The Muench Bunch

11/30/15 The roads were ice covered today. That  didn't  stop Allie from being out on them. She had a job interview in Fort Dodge then came to see us. She just moved back from Missouri and is trying to get a job at a nursing home and get into the nursing program. She was not dressed in what I would call interview clothes with black yoga pants and a long sleeve shirt. I hope that will not hinder her from getting the job. I invited her to have dinner with us and made her favorite, ham balls. She is currently living with her cousin in Harcort and hopes to get her own apartment down the road. I hope things will work out for her up her and she can get things figured out. She will be 24 in  February . It  doesn't  seem possible.

Thanksgiving felt different this year. Typically we have Thanksgiving dinner at the Anderlik home and lots of relatives come. This year it was a Karen and orrie's and the only relatives outside of the immediate family was Lavern, Verna Mae, Kallie, Suzy, Karla, Carly, and the newlyweds Kellie and Duane. I also did not have anyone staying at the house. Karen fixed the big meal with all the fixins of your dream meal. Tim had marinated and cooked one of the turkey's and it was excellent. He is pretty quiet these days. Everyone ate and ate and ate some more. We visited and watched Kellie's wedding. Suzy was the life of the party and now we got to watch her all over again. I would have been very embarrassed, but she thought it was hilarious. A few people wanted to go and see Matt and Libby's soon to be newlywed home in its renovations stages. It turned out to be 3 car loads. Suzy was in the lead, leaving us all in the dust. It has started snowing and was getting quit slick.

 There has been a lot of tiling going on the fields. Orrie likes to manage the workers and watch over their everyday progress. He also likes to take the boys along in the field toeatch. Luke has taken an interest in watching the tilers and enjoys going out with Po. Luke also enjoys driving the gator around with Grammer. He has become pretty good with it and likes to drive our gator alone around our farm. He is a little young yet, but he sure thinks he is old enough for everything Jake does. 11/25/15 Mark has been checking his cattle, 4-6 times a day. I can tell he is enjoying it. It has been too long without. This week we had a connection group Thanksgiving feast out at Hidden Acres and the food was outstanding! A short school week, Monday through Wednesday. Only one night of taekwondo and not a lot of running anywhere this week. We are watching the snow melt and I don’t have any company staying for Thanksgiving, so I am not stressing about anything. This is a good week so far.

 I am continually reminded why I homeschool and am reassured that I made the right choice. Don’t get me wrong some days at home I want to pull my hair out, I lose patience, I get frustrated, I get angry. It would be so much easier to put the kids on the bus and send them to school. It would be so easy to let someone else teach the kids. It would be so easy to have my days free of kids, have peace and quiet and not have to cook as many meals. It would be so easy to just greet them as they come home at 4:30 each day. Easy is not why I chose to homeschool, I have many reasons, and homechool is not easy! I love my kids and I care about them too much to let someone else teach them, influence them, and mold their little minds. Time and time again the kids will go places and be around other kids their age. Since homeschooling, they aren’t around large groups of same age kids very often. Both Jake and Luke will tell me they can’t believe how the kids act. They are wild, loud, out of contro

11/20/15 A big day on the Muench farm today!! 178 head of weaned steers arrived on our farm. Mark spent yesterday on the phone with an order buyer during an auction. The cattle came out of Ogalalla Nebraska. He had them hauled out right away to get them here before the arrival of a snow storm. They have been talking about the first snow all week. What started out as an estimate of 2 inces has grown anywhere from 6-8 inches. Two pot loads of cattle arrived at 9AM at the cow barn.  Ironically while awaiting our cattle loads, two semis went down our road to the neighbors, the Goode’s. Mark said it has been years since any cattle semis have been down these roads and 4 semi loads in one day is ironic. The kids were so excited to see the semis come and to get the new cattle. Dad is just a little excited himself. Po met the trucks in Boxholm during weigh in so Jake and Luke could jump in a semi to ride to the cow barn. The calves all ran down the chute and into two big pens of corn stalks a

11/19/15 First thing today, I took Jayden to get her driver’s license. It seems so crazy to me that she can drive alone anywhere. She is a good driver. She could use some practice in town and in busy areas. She does great on interstate and highways. More practice and little trips in the beginning will be good.I think back to when I was 16 and I find it a bit scary. My baby girl is growing up way to fast! Next we went on a field trip to the Des Moines State Capital. The local Ogden homeschool group planned the trip, but only two families went. We enjoyed it and got to see and learn a lot. The coolest was the huge library and of course the dome roof.  In the evening we met back in Ames for Orrie’s birthday. He will never miss a free sundae at Hickory Park. He makes sure all family members get to Hickory Park near their birthday in order to get that free ice cream. Jake also got his birthday sundae.

11/13/15 What started as a birthday sleepover, turned into an entire  weekend  of fun for Jacob. He has had such an awesome year. I keep telling him, this will be a hard year to top. From all the amazing things he has done this year, it can’t get any better: Flying in a helicopter, riding in an old during a car ride to a car show, driving old tractors at a tractor show, going to the Clear Lake car show, driving tracotrs in the field, driving solo, camping in a cabin, trapping with friends, just to name a few.  Tonight was the birthday party sleepover with friend Alex and cousin Rylie. Before the party, Alex came out with his brother Braden right after lunch to set some traps in our creeks. That would give the boys something to do the next morning. Makenna and Jayden got in on that part of the day and were driving one gator and the boys another. They didn’t get much trapping in with both gators low on fuel and  having  to run around filling them up. By 3:20 we picked Rylie up at the

That funny little dog named Tuff has been quite the companion for Jayden. It has been fun watching her with him. She has worked with him, training him and taking care of him 100%. He is a puppy and likes to drag things out and chew on them. he can get himself into trouble, destroying gloves, cat litter box, trash, and dragging out anything that seems fun. He chases the cats, but so far hasnt tried to harm them. The kittens arent afraid of him, so the tend to get along. Daisy seems to get wore out by all the puppy play and id laying around more all the time. She is really starting to show her age. Tuff is a high energy puppy and at 6 months of age he lost the puppy look. The boys enjoy "Tuff Tuff" too.

After we got our roan pony back, we didn't exactly know what to do with him. Makenna S. offerd to work with him. He had some quirks, was ornery to catch when in with other horses, was spooky of almost everything, and would drop and spin or veer off while riding. We had been hopeful to sell him and posted him on facebook.  While working with him, Makenna had become fond of the pony. The more she worked with it, the more she really liked him. Michelle also liked riding him. She hasn’t liked riding any other horse other than Eagle. One day she came up with an idea, trade the pony for Eagle. It didn’t take long for me to come to a conclusion on that. We were to the point of giving the pony away. Makenna has come so far with the pony, he is doing great for her. I watched a video and she was sitting on his back with a plastic bag at the end of a pole whipping it all around the ponies sides and head. The pony did not flinch. Before I could not get with in 30 feet of the pony with a plast

11/11/15 Another week filled to the max. Sunday we attended church in Ames, went out for lunch, and tried a connection group at Hidden Acres in Dayton at the Graden’s home. We know most of the people in the group, the Lamberts and the Graves being some of them. There are 23 kids between all of the families. Kristen made pancakes, eggs, and bacon for everyone. Their family also had a new addition, a giant African tortoise. The adults in our connection group talked about raising the next generation. It was kind of fitting as Mark and I were just discussing our kids and what things we need to work on. I have three main things I want to model for our children so that they will be Godly children and grow into Godly adults that love the Lord.  1.Love, 2.Give, and 3.Serve. They are very basic, yet so crucial. As parents it is our goal to model the importance of these things by "doing" and that is my goal! We need to improve on being that example.              Monday morning schoo