Happy Belated Birthday Blog! ~*give-away*~

Time flies when your having fun! My blog just celebrated it's 1st birthday on the 20th. It has served it's purpose well documenting our family's happenings in the last year for me.

For Blog's birthday we are having a drawing for 8oz of our home-made goat's milk Fromage Blanc cheese flavored with herbs de provence. For all you out-of-towners I will mail you a bar of our fresh made goat's milk soap as soon as it is made and cured(which could be a couple months before it is ready, but hey, it's free!)

Please leave your name in the comment box and we will do a drawing on Wednesday the 3rd of June. I have had so much fun getting to know so many new friends through this blog!

How to teach your 4yr old to ride a bike...

A true story that took place on May 23 at 3:17pm. ;)

HOW do you get your newly 4yr old to ride a bike with no training wheels? Stop by the consignment store and buy a BMX bike. Tell little boy/girl that if they can ride said bike with no training wheels they can HAVE it as their OWN, just like big brother/sister. Take said bike home and have Daddy look over bike and say it is a keeper. Daddy stops working to spend an hour or so teaching 4yr old to ride bike. However, this might not go as planned, your bribe might work better than expected!

Seriously people, one push, Daddy let go and this is what happened. Aaaaaall the way across the yard and he jumped off, landed on his feet(as opposed to his bum) and asked for another push!

There was no teaching, much to the dismay of Daddy and Mommy,

who looked forward to the training time.

Show me a cool pose, Miker the biker...

Let's see those muscles!! What a good biker boy you are!

~*~

...And that is how you train a 4 yr old how to ride a bike.

What's the big deal..

About having a goat for crying out loud.

Well, this is what puts the cherry on top for me! After many years of paying through the nose for organic cow's milk and skimping on diary products because of the cost, our children now have all they can eat of milk, yogurt, kefir for smoothies and whey that we use to mix with juice concentrates. Also notice the two different type of cheese on the far right?! With my now third batch of cheese I made a Fromage Blanc with fresh dill from our garden, then the one below it is Fromage Blanc with herbs de provence...a wonderful treat for a midnight snack. I just couldn't help but take this picture. I have dreamed of this for my children for so long and we are really enjoying it.

The milk is just delish and no one would touch the cow's milk after just a couple days on goats milk, they say it has a taste to it. Our goats milk is so sweet and yummy and constitutes a cheap healthy afternoon snack. Remember, milk is a food, not a beverage. ;)

My husband is researching cheese presses for me. One nice thing about being married to a welder/fabricator is anything stainless steel, he can draw it up & make it! I don't plan on making hard cheeses until late Fall. But when I do, all I want is Gouda, Gouda, Gouda!

He's 2 months!!

I LOVE this picture!

Can you believe it? Two months already! 12lbs 9 oz and outgrowing his outfits in length, on to 6-9m sizes. With his bump all gone, much earlier than we ever believed, he is cute as a button. With lots of blond hair, dark blue eyes, a chubby belly and a smile to make anyone melt, this little guy is the center of the household.

Jessie learned to change his diaper for the first time last week. As most of you know, changing a little boy's dirty diaper is far from easy!

He only wakes up once at night to nurse, at 3am, on the button. You can set your clock by it. He is happy happy happy for a short period of time after he is nursed ;) He is just starting to focus on toys hanging in front of him and talk to them. It is so much fun to have a baby around!

Picture Perfect

Grace, can you give the kitty a kiss?

Good girl, come see mamma!

"Gracie, look at mamma.....Graaaaacie"

Can you smile for the camera?

Pretty pleeeeeeease?

Yay!!

A Few Words About Grace

Our associate pastor Dax, posted this on his blog about a month ago, I keep going back and reading it. Thought I'd share.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Posted on April 18th, 2009

I wonder sometimes how much wisdom we miss in the gathered wisdom of earnest believers in years past. We all know names like Calvin and Luther, but how many other Saints joyfully proclaimed the truth of the Gospel and are never read?

In that vein, I was reading a not-so-old-but-not-contemporary book on Romans by William R. Newell, published in 1938. It happened to be on my shelf, and several sections really caused me to pause and think… in a good way.

So I share a couple of sections with you, from Newell’s Romans Verse By Verse, pp. 246-247. May they also cause you to reflect on the wondrous grace that has been poured out on us in Christ!

“A FEW WORDS ABOUT GRACE”
[The first two sections were also good, but I've left them out for space constraints.]
“III. The Proper Attitude of Man under Grace

1. To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret.
2. To refuse to make “resolutions” and “vows”; for that is to trust in the flesh.
3. To expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more lack of worth.
4. To testify of God’s goodness, at all times.
5. To be certain of God’s future favor; yet to be ever more tender in conscience toward Him.
6. To rely on God’s chastening hand as a mark of His kindness.
7. A man under grace, if like Paul, has no burdens regarding himself; but many about others.

IV. Things Which Gracious Souls Discover

1. To “hope to be better” is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.
2. To be disappointed with yourself, is to have believed in yourself.
3. To be discouraged is unbelief,-as to God’s purpose and plan of blessing for you.
4. To be proud, is to be blind! For we have no standing before God, in ourselves.
5. The lack of Divine blessing, therefore, comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion.
6. Real devotion to God arises, not from man’s will to show it; but from the discovery that blessing has been received from God while we were yet unworthy and undevoted.
7. To preach devotion first, and blessing second, is to reverse God’s order, and preach law, not grace. The Law made man’s blessing depend on devotion; Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing: our devotion may follow, but does not always do so,-in proper measure.”

Happy Birthday Micah!!

Our Miker was 4 on May 6. He loved wearing his "I'm 4 Today" hat and loved it when some sweet little ole lady would congratulate him at the grocery store. He picked out his birthday dinner and for those of you with like all your food complimenting each other, you better not read his dinner choices.



At four years of age you officially graduate from children's church in our church. Micah sat through his first full church service last Sunday and did great!! Other than after the offertory he asked me out loud "Are we done now?". I love our children's church program as it is completely controlled and teaches the youngsters to enjoy sitting quietly and listening to teacher, developing great skills that make the adaption to big church an enjoyable one for us!

The happy birthday table!

Micah's perfect dinner. He ate it ALL too. Steamed carrots with brown sugar and butter, fruit salad, shrimp an macaroni and cheese with Jelly Belly jelly beans and a big glass of goat's milk.

Yum! Don't knock it until you've tried it.

His choklit cake with choklit frosting and Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Did you know...

...Jessica found another hummingbird nest in our tree? We found one two years ago as well and still have it, they preserve well.

Can you see it?

Attached securely by cobwebs to the branch. We learned that hummingbird nests are made of cobwebs that the birds take down and intertwine with moss they pick off trees or out of the yard. Then they strip lichen off trees and place that as an outer shell on their nest naturally camouflaging, stabilizing and insulating it.

The little eggs were the size of pencil erasers. The babies in this picture are the size of yellow jackets. They make no noise. A nickle might fit inside the nest.


This is the only safe nest in our yard. The cat takes all the others down.

They are out on the end of a branch.

More to come...

A conversation I wish I never had...

Daniel (8), dead serious, asked me this morning..."Mamma? If you had a baby with two heads, would he be reeeeally intelligent?" Mamma replies "No Danny, it would be two separate heads just like two separate children" Daniel - "Oh, so he wouldn't be smarter than me?" Mamma - "Nope." Daniel "Good".

Exposing A Trojan Horse

FREE TO BORROW - I know some of you may contemplate homeschooling in years to come. We decided to buy this video to lend to friends so they can make a well informed decision on their homeschooling choices. I really appreciated the information given in the film. Agagin, ask us to borrow the film, that is why we bought it. We will even mail it, postage paid. We think the message is very important to the future homeschooling ability of our children, our grandchildren and greats.

Government-funded programs for homeschoolers are everywhere … and they are enticing. They provide free materials, services, and experiences to home educating families. But there is a cost! Here are some questions you should be asking:

What “price” do parents pay to participate in these programs?
What is the cost to the homeschooling movement, at large?
What will be the impact on future generations of Christian home educators?
Are we inviting a Trojan Horse into our midst through these programs?

”Exposing a Trojan Horse” This powerful DVD interviews Voddie Baucham, Brian Ray, Dorothy Karman, Michael Smith, and many others. Hear leaders of Christian state homeschool organizations, researchers, and parents across the nation uncover the hidden costs of participating in government-funded programs for home educators.
Whether you are independently homeschooling or currently enrolled in public school-at-home programs, you can’t afford to miss this powerful presentation! Your children’s futures depend on your understanding the vital issues exposed by it.

Hokey pete, that's a lot of milk.

Penelope, dear Penelope, she just won't give us enough milk. After feeding her like a queen she was still only giving 2 lbs(1 qrt) every morning. So I get this bright idea...let's get another milk goat! I tend to do these harebrained things, forgetting things like, oh, I have seven children, one is a very fussy little boy right now, I can't keep up with the work I have already...you'd think I'd learn. You should see our place right now, there are chicken tractors everywhere filled with bunnies or chicks or chickens, puppies galore and now four goats. Yes, four. I was warned going into this goat thing that it might become addictive. Well, I may need an intervention soon.



We all piled in the van Sunday afternoon and drove for two hours to Timbuktu, picked up another milker and a doeling the lady threw in to sweeten the deal. We coaxed them into the back of our van(o.k. a little grain and a lot of grunting and oomfing on our part) - right behind the children(my van was well protected from what goats do best) and back to Lynden we traveled. Seven children, two adults, two goats. I'd looked back every now and then to see Daniel sitting in the back seat and a large goats head resting on his shoulder reading his book with him. My, what the people on I-5 must have thought as they saw the goats staring at them from the back window.

Juniper, our new goat, is comparatively HUGE. She has a beard, but a womanly type of beard. It looks good on her. The night we got her home, we milked her for the first time. It was like trading in your 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit for a 2009 Cadillac. Much larger teats, twice as much milk and milking taking half the time. Though Juniper is needy. She thinks SHE is married to my husband as she calls to him across the yard. When he goes in the pen with her all she does is love on him. She is quite affectionate, though she obviously has a crush on my husband.

Something happened to Penelope after we got Juniper home. It's like she knows she is being replaced. She has started giving more milk, miraculously, seriously. Yesterday, between them both, we got over 11 lbs of milk(8lbs=1gallon). Compared to our usual 2.2lbs, that was paydirt. Our new little doeling is still bottle fed so that is a heavenly experience for the children!! And me! We just filled one of Gracie's bottles and wallah, the doeling sucked 8oz of milk down in about 30 sec.

It is so much easier when you have a partner. Juniper is 1yr old and she just freshened two weeks ago. Hopefully, we have many years ahead together.

As for Penelope, she will move on. She was a great beginner goat. We learned more than we wanted to learn, no really. (Mindy, you know what I am talk'n about, like what ORF stands for)

Goats are cool. The education has been awesome. I know how to pick out quality vs cruddy hay/alfalfa, I can trim hooves, clip my version of a *dairy cut*, take a goats temp, know what cashmere is, wrestle a goat , in a skirt, and get wormer crammed in it's mouth, their stomachs can hold 3-4 gallons of water and plant matter(WOW), and much, much more.

Everyone needs a goat.

Little Tate

A sweet story about a sweet family. Read about the background on this little guy here.

Then visit the family's webpage at http://www.littletait.com/

Pink Eyes and Bleeding Hearts

So, how many sicknesses can you have in one house? Sheesh. We have pink eye, and a variation of such that makes for just goopy eyes. Fever, head & chest colds and the baby has all of the above, minus the fever. Thankful there is no nausea! Our house is a sauna with all the steamers running. ;) Never an empty lap.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


Is this not just cute? A 65lb Lab playing with a 2lb ShihPoo puppy.

If you look close you will see the puppy's little pink tongue giving Tyann a kiss.

Tyann smiling for the camera.



What makes a happy boy?

A sunny day, bare feet, a carrot and lots of puppy kisses.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My oldest and youngest bonding in their sleep.

Their nightly ritual :)

My purple magnolia tree from Mother's Day 2006

It is time to put up with the flower pics. If I ever get a nicer camera I'd fill my home with pictures of flowers.

Bleeding Hearts