Saturday was Tylan’s 7th birthday. I always have to praise God when I think about Tylan’s pregnancy and birth….. We had just lost our 4th baby in 2 years to miscarriage. We had spent thousands and thousands … Continue reading
Post 2 for today, is in honor of the first SNOW DAY of the year! YAY!
We have a Snowy Day tradition here at the 4 little Ferguson’s household. It goes beyond the usual traditions of cocoa by the fire…..these kids LOVE to do arts and crafts, so when we are snowed in for a couple of days, we make Salt Sculptures!
We make it into an all day project. First, we all work together to make the dough. Then, we all turn our dough into cool shapes and creatures. It bakes while we eat lunch. After nap, once they are nice and cool, we paint!! Super fun way to pass the time!
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup salt
Mix together flour, water and salt. Sculpt the doughy mixture into shapes-animals, flowers, rockets, or whatever your imagination inspires.
Bake at 350* for 1 hour. Cool and paint with washable acrylic paint.
Here is the original post from 2011, I cannot believe how little the kids were back then!!!!!
This is what we made last winter when we were home for 4 snow days in a row, PLUS a weekend. It was awesome!
Get ready for some good ol’ fashioned, MESSY fun!
Be sure to head back one post, and go check out the Birdseed Ornaments we are making over at Marathon Mom today!
~T
We love when our Florida family comes to visit! My brother Chad, Sis in law, Lauren & my nephews, Brayden & Colby came to visit for almost a week. They have changed SO much since last time, when they were itty bitty crawling babies!!!!!!!!!
We had so much fun with them, it’s always that much harder to say good-bye though. Wish we could convince them to move to the Mid-west already! 🙂
Anyhow, here are the photos from their visit.
Due to lack of space at my house, Chad & Lauren moved into mom’s side of the duplex. She moved over to Grandma’s side. God is so good to have worked out my mom and Grandmas “neighbor” status. He knew they needed each other close by!
We hung at Mom’s some nights, but were over here at our house most of the time.
Mom and Great Grandma were brave and kept all 6 kids between the duplex sides OVER NIGHT, so we could have a date night with Chad & Lauren! HOW AWESOME!
It’s State Fair time, so we went and walked around and ate yummy food. I didn’t take my camera because I wanted to hold hands with my man, but we got this shot before we left. My favorite part of the night was watching Lauren peel herself off the floor of our “boat” during the ride Ye Old Mill. Lest you think I wasn’t fazed by this ride, I will tell you my throat was sore from all the screaming I did.
Saturday morning I was privileged to be asked to do a food demonstration at an awesome kitchen store downtown, Apron Strings. They asked for me to make a seasonal food, so right away I said BBQ Chicken Pie. It always reminds me of Back to School!
Mom and Lauren were GREAT helpers and I wouldn’t have gotten my prep done in time without them. Next time, I will go earlier until I know my way around that kitchen a little better.
And yes, there will be a next time! They asked me to come back in January. I am thinking Settlers Beans and Cornbread, what do you think?
The rest of the time we just hung out. Honestly, with 6 kids in the house, and 4 extra adults with mom and Grandma coming over for supper, it was a loud, full house and there was always something going on. I LOVE that part! There is nothing better than being elbow to elbow with your loved ones talking loudly over each other. 
We also made sure we had the extended family over for Sunday Night Snack Supper. Food, fellowship and some outside duck & chicken feeding fun.
You break it, you buy it BUDDY!
The 2nd Cousins
Monday was no school, so we headed to the Fair with the whole crew!
With 3 strollers, 6 kids, 5 adults and an Electric Scooter, we soon had to divide up, but it was still a great day. 100* hot, but great!
Because it was dollar day, we were able to do a lot of the rides. Pax pretty much hated all of them! Here he is on the Carousel, it was all fun and games until his hat flew off, then he sobbed and sobbed. I think he thought HE was flying off next. It broke my heart, and I almost jumped the fence to rescue him, mid-ride, but he did fine inspite of the sobs.
The big kids thought Chad & Lauren were the COOLEST Uncle & Aunt EVER after they did the White Water Ride with them.
Destiny met up with one of her friends from school and got to go with her and her mom the rest of the afternoon. I knew they would take good care of her, and she’d be able to do more big kid rides, but I missed her too! Just another step in the process of her growing up and away from me. Pax hated these rides too, every turn he would hollar, “I DON’T WIKE DIS WIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
All except the truck. That one was the most slow, boring one ever, but he loved it! Is my adventuresome one finally taming?!?!?!?!
One day Aunt Gena brought over a 32 pound Watermelon she grew in her garden. We had it for after school snack, and would you believe most of it was gone in 20 minutes?! It was goooood!
I almost cried when I packed back up the baby toys and put away the cribs. We miss the Bontrager Family already! The good news is, we MIGHT get to see them again over Thanksgiving!!!!
Tomorrow, I will share their family photo session that I took their last night here. Busy, don’t hold me back, 1 year olds are always a challenge, but we did our best! 🙂
~T
Happy Monday! Did you all have a great weekend? We live close to a teeny little Amish town, whose population is about 195. Once a year they throw a great big bash called Heritage Day. We have been going … Continue reading
Our Florida company packed up and headed out. We miss them ALREADY! Avery keeps asking if they are coming back yet? We are so blessed that they are willing to come our way, to come hang with us each year. We wish they’d stay a month! 🙂
I thought it’d be fun today, to share the photos from our week together:
Looking at photos of Aunt Ashley’s wedding venue and dress!
There’s been a bike theft!!!!!
Destiny, I think Daddy is too big for your purple bike!
Watching the Bike Show and relaxing….
Pax says enough is enough…..
And proceeds to try to tip his sister over…..
Papa saves the day and Avery is all smiles…..
So, last year, for my 30th Birthday, Papa & Drea brought me a lovely gift…
A new-to-me table from their consignment furniture store. One big enough to seat our growing family, plus a guest or two!
I have been in the market for a matching hutch ever since. Guess what I found in their store while I was visiting my new baby nephews?
A matching hutch! YAY! And I even bought it with my own photo money I’d been saving, thankyouverymuch. 🙂
Thanks to Papa & Drea for delivering it to me!
Before:
After:
The best part of all? For the first time in TEN YEARS, I got to get my antique china out of the boxes they’ve been hidden away in.
A silver and white set from my Great Aunt Mary {not pictured}, and an ivory and gold set from my Grandma Beckler.
Both sets fit underneath this hutch, along with my cake plate and some other big items! I am so excited to have more usable space in my kitchen!!!!!!
Since it was over 103* all week, Drea took us to Target and let the 3 big kids pick out a movie.
What a special treat to get to eat supper in the living room during tv time!
Who could these GORGEOUS flowers be for?
“They are for YOU, Momma!”
Sweet Avery went to the grocery store with Drea, and INSISTED her Mommy needed these flowers because she loves sunflowers. Precious.
The next day was Destiny’s birthday! Birthday tradition in the Ferguson household states, you can open ONE gift in the morning, but the rest have to wait for after supper.
The Birthday Girl also gets to pick supper, dessert and does not have to do ANY chores the WHOLE DAY!
Destiny picked spaghetti. With all our extra tomatoes, I decided to try my hand at homemade sauce. WOW, was it ever tasty! Recipe to come next week.
I’ll share the recipe for her Birthday Cheesecakes on Monday.
Destiny picked to go to the museum that afternoon, again it was SO hot, like 108* so we thought that was a great plan!
We learned all about the “Harvey Girls” and the train station waitressing they had to do and QUICKLY!
Drea wishing she could be a Harvey Girl??? 🙂
The museum has a GREAT kids hands-on play area:
Even the “big kids” had fun!
When we got home, it was birthday time!
I’d like to take a moment and point out Paxton back there “helping” big sis blow. I love that we caught him blowing mid-drool.
Ewwwwww!
These mini cheesecakes were KILLER! Can’t wait to share the recipe.
The kids don’t get dessert very often, so you can imagine, Pax in particular was thrilled with this new sweet stuff!
Check out the bottom left pic, when he realizes he has DROPPED his yummy on the floor! The next photos after that are his face when he realizes he still has a morsel left on the table, phew!
Silly Paxton!
Now, for present time:
FINALLY! Destiny says.
She got two more from us, for a total of 3 gifts. This applies at both birthday’s and Christmas, just like Jesus got 3 gifts from the wise men.
Clip on Earrings
Papa and Drea got her some pretty cool stuff, too!
Yessssssssssss……
We hired my crafty cousin, Brent to make this bunk bed for Destiny’s dolls AND he even sewed the mattresses himself. A TALENTED young man, I tell you! And a new daddy as of yesterday, CONGRATS! 🙂
The rest of the evening was spent playing with new things….
Pax thought the curry brush for the horse would be nice to use on dolly’s hair.
She apparently needed some feed too……
Hmm, something is just not right here.
There, that’s MUUUUUCH BETTER!
The other kids thought the big box was equally as fun as the toys….especially with Papa around to give them rides!
Before we knew it, our week with Papa and Drea was over. 
We had one last special supper together!
The next morning, it was time for them to go…….
Bye, Papa & Drea! We love you and miss you already! Come back soon…..
~T
Thanks to the generosity of Harvest Farm and a special friend, we were blessed to spend a worry-free afternoon at the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday.
This family friendly place offers hay rack rides, a zip line, giant sand box, farm themed playground, huge slide from the hay loft, trike race track, train rides, petting zoo, and so much more. All friendly Halloween-free fun!
Harvest Farms is famous for their PUNKINATOR!
(This made me grin because growing up my Daddy always called me his “Punkin”, which is now Destiny’s nickname.)
This pumpkin-shooting canon was mounted to an old fire truck. They were shooting pumpkins nearly half a mile with this puppy!
The kids were scared it was going to be loud, but they soon learned, it wasn’t….it was just TOTALLY COOL!
Here are the photos of our fun afternoon:
You know you are a mom of 4 when……
Your baby bites the dust, er, straw, and you choose to snap a couple of pictures before swooping in to his rescue.
Poor sweet baby Pax! 🙂
The water stations were really fun!
So were the Corn Cannons!
Paxton: “This corn canon is SO loud!”
(It really wasn’t, but in baby-land, maybe it is?!)
Hay Bale Maze, which was trampled a bit by the masses that came before us, but the kids had no complaints. They had a blast climbing and exploring:
This farm was just beautiful! Made Dale miss the farm days of his youth. I informed him that this City Girl was perfectly content on our 17 acres, 5 minutes from town: Half Country-Half City, perfect for us! 🙂
Pax having a snack & watching the kids do the Zip Line:
(which was their FAVORITE thing, by the way)
Farm Version of the Yo-yo and a super fun Hay-Loft Slide:
All that playing made the kids HUNGRY! Ham & Cheese sandwiches hit the spot.
HUGE sugar cookies were for dessert…..what a treat!
Paxton is a man of few words, like : Ball and Hot. But as he sat in this chair, he DISTINCTLY said over and over ‘Rock-rock, rock-rock, rock-rock’ in this precious sing-songy baby voice. He, of COURSE, refused to say it again when Dale came back.
“Hi guys!”
One last thing before we head home……
This CRAZY trike!
Dale was a SUPER crazy driver and about threw us a couple time with his sharp turns. Typical male driver, I tell ya!
Thank you to our “Mailbox Angels” for blessing us with the “Fun Funds” for a much-needed family day! And thanks again to Danielle of Turon Harvest Farm & Pumpkin Patch, for allowing us the special privilege of being their guests for the afternoon!
May the Lord richly bless you all for your generosity!
In Christ,
~Tonya for the Ferguson Family
That was fun, Momma! Lets come back again soon!
4 little Fergusons 