THE ADVENTURES OF BUZZ AND NICK

This is my handsome brother Joel

And this is his friend Nick, who hates having his picture taken...

and called me a camera Nazi every time I got my camera out

After some hard work it was time for play

This picture actually looked really life like

And this one would have but Judah was laughing so hysterically that he forgot to duck down

The show off

wrestling had to be incorporated into the fun as well. The ever faithful camera girl caught it all

This is the house there building, It's pretty awesome

Judah showing mom the blue prints

One of the best pictures of the day, It took quite a few thrown boards to get this shot

And the post would not be complete without a picture of the Author and her awesome brother The End

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS AND CRAFTS

Anja and I have been working for the past week on Christmas crafts

Our first project were vintage angels made from shells and bits of
lace and cloth.

This is one of Anja's gorgeous creations

The next project we did were little pine cone elves

Now for some of our traditional Christmas decorations. This is a ceramic nativity mom made a when she first got married

Four of mom's fifty five bears that she has collected over the years, we take them out at Christmas each year.

An adorable manger scene that Anja bought this year in Washington

And our beautiful Christmas tree

THE SAGA OF THE RACCOON

Once upon a time there was a raccoon who decided to make his home above the children's bedroom ceiling at the Bauman household. The passageway was inaccessible to any human and so every night Judah and Anneke would go to bed with a loud scratching noise above their heads. Finally, Anneke could no longer stand the commotion ( not to mention being kept awake all night) decided to make her bed on the couch. We considered different methods of getting the animal out: putting a dog up there to kill it, but the dog would probably not drag it out which would leave a rotting animal up there all during the Christmas season. Finally we decided to set a trap! Yes, you're all wondering why it took us so long to think of that. Sorry, we're a little thick. Anyway that did not work. Anneke, hearing that raccoons hate loud music, taped her sisters speakers to the ceiling( don't tell Anja) and blared the loudest, rockiest music she could find. But the music was not loud enough so my dear father went and borrowed a boom box from our neighbors and, piling up many tables, magazines and boxes, wedged the speaker up to the ceiling. Needless to say we all went shopping in the afternoon because we couldn't stand the noise. But it worked and we blocked up the hole he was getting in and I finally have gotten some full nights of sleep. P.S. for the courtesy of the house guests who will be staying with us over

Christmas the animal is gone and shall not bother you. THE END

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I look at our now bare gardens and think about the beautiful flowers that once inhabited them and are now under the ground I feel DEPRESSED!!!!! But thankfully we still have pictures to show us that the beauty will come again.

Oh, and to let all out faithfull readers know, the blog will be absent for a couple of days as we are preparing to head to MI for Thanksgiving. But there will be more pictures to come from that when we get back.

Jane Lane Bane and Cassarole!!!

Pick yourself off the floor...I am still alive people ;)
Haha :)

So yesterday I had to go and make some meat deliveries in R------- and I asked my dearest of all dears....Anja...if she would like to go on a date of sorts...Of course she did (Heck you would have to be CRAZY not to want to go on a date with me!) ;)

The trip up was rather exciting...lots of traffic!!! I was also delivering eggs....And a couple of rather sudden stops...weeellll I guess you might say some eggs got delivered onto the carpet of mom's car.. (shhhhh) ;)

But we did eventually make it...three minutes late...
After delivering at the first location we headed off to the next. Which happened to be at the end of this kinda creepy road..But Anja and I were not scared-we are brave.. ( ok I admit it ..Anja is brave and I pretend to be).
Finally the last gal came for her meat (15 minutes late) grrr! There we were starving and freezing and at the end of a kinda creepy road no less!!

By 8:30 pm we were both ready to start eating eachother...well not quite..that would be rather cannibalistic. But we were really hungry!!

Driving the main drag in R------- we finally came across a restaurant that had a slightly normal name "The Cheesecake Factory" Anja didn't have very good memories of the last time she was in one so we decided to make some good ones :D

I was terribly disappointed when I walked in..cause guys it's not a cheesecake factory!!!
And the servers were dressed like astronauts!! no kidding!! it was kinda alittle weird!!
And all of sudden happy birthday was being sung acouple tables down from us....They needed help with it big time.

We enjoyed our appetizer very much...it was squid! pretty much amazing!
And then happy birthday was being sung at a totally different table...

And then Anja and I had a very good serious conversation...only inturrupted by another ear splitting rendition of happy birthday

And then there was dinner which was totally amazing! ......And then there was another birthday song (I'm not even kidding here guys)

When the ginormous dessert menu came Anja took it upon herself to read aloud EVERY cheesecake listed and it's description...She had to speak up once cause happy birthday was being sung again.....We finally narrowed the list down to something chocolate...cause I'm picky...and Anja isn't...but I LOOOOVE chocolate.

It was fantabulous!!!! oh my gosh like heaven in your mouth!!

And then Anja drove home cause I was tired.

Terrariums

Is feeling very inspired this morning to create a terrarium. But I must leave for work and will be gone all day so maybe it will inspire someone else. I can't complain though this is my second to last day of work for the season.

what birthdays are about

It starts the night before your birthday, (or, for those of you like me, weeks before) that tingling sensation that goes shooting up your back when ever you start thinking about your birthday or when someone else even happens to mention it. It is almost more then some of us can bear...

You wake up hours before everyone else and then proceed to lay in bed waiting, waiting til everyone else wakes up, waiting for them to call to you and say " you can come down stairs now". As you wait you can smell the mouthwatering aromas of your specially requested birthday breakfast being cooked downstairs. As you wait you can hear the rushing of feet as last minute preparations are made and the hushed whispers as well as the stifled giggles from a few of those who can hardly stand the wait as much as you can. And as you wait, that tingling sensation gets worse as the seconds go by....


Then the call finally comes and you rush downstairs, breathless, amid the shouts of "Happy Birthday" and a very loud, yet trying very hard not to sound off key, version of Happy Birthday being song..... Your Birthday has now begun.

Paper ripping ...



silence because words just are not enough when you have realized you got "just what you wanted"....

new red shoes...

and the traditional ' Dad with birthday girl" picture...

Happy Birthday Anneke! You will always be our favorite Duck!

The Fall of Anneke

I'm sure you're all wondering what happened to me. Yes it was an actual fall, but you'll have to wait till you get to the last picture to find out. Meanwhile let me tell you what happened. It was last Tuesday, and was such a beautiful day that I decided to take a walk and do some picture taking. The milk weed pods were especially beautiful as they burst open with every breath of wind.

The last walnut on our tree

Our cow, fattened and ready for the butcher. We do have two but the other one didn't make it in the picture

Now for the story. Me, ever adventurous, decided that I would get a rope that I saw on the ground, tie it to a branch about ten feet up and then climb down on it. ( I was taking most of these pictures from in a tree) Anyway, the rope had just barely survived a beating with Judah's knife the year before,( don't ask me why he wanted to cut it) . To make a long story short, in the end, could not hold my weight and I fell ten feet to the ground, landing on my back and my wrist.

Me in great distress but ever realizing what a great post this would make took this picture in great pain. THE END

Anja loves...

going on coffee dates..

with her bestest...

and especially loves it when her date surprises her and picks out her coffee for her...

best date ever...

~
"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each others hearts... We live outside the the touch of time."
Clara Ortega

October

October gave a party, the leaves by hundreds came-the chestnuts, oaks, maples- there costumes all aflame. The sunshine spread a carpet, and everything was grand. Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band, the guests were all aflutter and danced off hand in hand.
Afton D. Cooper

Mom's annual Fall arrangement which she makes each year to grace our door.

Happy Friday

pureed-butternut-squash-soup in a mug topped with a little sour cream and toasted pumpkin seeds....MmmHmmm
( f.y.i. this soup is very healthy as well as being vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free, if you don't add the sour cream on top and very delicious )

Summers loss seems little, dear, on days like these.
Ernest Dowsen

My Buddy

At the Pumpkin Patch

Wednesday, a couple of young mothers and there adorable children made a day trip to our local pumpkin patch. We brought a few 'punkins' of our own.

Madison and me pretending we're sheep

Natalie with her pumpkin

A cute group shot with Natty, Kitty and Lilly

Alyssa and me in the corn maze

There was a cute little train that all the kids had a turn on, as you can see they loved it