we came home with about 10 gallons of blueberries in about 2 hours of picking!

We had blueberry pancakes for supper that night, and we froze the rest of the berries. Last night Joy made a blueberry pie. There's a pie baking contest at an upcoming homeschool picnic, and all the girls are planning to enter, so we get to enjoy them perfecting their pies until then. Joy's pie was delicious. As you can see, Thomas really enjoyed it too.

Farm Life (by Joy)

We have had a very busy week. Our neighbor, Mr. Billy Joe had somebody bale our hay. We counted 37 bales.Each bale weighed about 1,600 pounds! That is not a misprint.We gave Mr. Billy Joe 70% of it.We went out after supper and got some cute pictures sitting on the hay bales.We all wore our Moss Beach Reunion 2008 T-shirts that we got at Gulf Shores, AL.


That same day Mr. Billy Joe brought us 27 chicks to keep! They were 3 or 4 days old.There are 2 blacks, 2 brown speckled, 1 golden,and 21 yellow chicks. One chick died. Boo hoo! We buried it.



Poor Amos,he must feel left out. Maggie, our cat is having kittens in 2 weeks. She is soooooo fat.



Our garden is coming along great. And I (Joy) have 5 kinds of herbs,Lavender,German Chamomile,Mint,Basil, and Dill. Thomas likes to play in this bucket of water while we work in the garden. Got2GO!

Hello, again

My sister, Emily, just started a blog, and my sister-in-law, Renie, keeps us informed through her blog. Renie said it was time for us to update our blog. I guess if our most recent post is from a five-year-old three months ago, then it's hard to argue.

We've had a great spring. Maybe I'll write more sometime to fill in the details. But maybe not. Here's a recent picture taken after the girls' ballet recital. They performed an adaptation of "The Velveteen Rabbit." Delie was the child who loved the rabbit, Joy was her mother, Anna was a shopper at the toy store, and even George got into the show as Delie's brother. My niece, Elizabeth, was a bunny. Everyone did a great job.

george iv's post

this is my sweet family: joy 10 delie 9 anna 7 samuel 2 thomas 10 months daddy 35 mommy 36 and amos our dog we have a farm it is so fun
BY GEORGE 5

Tornadoes

Our family made it through another tornado warning just fine yesterday, although others in the area were hit hard. We're getting used to the warnings, although it's a little cramped trying to fit the 8 of us into the bathroom. It really wasn't as bad as it might sound - we took the radio so we could listen for updates but kept the volume really low, and I read a couple of chapters aloud from a book we've been reading together.

We were actually out trying to vote when the weather started getting bad. This was the first election since we moved last year, so we didn't really know where the polling place was (a rural fire station), and we spent more time driving around on lonely country roads than we planned to. The rain really hit while we were voting, and the sky was incredibly dark as we drove home. Beverly and I were praying quietly but fervently, and I imagine some of the children were too. Looking out across the fields, I expected to see a funnel cloud but never did.

As we pulled into the driveway, they put our county under a tornado warning (meaning a tornado had been spotted nearby). It was such a relief to be home. We ate supper quickly and then went to the bathroom for our read-aloud time.

I drove past some of the destruction on my way to work today. It's hard to describe how bad things look, but I guess most people have seen the pictures on the news, so you know what it looks like. The assisted living home where Beverly's grandmother lived for a couple of years had significant damage. The wing where Grandmother lived had the roof torn off and one of the walls was gone. I feel so sorry for all of those elderly residents who lost what little they had left. Union University (Lambuth's cross-town rival) had a dorm destroyed and other severe damage. I still find it amazing that no one was killed there. Rather than protecting them from the storm, I guess God was with them through the storm.

Spelling Bee

The local homeschool group had a spelling bee today. The real competition goes through 8th grade, but they also have a competition for students in grades K-3 to allow the younger ones to get some experience. All three of our girls participated and did great. Delie won first and Anna won second in the K-3 age group! And Joy lasted about 10 rounds, making it to the final 8 contestants - that's great since she's only in 5th grade.


Beverly has been "practicing" with the children at home for the past week so that they would be prepared for the bee. She also had George and Samuel practicing with the girls. George is in kindergarten and just learning to read, but he can spell quite a few 3- and 4-letter words. Samuel is just 2, so he doesn't have any idea how to spell, but he liked practicing. Beverly would say, "Samuel, spell chocolate." Samuel would reply, "Chocolate. B-L-D-G. Chocolate." And everyone would tell him how good he did. At the bee today, the announcer was giving the rules very seriously at the beginning, and Samuel got a horrible expression on his face and said, "I don't want to be in the spelling bee!" He thought he was actually going to be in the bee! How cute.

The girls and George are all excited about being in the bee next year. Encouraged by her victory, Delie says she's ready to start preparing for next year when she'll be competing against the older children. Joy, excited that she did so well but exhausted by the competition, asked if she could have the rest of the week off from spelling.

Mama Em's Party

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I've updated the blog. A lot has happened, and I may write about Christmas and other happenings in the next week or two. My parents gave us a digital camera for Christmas, so it's much easier to add pictures to the blog now. Here are some pictures from this weekend.

My grandmother - everyone calls her Mama Em - had her 85th birthday this weekend. The whole family went to Montgomery Bell State Park outside of Nashville to celebrate. We all stayed in the inn there, and we had a great time. The weather was nice enough that we had a picnic and hiked a little on Saturday. Here the boys are walking through a stream with Uncle Roy.

Mama Em held Thomas while we were in the woods.

Then we had a big party Saturday night. The highlight was playing "This is Your Life." We all dressed us and pretended to be people from Mama Em's life, and she had to guess who we were. Then she told us funny stories about the people. It was hilarious.

The two-year-old cousins got tired of that and went off to play their own games.