A Year in Pictures...2013

This is one very, very long blog post with lots and lots of pictures!

I had little comments to add here and there, but for the most part it is just a year in pictures.  It's probably more than most people could sit and take in, but it was fun to look back on the year all together like this and I know of people who will love all the tons and tons of pictures of the children and all they are up to.  I wish we could visit in person together and you could snuggle one or two (or more!) up on your lap while we catch up a bit, but for now we are thankful for the internet to help us stay better connected.  Enjoy! :)

JANUARY

Welcome to our home Sweetiebelle.

Itty bitty baby calf!

Emily and her puppy, Jessie.

We spend the 12 Days of Christmas playing games with the children...one of our favorite times of the year!

Emily and one of her earlier creations she calls Kevin.

Emily's 14th birthday.

Sweet little puppydog!

Kezzy reading to Phoebe.

FEBRUARY

Ethan up on the barn roof doing some work to try to thwart the leaks and winds.

Our new gorilla shelving unit.  Our little gorillas thought these would make handy-dandy bunkbeds!!

Such a pretty bird in all the lovely snowiness.

The infamous picture.  There are just some pictures that cannot be untaken.  What was I thinking?!? 

Sweet Mimi Sugar!

Baron von Ethan.

Oh, the chub!  I miss all those rolls!!

Introducing Sweetiebelle to our bottle calf, Brisket.

Kelwynne's 3rd birthday!  Emily baked and decorated her cake.  Love the spaghetti face. :)  

Who could forget the calves in coats??  Hey, they survived the winter (and our ignorance).  And we survived our crash course in scours and pneumonia.

MARCH

Steve and I enjoyed shopping together and picking out all the flannel prints we liked and I sewed them all into a crazy, cozy rag quilt for Samuel.

Omi Bear and her favorite stuffed animal, Cinnamon Bunny.

The first glimpse of Spring!  Cheerful crocuses.

St. Patrick's Day and our traditional Blarney Stone cake.

The adorable, precious Princess Keziah.

Such beautiful, striking eyes Naomi has!

Looking for flower fairies in the Hyacinths.

All dressed up for Easter Sunday.  (Snort!)  We didn't have a church yet so we stayed home and celebrated together just as we were.

Steve lined the kids up stair-stack so I could take a photo of them.

I tried to be quick but the sunshine was faster and we have to laugh at this photo.

The sweet freshness of Spring in my precious children.

The stomach flu hit all of the children but didn't dampen their cheerful spirits.

What a cutie-pie!

Molly and her beautiful, bright blue eyes.

Kelwynne longing to play outdoors.

Ethan used his hanky to make Samuel into a pirate...arrr, matie!

Naomi's 6th birthday.  Emily also baked and decorated these sweet treats.

APRIL

Playing blocks with Daddy.

Bacon makes everything better!

Miriam's 9th birthday.

MAY

Jacob's 21st birthday.

Naomi the monkey waaaay up the fireman's pole.

A photo Emily snapped of the beauty of a sunset.  We took sooo many sunset pictures this past year.

Tired out after a long day of playing hard, safe and snug in Daddy's arms.

Another sunset with radiant beams of sunlight streaming through the clouds.

Mother's Day picnic.

Samuel the budding artist. :)

A visit from the cousins from Colorado.

The best of buddies.

Two peas in a pod.

Group shot. :)

A glorious, fiery sunset after a tornado storm had spent itself.

Weary after a day of packing for the big move.

The children playing in the horse trailer we borrowed to help us move.

Kelwynne having a snack in the empty rooms before we cleaned and left.

Moving day!

JUNE

Airing out a quilt that the tornado storm rains soaked even though it was still packed in the moving truck - it was such a violent storm.

Our new home, barn and machine shed.

Getting the pepper plants safely in the ground.

Roses line the fence separating one of the pastures from the yard.

The waving hay field ready to be cut.

Ethan putting up shelves for me in the pantry.

Cut and ready for baling.

Picking up the bales and transporting them to the barn...the hard way.

The tiger tamer for the Father's Day Circus.

We made that mustache go for days of laughs.

Samuel enjoying some time playing with Jordy.

Summer home school.

The super moon.

Summer fun with the slip n' slide.

Samuel modeling a bib I sewed to sell.  

Noah's 8th birthday.  

Noah enjoying the rain with style.

Ethan making Lucy jump higher and higher.

JULY

After Jacob walked into the house and announced in a dazed voice that he fell through the barn loft floor, Steve did what any caring father would do...yelled, "Get the camera!".

He fell through here and landed on the concrete floor of the dairy barn beneath.

Daddy playing in the pool with the children enjoying the cool water from our well.

Ready for an adventure together with Daddy searching for blackberries.  Such a crazy crew.  Oh, how I love these dear souls!

Mowing in the hot sun with a sunburn like a true princess.

Another lovely Missouri sunset.

Emily displaying the Corbaci peppers we grew.

My three musketeers picking blackberries together.

AUGUST

Some pills we had to figure out how to get down Sweetiebelle's throat.

Success!

Cheeeese!!  He is SOOOO irresistable!

Sweet Samuel and his charming dimple.

Noah who is growing up far too quickly.

Sunshiney Omi Bear.

Yes, you, little sweetie!  Give me a hug! :)

Kelwynne outdoors enjoying a beautiful morning in her nightgown.

Noah stirring the pickle relish he and Miriam made together all on their own.

SEPTEMBER

 Emily posing in front of the Crepe Mertle tree.

 My new haircut.

 Shhhh, we're having a secret adventure!

Emily's sunflowers.

 Jacob escaping the heat with a bit of programming.

 Jordy joining him with some light reading in Sun Tsu's Art of War.

 Kelwynne holding up one of the Dragon's Egg cucumbers Emily grew.

Surely we have the cutest children in the world!!

 Jacob contemplating the crawdads at Green Springs, just up the road from our house.

 Another beautiful moon.

I couldn't resist snapping this one.  Noah often has his hat on his head and something hanging out of his mouth "like a farmer".

Look out, Fall Festival 2013, here come the Hakelings!

Miriam and Noah and their 1st place for their pickle relish.

 Emily's grand 1st place for her drawing.

 Molly's 1st place for her pastel drawing.

 Jacob's 2nd place for his Jalepeno peppers.

Emily's three 1st places for each variety (in different categories) of cucumbers she grew.

 Noah and his 2nd place for his little hand sewn Perry the Platypus toy.

 Noah's 2nd place for the crocheted Cactus Dragon toy.

 Molly's 2nd place for the crocheted belt.

Molly's 3rd place for her hand sewn purse.

 Jacob's 1st place for his homemade bread.

Emily's 1st place for her plushie.

Emily and her baby chicks.

 Noah getting his 1st place trophy for the talent show.

 My 1st place ribbon for Samuel's rag quilt.

My 1st place ribbon for the bib.

 Molly's grand first place for her wildflower bouquet.

 Miriam's honorable mention for her wildflower bouquet.

 Noah's honorable mention for his wildflower bouquet.

Naomi's 3rd place for her wildflower bouquet.

 Kezzy's honorable mention for her wildflower bouquet.

 Emily's 2nd place for her wildflower bouquet.  (Believe it or not, we still had plenty of wildflowers left on our property after the children entered all of their bouquets!)

 Naomi and her grand first place for her mums.

Emily and her grand first place for her marigolds.

 Emily's grand first place for her zinnias.

 My 3rd place for my banana peppers.

 My 3rd place for my red peppers.

Emily's 1st place for her Dr. Who rag doll.

The kids all dressed up for the hillbilly costume contest.

 Naomi and Kezzy racing around the barrel in the stickhorse race.

 Emily racing for the finish line (barefoot, no less) in her stickhorse race.

Playing my violin in concert with the sunset.

 Ethan and Emily caught a turtle and painted him/her? with flames for the turtle race.

 Even Samuel took a prize home, 1st place in the cutest baby contest!

 Lovely misty fog hanging over the hay field early one morning.

Making applesauce!

 Samuel's 1st birthday.  Fire mesmerizes him!

 Walnut season begins!

Barn cats get a lot of lovin' around our farm!

OCTOBER

Walnuts!

 Girlfriend the Jersey milk cow comes to live with us.  We had to drag her off of the trailer!

 Attempting to entice her to get up for some scrumptious grain.  It didn't work.

 Come on, Girlfriend!  Get up!!

 Pulling!

More pulling and pushing!

Finally she just completely laid down.  "Oh, my life is over!"

 Oh, the drama!  Rolling eyes and everything!

 We thought bringing Brisket over might pique her interest and bring some spark of life and reason for living back to her.

No such luck.  She even closed her eyes and was either napping or dead.

 We did everything we could late into the night to try to get her up off the ground to no avail!  We were afraid she fell and broke a hip, but after managing somehow to turn her around so she wasn't lying downhill, we left some food and water out for her and went to bed.

 Her little tantrum over, we found her standing in the early morning and more than ready to be milked by people who had no idea what they were doing!  Steve washed her up.

I took a turn trying my hand at milking her.

 I'm doing it!!  Ziiiing!

Gentle cow, so patient with us.

Emily and Ethan work together.

Such a gentle creature.  She stood out in the pasture for over 2 hours while we finally got her milked.

 Our very own milk in our old gallon milk jugs that we've been buying raw milk in for more than a decade.  Satisfaction!

Ethan's 13th birthday.

 The milking parlor is all cleaned up and we are milking like pros now.

 Barefoot pros!

 Fancy Kezzy and her dolly.

The beauty of the changing leaves.

 Emily caught a frog one evening!

What happens if she kisses him?

Hmmm, still a frog.

 Emily and Jordy turned this old round haybale feeder into a chicken tractor for her little chicks.

Playing with her chicks.

 Her first egg!

 Playing with my food.  This is curds and whey.

 Homemade cottage cheese. Squeak!

Homemade farmer's cheese.  This kind is garlic and herb.  Yum!

Emily was taking our portrait for our Etsy shop and we didn't know she was taking the picture.  Jordy thinks we look very hip and cool.  I think we look bored.

Mom and Dad in front of the barn and our wicket-gate.

NOVEMBER

 Playing in the leaves!

 Determined to do it all by herself.

 Happy days in the beautiful sunny fall weather together.

Emily's dog Jessie managed to work her way into the chicken tractor and killed 4 of Emily's chickens.  She bought 4 hens and a lovely rooster from a neighbor and she and Jordy built this grand hen house and run out of free lumber scraps and things we had on hand.  Didn't they do a GREAT JOB?!

 The back opens up so you can reach in and retrieve eggs from the nesting boxes.

 Or just peek at the funny chickens.  Lola is such a character!  "What are you looking at?!"

 Happy, happy chickens snug and cozy in their lovingly built house.

 This is Sir Richard the rooster.  He is a hoot to watch!

Kelwynne playing with Frodo, the last surviving pullet of the original 5 chicks she got back in September.  She is a Black Jersey Giant and is Emily's special pet.  She sits on her shoulder and follows her around and "talks" to her.

This is the wonderful piano we were given by a generous and kind gentleman who fell in love with our children and was so very thoughtful as to provide this grand gift for them.

 Molly's cornicopia for our Thanksgiving table.

Cozy blanket times in front of the fire.

DECEMBER

 Decorating the Christmas tree!

 We all work together every year to make a real popcorn chain while we listen to an audio version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

 Pairing olders with youngers...

 ...making memories together.

 Lucy found a warm spot to doze in just in front of the dryer vent.  Smart doggie!

 Happy cows snuzzling up together.

 Ethan as Joseph in the church Christmas program.

An unwelcome Christmas guest...a stomach virus.

 An ice storm turned the world all sparkly as if made of glass.

 So very beautiful!

 No hanging out laundry today!

Piggies!!

 Everyone watching our new future food source and laughing at their antics.

 Ethan, assistant pig boy.

 Samuel likes the piggies!

We are hoping to put the pigs to work for us rehabilitating this out of shape pasture behind our barn.  There is lots of work to be done still but we hope to get it under control with their help.

So much has happened all in one year!  So much to be thankful for!  Everyone has grown so much and the days just fly by, don't they?  I wonder what next year will bring? :)