By Alena Mentink

12-26-16 to 1-1-16

Outside, the  temperature has steadily been dropping for the past week. The wind has a sharp sting to it, and despite layers of bundles, it is difficult to keep the cold at bay. But looking outside from our cozy, new house, the cold is kept outside, and we can look at the beautiful view without taking so much as a step outside our door.

On the day after Christmas, the boys were sent on a mission. That evening we were going to go to our grandparent’s house, so early in the afternoon, I was making a dessert. The only problem was that we were out of eggs. After a quick consultation with Mom, I ran up to the boys’ room. “Would you want to walk down to Grandpa and Grandma’s and get some eggs?” I asked them. Enthusiastically, they agreed, and soon they were on their way. It wasn’t a very long walk, since Grandpa and Grandma live on the same section as we do, so in the meantime, Annika, Asher, and I mixed up the other ingredients for the brownies. Annika and Asher were especially eager to lick the spoon at the end. It wasn’t long before the boys called Mom on one of the walkie talkies that they got for Christmas. As they walked to get eggs, they had checked Caleb’s traps and found that he had caught a coon. Soon, they returned with the eggs, and they were eager to tell everyone about the coon.

This year, it feels as if winter hasn’t arrived yet. Without snow, it seems as if fall is still here. But already Christmas is past, and we are moving into the new year. When a slight break came in between the cold spells last week, we once again began to stir outside of the house. Several years ago, when we first started homeschooling, we started a thirty minute recess program every day. Once a week, we take turns picking something to do for thirty minutes. Over the past week, Mom told us to go ahead and do it every day while the warm weather lasted. The first day, I chose to play Sardines; a game where one person hides and everyone else races to find him first. It was helpful having the boys’ walkie-talkies, because the “sardine”could take one of the walkie -talkies, and one of the “seekers”could take the other. Sometimes when our game gets spread clear across the pasture, the hardest thing is to find everyone to tell them that you are ready to be done. Usually “everyone” means Aiden, so as long as he gets one of the walkie talkies, it doesn’t matter who gets the other one.

The only trouble with the walkie talkies came when Aiden lost his in the pasture. He only had a vague idea of where it might have been, so Mom, Kailey, Caleb, Aiden, the babies, and I set off in search of the tiny device. We searched high and low through the dam run-off, through the trees, over the dam, but we couldn’t find it. Aiden had turned it off for some reason, so we did not have the option of calling it to find it. We had already romped through the pasture playing Cops and Robbers for almost an hour, so everyone was rather worn out. Since it had rained on Christmas day, the ground was a muddy mess in some spots. Finally, Mom called an end to the search. A cold front was sweeping into our area. Slowly, we trudged back across the dam. As the mud churned beneath our boots and the wind battered against us, a sudden shout came from Aiden. Kailey and I were straggling slightly behind everyone else, so we ran to catch up and find out what had happened, even though we were almost certain that we knew what it was. Mom had found his walkie talkie!  Never was the sight of that walkie talkie so welcome!

This year for New Years Eve, we decided to do something special. In the past, we have had a beach party, where everyone gets into swimming suits with beach towels, But this year, Mom wanted to do a crazy pajama party. A contest, with a five dollar prize, was held to see who could come up with the craziest, silliest, pajama outfit. Everyone created a costume, and some of them were very crazy. Dad was wearing his shirt backwards, and he put on two headbands and an apron. Mom did something strange to her hair; I’m really not sure what was all in it. She put a red band around her head, and clips, elastic bands, and an odd assortment of other things poked out of other places in her hair. Kailey did a high ponytail, it was almost to the front of her scalp, and she wore headbands around her neck, pulled out the pockets of her pants, and a couple other silly things. Caleb put a pair of underwear on top of his head, and he had socks that dangled down like puppy ears. Aiden wore his robe and a hat, and around it all, he clipped on clothespins until he looked like a young porcupine. Annika had a pair of pants on her head, and Asher was dressed in Caleb’s robe and wooden sword. I didn’t have anything very funny on, but I was comfortable. In the end, Kailey, Caleb, and Aiden tied because all of their costumes were so good.

As our Christmas season comes to a close here on the farm, we look forward to what 2017 will bring. As we look back on the changes that took place in 2016, we are deeply thankful to be at the point that those changes lead us to.