October 31

Amazing and beautiful

Those of you that don't already know, our 7yo son, Gregory, has autism. He was diagnosed at 25 months of age. Videos such as this are very special to my heart.

Autistic man sings the National Anthem

Glorious Snow!!!

The first snow of the year started falling in the wee early hours of the morning today! At 9 am, we are expecting another 1-2 inches and that's just fine with me. The weather is one of the main reasons we stay in the Texas Panhandle. We have four true seasons here and it is wonderful, especially considering I grew up in a place that had nearly no spring or fall, llllooonnnnnggggg summer and almost no winter. Central Louisiana. Then I spent many years in the Houston, TX area. Weather was the same. So to have the seasons is something amazing for me.

I took these photos this morning out our front and back doors. I wasn't out of my night clothes yet, so wasn't about to trek out into the snow.

All is quiet in the barn. We have all of the Seramas in the house, using the dog's crates for cages. We weren't ready for the cold yet, and their coop isn't weatherized yet. Mike's two dogs (puppies) are in the house, too. Even though they are big, they are only 5-6 months old and not ready to stay out in the cold and elements yet. He doesn't agree, but Momma says they come indoors.

Now Felicity, Gregory and I are going to watch a movie, snuggle and watch the snow continue to fall. Have a wonderful day!

Exciting news and crocheting

First off I have to tell you all....

My very first grand-child will be born in March!! A Grand-daughter, her name will be Madeline Jeaux (we are originally from Louisiana, can you tell?). I'm already making lots of beautiful things for her. It kinda feels weird thinking about being a Grandmother, when I still have littles at home. I'm beginning to get excited, though.

Now...

Since things have calmed down around our house, I'm enjoying my crochet and sewing once again. I've been busy the past week making "Woolies", in layman's terms, wool diaper soakers (covers). I so adore making these, and the three pictured below will be stocked in my (other) etsy store today or tomorrow.

This etsy store will be for my handmade goodies and move out all the excess fabric, craft supplies and books I have accumulated over the past years. I just have way too much and am ready to reduce all the STUFF I have in this house. My motto has become "use it up or ship it out".

These are wool shorties I made for my grand-daughter due in March. My daughter plans to use cloth diapers at least part time, but she can still use these are shorts when Maddie is wearing yucky disposable diapers.

These will be for sale in my etsy store:

I have more made, just haven't taken photos. They will appear in the store later this week, along with loads of other goodies.

Motivating myself today

We got so much done in the re-arranging and cleaning the house yesterday.

It's a dreary, cool day in Amarillo today.

As soon as I am finished with the house, there are several clothing items I am eager to begin working on for the kids and myself.

These verses from Proverbs are my motivation today.

21She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

22She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

Proverbs 31:21-22

Speaking of snow...many areas received their first snow of the season recently. I'm dreaming of our first snow. One day, I will see a vision such as this one in real life.

So much has happened

I won't go into the details right now, but our foster sons are no longer with us. There were many things that contributed to our decision, and it was such a hard decision to make.

The day after the boys left, I slept nearly all day and part of the next day. As of right now, Mike has slept 13 hours straight! To say we were exhausted is obviously putting it mildly. We didn't realize how drained we had become.

Will we continue on our foster parenting journey? That remains to be seen. If we do, we will be much more selective as to what children we agree to accept.

When we moved into this little house, we wanted our foster children to have as much space as possible, and were hoping to get our allowed number of 3 kiddos, so Mike and I took the smallest bedroom and put children in the master bedroom.  After realizing that we wouldn't be getting a 3rd child any time soon, at least until we had adopted the boys, Mike and I could stand it no longer ( we were in a bedroom that is 7.5' x 11') and decided to move the boys into a secondary bedroom and we would move to the master bedroom. We had the move planned for this weekend (even before we made the decision about the boys), and despite our tiredness, we switched rooms on Friday night. The house is still in shambles and I hope to get everything straight and put back away today.

Felicity and Gregory are much happier, now that they have Momma and Daddy back to themselves.

Two weeks ago we added two new dogs to our menagerie. They are Mike's dogs. He needed a "man's dog" to hang out with, and since all 3 of our other dogs are little dogs, he never felt like they were "his". We adopted brother puppies. They are Blue Heeler mix, we think with Bloodhound. They are great and we all love them.

We also added 7 new Seramas to our flock. They came from New York state and arrived on Thursday. They are silkied Seramas and I had never seen them before, but I LOVE them!  We plan to grow a decent size flock of Seramas, not just for pets, but for breeding and showing. The photo below is one that the previous owner sent to me showing me the birds. We have named this gorgeous fellow "Denton".

The name I have given our Serama flock is "Yellow Rose Seramas". I have started the flock blog, too. Be sure to head over there and "like" them. The plan is that all of our Seramas will be named after Texas cities, counties or well known people from Texas.


I will share photos of the new dogs and Seramas as soon as I can find my camera cable to transfer the photos to my computer.

Have a wonderful Sunday!