Adorable Pictures!

Alright, you have to take a side journey over the The Bakers Dozen and check out a small handful of the bajillion photos Renee took yesterday.

The Bakers Dozen

Today was a great day. It started out with Renee coming over and taking pictures of the absolute cutest baby...mine. Well, I think so. She is building a portfolio and on her way to becoming professional and has some of the most aDORable pics of babies on her blog. She was so patient as Elijah wasn't as cooperative as I'd hoped and she spent at least an hour and half rocking, posing, rocking and so on. I was asked to keep the room about 90 degrees so we could get some naked baby pic's, well, I think it may have been around 110 degrees instead. Woodstoves are so hard to regulate. Her 13 children and my 6 made for a yardful of children!




Secondly, I got a shower today. Usually showers lately are stolen late at night, but this time I got a *day* shower. Funny how petty things can make you giddy when you have a young baby.


Thirdly, I FINALLY got to go to The Porch. The Porch is an underground weekly meeting of knitting enthusiasts...o.k. rather just friends meeting to craft their hearts away. I have envied these ladies meeting for quite some time, and today my husband asked to take off early from work just so I could go, how sweet is that? I would have taken pictures but then, if I showed you, you know what I'd have to do....

Dinner tonight is Cashew Chicken Stirfry....mmmm one of our faves.

SO...I saw a friend, Hilary's, foster child wearing the most adorable soft baby shoes and I emailed her to ask her what they were. They are some new-fangled shoe called Robeez(sp?) I had never heard of them. So today when Renee came over, she brought 2 pairs from Hilary. One she scored at a consignment store and the other(pictured) she MADE. Yes, she made. I'm impressed and Elijah is up-with-it.

I got flowers today from a happy young boy...how do I know he's happy?

Because a face smeared with dirt means a happy boy...

On the home front, hubby came home with 7 lovely blueberry plants from Craigslist last night. They are on the right and I dug, reclaimed and replanted raspberry plants I lost to the tall grass last year. Let's hope that doesn't happen this year.

Our first set of meat birds, toasty and warm in the brooder.

Spring means endless bouquets of dandelions displayed on the dining room table. . I really think florists should sell bouquets of dandelions. I bet a lot of mothers who's children are no longer at home would buy them for the sake of nostalgia.

Resurrection Day Revelations

I found my other SD card with pics I have been wanting to post. So here goes...

First off, I know this is a long shot, but we would really like to find more of these 2 quart jars for storing/serving our goats milk. I have plenty of quarts, but these handy 2 quarts are fantastic. They are few and hard to find, so why not blog it right? Desperately looking for more, I'd be glad to buy them off your hands.

The binky says it all.



Emma brought the eggs in the other day and showed us all this monster egg, it was HUGE. Only a double yolker. I thought it was a triple, but not. About ten years ago, we had a quad yolker, it was impressive in size and the hen that laid it consistently laid double yolkers daily. Now that was a productive hen!

My litter growing ever so quickly! They are mooses!

My sweet Penelope. She only loves me for my grain.

My new goat barn! Paul's shop is starting to look like Noah's ark, a big long box. My barn will have a milking parlor in the end stall and three goat(or other) stalls. There is a large hay mow up top that the children are sooo anticipating sleeping in this summer. Living a farmers life on a very small scale.

Hurricane Grace. All curls, always smiling and a handful of trouble.

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Happy Resurrection Day!!

I love the Good Friday service, of which Daddy taught at home this year, and the songs, oh, the joyous hymns! All the good old hymns we have been rejoicing to since I can remember. And the church service in which as soon as you walk in the door, you see the joy the savior has given us written on every ones faces. It is the happiest day of the year.

We made our resurrection cookies Saturday night.

Then after a fill Sunday and naps the kids sprang up knowing their egg hunt was up next. Daddy hid 54 eggs and told everyone they could find 9. Micah and Gracie were the first to hunt, then Daniel and Emma, lastly Jessie and Jacob.

Gracie made a hunt for Elijah, he still couldn't find them though.

MMMmmmm...candy.


MMmmmm...chocolate bunnies.



MMmmmm...chocolate high chair, light switch plate, wall, window and 20 month old.

Right before we ate our dinner tonight Daddy asked the children if they knew why we call Resurrection Day just that and not Easter. It led to quite a conversation and well, a study. Daddy looked into the subject of Easter and all the imagery involved, eggs, the name Easter, bunnies, etc. Well, after a lengthy discussion guess what? This is our last year celebrating with eggs, bunnies and hunts.

Now, this wasn't Paul's or my decision, it was the children's as a whole so before you throw eggs(pardon the pun) it was a 8 to 0 vote. From now on we will NOT celebrate Resurrection Day(really weekend) with eggs, bunnies, hunts and the like. We are going to KEEP resurrection cookies, candy, and maybe chocolate something other than bunnies. Jesus will always be the center. We will BEGIN celebrating with new fun games, Jessica suggested a scavenger hunt each year.

So our little study turned our family in a whole new direction this year. Wow. One article Paul read at the table that really changed the children's hearts was here . I have to admit I have always known Easter was pagan, but never wanted to look into it. I am glad my husband turned our hearts in that direction tonight and we look forward to creative celebration starting next year! I love how the Lord works in our lives and the lives of our children, tonight was a wonderful evening that we will always remember.

Alive and well...

Life outside the house? What's that? Oh...those first six weeks. I love'em...now. I feel overwhelmed with *life* at times, I so sympathize with my milk goat and the outdoors never looked so appealing...but I have this little creature the Lord so wonderfully blessed me with that needs me in the house. One thing that comes with having many children is you learn to savor those all-to-quickly-forgotten sleepless nights and the hours spent nursing. Elijah snuggles so sweetly and nursing is going so well I am relishing every moment with my ever changing little one. I swear, every morning he looks different and I have learned not to let these first weeks get the best of me, but rather enjoy them. I need to post more pictures.




His bump is staying the same, but everyone other than me says it is going down. I don't see it. Emma and Daniel have really stepped in. Every time the baby cries one of the two pick him up and rock him. Daniel especially, he is so good with Elijah, I never would have guessed.

Sorry again about the quiet blog, we have been so busy around here! We counted and have 62 animals right now with 60 chicks and a litter of puppies due in in the next couple weeks. Gotta love it.

Go'in On A Frog Hunt...

Daddy has gone. Even though he will be back Thursday night there were still tears at the airport. We parked and waved as we watched his plane taxi and take-off, he saw us! But then who could miss a large white van with a mob of children waving excitedly at your plane. He had already landed in Seattle as we entered Lynden. He took off again on a bigger jet and headed to Ketchikan.
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I was everyone's favorite mamma tonight as I announced extended stay up time for everyone. Jessie and Micah decided to play games while Jacob, Daniel and Emma went frog hunting. Gracie and Elijah went to bed. I grabbed my camera and went out to find the children.

The noise from those critters is so loud!

"I see one, get him!"

"We have five"

"There's a big one!"

Memories, memories...

Monday Again

Wow, it comes too quickly. Days go fast when you are trying to enjoy and keep your baby from growing up. Monday means he will be three weeks tomorrow, three weeks! Ouch.

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Monday also means that my hubby is leaving tonight. He is flying to Alaska to look at something for work, I don't even think HE knows what he is doing yet. He is flying out at 5pm and won't be in his hotel until the wee hours of the night...all this on top of a days work. I love that man. He will be home Thursday night. Four lonely days!

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Paul and I have planned on getting a laptop for school for the last year. But, going into the store and having undisturbed time to shop and compare is few and far between. We saved up the money months ago and there it sits. Someone in my family decided to buy one and my mother followed suit and bought one(we are terrible copycats). I got to try hers out and then my husband sat down and did comparing online for a couple nights, then HE went out and bought one. I can blog and sit downstairs to referee the children all at the same time, what a concept!

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Well, I nursed the babe, milked the goat and here I sit sipping coffee and eating a piece of raspberry cheesecake leftover after a dinner provided by a wonderful family from church last night. Oh, it is good...School is calling...

Pink Eye, Puppies and MILK!! - Goat Milk Saga part III

Elijah 2.5 weeks old!

I am so bummed, we had to miss church this morning. It is like the high-light of my week, especially with a new baby to show off! Micah has had pink eye the last couple days and I thought we'd just sneak him in and keep him on my lap, but this morning he woke and we had to soak his eye with a hot washcloth just to get it opening correctly and remove the *stuff*. He looked terrible. Pink eye seems to visit our family every other year, I wonder if it comes from the animals?






Then I went out to get the goat for milking and I heard a familiar high pitched cry coming from my lab's kennel. She is due next Wednesday, but I knew that sound all too well. I ran over there and peaked in, Tyann stayed curled in the corner of her house and did not come when I called her. I went in and she looked at me like "Look! Look!" Her tail wagging and 3 dry, fat little labradoodles lying next to her. Her whelping box was not even made up and she was supposed to deliver inside the garage for warmth so I hollered at Jess and she and Daddy got things ready. We pulled Tyann inside in her nice warm bed with her babes. She ran out into the yard to go potty and gave birth to another right there on the lawn, then ran back to the garage. So we ran out, grabbed it and brought it back. First time mothers, go figure! I decided that if she is going to act like that we better not leave, so we stayed and she gave birth to 5 more pups for a total of 8 so far! They are huge compared to my Shih Tzus! Some of them being as big as my puppies when they leave to go to their new homes.


One tired mamma.

Another in the making. Due in three weeks. Purebred Shih Tzus.

Eggs, eggs and more eggs. We are getting about 10 eggs a day now. Paul did a wonderful job researching how to get these dog gone hens to start producing and making it happen! We have enough to see to pay for the feed and to feed our egg lov'n children.

And finally blessed milk!! We got a full quart this morning(don't laugh Kristy J.). We were thrilled! My hand was cramping when we were done and we made sure the cat would not come in the garage this time. Penelope did wonderful on the milking stand. We cooled the milk and took our maiden taste. It was delicious! There was NO difference in taste between this and the whole cows milk we buy at the store. That goat better start producing more because we are all fighting over the quart jar! Success at last! Like Paul said, it is a quart of milk worth about $500.

Hurricane Grace and Milking the Goat Saga- Part II

Some people, when they hear of Hurricane Grace, remember the hurricane that arose the fall if 1991 and was the cause of The Perfect Storm, leading to the movie. This is our daughters new nick-name.

Lately our sweet little Grace has been a hurricane. Finding a chair to climb her way onto the counters to eat our peanut butter, butter and jam. She snacks on dog food, cuts her hair, eats our wooden matches like they're lollipops, empties lotion bottles, dumps water outside the bathtub, runs stealthfully out the door to the swing set in her jammies when it is 40 degrees out, and pulls 25 books off the bookcase until she finds Are You My Mother. And that was just this afternoon. It is hard keeping up with her!

Here are a few of the matches strewn across the living room floor.

Upon a closer look, the ends are sucked off leaving useless wet sticks.

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It happens SO fast!

A half pint of my home-made marrionberry jam, gone in moments.

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O.k., so we pulled the kids from Penelope last night all excited to milk her, truly milk her this morning! Yippee, it's about time. I wasn't able to be there because of other engagements but this is what happened. Paul, Jess and Jacob went out to milk the goat. She was FULL of milk after not being with her kids all night. A little grain and she jumped right up on the milking stand. They milked and milked until Nellavy(as Micah calls her) was done and the pail had our pearly white liquid gold in it. In walks the cat. Penelope does not like cats. She spooked and kicked the milking pail onto the floor spilling all their hard earned milk. Our first milk.

Dumb cat. Dumb goat.

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A litter of eight!



Last month we had 4 rabbits. This month we have 23.