He’s Seven!

Celebrating Miker T. Biker’s birthday! He learned how to read this last year, and write, use a sander, jump his bike, add and subtract numbers…many other fun things too. Miker is always full of questions, calls me “beautiful mamma” and reminds us always to pray at every meal. He is a leader. He loves Jesus and learning more about God’s Word. He loves helping mamma around the house, opens my car door and is truly a gentleman.We love you so much Miker!

_{disclaimer: Sickness kept us home from church.}

Two chicks from his sister Emma

A kite!

The grand finale was a custom built trike by Daddy, Jacob and Daniel. Two Browning machine guns mounted to the handle bars and painted camo. Complete with sparklers in the guns to produce a cool charred affect in the guns.

We think he liked it.

Gracie and Lillie the one-eyed dog enjoying the sunshine today. I chose to milk this morning and it was sooo therapeutically wonderful to sit out there and talk to my goats. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

Dentists and Doctoring

Poor Danny. Talk about being kicked while you’re down. You know how when you were swinging, you would lean waaaay back and look behind you? Remember the thought entered your mind that it sure wouldn’t be fun to accidentally let go and fall off on your head?

We now have proof that, no, it would NOT be good. Danny did just that and has a minor broken arm because of it. 

The good news is we had a cast ready for him as his sister broke her arm in the SAME spot two months ago.

The bad news is the poor kid was scheduled to have two molars pulled this morning.

We got to the dentist and he had two permanents pulled and a surprise baby molar that was ready to come out.

This will make room for moving his teeth into place and provide room for his wisdom teeth, which will not have to be pulled…that is good.

He is such a brave, strong young man and the Lord heard our prayers and made the teeth pull without pain! He is so good to us and I am so thankful we know the living God who hears.

Now I am off to do his chores…man, that boy does a lot around here!

Road trip!

Well, if you consider an hour and a half drive a road trip. I do. Half of us are heading off to the Christian Heritage Family Discipleship and Homeschooling Conference, oh joy! I get to shop for our 2013 curriculum tonight until I drop. I will have six, count them, six, students next year! I never would have guessed the Lord would do this for me. He is so faithful, merciful, all-enabling, rich in kindness, patient, I praise Him. I am learning not to fret at the anticipation of an added student. He has always been faithful to give me what I need to incorporate another child at the study table.

Food is packed for both the leavers and the stayers, house is clean. At this point may I stop and say my kids are the BEST. Do you know that I was being watched last night by my eldest son and as soon as I went to bed at 11pm(!), he waited until Daddy and I were asleep, then he woke up the older children and  they all came downstairs and CLEANED my house. It is beautiful and a huge check off my list! What a BLESSING they are.

This morning we have 80lbs of chicken coming in that I need to process before leaving, but that really shouldn’t be a big deal and Daniel has a dentist appt in prep to get teeth pulled next week, then lunch and we are outtahere.

I best be mov’in.

Relax’n

That’s what we’re doing, and doing it well.

At 4pm today…

Grace and Elijah were pretending to drive off into the sunset…

Jake was building wooden rifles…

Micah was sanding something…

Danny was drilling trigger holes in his wooden pistol.

Lyddibugs slept the afternoon away…

 

The girls beaded…and beaded…and beaded…

And I took each of my kennel dogs out into the sunshine and fresh green grass for a run. I am so thankful for our day of rest Lord! Meditating on His goodness and faithfulness today.

Hovander Park

Saturday was spent in Ferndale while Daddy was  *delegating* at the Republican County Convention. We visited Fragrance Garden, walked the boardwalk and the children ran up and down the tower until they were pooped. I stayed on the ground.

Feeling educational, we brought our Audubon book of birds, a notebook and pen to catalog all of the ducks we saw. We left only seeing one, a widgeon, like that counts, and Micah dropped the Audubon book in the lake. <sigh>

Creation was beyond beautiful that day…

One eventful day…

I thrive on days like today. I don’t know why, but I do. Maybe it is the challenge?  Maybe I’m just crazy? I’ll go with the latter.

 

This morning started with a trip to the dentist office. THE trip to the dentist office. I was told three hours total and I’d have my boys back. Four and a half hours later, they arrive with their shiny new gear. Aren’t they handsome? They look great and seemed pretty proud. I, only slightly disappointed in half a day gone from home, resolved to get right home and tackle the day. Laundry, dinner, school still loomed.

Got home and Lydia was crying. Jess said she had been crying a lot so I put her on my back in the Ergo, that always makes her happy.;) Then Franz called and they had animal feed for me…now…by 4pm. I made arrangements to leave…again. Then a phone call that our little doeling we sold yesterday was refusing to eat and she needed to come back to mamma, she was getting weak. We met at Franz and I got animal feed and a doeling. I got home, ran her out to the barn and she nursed well,  regaining strength.

I went in my house. Jess had started dinner, Yay Jess! I  threw Lydia on my back again, finished making  kombucha, did a couple dishes and someone yelled that Elijah threw up on the couch. This is where things got fuzzy. I got him in the bathroom where he threw up again several times, dinner was burning, I ran to pull it out, I came back to Elijah. Just as I bent over Lydia threw up all over my back, my hair, herself and the floor.  Sigh. I love my family. Thankful for the excitement the Lord throws into our life and thankful for days like this that keep me young.

Ice Welding

 

Invented by my boys on a rainy day…

Materials needed:

• A towel to place on your working surface.
• A bowl that has been placed in the freezer for a few minutes(cover bowl)
• Syringes
• Small bowl of ice water(to draw up into syringe)
• Large bowl of ice with a metal lid(an upsidedown metal cake pan works great, too)
• Fresh ice from the freezer, easily accessible

---

1. Make sure your working surface(metal lid) and cover bowl are nice and cold.

2. Take two pieces of brand new ice out of the freezer and place them side by side on the metal plate. Make sure they’re touching.

3. Weld them together by dropping 4-6 drops of water on the edges where they touch together.

4. Quickly place the frozen bowl over the ice cubes and let them sit for about 2min as they bond together.

5. Place one piece of ice over top the two as pictured and two more pieces on the sides. Weld together with 4-6 drops of water, quickly cover and let bond.

My kids made some pretty intricate stuff yesterday, the boys especially enjoyed it because they were *welding*. I would think welding in the freezer would give much better results. Give it a try! Worse case scenario - you have water on the floor and a science lesson learned. Not bad.

Home - Welcome to Toshiba

I had to leave that heading. That is what Toshiba *thought* would make a nice default heading for me…nice of them, huh? They also left a link for you wonderful people to go to their site, but I removed that. Wow. Talk about forward.

My old computer was duct taped, scotch taped and rubberbanded together. Now that our long awaited tax refund arrived, Paul and I ran into B-ham and purchased another cheap laptop, yay! This time the Windows Live Writer is fanTASTtastically wonderful and I’m hoping with it’s ease of use, blogging will pick up again. But….I’ve said that before.