The Handmade Dress

Oh yeah, tonight is the annual Christmas tree burning party! We are getting the chili ready, taking down the decorations, and cleaning up! Speaking of parties, I wanted to share the pictures from my girls parties before Tim's party gets here. Maddie turned 4 on December 8th and we had a princess fairy party. I've always had Molly and Maddie's parties together because their birthdays are only a week apart, but this year they each got their own day and they both had a blast . I made Maddie this little fairy costume for her party, and Aunt Rae decorated the giant cupcake. Molly wanted a flower party so I made her this little flower tree, but no costume.....no, apparently 8 year olds don't wear flower costumes. Bummer. This is the cutest picture of Molly and her Uncle Adam! Look at those little best friends! Rae made Molly a giant cupcake too. Isn't she awesome? She used to work in a bakery, she rocks. Before I go I want to thank you all ...

Christmas was wonderful! The kids were so happy, and surprised, to find their goats, and a dog that they didn't expect, in the pen on Christmas morning! Let me go back a little bit and tell you the story from the beginning....The kids each asked for a goat for Christmas a couple of months back. The plan was to get three fainting goats from a neighboring farm (the one that Zoe came from) on Christmas day. Then in the spring we were going to try to get  Zoe a husband.... Our plan changed about two weeks before Christmas when we found a group of five pygmy goats (two of them could be pregnant!) and a male Great Pyrenees for a good price on craigslist, but we didn't tell the kids! The family we bought the group from were having a tough time feeding them so we had to get them right away and keep them hidden for 10 days!!! Do you know how hard it is to hide five goats and a dog from these three kids that practically live outside?? It was pretty tricky. ...

 We had a wonderful Christmas, but the next day I started to feel a little under the weather....so I will be back tomorrow to properly introduce our new babies and tell you all about our Christmas on the Caffee farm!

We are about to head out to all of our Christmas Eve celebrations, but I just couldn't go without first wishing you all (my online family) a very merry Christmas! I have wanted so badly to be here this week and share all of our doings but my kids read everything I write here (to keep my stories straight I guess!) and we are having to stay so secretive! Oh I can't wait for Christmas morning! Boy am I going to have a lot to tell after Christmas!  I wish you all, my dear friends, a wonderful Christmas filled with love!   Love, Ben, Samantha, Molly, Timothy, and Madeline  Zoe and Ralph the dogs; Kitty the cat; Tommy the turtle; the chickens; and our five unnamed until after Christmas, goats (hint)

I've found a new gadget for blogger! It's on the side bar down on the right, right above all of my lovely followers. It's called "recent comments", isn't that cool? Now when you comment, if you have a blog, it puts your link right there on the side bar so that people can visit you!

I have read several of these free online books in the last couple of weeks and I just had to share! I'm able to read these on my phone anywhere I go! Now what can make a gal happier than a Grace Livingston Hill novel while waiting in line at Target? I have read so many of her novels over the years and after every single one I have felt so inspired in my walk with God. Her stories are just beautiful! I've just recently read a couple of her Aunt's novels too, and let me tell ya, Isabella Alden doesn't dissapoint either! Anyone else have a good source for online books?

This is our little Zoe! She's a Great Pyrenees that's about three months old, and even though she is really big she's just a baby. Sometimes we call her our little polar bear, she is so stinkin cute and she has the sweetest personality. She LOVES the kids so much! She is so playful and loving, I can tell that she's going to like growing up with them. She was moving around so much while I was trying to get a good picture of her that they turned out all blurry. You wouldn't believe how much she has grown just since she came home! I think she probably weighs more than Maddie already! We got Zoe from a neighboring farm where her mother and father work taking care of chickens, goats, turkeys, peacocks, emu's, and even the cats. I think she is the perfect addition to our little growing farm! The chickens like her, kitty's still not so sure, and when our goats come home in a couple of weeks I'm sure they will like her too. I know that she will ta...

** Disclaimer: The laundry detergent recipe I found was on the Duggar Family website, and while I hear they are very nice Christian people, I don't want to give the impression that I know anything about them (we don't have cable TV so I don't watch their show). I'm also going to give links in this post to other websites that I found while researching homemade cleaners. I always try not to give links that lead to sites with offensive language or advertisements. Because most of my time on the computer happens with my children around I assume most of you are the same way, so I wanted it to be clear that I only looked at the recipe links that came up in my Google search, I didn't comb these sites for kid friendly material...so be careful! And sorry I'm such a freak-show for even writing this but I just wanted to remind everyone that you have to be careful everywhere you go online...I'm done now. LOL! If you are trying to squeeze every last penny, like us, you...

Finally! I have the Homeschool Planer uploaded!! You can read all about the planner HERE . I will have it on the Adoption website too sometime tonight after church. I'm offering the planner for adoption donations (you can give any amount, there are no set donations).    I feel like it has been a while since I have updated everyone on the adoption process, but....not much has happened really. We are still in the homestudy part of the process and basically just waiting on God to provide the money for us to move forward. It's a little discouraging at times and I have a feeling that it will probably get worse before it gets better. It looks like it will cost us about $30,000. We have a few fund raisers planned, but I think I'm going to need to plan lots more! I've been trying my best to come up with creative ideas...I think my next move will be to open another Etsy shop and sell a few handmade things a month. Besides that, all of the interviews have went re...

 This is the "butterfly chicken pot pie" test-run for Madeline's birthday on Tuesday. My little princess approves... She needed special, pretty food for her birthday....you know cause what princess would eat just normal old pot pie on her 4 year old birthday....I love how butterflies can make her happy....

I should start by saying that Fall in Alabama is prime lizard catching season. It's warm so the lizards are still out, but it's cool enough that they are pretty slow so that the kids can catch them, and that's good news to the Caffee children. You see the Caffee children will get up and get all of their school work done early (without complaints) just to get outside to catch lizards (and whatever else that they may come across). These crazy kids have caught up to 34 lizards in one day, they affectionately refer to that day (often) as "The day we caught THIRTY FOUR lizards". LOL! They head out early with a five gallon bucket and start their day. They each have their own job during lizard catching season too- I'm tellin ya, these kids are serious, you would think they were getting paid $5 a lizard by the way they act. LOL! Tim is the lizard finder, Molly said he is the best "finder"; Molly is the actual lizard catcher, because she is the fastest...