Mad Rush Before Christmas

Well. here is a couple looking for a home this Christmas. I'm not sure where they are going. Tell me what you think, Michelle, of the color and if it would qualify for an ETSY picture or not.

It is bitterly cold and icy outside. The kids are home from school. It is possible that they could miss the whole week, and I guess it is also possible they could get 2-3 days of school in. The roads are slick, it is dark and dreary, and nothing is melting.

Dana got a real job offer from the company he has been interning with. Josh is hopeful that he is transferring to another job with great potential. We'll know more on that later. Emma and Barrett are busy getting Christmas done and in the midst of it mourning the loss of their collie Nixie. My personal theory is she got into some rat poison from the description they gave and her activities. Nixie was a wonderful animal - not to be confused with some of the dopes we have around.

In case I don't get anything else on here before Christmas, I wish all of you the most joyful and also reverent blessings of the year. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world. He came to the earth in humble circumstances, lived a humble life, performed miracles, taught us how we should live and treat our fellow man. All goodness that is here on this earth stems from him. He suffered for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemanee and paid with pain that we cannot understand. He then suffered, an innocent on the cross and died, being resurected three days later, fulfilling the great task that was laid before him in the councils of heaven. With this small and abbreviated description (which does not do justice to him) I would encourage all who read this to take some time to recognize the great blessings we have, and worship our Saviour in whom all good things are made possible. To my children, I love all of you so much. Please be safe. Love, Mom (Vea)

The Kids Out East

Hey, this is Emma and Barrett. We are out in Maryland again for the winter. We are hoping that maybe we can figure out some way to hit Missouri for Christmas, but I'm not sure that it is very likely--we aren't the high-rollers that we look like (tee-hee!) We are back in the cottage called "the blueberry" and I am just ecstatic to be in a HOUSE. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy camping about and all that jazz (though, I always miss having an oven) it's just that it's getting cold and it is SO nice to have hot running water, solid walls, a place to set up my sewing and LEAVE it up, and yes an oven too. So, Natalie, the next time you feel like complaining about doing the dishes, just be happy that you don't have to first haul the water in a jug, set it up on saw-horses, and wash the dishes in the rain when there is ice floating in the dish water and the sponge is frozen solid. Hahaha, it sounds horrible, but when it was that cold, I just heated the water on the stove. Anyway, it was fun, but I am excited to be in a house.

Thanksgiving is all too soon for me. I hadn't realized that the holidays were not only close but HERE! Basically, I'm doing half the dinner and my mother-in-law is doing the other half; it makes everything so simple. There will only be the four of us, but that didn't stop me from making four pies...and a shepherd's pie...and I have extra pie crust--just in case. I am also in charge of the turkey (which came from whole foods), the cranberry relish (which I made with one of our 3 grinders--it turns out we didn't need to being another because we had packed 2 away; who knew?), and the hot punch. i feel like I am getting off all too easy this year, but I am thankful for in-laws who don't mind me using their kitchen as well as their groceries all the time. ...I think we are out of butter...

I started a blog, but no one should expect anything terribly exciting just yet. I have been pretty busy moving into a HOUSE and working on Christmas, and I imagine I will continue to work on Christmas till I can't wait till it's over with--so...don't expect too much just yet. I intend to have Beaver Rebellion cartoons, articles on why my brain works better than the average 20-year-olds', pictures of all the crazy stuff that I'm doing, including food, aprons, skirts, dolls, recipes, and whatever else I feel like! I just have to figure out this goofey blog stuff--it seems like I can't get anything to look right and I havn't even started. bleh! By the way, the address is:
www.beaverrebellion.blogspot.com

Anyway, Barrett and I are VERY happy, we canoe everyday accross the river to take care of our two crazy horses; I am making up for all the times I didn't have an oven this last summer and fall; we have internet access and like to hop on that crazy WoW game, we have access to the best thirft store I have ever been to, and Barrett is always happy to indulge me in all kinds of wacky clothing and house-wares (he bought me a child's book called "Kate and the Devil" because the girl on the front had long red hair and an apron full of stuff--it turned out to be a really good book; it was a quarter), we have a nice time visiting his folks who always seem happy to see us and have plenty of tasks for tall, strong sons and many pants that need to be hemmed by stubby daughter-in-laws. They don't even think I'm a mooch when I use all the Mrs. Myer's lavender laundry detergent. -gling!-

So, we love you all and hope to see you in the near future. We also want to remind you that any of my fam is welcome, incouraged, and anticipated to come out to Maryland, stay in a cottage right by the water and go canoeing, boating, thrifting, site-seeing, and whatever else to heart's content! I'm counting on Lynn's love of boats, Jill's affinity for thrift stores, Todd's dreams of becoming a trecherous pirate, and Mom and Dad selling their house, having wads of cash, and wanting to take a road trip to see their two favorite vagabond children. C'mon guys! I can see the water from this window! and THIS window! and this one, and this one, and this one, and....Oh, and THIS one!
...Barrett's parents are very curious to see where I came from and why I like sandwiches so much. So...let me think of some more insentive, and I'll get back to you all later!

--Lemons and Barrett

Sorry, I don't know how to arrange these pages. Does anybody give lessons?

This is Brynn, Ivy and Maggie.

OK, folks. Here are the belated pictures from our Utah trip. I didn't look at closeups, so for all I know I look like a dumpy cow with a dumb expression on my face. I had lots of other pictures, but so many of them were Michelles kids that (even tho they were cute) I decided not to post them because of my inability to see them closeup, cause I 'm a spaz on the computer and because Michelle has so many posted on recent spots already. I thought maybe the fam would like to see a picture of the parents of this crazy clan.

We were up in the mountains above Heber, and it was very beautiful up there. I wish we had had time to camp while we were there, but time was short.

Todd became the happiest person alive when he discovered a stream of cold water and he played and waded in it till his feet were like ice. That boy needs the outdoors.

The girls in the stroller were all holding wildflowers and they were so cute, but I don't think the camera caught the cuteness of it all.

Thanksgiving is in two days. We will miss our kids out west. We love you so much and wish we could be together. Hey, I just remembered we have a couple out east. I still have to get used to that. Emma, post something to this site if you can. We would love to hear from you and Barrett. We love and miss you also.

ALSO, we have someone interested in buying our place. Pray for us to be able to sell it. It is becoming very expedient, that we do so. There is no construction work. Even the Aulick family (whom most of you know) is shutting down.

Be thankful this week and always for life, family, good friends, for our Saviour Jesus Christ and the great plan of salvation. Be thankful that we live in a great land, and we are still free (at the moment). We are so thankful for our family and so pleased to call you ours. Every single one of you (and that always includes in-laws) are dear to us.

The Todd Show and the Washing Machine

These are the kind of pictures Todd will hate when he's older...but hey, that's what you get for trying to secretly climb into the washing machine....while half naked.
This is Todd yelling at me.

Being Brainwashed by Disney

This is not actually on the teacup ride. Tyler told me that when he went on that ride as a little kid, it always made him nautious, thus he selfishly robbed me and the kids of the opportunity to stand in line for 45 minutes to get onto swirling teapcups that would make US want to vomit.

This was a store totally devoted to The Nightmare Before Christmas. I love the outside of the shop, and would have to have a house that looked like this!

I couldn't remember this villain's name....it was sort of awkard, like when you see someone from high school and try to remember their name and fail miserably (only in this case, the guy didn't go to my high school...just many homely odd kids like him.)

This is Wall*E and us! After we took the picture, Todd turned around and gave Wall*E a kiss.

I just want everyone to know that while I'm writing this, Todd is standing behind me screaming and trying to repeatedly shove a battery powerered Black & Decker drill into my back. Anyway, here's us with Mickey. Does he look like he's gained some weight in recent years? Maybe it's just me.

Halloween in Fairview, and a slice of our working life.

(Hello, the family. It's Jill.)

I love Halloween. Part of the reason we've enjoyed hanging out with Renfest types so often is because everyone loves an excuse to dress up. Modern clothes can be cute and comfortable, but as for just killer STYLE, give me Victorian or Regency era any day. I'm a girl who wishes it was still required to wear hats when one leaves the house.

But Fairview is really killing my Halloween buzz. We didn't have plans for the big day, but made them fast when our first group of trick-or-treaters made an appearance. A group of punky fourteen to eighteen year old kids, without costumes, rang our doorbell and requested candy. One of them was actually SMOKING. Come on, kid. Unless you tell me you're Anthony Bourdain, no candy for you!

Just in case any of you were thinking of moving to Effing-view!

Now, some pics:
The little girls really love to get in there and "help" us sew and grommet bodices. They mostly like to lose my pins and bobbins, then drive Toby crazy by shoving grommet pieces in the way at maddeningly inappropriate times.

In this first picture, Maggie is singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Next, we see Ivy servicing the big sewing machine with a seam ripper and a point turner.

The ever elusive Barrett and Emma

Hey....pretty nice blog you've got going here...
Hahaha, anyway, The B and me are still kicking it old-school up here in Montana. We've had a really awesome time and seen many BEAUTIFUL places....but none to live in sadly enough. It is more or less the price; they want umpteen million dollars for some worthless ugly acreage that you couldn't hardly live on, and if you want something pretty (which there is much of)...I don't know, I guess it is just a little bit frustraiting that some punkerish Californian with more money than sense will swoop in, buy up thousands of acres of land, swing back out and only come to see it a few times a year and all the while making sure the price of property is ridiculously high.
NEVERTHELESS, we have truly had a fabulous time and have been treated like royalty by Barrett's many generous friends.

The rabbit is a nerdily-awesome as ever; it apparently can climb up steep mountains with boulders embedded in the road and somehow magically survive...but just BARELY. I'm sure it was sobbing oil ever inch of the way but even though the roads got progressively worse--rocky, steep, jagged, sitting-on -the-edge-of-a-cliff, etc.--it chugged along like a real trooper and is still packing us all over the country. Bless its little rodent heart, it somehow manages to contain Barrett, me, Nixie, a tent, two backpacks full of clothing, a tool box, a cooler, two milk crates: one full of food/equipment, the other oil, grease, and other car stuff, all kinds of bedding, dog food, dog dishes, dry goods, three big pairs of boots, a small set of bagpipes, leather working tools, and I don't even remember what else, but still more stuff! I'm sure most of it is due to expert packing by Barrett, but for a car that you could park on the bed of our truck, it does pretty well.

Anyway, we have all kinds of pictures, but I will just post them later...if you're lucky. We're having a super time and are looking forward to seeing everyone in Utah in...eh, 2 days or so. We still aren't sure what we are doing this winter, but we only have been offered a place to stay by everyone we know! Anyway, we love you all and hope to see you soon, or sooner or later, or sooner than later, or later....whichever works out.
BYE!

Apron I Made for Lucy's Apron Swap

OK, some people (ahem) publish all of their cool projects and activities on their blogs and I am always excited to see what they are doing. So, I wanted to show off my latest project. It seems like anything I make with black
always turns out good.

NOT, that I am trying to brag, but I just really liked this.





I love this paper pieced leaf pattern. It looks like a quaking aspen leaf......which reminds me that I need to publish a few pictures from our trip to Utah. So I will do that later.

Happy Halloween!!.......Really Early

Today, Brynn, The Todd Show, and I made Halloween cards. We all sat down and pulled out my paper and scissors, and Todd immediately procured the scissors and went for our couch. Brynn grabbed a marker and started drawing her goofy little faces that consist of two eyes and a dissatisfied line of a mouth.(To see these masterful work of art, see the little green monsters below.) Basically, that's all she draws these days, and when she wants to draw herself, she adds some swirls and scribbles all around the little face to depict her signature curls that all hairbrushes fear.
I yearn to imbed a desire to create in both of my children, and I let Todd keep cutting and Brynn keep drawing faces. Then, I had an idea! Perhaps we could use my kids' extraordinary talents to make some cards! Unfortunately, the only pictures I could think of for "Labor Day Cards" were somewhat sardonic and ironic, thus we skipped ahead a holiday. (I didn't think it would be quite appropriate to cut and draw a pregnant woman screaming profanity because labor sucks soooo bad. Labor day......yes, I know it's not celebrating us women who perform great physical feats, but it should be!!!! OH yeah, that's mother's day. How the crap did I get off on this tangeant? )
Brynn drews her little faces on green paper, and I cut around them to make globby little monsters, and Todd just kept opening and closing the blades of some very dull little craft scissors while I strategicaly placed pieces of paper between the blades. Thus, on the picture Todd is holding, there are random monsters with big awkward jaws. When Todd saw his picture, he kept pointing and growling, which is what he is doing in the picture up there. Anyhow, I think the result it quite charming and the children and I are thinking of starting a line of designer stationary adorned with goofy monsters.

The Amazing Maggie

Here is a reasonably good shot of the house. The pictures I took of Maggie were on the porch on the picnic table. This was a little girl's outfit I wanted to take a picture of and show Michelle. The pictures didn't turn out, so we edited them for light and then found she had the most delightful expressions on her face. I only wish I could say that she got her good looks from me.

We are contemplating a trip to Utah on Wednesday. It was up in the air and kind of a last minute thing. Jill keeps saying that she wants to see people while they are alive, and not just go to funerals. (The last time they went out was for Nile's funeral.) We will miss Dana and Corinne and Josh being out there as we loved hanging out with them. It would be a quick trip as school is starting next Thurs.

the

Kelly is holding Ivy on the porch.

Lynn and Emma visiting. The weather was perfect and I never thought we could pull it off.




A picture of our original family, Toby and Jill's family, and The Todd Show with his bubble machine. That wasn't actually at the party, but he looked so cute I put it on anyway.

Late pictures of our family and wedding party

Ok, I hope this isn't a big mistake. I uploaded this picture from a small one I could not see, so if you see a goofy look on someone's face........... After Barrett and Emma's open house we went inside and took a whole bunch of family pictures since it was the last time we were going to all be together. What a riot. It was late in the evening and we were all tired and not in the mood to take pictures.

These are our boys.

An Actual New Post from Mom

So, Michelle, this one is for you to look at and tell me what you think. Of course I will talk to you on the phone while you critique my project.

To all the rest of you.......stay tuned.

Toby and Jill's Kids! In a Pool!

Toby and my Dad finally got the pool cleaned up at my parents' house. Hollis is so proud because he is tall enough to touch the bottom, and Ivy is perfectly happy set adrift to paddle about on her own in a little float. Liv and Mag have new goggles, as you can see. You can also see Olivia's tonsils in that last one.

The promised pictures!

Hello from Maryland!  I finally coordinated being at a computer WITH the picture CD at the SAME time, if you can believe it!  Anyway, I hope you all can see what exactly is going on in these pictures; one of them I am just on the pier over by Barrett's parents' house (you can see the sailboats all docked across the way), another I am helping canoe across the river to go feed Grendle, another I am...can you guess?-- feeding Grendle, another, I am bopping around in the parents' kitchen (it is a pretty shot of my hair, the shirt that I tye-dyed, the back of one of my aprons, and the linen petal skirt that I made out of a tablecloth), another I am driving his dad's boat (his NEW one! Don't tell him!), and another where Pheobe, and I are marooned on this teenie island that you can only be on when the tide is low--Barrett paddled away to take that picture.  Unfortunately there are no pictures of Barrett, himself, just yet.  We went and say the beautiful cherry blossoms in Washington DC and there are pictures of BOTH of us together!  They were AMAZINGLY beautiful and DC was particularly pleasant at night!  Anyway, be patient and you can see those ones too!  

Barrett and Emmaline in Maryland!!!

Stay tuned and once Barrett or I get our acts together there will be pictures to see; thus far the organization has been lacking.   We are having a fabulous time here in MD, everybody has been generous and kind and we appreciate it greatly.  We (or really Barrett) have repainted and re-plumbed the kitchen--it looks FAR better than it did.  The plumbing is copper and looks so nice, I hope he does the rest of the plumbing in a more visible spot!  :)   

Next project is the bathroom!  the lanolium is pulling apart and I could have laid the rubber base better with my brains tied behind my back! (provided Dad would lend me his fancy-pansy tip for the caulk gun...)  

 

As I said....we DO have some pictures, but they are pretty much only of me on account of Barrett hating cameras even more than I do and also that Nixie doesn't know how to use the camera (yet).  Nevertheless......now that I have figured out how to get on this crazy gig and post something, maybe next time we will get some pictures in.  

Till then...

                                    --Barrett and Emma Taylor

Rough Saturday

Well, today has been tiring. Dad, I, Levi and Nat have been clearing woods, burning pasture and brush hogging the fields with our new tractor and brush hog.

Dad has also been under the house jacking up the sagging places and has replace the main beam going across the middle of the living room with some huge beams. That should take care of our sagging problems. Of course, we didn't do this all today, it has been in progress over the last few days. At the moment though, we are so exhausted that we can hardly move.

Thank you, Emma for unknowingly providing the picture for this post. I think it's a riot. Tyler and Michelle should be out here in a little over a week. Can't wait. .........................Mom

Crap Bodice!!!

HOLY FACE!!!! Guys, this is why I'm trying to change the world with my bodices. Most women look like THIS at the ren fests. We've all seen them, but I never imagined I could look that grotesque. I made this total crap bodice because I've seen so many of them that I know exactly how they work. It makes sense for people to make them, because there's only boning up the front, and it literally took me 10 minutes to cut and sew this. Wow, but it's soo nastay!!! I've never looked more flat-chested in my freaking life. Have a good laugh, friends!

Spats!

Okay, Mom, this is for you! These

are the faux boots I was talking about. I'm actually wearing some of Tyler's shoes, so if my feet look a little bit....that's the reason why! They were ridiculously easy to make. Seriously, another business here!!!!

New Season

Tomorrow, Tyler and Michelle will be heading to California for their first Ren Fest of the season. Spring is coming, and changes are taking place in several of our households. I love my family so much, I can't even put into words how I feel about them all. I pray for all of you every night, that you will all be protected from harm and that you will all be happy and successful in your worthy endeavors. I think about you, worry about you and hope that you would realize that I (we) would do anything I could to help you. I don't know what changes will come our way. If we can possibly sell the house (BIG worry there), I can't even tell you what we will be doing, except scrambling for a place to live.

It seems that the uncertain future in our own little world and in the bigger picture, ie. elections, rising prices, and storms of life and the elements are here to stay. Please be careful, do the things that are right, and pray for guidance and help from the Lord. Please also be grateful for all that you have and are. I am humbled when I think of all the Lord has blessed me with and am amazed at the talent and intelligence of my children (which includes spouses and grandchildren - no exceptions). I have a good husband. I have been blessed more than most people I know.


Be careful in your travels, in your work and in your schooling. Follow your gut instincts. If something seems wrong or uncomfortable, then it is wrong. If there is a nagging doubt in your mind about something, figure out what it is and take care of it. I can't tell you how many times I have made the mistake of ignoring those feelings and regretted it.

If you read this, know that I am being a mom at the moment, and these are my feelings I wanted to express. If you think I am being silly, then you aren't a parent yet.

I can't wait to see you all. Michelle and family will be here soonest and it will be wonderful when you are all here. I love you all.

Mom

Mom

Maggie

This is one of my favorite pics. Last year we were at a small ren fest in Baxter Springs and Maggie had fallen asleep on the ground. Several people stopped to look at her and I think a couple of people took pictures, too. It was the main picture on my computer for a long time. In case you are wondering, this is Vea talking.