“Marrying Well” Give-away

Here's the link to enter the free give-away:
http://raisinghomemakers.com/2011/marrying-well-give-away/

How do young people find each other and discern the Lord’s will for marriage, and how do parents shepherd their children through the process? While the Bible doesn’t offer a formula for getting to the altar, it has much to say about the character, vision, and love that make a marriage beautiful and powerful from the very first day.

To learn more and register, visit westernconservatory.com.

Fellowshipping with the Moyers

We so enjoy spending time with you ladies!

Rally for Marriage in Providence

The Morrisey's had invited anyone who wanted to, to come rally for Marriage in Providence because the bill was coming up whether or not to make gay marriage legal in Rhode Island so we decided to go support God's model for marriage in Rhode Island! Unfortunately, despite the many supporters of marriage, the bill did pass and homosexuality is now legal in Rhode Island. Christians, cry out to God for our country and our leaders!

We did enjoy another opportunity to see the Morriseys though!

Preach it Mr. Morrisey! :)

Mr. Morrisey and Jonathan

Stephanie and Tabitha, thanks to Mr. Morrisey and Jonathan for the picture

And at the end of the night, Mr. Morrisey collapsed in the nearest chair he could find, I think we wore him out! (JK, he posed for this picture) What a goofball! :)

Thanks for taking us for a tour Mr. Morrisey, we had so much fun with you guys!

Yard Work at the Fournier's

We went to go visit the Fournier's so that we could sew with them one day but we arrived and they were hard at work so we joined in the trimming, pruning etc.

Momma and Ruthie

Samuel

Later that day we sat down and crotched/knitted while listening to a CD from the SOS Conference.

That was one exhausting, fun day!

Maple Syrup and Goats

Seth trying out the first fruits our new juicer!

Dad and Stephanie playing with the goats and wondering if they really want to give them away

Even Mom was playing with them!

Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe and Sir Percival Blakeney, Baronet

This was our first year of tapping our sugar maples and what a year it was! We made just about every mistake there could be, we left one pot of sap out too long so it went bad, we boiled another too long so it turned into caramel candy (which Felicity and Chariti loved eating), and we even turned another pot of sap/syrup into ash by accidentally leaving  the stove on when we left for church one Sunday! We arrived home to find the house full of black smoke and the stove flashing all kinds of buttons at us!  Praise the Lord it didn't catch on fire!

Maple Syruping and Chickens

Boiling down sap, this syrup turned out very smokey flavored. It was only towards the end of the season that we figured out how to keep most of the smoke out so that we can actually taste the syrup instead of the *cough* smoke!

Our pretty little chicken, Caramel, nice and cozy in the hay.

The chickens and goats, socializing

Excuse me I would never socialize with the goats, I am far too fine of a chicken! 

Blackie, our snobby little chicken.

Farewell to Sir Percival Blakeney and Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe

After deciding that we would prefer to have a garden than goats we put the goats up on Craigs List and this man responded thus our goats are now happily settled somewhere in eastern Mass and our garden is once again growing vibrantly!

Lots of sap boiled down to get this bit of syrup, but how lovely it is to have that little bit that we made ourselves! The fruits of a laboring man are sweet!

February Ski Trip!

 Welcome to the blog post for Lighthouse Learning Center's 2nd Feb Ski Trip! 

With 215 attendees we had alot of people! It was a great experience and I'm so thankful for all the help Matthew Thomas gave!

Our family and the Morriseys!

Mr. Morrisey and his favorite cake decorator!

Aw! She looks so cute! She loved this little bunny hill, her day was spent in going up and down, up and down.

Trying my feet at snowboarding

whilst Allisandra tries her feet at skiing for the first time!

100 mph speeding down the treacherous mountain, over jumps and under ski lifts I race down reaching the bottom with a spray of snow just in time to pose for a picture......yeah....right...I must've dreamt that one.

Becky and Hannah :)

Stephanie and Elizabeth :)

Emily and Lilya

Night skiing! 

That was our Feb ski trip! 

School Work

Chariti Oakley working through math problems in her own special way.

"No boys, just girls"
These little girls are tough! Poor little guy :(
Still got a bit of training in the areas of gentleness and kindness...

Tabitha reading with Chariti, oh the joy of schoolwork! Chariti cares nothing for reading and would far prefer to be running around with her gun as she was in this post: Our Little Soldiers

Such a diligent boy! Drawing square after square ever so neatly! 

Well, ladies and gentlemen this is somewhat of what a normal Mello school day looks like, hope you enjoyed it!

Music

 
Just another winter school day, this time Hannah gets to join us! 
 

Biscoitos

Every winter we have a Portuguese tradition of having my grandmother (Mom's mom) come over and make Biscoitos (pronounced- bishkurts) with us. FYI, a Biscoito is Portuguese for biscuit but it's sweeter so it's more like a cookie.

Just because he's my handsome boy!

Work those muscles girls!With aunt Kimmy on skype.

Skyping with T-Kimmy from Texas!

We made 764 cookies, yes I counted every single one!

Three generations of Portugese women!

Ice Skating

Right on the side of our house we have a small plot of wetlands which turns to ice in the winter making a nice ice skating rink for the little people to learn to skate in. 

Yeh Chariti! You go girl!

Step by step he's learning to skate!

Our makeshift ice skating rink. :) 

Visit with the Pierce's

Hello  faithful followers! Due to MANY problems with blogger and a very busy 2 months of cake orders we have not been able to post. We will be posting a few pictures of what we've been doing since January and hopefully we'll catch up to July before the year is up ;)

Meanwhile this is all blogger will allow us to post today.
Enjoy!



These pictures are from a reunion with friends we've know for a long, long time!

Tyler

Rebecca

Playing stop, go and police!

The men