Updates from the Homestead

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In mid January we celebrated my son Jacob's 21st birthday! My 6th baby is growing up fast!! He is a great kid. Works a full time job faithfully and is incredibly responsible. I feel very blessed. His girlfriend, Julie (the sweetest girl in the world!! :), baked all the goodies. She made an eggnog cake with rum frosting, vodka soaked gummy bears and Kahlua balls. She went to a lot of effort to make the evening fun. I served all of Jacob's favorite foods... pizza, sushi, egg rolls.. and added some fruit in there.. LOL.. :) He had a few of his friends over as well. These boys have been friends with him since they were just little boys... I have many, many memories of all the boys hanging at my house. In fact one of his friends said to me.. This has always been the “fun” house to be at! Very sweet memories. Here are a few pics from our evening...

Jacob and Julie



This is a pic of Jacob (on the right) with his buddies...  and Isaac (back towards the photo)...  not taken at this bday(but about a week or so before) but I never got a lot really good pics of all of them on his bday...



My son Isaac is 16, almost 17 and currently enrolled in drivers education. He has been driving me everywhere. I joke with him and tell him how wonderful it is to be chauffeured around by such a handsome young man. He's a quick learner for sure and doing amazingly well. I have to say that teaching my kids to drive has never, ever, been my favorite thing to do. In fact I really don't like it all. But at this point I've taught 7 children to drive and am now almost done with #8. Since the first child, it has been a mental countdown for me. After the first.. I said.. 1 down, 7 to go!! And the countdown continued with each child... After Sierra got her license last March, I was feeling happy, as my count was 7 down, 1 to go!! And now I'm here. It looks like, if all goes according to plan, that I'll be doing a super big happy dance this spring... and will be proclaiming.. 8 down.. 0 to go!


Finally, my last update is on my daughter Leanne. She has had a few jobs since coming home from S. Korea and tried to figure out what she really wanted to do with her life. In the end, she said, she misses teaching and she misses S. Korea. She loved it there. She loved the people, the country, the culture, and so much more. Last fall she began the long paperwork process to prepare herself to go back. As with all things such as paperwork, it is a slow process. But it all finally came in. She immediately sent it all to her recruiter. The next day her recruiter contacted Leanne and said she had a job possibility for her. Two days later Leanne had a SKYPE interview with a private school in Seoul. Three hours after the interview she was contacted by her recruiter and told that the school wanted to hire her. She is thrilled and I'm very happy for her. As the paperwork process continues (Visa's and such) she is cleaning out her things, and preparing to pack. It looks like she will be heading back to S. Korea at the end of February. As a mama it is hard to see her go for another year. But, I'm thankful for the year plus that we've had together and the fact that she is heading back to do what she dearly loves doing.

This is a picture of Leanne and my grandgirls, Elizabeth and Rylee. She recently spent a day with Hannah and her nieces and nephew.



That's all the updates from the homestead for now!!



 


Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2015 at 6:54 AM

    Its hard letting go but its wonderful when they grow into such wonderful adults.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalFebruary 2, 2015 at 9:34 PM

      Agreed!!! it is bittersweet at times.. but always a huge blessing!

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2015 at 10:22 AM

    Hello Crystal, This morning as I made my weekend bread I thought of the website that I had originally gotten the recipe from. When my husband and I had not been married long we had a new baby and he was still in college. We decided that I would stay home while he worked and went to school. We lived on around 12,000 a year for years, while he attended more slowly than some and more babies came. During this time I would visit the family homestead and get recipes for homemade bread, learned how to cook homemade pizza, learned lots of bean recipes and other budget friendly meals that got use through some VERY tight years. That baby is now a wonderful 9 year old boy. We also have a 6 year old boy, a 4 year old boy and a 1 year old girl. My husband now has graduated several years ago and we live on considerably more money than we started out with. I have visited your site many times over the years. You helped me when we tried our hand at raising pigs. You are the reason I started a menu and got a Cosco membership. I thought about you this morning and went to your site and founf the link to here. I followed you on fb, but had noticed you had not posted in a while. I thought that now that you should know how much of a blessing you were to a young wife and mother starting out. Almost a decade later and your bread recipe is currently baking in my oven. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CrystalFebruary 2, 2015 at 9:34 PM

      This comment just made my day.. and blessed me in more ways than you could possible know.. thank you for sharing your story.. I always have desired to be a blessing.. and it is such a sweet encouragement to read this.. may God continue to bless you!! Thank you.. Love and hugs, Crystal...

      Delete

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