Recent pictures of Quil

Our daughters-in-law very industriously picked all these apples last week.  Now they are busy making them into applesauce, apple butter, and apple pie filling and canning everything.  Quil was very intrigued by the apples and had a hard time leaving them alone.


Here Quil was helping his mother sort through some fabrics.

I call this picture, "Quil writing a letter to his favorite Grandma!"

Joy and Quil, taken on 9-19-08

It looks like he is finally getting some hair, even though it is very blond!

We are anxious to see him again a month from now when we go to MO to celebrate our 25th anniversary, Oct. 21-27.  Our anniversary is Oct. 22.

We Love Janet's Krautburgers!

Janet mentioned on facebook.com that she was making krautburgers for her family one night this past week, and got several interested and perplexed responses, so we decided to document the event and blog about it - during this gorgeous but monotonous time of year.

Recipe:  Krautburgers (or called Cabbage burgers in Ukraine)

1 lb. hamburger

1 small head of cabbage, chopped

1 med. onion, finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste  (lots of pepper is yummy)

Roll dough (your receipe or 1 package of hot roll mix).

Lightly brown hamburger; add onion, cabbage, and 1 cup of water.  Cook until liquid is gone.

Drain meat and vegetables.  Let dough riase 1 hour.  Roll out dough and cut into squares.  Place a scoop of meat mixture in center of dough square and pinch corners of dough together to seal seams. (or wrap it up as you want.)

Place on greased cookie sheet and let rise 30-40 minutes.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 min. or until lightly browned.

Scoop it up... out of the skillet...  (I don't drain the liquid, but have my skillet on a "tilt".  The liquid is yummy to drink afterwards!)


Pile it on...




Fold it up...


Ready for the oven...

Yummy! Let's eat! I like to cut a hole and add a bit of butter or margerine while it is still steamy..

Our Reiff Family Supper Guests

We were priviledged this evening to have my Uncle Alvin Gafford, cousin Katie Gafford, and cousin Dr. Glen Reiff join us for supper!  Glen has recently 'retired' and moved to Cincinnati, OH where his wife Helen works at GBS, as my nephew Aaron Profitt also does.  Glen is 73 years old, but after having several major health problems in the past and present, he looked pretty well!  It is always a highlight to be with Uncle Alvin (85) and Katie.

We serve a Great God!

This week in our local paper, there are reports of a controversy going on at a large meat packing plant. Over 100 Somalian refugees who work there have been fired because they walked off the job when they couldn't break for prayer times when they wanted to, here in their month of Ramadan.

Muslim employees of Greeley’s JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant congregate Monday at Lincoln Park, 10th Avenue and 9th Street in Greeley, to hear the compromise reached by the Somali Muslim community leaders and the executives at Swift. The workers are asking the company to allow them to have their break at 7:30 p.m. to break their fast of Ramadan.


I am so glad to have a God to serve who allows me to talk to Him any time, any where, in any position, even with my eyes open as I work, without inconveniencing other people or neglecting my duties!  And... He actually hears and answers!  The Lord is worthy of our praise!

Various work and projects

As some of you will remember, last year in October, we posted about our town's annual quilt show. http://johnstownalbertsons.blogspot.com/2007_10_28_archive.html Every year we put up ~8 signs in the area around Johnstown advertising the quilt show. This year we built board frames for the signs, since other means of hanging, stretching, or posting these signs haven't worked as well.
This is Mike Durkee and Jeff working on one...

..while Daddy, Jason, and I worked on another one. I am really "working" by standing on the corner while Daddy screwed the joint together!

In the evening of last Saturday, Emily was mowing while the aforementioned 5 of us were building the last two frames. She's pretty proud of being able and allowed to mow our yard.

As I mentioned in the "Anniversary Party Prep" post we had to "dig" under our stairs (in the storage area) to find some of the decorations. The boys and Daddy enjoyed studying some treasures they found - old pictures Daddy shot and developed ~25 years ago (beautiful pictures) and slide pictures as well.
Here they are studying the slides, surrounded by empty boxes that were stored under the stairs.

Mother found a box full of baby clothes (she thought she had given them all away years ago) and she and Emily enjoyed looking through them. Emily was also looking for clothes to fit John Ethan (her doll).

Anniversary Party Prep

Our family is planning to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Daddy and Mother in Missouri this late October.  We have plans to have a meal and ceremony (renewal of vows and some other activities).  We have retrieved some of the original decorations from different places in our house and will probably take some of them to display at the anniversary party.  

Mother is making herself a dress  and vest of the teal colored fabrics that were used in their wedding.  I will probably wear one of the bridesmaids dresses for the celebration, since it's the right size.

Below is pictured (in a more artistic manner) a single teal rose, surrounded by orange flowers and lace, all of which are around the base of the original unity candle.

Mother sewing on her dress.

These are the decorations we dug under our stairs storage area to find: Mother's bouquet, a heart that was displayed behind the cake at their reception, and leftover rice roses (for flinging rice at the bride and groom---not recommended for future generations-due to the mess) which Dad's nieces passed out at the wedding.  They don't have rice in them anymore, fortunately.

We got the invitations printed this afternoon, and have been working on addressing, stamping, and mailing them.

We bought these cool little stamps today, which I hadn't seen before, because of the nice hearts on them.

School is in session!

It's that time of year again! This year we have Jeffrey in 12th grade, Beth in 10th grade, Jason in 9th grade, and Emily in 5th grade. I pray that this will be a very productive year in all that we learn in school, in character training, and in preparation for the future. We certainly need God's help and wisdom to be students of the Word, as well as our school subjects. We are thankful for the opportunity and privilege of schooling at home yet another year!

Grapes and more grapes

A friend of mine has a neighbor who was willing for us to pick his grapes, if we were willing to give him some jelly. So, Saturday afternoon, we went to Greeley and picked grapes. We had never picked grapes built over a trellis like this before. There was a glider underneath. It was somewhat difficult to pick the grapes from underneath. Rowen and Jeffrey took turns picking on top of the trellis standing on a 6 foot ladder.



Picking above one's head is hazardous to the eyes. We forgot to bring our goggles!

It was a cozy place to pick. We sure appreciate Leroy letting us do it.

We actually picked more grapes than this, but we gave some to Rowen's sister, so she could make jelly too. The grapes we ended up with weighed 40 pounds!

Here you can see how the trellis and glider were situated. Rowen is, of course, taking the picture, as he usually is.

On Labor Day, some of us spent the day in the kitchen making the grapes into jelly. We wore our mp3 players to help pass the time away as we worked. My faithful assistants, Jason and Emily, washed and de-stemmed all the grapes.

I cooked them and made the jelly. Emily did the sieving. I don't re-strain the juice through cheesecloth to make the clear jelly, because I like the pulp--more nutrition in the jelly. Since you have to use so much sugar to make it, I want there to be a redeeming factor. (Just my personal preference. I know it would never win the prize at the fair.)

I think this was the last batch of cleaned grapes. No wonder she looks so happy! It was a long day!

The 40 pints and 5 half-pints of jelly when the day was done.

Some catch up birthday pictures

I know everybody has been dying to see all the birthday cakes we have been eating recently :) So here goes! My pre-birthday cake, on August 23, was a DQ ice cream blizzard cake. It was very, very yummy and we had Michael Durkee to help us eat it. We had to have it on Saturday, because we don't buy on Sunday and of course, it needed to be eaten right away!

It was pretty, besides being yummy!

On Sunday, August 24, we had triple chocolate bundt cake. The reason I was smiling so big in this picture was that someone had just said I got to have all of it!

I actually shared it with our guests, Mathew, Nicole, and Phoebe Hinkle and our family.

Baby Ethan has not yet matured enough to know what chocolate is, much less how wonderful it is!

Jason had a French vanilla cake with peach jello poured over and through, covered with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles. It was yummy also!

For Jason's birthday, we went ice skating at the Ice Haus in Greeley. All the pictures taken of our people skating did not show their skates, so I chose this picture instead to represent our evening. This is our children posing by the sculpture of ice skaters outside the Ice Haus!

Jason turns 13 today!

Today is a very special day because Jason, our 5th child, 4th son, was born 13 years ago! I remember when I was expecting Jason, (I had not had an ultrasound, so I didn't know it was a boy), I wished for a little more space between Beth and the new one coming along. (Beth and Jason are the only two of our children closer than 2 years, 2 months apart; they are 23 months apart.) I was sitting in the hospital waiting room when Jeffrey was having a surgery and my cousin, LaDeana, was sitting with me during the surgery. She told me that she had had a dream about me and that in the dream God told her to tell me that the child I was carrying was going to be special and that God would use this child in a special way. That was such an encouragement to me and I have often thought of that and told Jason that too. He has been a very special child. He is very intelligent and has always excelled in school. He taught himself to read when he was five by listening to our phonics records. He told me he was done with kindergarten and wanted to start 1st grade. So we went on into 1st grade. He has always been a year ahead of his age in school. Today he is 13 and he is starting 9th grade. I have told him if he works hard the next three years, I will let him graduate when Beth does.
When Jason was born, he was our biggest baby, at 8#, 15 oz. (This year, Jason is 5 ft. 11 inches tall. We are thinking he will be the tallest one in the family, since he is not done growing!)
He had lots of hair, most of which stuck out from his head. I can't believe how the years have flown by since then! These pictures were when he was 2 1/2 weeks old. What a sweetie!

This summer, Jason has worked alongside Jeffrey for abeLAWNS, the lawn company that Randy and Tim started years ago and sold in 2005. Here Jason is mowing with the Walker mower in a subdivision green belt.

Here he is armed with a blower to clean off the sidewalks. Jason and Jeffrey both enjoy their MP3 players as they work. They listen to good music, the Listener's Bible, and some great historical works.

Jason can be hilariously entertaining and funny--at least we think so. If you haven't yet, you should read his blog posts at lawnjmon.blogspot.com Here is a picture of him when he was entertaining some small guests we had this summer.

This picture or a simlar one has appeared on our blog before when Jason got glasses for reading.

Rowen has posted a very nice updated picture of Jason on the side bar of our blog, so be sure and look there and I won't duplicate it here.
These are pictures from our time in the mountains last Saturday. The hat is great for sun protection on the neck, and helpful during rain showers which occurred while the family was on this mountain hike.

Jason loves to stick his feet in mountain streams whenever possible!
Jason is quite creative on the computer and the piano, but I don't have recent pictures I can post for those activities. Jason is a blessing to our family and I know God will use him as he keeps his life surrendered to the Lord! Happy Birthday, Jason! We all love you!

Our Day in the Mountains

On Saturday Aug. 23rd we enjoyed a day in a special part of our local mountains. It was partly to celebrate Janet's birthday (Sunday) and the end-of-summer and start of our home school year. Mike Durkee joined us as we went up South St. Vrain Canyon, had a picnic by the river,

then finally (bad maps ;-( ) found the trail that we were looking for.

It was the Ceran St. Vrain Trail, which was just beautiful as it wound its way through the lodgepole pine trees, alongside the South St. Vrain River. It's early fall at 8,000 ft, and just a perfect time in the Colorado mountains...You should have been there!

Janet chose to take a nap in the car while the rest of us hiked.
Mike and the kids couldn't resist some wading in the mountain stream.