Fires

We decided after Christmas we were going to try and have fires more regularly.  Casey collects scraps for fire starting, and we did good for the first few weeks, but then the rains came and we haven't been as consistent.  It's not really warm yet either, which is okay if the fire is hot enough.  It's been fun, and we've enjoyed our fire nights.

It's also that time of year when Casey likes to trim limbs and burn, so we've had yard work going on as well and pit fires, which are Casey's favorite days!

Even though the field is bare, there are still a few cotton plants left over from last season.  It makes me want spring and warmer weather to come quickly.  I miss the beauty of all of the colors!  I'm counting down....

Happy Valentines to my Valentine!

Here's a few fun throwbacks of my Valentine and I at different stages in our lives.  So thankful life brought us together and we could enjoy so many adventures💗

Self-Portrait

We found several of Ryan's old art that we want to frame.  I told Ryan to pose for this one, and he decided he'd try and match his own self portrait he made back in the day😂💗

Kaitlyn painted a portrait for Casey this year for Christmas of his childhood farmhouse he grew up in.  It was such a cool gift.  The year before she painted a portrait 

of our current homestead. 

 We love our artists💕

Merry Christmas 2020

It's been a couple of months, and life has been busy and crazy (still), but we sure enjoyed our Christmas with everyone home for a couple weeks.  We played it safe and people were tested and we were basically home bound, other than grocery shopping and a few errand running days.  Casey had a few (big) tree limbs he wanted to cut down, so it was nice to have some help for him to get that all done and (of course) he burned. Merry Christmas to Casey!

Ryan and Josh thought the sap smelled sweet, so they decided to taste it.  It didn't taste sweet - lol.

Josh decided after the disappointing taste of the sap, he wanted to go inside and blow up marshmallows in the microwave, so that is what we did!

Nobody was hurt in the taking of these pictures😅😂

We did our annual gingerbread house competition on Christmas Eve.  Midway through our power went out and didn't come back on until around 10:30 pm.  We ended up cooking our dinner with the help of a generator.  I'm sure it's something we will be talking about for 

years to come.  

Christmas was fun and busy with gift giving, good eats, and great company💖🎅🎄

Cody played the role of Santa, passing out all the gifts.

Made my own granola, found non-dairy coconut yogurt and Publix had their fruit on sale, so we had some yummy parfaits.

                                 Toffee                                                    Lavender Cookies

                                                                                                            Eggnog rolls

Instead of a gift exchange this year we did white elephant.  The gifts were funny and cool, but next year we decided that it would be a rule that it couldn't have anything to do with the bathroom😂

But this was (by far) the favorite gift that everyone had to try...

(Andy & Jenelle got for the boys)

Crazy how realistic it was.  

Andy and Ryan did the one chip challenge that Kaitlyn and Alex had done via facetime with us.  They brought it with them, so whoever wanted to try it could experience the burn.

It took a lot of ice cream and milk to calm down the sting...but Andy ended up winning...holding out the longest.  It was rough!!

Casey and Andy went to the International Market in Atlanta and brought back the stinky durian candy.  Josh was the only willing participant. And then he tortured Ryan with it - haha.

Casey also brought back some nasty Chinese rotten smelling eggs.  Ryan and Alex were the guinea pigs for that taste test.  Ry actually said they smelled worse than they tasted.

(I'll take his word for it!)

We had some fires and did some roasting.  Always a favorite!!

Kaitlyn taught us the delicious art of roasting Starbursts = So good!

The weather was nice, and we enjoyed being outside and playing a few games.

And of course we took family pictures.  Nobody likes the selfie stick as much as I do, but they all humor me and we take a few pictures.  Thanks everyone!(especially Ry👀)

And a few more random pictures from our fun two weeks together...

Sr. Sol night!

And, of course, there's always some snapchat😂

Happy New Year!

Here's to hoping for a much less crazy 2021 than 2020❗❗❗