A new look

Last week I decided that it was now or never.
I've been tempted to try a short hairstyle for a while, but have never been brave enough... because I REALLY like my long hair.

Before

My hair had gotten SO bad with spit ends (my fault for procrastinating on getting hair cuts!) and I figured that I would have to cut at least 2 inches off. So I decided that I would make it 3 1/2 and go for a new style!

I also wanted to do it to learn a little bit more about cutting shorter hair.

So I got it done.

My hair is SHORT!!!

I like it, but I still like long hair...So I decided the next day that I will be growing it out :)

After

What do you think???

❀ Jennifer

A "new" car, pictures of wood and a birthday!

If you are all wondering about my absence, well, we have been BUSY!!! We only have about 10 days before we leave on our trip, and we have had ALOT to get done! Go to mom's blog if you want to see pictures of what we've been up to.

It's not exactly new.... and it's not exactly all ours.... but it sure is cute! :)

We went to the city to shop for cars yesterday... and Josh and Dad now

co-own a 2007 Toyota Matrix!

Now... I KNOW that this is a really bad picture, please forgive me :)

I did take it, it was in a cramped shop, the lighting was bad and to top it all off... I'm not the best of photographers. :)

I was frustrated that the camera didn't want to take the true color. It really is a REALLY cool sharp blue.... and I like it alot.

And while I was in the shop... I decided to *try* to take a picture of our HUGE pile of wood. (Please note again... I'm not the greatest photographer.... but I did my best under the circumstances :)*

These pictures don't really do justice to how HUGE the pile is.... it really is quite a bit taller then me...

 

Do you think that we'll have enought wood for the winter?

And last but not least... today is Caleb's birthday!!!

Caleb is an amazing little brother.

Here are a few things that I love about him...

- He is always the first one to encourage his big sisters when they create something cool :)

- He is AMAZINGLY creative. I'm often awed by his creations.

- He loves to draw.

- He has a great mind for math, and is fun to teach.

- He is really great with the kids and is VERY helpful when we are busy and need a hand to take care of them.

- He is a great example to his little brothers.

I LOVE you Caleb!

Happy Birthday!

❀ Jennifer

Can you blame me....

For loving these two SWEET little babies to PIECES????

I didn't think so :)

❀ Jennifer

The Pauls' Amazing Race

For Jesse's birthday mom came up with the neat idea of doing an "Amazing Race" for the kids... at least I thought it was going to be for the kids. 

Turned out that Ker and I got very much involved too.

We split up into 2 teams, with Ker and I being the team captains. 

Team #1 was.... Kerri, Zachary, Jesse and Brooke.

Team #2 was.... Caleb, Nathan, Mikaya and I.

Megan was video taping and taking pictures.

I'm an EXTREMELY competitive person (I got that from my daddy :) so this whole thing really got my adrenaline pumping.

It was fun.

We got points for doing the best, being the fastest and there were also bonus points involved.

Here are some of the things that we had to do....

(there are not very many pictures because Megan was spending most of the time video taping... may be blogged in the future ;)


- Run around Josh and Rebecca's house 3 times in less then 1 min.

- Get the chickens to eat as much chop as possible in a short period of time.

- Pick a carrot at least 6 inches long, peel and eat it.

- Make a weiner stick... best stick got the most points.

- Bounce a basket ball 10 times in a circle, miss the circle loose points.

- Make a tower out of Jenga blocks, fastest got most points.

- Blindfold a person and have them make a lego car, best car won. (this was my personal favorite... I was the blindfolded one :)

- Have a soccer shoot out, 10 shots... 1 point for each goal. Our team went for the bonus points and got 3 out of 3, if we missed one we would have lost 3 points.
- Find as many seeds as you can (natural grown seeds)
- Fill 3 garbage bags with leaves without a rake.
- Bring 20 logs from the wood pile into the wood shed under 5 min. We also went for the bonus points on this one and got 10 extra logs.
- Complete a quiz, more right answers got ya more points!
- Make a birthday card for Zach or Jesse, best card got the most points.


After all that... we tallied up all the points....
Team #1.... 205 points.
Team #2.... 211 points.


WE WON!!!!
It was all very exciting :)


Side note:
I bet you are all wondering why I haven't been blogging very much as of late, well our family has been busy, busy, BUSY. We have been trying to race the weather to get ready for winter... and our trip south.
Bringing wood in, getting our skating shack cleaned, moving bales... ect.
Pictures to come!


❀ Jennifer

Taking the Time

This summer, after the first cut of hay had been baled, Dad and I worked on hauling the bales home. We usually do it in fall, but we wanted to be one step ahead this year because we are taking off for our vacation in November.


One day Brooke decided to come along with me, and we spent the WHOLE day together.
For those of you who don't know Brooke, she is one of a kind. She has an AMAZING memory (she can remember stuff better then I can sometimes :) and she is a VERY energetic and spunky little girl.
I hadn't really spent much one on one time with her before this (usually I have more then one sibling by my side :) so it was interesting to see how she opened up and was ALOT more talkative.
We had a great day.


While hauling bales, I have a lot of time to sit around, with not much to do. So Brooke and I had to be creative.
I started teaching her some BIG words (Brooke LOVES big words :)... like nationality (don't ask me how we got to that one :) she remembered it the whole day long.


We picked some flowers that were in the hay field, she was SO excited about giving them to mommy.


We talked about dog's names. And she knew the name of our neighbour's dog... not sure when I told her, but she knew!


We gave daddy a high five every time we changed vehicles (we pulled a trailer with our truck to load the bales onto and loaded them with the tractor. I would drive the tractor to the they hay field... then dad would load the bales, and then I would drive the tractor back home.... so there was a lot of switching vehicles going on :).


We watched the clouds
.
We listened to a Christian radio station that is just across the Canada/USA border. They were issuing tornado warnings, so Brooke and I had a good prolonged talk about tornadoes. What to do if one hit, if this one was close to us, how we would pray if it would happen, how silly the radio was because it kept beeping and giving the tornado warning OVER and OVER (Brooke found that overly hilarious :)... and lots of other things about tornadoes.


And of course we laughed and laughed together... just about silly girl things.


I hadn't really thought that she would remember this day very long... but I was wrong (NEVER underestimate a just-turned-5 year old's memory!). A couple days ago I had decided to let Brooke let me help her in the kitchen. We started talking and laughing just like we had that day.


All of the sudden out of the blue Brooke said to me... "Jen do you remember when we went picking bales together? And remember we heard the tornado warning over and over again, and it was so funny?"
I was surprised and said "Yes Brooke, I remember... that was fun wasn't it"
"Yup, it was fun!"


I knew that the reason she was bringing it up was because that day had meant so much to her. To me it was just another day... but to her it was special. 


I realized then that I needed to take more TIME interacting and including my younger sisters. 


For me, I find it very inconvenient sometimes to have little kiddoes underfoot when I'm trying to bake or clean. I get claustrophobic and shoo them away, because I like to have my space... and get things done quickly.
But now I realized that to the little girls it is not just baking or cleaning, but rather it is their big sister... the one they look up to.... caring enough to take the time to teach them, and to spend time with them.
And what seems little to me, may mean a lot to them.


So I will take the time to let them lick a spoon or two, and let them help out....

Because little sisters are special and this is a one time season that won't last forever.

❀ Jennifer

Happy Birthday Jesse!!

Today is Jesse's 8th birthday!

Jesse is our little farmer boy. 

It is odd for him to stay home from the field (except on school days of course :).

But even then he will try to get out there after he eats lunch!

He loves everything about farming... and he knows more about it then I do!

Jesse helping in harvest

Learning from his big brother Josh

Jesse also REALLY likes school. He learns FAST and he is really fun to teach.

Here are a few of my favourite things about Jess....

- Jesse's favourite words are "I know". He thinks he knows everything, sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. Us big sisters have a fun time "humbling" him a bit :)

- I LOVE cutting Jesse's hair. It is SO soft and he has the most ADORABLE white/blond hair birthmark on his head.

- Jess is a goof to the max. He likes it when people laugh at him.

- He has an amazing servants heart and is often found helping his brothers with their chores when they are running late.

I LOVE you Jesse!

Hope you have an AMAZING day... and a GREAT year!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

We celebrated Zach and Jess's birthday yesterday, go to Megan's blog to see some pictures of their day.

❀ Jennifer

Of Whole Wheat Bread, a Countdown and a Birthday!

Our family started making our own whole wheat bread about 10 years ago as well as having sandwiches for lunch.
Every week we make a new batch and (give or take some) we use approx. 1.5 loaves a day.
This turns out to be approximately 360 loaves a bread a year.
I figured that I've probably made about 1200 loaves of bread in my lifetime (does that make me an expert yet??? :).


Why am I randomly bringing this up?


Well it came to my attention just yesterday that we are now starting to use 2 loaves of bread at one sitting. 
That means making 2 batches (of 5 loaves) a week. 
That also means that we will be bringing our "yearly bread intake" up about 120 loaves a year.
And I have a feeling that that number will grow yearly (we have 6 growing boys coming up folks :).


I wonder how many loaves of bread I will have made before/if I leave home?


On other news...


Today marks 3 weeks until we leave for Tennessee to visit our AMAZING friends the Muncks!
I'm like TOTALLY excited :) It seems like FOREVER since we last visited them.

The Muncks and the Pauls' visit April 2010

It will be amazing spending time with our USA sisters again! MMMISS you girls!

And....

Today is Zachary's 10th birthday!!

Here are a couple of things that I LOVE about Zachary....

- He loves to play football and is OFTEN begging his sisters to join him.

- He is sometimes very hard to be upset or serious with because he is always VERY dramatic and has the funniest faces!

- He is the kind of boy that NEVER stops moving or making some sort of noise from his mouth. Whenever Zach comes in the house... the noise level IMMEDIATELY goes up :)

- Zach is very fast, he can beat his big brother Caleb in a foot race. 

- He is VERY hard to cover while playing football cause he is so little and fast. (check out the music video that Megan just made to see what I mean :P)

- He always has the funniest things to say, and often makes his big sisters LAUGH and LAUGH :)

I LOVE you Zachary! 

Have a HAPPY, HAPPY birthday!

P.s. Also a BIG happy birthday to Stephen Munck!!!

❀ Jennifer

Sisters are one of my most favorite things!

I think that God knew what He was doing when He decided to give me two sisters so close in age.
They are both built in best friends and (if it is okay with you :) I'm going to brag on them for just a little bit.

My sisters are amazing. Let me start with that :)
Just thinking about how life would be without them makes me feel like crying!
I know I would be in pieces :)

I'm a person that NEEDS to talk to someone, lots.
I need to have someone with whom I can share my heart, knowing that that the person I'm sharing with won't be critical.
I need someone to whom I can ask opinions and know that they will give an honest answer (even though it may be brutal sometimes :)
And also someone who I can solve problems with.
I'm fortunate to have two such persons in my family.
Megan and Kerri.

 

I can tell either of them ANYTHING. I know that my secrets are safe and they will be honest with me.

Here are some of my most favourite times with my BFF's....

- Riding horses at 6:00 in the morning

- Taking photoshoots with Meggy

- Playing football and hockey

- Late night one on one "shoot the puck" sessions with Ker after we have eaten to much cheesecake!

- Playing Canasta, for hours and hours and hours!

 

- Talking late into the night

- Playing detective, putting our heads together and figuring out when mom is pregnant... we haven't been wrong yet! 

- Staying up late when mom and dad are gone... watching movies, eating popcorn and chatting, chatting, chatting!

 

- Baking with Kerri

- Going to DQ together when we were camping

- Figuring out my blog with Megan (not sure who had more fun with that one :)

- Writing back and forth in our "job book" (Meg and Ker... you know what I'm talking about :)

- Cutting their hair!

- Being excited together whenever a new brother or sister came into the world.

- Making cookies when Mom and Dad were gone, and then eating most of the cookie dough (this was a couple of years ago folks :).

- Going for a run/walk together

- Re-arranging our rooms

- Playing "house" (we used to do it CONSTANTLY when we were little).

- Doing the dishes with Kerri, all the while singing and singing and SINGING!!!

- Making music videos with Meg (you can see her videos here).

- Playing wii with Ker until after mid-night (we forgot to look at the time :)

- Talking, talking, talking and TALKING while waiting for the cows to empty while milking.

And I could go on.. and on and on. These are just the ones that popped into my head.

Meg and Ker I love you both SO much.

You have done so much for me and I will be forever grateful that God has made us....

❤ SISTERS ❤



Stay at home daughter

I'm not exactly like a "normal" young adult :) As I'm sure that you have already noticed.

Most young woman my age are in college or bible college studying to become whatever it is that they "dream" of becoming.
Some will spend 4 or more years in college, maxing out on student loans.
Once they are done college (or in the midst of it) they may get married and just about when it is time for their career to "take off" they will think about starting up a family.
Most will not want to waste all those years of hard work in college, the money spent, nor all the talent they have, so they will continue to work after they have children, putting them in daycare and eventually public school.

Once they are old and gray, their nest is empty and they no longer have that "amazing career" they may look back and wonder if maybe they were missing something.

I believe they were.
And I beleive that society has taken a wrong turn in regards to raising daughters.

Titus 2:4-5

 ⁴That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

 ⁵To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

Sober = sound mind

Descreet = self controled

Chaste = innocent, modest, perfect, pure

Does this look like today's world?
Why?

I believe that part of the answer to this question lies in our system's schooling.

How are the "older woman" (aka...moms) supposed to teach their younger woman to have all these biblical characteristics if they are in school most of their lives... then gone off to college where they will most likely learn the opposite?

They can't.

This is why I'm not off in some other city or province learning something that will lead me in the direction that I believe is away from God's original plan.

God's plan is for woman to be sober, love their husbands and children, have a sound mind, be self-controlled, be innocent, modest and pure, keepers at home, good and obedient to their husbands. Why? So that the WORD of GOD will not be blasphemed.


I wonder what today's world would look like if this is the standard that we lived by?


Some people may ask how I can STAND being "cooped up" at home, not being able to enjoy "freedom" and all that the word has to offer these days.
I don't look at it as being "cooped up", but rather I look at it as the biggest freedom that I could possibly have.
I'm protected... not sheltered.
I don't have to deal with all the junk that many girls my age have already had to. I am SAFE. 
And when it is time to "leave and cleave" I will have had all the proper training that I need to face the world... AND I will have a husband to protect and guide me.

So I'm at home, where I have the BEST training that I could possibly have. Learning the ways of raising a family, and having practice on how to obey and submit to a husband one day by being obedient and submissive to my daddy.

It can't get any better then this!

This is what I was created for.

I believe this is what women were created for.


❀ Jennifer

Just to let you all know, I'm not out to bash anyone. I'm not trying to judge either.
I just wanted to tell you why I believe what I believe, and also to encourage girls that are like-minded in this area.

Pictures from Thanksgiving Sunday

Thanksgiving Sunday was a blast! We took family pictures, played football and ate a YUMMY thanksgiving meal.
We had Mom's side of the family over for supper, so we had LOTS of fun visiting with them as well.

Yesterday (Thanksgiving Monday) also lots of fun! We went to Grandpa and Grandma Pauls' house (Dad's parents), ate some good food and watched some good football! Our team won (Go Blue Bombers!!!) and for that we were VERY thankful :)

Here are some pictures from our family gathering on Sunday....

We played football much of the afternoon....

The kick off

It's UP!!!

Our littlest player

Do you think he got away??? Not by the hair on my chiny, chin, chin!

Perfect throw to the perfect receiver :)

After football we were all pretty famished... nothing like a thanksgiving meal to fill the stomach!

Our "feast"

Full tables :)

This poor boy was having WAY to much fun!!

I don't know how many of you remembered to look at the clock at 10:10 on 10/10/10. We did and got a picture of it. This kinda thing will only come 2 more times until the next millennium! Someday we may be famous for this picture :)
For interest sake, Nathan was born on 04/04/04 and our GOOD friends the Munck's little girl Ruth Ella was born 09/09/09.

Ya, so that was our Thanksgiving. We are now all good and partied out... till next year :)

How did you celebrate Thanksgiving?

❀ Jennifer