Homemade Apple Cider

We picked apples and pears off of our trees at home and took them to Rob's house. He has a cider press that he uses to make cider with.
First you throw the whole apple into the chopper and it fills the bucket underneath then you use your strength and twist this wooden block down to press all the juice out of the chopped apple pieces into a bucket then you fill jugs with it and you are set to go.

We got six gallon of juice, 5 gallon of apple and 1 gallon of pear cider. It is very good hot or cold and it is a great way to use up apples.

The finished product. It is a good thing I snapped this photo because we had a bunch of wind a little while after and it all blew over. Oh well it was fun while it lasted.

As you can tell this was a couple weeks ago. The corn is still green:) We had lots of fun picking out the tallest stalks to put in our teepee.

Pumpkins!

Grandma Jan was wonderful and planted pumpkins in her gardens this year so we could just drive down the rode and pick out any size we wanted. We had so much fun and we didn't have to pay for the pumpkins. Thank you Grandma!!



Gideon picked out the very biggest one. It is a good thing pumpkins roll because mom could not pick it up.

Rehearsal Day

After we decorated. Kelita did all the centerpieces by herself and it looked so nice!

Did I mention that the rehearsal was a costume party? Yep, it was pretty crazy! Rachel, Johnathon and Gideon were LEGOS. The boys thought they worked good for "sumo wrestling" too.


The boys were ring bearers and Rachel was the flower/bubble girl. They all did so good and really enjoyed it! Aunt Kay did a wonderful job at being flexible and fun through the whole time.

Football

Josh is on JV football for the Pella Christian Eagle. He plays very well and most of the game through. He is also on second chain for Varsity. He usually gets to play a few plays for Varsity every Friday night.

Soccer

Johnathon wishes he could play but he does well at watching and every once in awhile gets a ball to play with.
Gideon's team does a great job and he has good coaches. The first game he made five goals! Much to his dismay he has yet to hit that record again but he is doing very well and learning lots.
I thought for sure that Rachel would just love soccer, but I was wrong. She really does not have a huge desire to learn anything, she is just happy to run around and be silly. Oh well, now I know.

We spent the whole day in the tractor today.
Fixing a belt. Johnathon wanted to help so bad.

Random Farm Picture

I loved this picture of all three boys watching the combine unload into the semi.

Beautiful Fall Hike
Last year we did this hike as just our family and Aunt Mo so this year we thought we could show the rest of the family how beautiful it is. We had such a fun time we are definitely making this a family tradition.
This is a funny looking caterpillar we found along the way. I was a little weary about taking alot of pictures because last year we got some really cute pictures in the leaves and the trees but poor Gideon came away with poison ivy all over his face so we didn't get as adventurous this year.

A very special picture with Aunt Kay. This was her last Sunday as a Leaverton :) We missed you uncle Ben!

The BJ Boender Family Farm

Welcome to our new farm. BJ and I signed papers for this 77 acre farm on September first. It is a wonderful farm that needs a little fixing up but that is always good. BJ and Dad worked on tileing the pasture part of it on Wednesday. After the crops are out we will work on tileing in the fields. There are a few buildings that will be coming down because they are pretty tough. The barn will probably be one of the first to go. It looks pretty neat from the outside but the inside is all rotten and really falling apart. The house is in wonderful condition for as old as it is but it only has two small bed rooms and there really is no way that our growing family will fit in it. We have lots and lots of dreams for this place and thank God so very much everyday for the opportunity.
Johnathon has to help with whatever he can get his hands on whenever it comes to machinery.

New Window too!

While we have no carpet and are replacing siding we decided a new window would be nice considering it almost lets more air in than keeps out and gets covered in mold as well, and if you push against them they could just about fall out. So my wonderful dad got us a deal on a nice window so Mr. Vonk came over and helped take the old one out and put a new one in. He is also very good at drywall so he is going to finish up the mess in the living room. Hopefully next week sometime we can have new carpet and put the living room back together before harvest gets into full swing!!

It is much brighter inside the living room now.
And you can really see inside the house from the road now. Curtains will be a must :)

Unplanned Construction

So on Saturday Jeremiah Lamb came over and took down the old drywall and siding and insulation and put up all new! Yeah! Note to anyone, make sure your gutter is not draining into the side of your house.

On Tuesday night(after adventureland) I got home and BJ was wonderful and had cleaned out the living room so we could tear up old carpet and put in new. So around 9:15 we started tearing out the old nasty stuff. Underneath we found that it had been wet and had molded all along the east corner of the wall. This picture is of a hole going to the outside. The drywall was all very soggy and nasty!