Waiting on our farm

2009-12-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

It's like a nagging itch in the back of my mind, this blog is. It's a almost-sort-of responsibility therefore I have some guilt about not keeping up with it for the people that had been reading it as regularly as I was writing in it. One of the things that holds me be is photos, sometimes I just don't have the ones that I want to go along with the words I want to weave. I've decided at least for today that I'm just going to dive in photo-free and just update.

Things have been going. I'm not one to play debbie downer so lets just say things are just simply going. There seem to be things coming at us from every direction possible and some that aren't. That's one of the things that takes up my time solving or trying to solve various issues coming up spawning from a single event some time ago.

The kids are great though. They are busy as ever, learning and loving and just being happy. School has been wonderful for Brody and Mason, I sure miss them while they are gone but they enjoy the interaction with others and all the activities they can do there. Orin sometimes wants to go to school with them and sometimes he's more than happy about staying home. He never actually gets to go but the days he wants to there are fits involved. Aidan is growing so big so fast, he's saying a few words, crawling like crazy, pulling up, and cruising the furniture. He is 14 months old now and it's exciting and scary coming to terms with the fact that he is my last baby. I know that I will still be able to hold other people's babies and babysit but it's not the same. The nice thing is eventually I will be done with diapers and bottles and sippys and all that stuff. It's all just the next leg of a long journey, full of adventure.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and there is nothing better that I can think of. I just love it. I finished reading Stephen King's new book Under the Dome. It was really good, especially if you devour books like I do and you want something that will last more than a day or two. The book is around 1070 pages. There was a joke on a community I frequent saying even if you don't enjoy the story the book makes a great door stop. I plan to make another post about books, but I'm not sure when, there are some photos I have to take for that one.

This is not much of an entry, but it eases my guilt of neglecting this blog, plus I'm not really in the correct mindset for funny puns and silly stories.

In Which She Gets Back To Business

2009-10-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

So I've been missing since around the Fourth of July...I knew where I was but stayed away from this blog. I had things to share but for some reason I couldn't make myself. I just worked on my cooking blog instead. It's easier to cook, photograph and share. But I'm back and I'm getting down to business. This post is an update but so much has been going on I won't mention much. Then I will get back to my normal posts.

Brody and Mason started school

Orin turned two September 28thMy parents had a surprise 25th anniversary party (I forgot my camera...can you believe it? If you really know me you wont be surprised.)Aidan turned 1 October 8thOrin and Aidan had a joint party!Sometimes we just hang out...
We have been crazy busy every day of every week for the last few months. Even when we are laying around we are busy. I will update more now and will probably even make entries about a few of these topics. Stay tuned for some funny adventures and lots of cuteness!

The Joys of Boys

2009-08-11T17:12:00.001-07:00

These are my beatiful sons, Brody, Mason, Orin and Aidan. They are my whole world. It's rare when I trek out with the troops and I dont get the odd, "Wow you have your hands full!" "Don't you own a TV?" "You know what makes babies right?" or the "Are you going to keep trying for a girl?" I just smile, give my polite answer and march on with my boys. I have people tell me that I must be crazy with so many little boys, but honestly, I would be crazy without them! They bring newness to my life every day. I get to see through the eyes of a child again when they see things.

I get to watch them dress up, and with simple fabric, a costume really changes you from a boy to a wild lion. Or maybe into a superhero, a superhero that has some dealings to handle with a lion.Watch a barn turn from a plastic toy, to a farm with animals needing to sleep and eat, and cars that in our house also need to sleep in the stalls.

There is always something they are doing that is exciting and fun. Something to learn all over again. I call them my angel boys, they are so sweet and behaved so well...most of the time!

Dear Stove...

2009-08-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

Dear stove,

I am tired of your antics. Your behavior is just terrible. I don't know if you are just rebellious or if I have seriously offended you in some way. You know I really do love you. You know I only put delicious goodies in your oven and cook various yummies on your stove top. Yet you have decided to burn apart the connections to three of my four burners. Do you think it's funny to watch me cook a fairly complex meal with one burner? Do you think it's fun to watch me swear as I watch each coil die one by one? I know that you are working hard to destroy my last burner but I outsmarted you by replacing it when we were able to months back the first time to burn the connectors. Haven't I always made sure your stove top was clean? Why are you doing this to me, you know you are my favorite stove. I promise there is no one else in my life. I know I've used my parents stove, but I never loved it more than you...(at least that's what I will tell you, my parents stove behaves.) I feel like you've stolen a part of me...what? Don't give me that look, I didn't deserve this!

And oven...I don't even want to get started on you. Your display announces that you have obeyed my will and heated to the appropriate temperature...lies! All lies! Sometimes you are as much as 75 degrees off either way. Do you enjoy watching me squirm? Is it just that you crave my company so much that you've become so unreliable that I need to sit on the floor in front of you watching my cookies bake? You used to be so good to me. I've never even moved you, I've just washed you lovingly, and made you useful. I've brought my family around to loving you through the food you deliver via my hands. One of these days the laugh will not be on me! One of these days you may find yourself listed on freecycle. You might go to a home where you aren't scrubbed after every meal. How do you like that? Hmmm? I saw that fearful tremble. You should be afraid...very very afraid.

I Love A Parade!

2009-08-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

Well we all love a parade! Hubby, the herd of boys and I all got to spend a fun hour and a half yesterday watching a parade march down mainstreet in Tiny Town. We loaded our double stroller with the babies, and the big boys walked.

It was a long journey fraught with peril...well OK it was 3 blocks of walking on sidewalks, waving to neighbors laughing and enjoying the sun! We made it up to town and took our seats on the sidewalk, peeking up and down the street waiting for our parade! On the east side of main street we could see the cop car with his lights a shining, ready to lead the parade. I handed out cracker snacks to the 3 oldest (Aidan is too young yet and ate right before.) We watched as the parade began. There were police cars and police boats. Fire trucks old and new from all the surrounding towns with their lights on and honking horns. There was the mayor and the grand masters of the festival. Marching bands playing their songs and putting on a show at the same time. There were our Vets that we yelled our thanks to as they drove past, thank you for helping to keep our country free! Princesses from our town and the surrounding towns waving regally from their thrones, crowns on their heads while my sons yelled "Look Mom, princesses!" Oh and candy! How could I forget the candy! Fist fulls and fist fulls tossed to our huge group of kiddies, who eagerly -almost as eagerly as their father- picked it up from the curb and tossed it into the bag we brought. Some of the floats were mighty creative, we had a blast watching them. Oh and then the herd of tractors cause you aren't a real farm town if your parade doesn't include dozens of tractors. As well as a small garden lawnmower driving up and down the road selling drinks to the parade watchers. There was also a float promising a free ice cream cone in the park afterwards. We watched and watched, and Brody waved until his arm fell off. Ok so maybe it didn't really fall off but it looked like it might be coming loose each time another float of princesses drove on past. Orin went off and on between wanting to be in the stroller, wanting to sit on the curb next to Mason, and wanting to be in my arms. If you were to look at all 500+ pictures that I took, you would be able to tell when I was and wasn't holding him because of the angle of the shots and the fact that I didn't have a hand to zoom in or zoom out. About 15 minutes into the parade, little baby boy couldn't fight the fact that it was it was an hour and a half past nap time, and he passed right out, lucky for him his cute little hat coveredhis eyes and he slept through all of the rest of everything. Next year he will appreciate it a little more and hopefully be able to stay awake. Funny how he is the child that refuses to sleep most of the time even late at night, but falls asleep during an extremely loud parade. I think I'm take him on daily walks just to get him tired out. Well all the kids, yes I will walk them to sleepiness. So after the tractors, police, fire trucks, horns, sirens, flashing lights, ponies, unicyclists (yes unicyclists they were crazy good), oh and a couple men on racing toilet bowls, the parade came to a close. We packed up our huge bag of candy, that honestly is bound for a shelf where it will stay unless daddy eats it or we host a party, right next to the Halloween candy. Our kids are lacking apparently they don't hardly ever get candy. They will get some but this is seriously half a reusable grocery bag full! So we packed up and headed down the side walk to the town park to get everyone their free ice cream. I wish I had the ability to navigate my double stroller and take pictures cause it was fun watching kids running and playing in the grass and on the playground, listening to the announcer talking about the bike give away in the large gazebo, the different booths set up selling antiques, crafts and fun little kid toys. We had to bypass the booths for the time being, but maybe next year we will check it out! We waiting in the line for awhile but man those volunteers were pumping out ice cream cones like machines! Way to go volunteers! Everyone got their ice cream and we roamed to an emptier area of the park to enjoy our cones. Orin took about 3 licks then handed it to Hubby and said, "Daddy, Have it" Hubby was very much happy to take the ice cream of Orin's hands. After the ice creams were eaten we started to walk back to home, and walked past the area where the food tent was set up and the cheese curds and corn dogs were being sold, oh and mini donuts. I meant again to snap a picture or 50, but the smell of the cheese curds were too much and we had to turn tail and get away from there. We made it home through the streets lined on each side with cars, returning to a Dexter dog that was very much happy to see us! Daddy carried the sleeping Aidan inside and laid him in his crib in the basement while the rest of us got all our stuff out of the stroller and headed downstairs. It was too late for them to take a nap so I got all my big ones snuggled on the futon to watch a veggie tales movie. All and all it was a very fun afternoon with the family, and we are all excited for next year!!

Business and Pleasure on the Water

2009-07-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Right before July 4th we packed up the kids and headed to my Grandparent's house (commonly referred to as 'The Cabin') for a couple days of fun on the lake and love of family. My Aunt H and Uncle R have 4 kids too, L, Big A, D and Little A. They brought up this awesome three seated tube and they got it all ready to get it out on the lake!

Little A, Hubby, Mason, L, and Brody loaded up on the tube ready to rock and roll. I wasn't nervous or anything having two of my babies riding on a tube on a huge open lake. A deep lake. Behind a fast boat. Did I mention it was fast? Not that I was scared or anything.

Before take off Great Grandpa looked up and pointed out a bald eagle flying above us. Beautiful birds, and there are a bunch of them around their home. I whipped the camera up and tried to get a good picture.

Everyone else looked up and enjoyed the beauty of this bird also.

Then hands shaking...I mean there not being scared at all I watched Uncle R drive out into the lake, on the fast boat, pulling half of my and (half of his) precious cargo away. I guess more than half of mine but Hubby is tough, if he can survive and up and close meeting with a semi truck, I'm pretty sure he would be fine on a tube. I tried to get this all out of my mind, it wasn't too hard as I sat on the pontoon boat over hearing Orin.

Orin was busy making some business calls.

I saw the hint of smile and realized his deals must be going in his favor.

I took that time to peek out at my tubers to make sure they were ok, I really wasn't overreacting or anything.

Then Orin informed me that the people he was making deals with weren't the smartest people, he felt degraded having to deal with people like this. But he decided to use this to his advantage because soon he clicked shut the phone having finished his business dealings. He came out ahead.

That face says it all, I feel bad for people having to negotiate business dealings with my 21 month old master mind. Then I had to break the news that this wasn't the time for business it was the time for pleasure, and demanded he hand over his cell.

He couldn't believe I would demand such a thing, TIME IS MONEY MOMMY! But I control how early bedtime is, he complied.

He pretended not to sulk, he didn't need that stinkin' phone anyway.

Aidan was really entertained by this whole Orin deal. Really he was. I mean it! Ok I lied, he was just happy to relax in Grandma's arms, listening to Great Grandma, Grandma, and Grandpa talk. I kept my eye on the lake and the boat circling pulling my precious cargo (children, cousins and husband all very precious!) Not anxious for them to hurry up or anything though.

Then they came back!!! I mean, yeah they got back and everything. They all had so much fun! I know this because Brody and Mason talked about it for days afterwards. Next time it will be easier, not that this time was hard or anything. I'm just so glad that they all enjoyed themselves. The tube had many go arounds, and it was a wonderful relaxing day on the lake!

Amazingly Adorable Aidan!

2009-07-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

So a few posts ago I mentioned that because of the lack of photos I'd posted of Aidan as of late I wanted to do an entire post filled with words for and pictures of my fourth born baby boy. Aidan was one of our two surprise babies. And and amazing surprise he sure was! At first I basically just freaked out, "What!? I'm pregnant again? I just had a baby a little over 3 months ago!" Yes 3 months. After the surprise wore off and we got to so our little baby on the ultrasound it just made it more real and we realized, of course we needed four children, we hadn't thought so after our third but apparently someone else had other plans! I'm forever grateful for our little surprise, he was so needed. Aidan was also my easiest pregnancy out of all four, automatically making me assume that he had to be a girl. Did I mention that I thought all my kids were girls? I'm not good at guessing that's for sure. With my first two boys I spent from 8 weeks until birth throwing up daily, with the third I only threw up until 16 weeks, but my little fourth angel, not one time (except when I had the flu!) His was the perfect pregnancy. We spent that time playing with our three children, it was the first time that I'd had a really little baby and been pregnant (the others were 8 months when I got pregnant with the next) so that made things a little more tricky but not much, you just adjust. We spent a lot of time gardening, I was pleased to have grown quite large during this time since I got out of a lot of weeding (yay Aidan!) We went along right as rain with our growing family, and went out to the garlic festival with my parents. The garlic festival was put on by the sustainable farming association of minnesota, so there was so much information it was amazing, why am I bringing this up on an Aidan post? Because it happened the weekend before "the accident." Hubby's car accident happened when I was 30 weeks pregnant with Aidan. This was a crazy time and I'm always surprised I didn't end up going into labor, but I didn't thank goodness. Aidan and I were now incharge of caring for everyone on our own 24/7. At 37 weeks and 6 days little Aidan Anthony-Alan was born Oct 8th, 2009 weighing 6 pound 4 ounces. He was absolutely perfect, though the labor was pretty dramatic at the end. All and all it was around 19 hours long. Things were chugging along I got an epidural, then it pulled out and I got it put it, at just the right time too! After I got it put in I was 7cm, and then Aidan's heart started dropping. This happened with all of my boys when I was fully dilated and ready to push. I also know I can dilate those last 3cm in a minute when the baby is ready. They had me roll every which way trying to bring it back up and it wasn't working, I knew he was ready to come out but like they tend to do it was "the baby is in danger we need to cut you open and pull him out" They got me rolled on my left side and started rolling my bed to the OR. On the way they injected the numbing stuff into my epidural which made the next part of labor tricky lol. My WONDERFUL doctor checked me once more when we got to the OR and he said, "She's 10cm and the baby is right on his way out." Bless him bless him! Aidan was born with no surgery needed on my part, perfectly happy and healthy and immediately in my arms. Any worried or fears I'd had over the last few weeks of pregnancy while dealing with my 3 other boys and my husband with a broken hip, and various other injuries didn't matter anymore. My parents were there and they got to see him right away. He was the period to our family. It's been amazing to watch him grow these last nine months, and crazy to think about the fact that he's our last baby ever, normally around this time I would be pregnant again lol. He's so happy, full of smilies and has the sweetest laugh you can imagine. He's a huge mommy's boy, and is pretty shy for his age, ie doesn't like anyone who's not his parent to hold him right away. He's growing like a weed and has 3 big brothers that love him. Orin especially is loving his big brother-ness, and likes to bring Aidan his paci and blankie and bring him baby toys. It's very sweet. Aidan isn't quite old enough to participate in some of the crafts that we do or be able to be visible for some of the events since he's not mobile and is normally being carried or plays on the floor depending on the activity. I wanted to post this so that people know we really do have four beautiful boys, and adore them all beyond words. Sorry if this story is different than the normal tales, it's not so much the funny entertainment but it's important to express, and it's also late and night so excuse run on sentances and hopefully I haven't left out too much. Enjoy the photos!

What The Huck?

2009-06-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

I'm Huck, the furry nephew. You really have no idea how difficult my life is. I'm here to tell you.

In the beginning I was small and cute, people called me "awwww" I didn't understand.

There was a lot of touching. This is not always pleasent. Sometimes one of Auntie Sarah's little non-furry dogs would touch me...sometimes they were sticky.

Sometimes I had to run. That running is a lot of work.

So I would have to rest. Obviously.

There was also a lot of new smells back then, it was urgent that they be smelled immediately.

Then Auntie would tell me to hold still and look pretty at her flashy thing. Then I couldn't see.

After all this work one of the non-furry things would FINALLY give me my 8th treat of the morning...could they not tell I was wasting away?

Then I grew up and things changed BIG TIME! I learned to dig! My parents were so excited, they just don't know that yet.

...but digging is hard work too. Sometimes when there is serious digging to do and serious naps to take you need to improvise... I am very smart, sometimes you can't understand me cause I'm really a higher life form.

But at the end of the day when you've done all the work that I've done to help save the world and reduce greenhouse emissions and also bring about world peace...You just need another nap. Preferrably on Grandma's deck.

**Note to my many many fans I ,Huck, am not being strangled in my last photo I just found a nice head resting spot around the legs of the patio table. I assure you, no Hucks were harmed in the making of this blog, I just wouldn't allow that, I'm far too wonderful...obviously.

What. Is. That!?

2009-06-16T11:54:00.001-07:00

*sucking, chopping noises*

Hey Mom. What is that thing Grandma's holding that is sucking Mason's head off?

A Flowbee? What's a Flowbee?

This is a Flowbee. It's an ancient (from the 80s dontcha know) haircutting device. You hook the tube on it to the hose on your vacuum and turn it on to create the suction.

Then you put the the main piece to the subject's (Mason's) head and the suction from the vacuum sucks the hair up the little sectioner in into the blades that cut it to a certain length...you hope. Then it's nice because the cut hair is sucked right into your vacuum.

If you happen to be what the Flowbee is sucking on and chopping, and you happen to be 3 years old...this might be your reaction.

Then you might walk past your baby brother after the Flowbee incident...

He might put his pacifier in his mouth to help muffle his laughter.

Because Grandma and Mommy may have never attempted this before...

And you may look like you got attacked by a drunken barber.

But really, even when your brothers are laughing and mom is tearing up, you are feeling pleased as punch, because there's a perfect spot just for you in Grandma's loving arms.

Freedom!! Charge! Well, Maybe More Like, No No Bring Us Inside!

2009-06-14T15:33:00.000-07:00

This was a day a freedom. Chicken Freedom. No longer would we have inside chickens. Oh no, we would have glorious, natural, backyard chickens! Well side yard to be completely accurate.

Our little ladies were put all together into one brooder for their trip to their new home. They had had to be separated due to size so they were happy to love each other and be together, they didn't expect what happened next.

But the three oldest did, (Aidan was napping and you never wake a baby), and they gathered with their chickens near the front door in anticipation.

Then it happened, the chickens were outside. "What is this? Where are you taking us! What are you doing we have been good chickens to you! Wahhhh, take us back take us back" Said the chickens.

But nobody listened to the chickens. They were brought out to their new temporary outside home. Temporary cause the large dog house will only work as a coop for the chickens for a month or so. Thank you so much to my dear father-in-law for his genius in saying "Why don't the chickens use the dog house for a coop for now, it's huge." Of course we never thought of that, or we wouldn't have had chickens inside for the last two months. My Father-in-law and Hubby went out and wrapped out hardware cloth around the base of the run just to make sure our ladies couldn't escape. The chickens will now finish the story...

Hey you that big one with no feathers, what have you done! Where is this place? What do you want from us? The cover is off, I hope you don't except us to go...out there. No. We won't.

I'm not scared I will perch and peek. I am scared I lied let me back in I'm not doing this. Plus how can we watch television out here? Nope definitely bring us inside.

Aaaaaack! Stop it! No no nooooo!

You will never take me alive, you big featherless freak. I shall peck and peck until you beg me for mercy. And since I'm the mean one, I will not grant you mercy even when you beg.

Wait...what...there is eating stuff growing here. This is green....this is good! Is that? What? A WORM! This is maybe almost as good as television...maybe.

Look, Look! It has the eating stuff, it has the eating stuff!! You mean we get eating stuff and this green stuff? AND WORMS?? Wait, what is that dark hole thing, I don't like it.

That featherless thing put our eating stuff in the dark hole! We won't go in nope...oh there is a trail of eating stuff all the way in...well maybe we will try it.

I suppose, even though there is no television, this is an ok place. In fact I think we will stay...

...But not 'cause we have to or anything.

**By the way, I've noticed in the last few posts I've made Aidan isn't in the photos. Normally when we are outside I'm holding him while I take pictures or like on craft day he was spending one on one time with Hubby. In the next post or two, look for a post all about our little one, to make up for the lack of pictures, I will have an Ode To Aidan post. Beware of the cuteness to come**

My Parent's Home A Place of Peace

2009-06-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

There are no words to describe this 10 acre piece of land that brings the joy and peace to my little family. Enjoy the photos of our visit on memorial day.

Well even though it's peaceful you just have to leave sometimes, So Brody and I took off on the golf cart...then we came back for the rest of the kids and hubby to leave, but you better believe we will be back! How could we not?

**If you are interested, my new cooking blog is located here:

http://sarahiscookingupastorm.blogspot.com/ <-- There you cant see it but it's there.

I'm going to attempt blogging all our dinners (sometimes breakfasts, and definately baking) whether I buy them, cook from a box, or cook from scratch. It will -hopefully- be updated daily.

Then the apple tree bloomed and the children played.

2009-06-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

One of the prettiest things that happens in my yard in spring is the blooming of our single apple tree. I look forward to this all winter long and it never disappoints!

Each little blossom promises a delicious treat to come!

Yes this beautiful apple tree will bring us tasty fruit for many things in the fall...

But right now out beautiful apple tree isn't providing treats, but it is providing plenty of shade for outdoor adventures! Adventure that might start...

...with some playing on the swinging teeter totter...

...or maybe soaring through the air in your brand new baby swing...

It may even shade you, and share with you it's beautiful smell, while you think about what fun you will have when you get to the bottom of the slide.

Sometimes another tree offers a place to rest, in the shade by pretty flowers in the grass...

...and speaking of flowers you might get the idea to pick some. Because suddenly in the shade of the beautiful apple tree you have discovered exactly what to do with them. So you pick them...

...and like a kind gentleman...you present them to your mother. And all this happened...

...around the blooming apple tree.

**These pictures and story are not from today but from the day of the pinecone craft a few weeks ago, if you all were wondering how our apple tree could still be in bloom.

Sometimes you wake up and wish you could turn around and go back to bed.

2009-06-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Some mornings no matter how early you wake up, Thing 1 (Brody,4) and Thing 2(Mason,3) have gotten up before you. When you then heard suspicious giggling coming from the living room you briefly contemplate pulling the covers over your head and pretending you are the cat. The cat that can sleep when she wants and never cleaned up after Thing 1 and Thing 2's mischief. But since you are not a cat, you crawl out of bed, looking next to you at the little angel baby sleeping in his crib and remember when Thing 1 and Thing 2 also slept, and were also confined in the morning. You walk down the hall to the livingroom, passing older angel baby's room and peek in to see that he's just starting to wake up in his crib and is rubbing his sweet little eyes. Older Angel Baby also makes no morning mischief. So far Thing 1 and Thing 2 have not heard your approach, they continue their behavior until you stop, look and shriek...

What did you do!!!!!!

Thing 1: Nuffin. Mason did it.

Thing 2: No Brody did it.

Thing 1: Maybe Orin did it.

Mom: I know you two did it, you are the ones driving your trucks in it!

Thing 1: Well we thought it would be cool to drive the trucks in it like dirt.

Thing 2: Brody dumped out the chicken food, and I didn't do it.

Mom: I'm getting your father, get out of that chicken food!

Then you do a double take, because you aren't quite sure that Thing 1 & 2 really dumped out a gallon of chicken food on the rug. You look...

It wasn't a mistake.

You call your husband, who comes crawling out of bed then sees the off roading hot wheels mess of chicken food on the rug. Husband stalks off to decide punishment. You look at all the mess and know your vacuum is junk and you dont want to waste this food. You sit and ponder. Then you have a stroke of brillance.

The chickens will clean it up! You block in the rug area, and let them have at it. You are so smart!

So you sit and wonder how you became so brillant while the chickens eat, you even take a few individual close ups of your maids like these...

Then you have to put down the camera, because while you were busy patting yourself on the back for your great idea...you forgot chickens can fly.

Pinecone crafts and Tomfoolery

2009-06-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

I have finally rescued my many pictures from my SD card! It is a time for rejoicing...go on rejoice! So now that I have my pictures I actually have a few blogs I'm going to try an update all today. So let's do this! The other day, many moons ago, the boys and I did a craft project. This was something I either did at home with my mom or in elementary school ! can't remember. It's a good age appropriate craft and they really enjoyed it. It's really easy.

First you have to gather the pinecones...

It helps if you run while doing this and have a good string of giggles going.

It helps to have the assistance of your brothers...but beware of that little curly one, he bites.

Then when you have gathered as many as you can carry, it's time to go inside and get started.

Then you need to bellow at mom to please put the camera down you really want to get this show on the road. Then mom replies, "I can get this ready and take pictures! Watch me work!" Then Mom gathers the peanut butter up, arranges the pinecones and takes more pictures. Children then roll their eyes. (Remember this is all part of the craft!)

Now it's time for mom to get a large glob of peanut butter on the paper plates, pass out plastic knifes and hand out the pinecones. You may now commence with the smearing of the peanut butter.

Get it deep in there now. "Can I eat this pinecone Mom?"

"No"

"Please?"

"You can eat pinecones to survive if you are in the wilderness" -Dad who has snuck up behind us

"We are not lost in the wilderness, and no you cannot eat the pinecone. Stop encouraging our children to eat things they find on the ground outside"

"It's not gonna kill them."- Dad shrugs.

"It's disgusting, now you need to leave the craft zone, I should be taking pictures not talking about the nutritional value of pinecones."

Dad leaves, whew, wait what are we doing again?

"Get with the program mom, we are smothering this pinecones (that we can't eat, yes we know) in peanut butter."

"I'm not smothering anything Mom, I'm quality control. I pronounce this as good peanut butter"

"Thanks Orin. What would we do without you?"

"I shudder to think mom, I shudder to think"
"Mom stop taking pictures it's time for the bird seed part! Put the camera away"-Brody

Now it's time to sprinkle generously with birdseed, covering all the peanut butter and making it a yummy snack! Then tie a knot at the top of the cone with yarn and you have...

A tasty treat for the birds! No not for kids, pinecones are not for eating.

You know what I want?

2009-05-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

I want my computer to load my pictures!! I am currently very angry with my laptop, infact I'm only writing this now because I've allowed it to temporarily come out of timeout so that I could explain why I haven't posted in so long. I have now named my laptop, Naughty. Maybe it's not the laptops fault, maybe it's just under too much pressure, will Naughty's new name effect him in these formative years? Perhaps, but he's still Naughty.

Normally when I trek out with my camera with every shot I take I'm thinking about the blog I will include it in. Oh the pictures and stories I have to share with you! But I can't, because my laptop is Naughty. Do I have pictures of the beautiful flowers on our backyard apple tree to share? Why yes I do! Do I have pictures of our adventurous craft day where we turned unsuspecting pinecones, peanut butter and bird seed into homemade bird food? Why yes I do! Do I have pictures of the three big boys riding their bikes in the yard and swinging on the swingset? Of course I do! But I can't share them with you...because my laptop is Naughty.

I just wanted to say I WILL overcome Naughty laptop, I will foil his attempt to stunt my blogging. Naughty will soon no longer keep you from reading about the adventures of explaining to Mason that he cannot eat the pinecones while his father tells him that if he was stranded in the wild he could eat them for nutrients... Mason, you can not eat pinecones, you are not stranded in the wild, go get an apple out of the fruit basket. Husband...stop telling our children to eat things they find outside on the ground, yes this includes the worms you told them they could eat out of the garden last year. Maybe my laptop isn't the only one that should be renamed Naughty.

Laptops and Boys, so fun, but so very confusing.

Yummy Meal.

2009-05-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

I thought I would update with some recipes for a yummy meal I made recently, I'm not sure how many of you like eating the same things as me but I figured I would go ahead and share just in case. My parents gave me the asparagus and onion recipes so thanks Mom and Dad, also as always they are my emergency line when I have no idea what temp to set the grill or oven on for a task with no recipe that I've never tried before. What would I do without them? Oh. Yeah. I would burn a lot of stuff. This meal consists of New York Strip Steak, Roasted Potatoes, Roasted Asparagus and Scallions, Toasted Baugette and then some Sauteed mushrooms to top off the steak. Here goes!

To prepare your steak, simply sprinkle with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, rub in througly then drizzle with olive oil. The steak will be cook about 5 minutes on each side on Medium heat. You total cook time depends on the thickness of your steak, you can use a meat thermometer to help you figure out the doneness of of your steak.

Next the roasted potatoes. If possible get small new potatoes, then cut in half, if using bigger potatoes cut into pieces about half the size of a small new potato, nice bite or two bite pieces. It's not an exact science. Lay them out on a cookie sheet like so. Drizzle olive oil over them.

After they are drizzled with the olive oil, you will want to sprinkle them with sea salt and cracked pepper.

(You can use regular salt and pepper of course if that's what you have.) Then stick them in the oven at 350 degrees, keep an eye on them and watch for doneness. In my oven they take about 45 minutes since it doesn't hold a constant temp. It also depends if you want them a little more hard or more soft, I prefer soft.

Next the roasted asparagus and scallions. You will want to prep and clean these by cutting off the ends of the asparagus and scallions, and trim off the top of the scallions so they fit on the baking sheet and so any wilted bits are off. You will then drizzle them with olive oil, sprink with sea salt and cracked pepper (are you catching a trend here?) Then pop them in the oven at the same temp as the potatoes. These will cook faster than the potatoes, about 10-20 minutes depending on your oven, keep an eye on them though as the onions will burn more quickly.

This is how to make your toasted baguette. Normally I do this first because the oven temp for these is higher and they are delicious served cold, they dont need to be warm. You will take your baguette and slice it. The kind I buy is a type you take home and bake a little more before serving so I cook that type a little longer than the fully cooked type they also sell but I prefer it. So slice them up and lay out on a baking sheet, drizzle with oilve oil, flip and drizzle the other side. Then sprinkle with garlic salt(you may also need to do this once they are finished cooking somethings the salt comes off) Put them in the oven at 425 degrees, bake on one side about 5-7 minutes, then flip them and bake another 5-7 minutes. These are another thing you will want to watch, as they can burn quickly if you forget about them. Then take them out and put them in a bowl to serve.

Ready to see the Meal?

Steak, mmmm.

Roasted New Potatoes

Roasted Aspragus and scallions

Toasted Baguette
Sauteed Mushrooms. To make these put a little bit of olive oil in a small frying pan. Heat up on medium, then toss in the mushrooms, pour in some soy sauce, and simply stir until they are all cooked up for steak topping. I always do this last, they dont hold their heat.

I hope you've enjoy this meal, and maybe you will like to try it at home, it's quite delicious if you ask me...and hubby, kids, and parents.

Tiny Town and Playground

2009-05-03T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to update about my day today. This will mainly just be a picture post. Tomorrow I will update on our big plans for this week! Now to the pictures.

View on the way to mainstreet walking from home

Looking left down mainstreet. There is the bar, every town has to have a bar apparently. There is also the post office and plenty of stores that are empty. There are some beautiful churches down the hill. I will do a post of the churchs some other time.

The view to the right, Daddy and the big boys and Dexter walking toward the park, Orin and Aidan were in the stroller I was pushing and Bella was on her leash attached to the stroller. Here you can see Books and Beans, a sandwich shop and used book store. As well as a place to bring your dead deer where they can butcher them and do taxidermy in one shot lol.

This is the building that houses our newspaper. Pretty fancy!

This is a beautiful Gazebo at the park in the center of town.

Here is the playset at the park off mainstreet. That's me in the brown sweatshirt bending helping Orin up the steps, thanks Hubby for the flattering picture.

Hubby spinning the merry go round with the three oldest holding on for dear life lol. Not really he was safe with them

I had a picture of out town hall but it disappeared, phooey. It about the size of my living room. I will get another picture and post it when I do a post of the town churches. And you probably thought you lived in a small town. Our population is 700ish, with many of them being farmers outside of town. Our entire county only has around 36,000 people in it!

Mason's 3rd Birthday (April 21st)

2009-04-30T10:40:00.000-07:00

It was a wonderful day! I cannot wrap my head around the fact that my baby boy is three years old now. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was holding him in my arms for the first time in the hospital. I had worried my entire pregnancy that I wouldn't love him as much as Brody. I couldn't imagine being able to love another child as much as my first. But the first time I saw his face, touched his soft cheeks and looked into his deep, warm eyes, my heart exploded. Of course I could love him as much! I never worried again after that day that I would run out of love, that I would not be able to love each of my next children as much as I loved my first and second. He in one second, one look cured that fear for me. Mason is a joy! He is giggly, goofy, silly, sneaky, nice, naughty, and just wonderful. We've had our trials with him as we teach him and he teaches us.

We started his special day when he crawled into our bed in the wee hours of the morning. I laughed and wished him happy birthday. While he sat in bed with Brody and Hubby, I scooped Aidan out of his bed next to ours and laid him in Hubby's arms, and flitted off to Orin's room to bring him in our bed too. When everyone was settled I grabbed Mason's birthday presents and he excitedly dug into them opening with the gusto only a child can show. He got a pack of 6 battle throws, a puppy game for his Leapster, a Ben 10 helmet/knee pads/elbow pads, and spiderman sheets. He was excited and dug through everything then I excused myself and told them all I had to go potty...it was a lie. I went out to the garage and climbed into the attic to retrieve the brand new bike that was his last birthday gift. I pushed it into my room and said, "Oh look what I found! One more present!" He squeeled delightfully, "IT'S A BIKE! IT'S MY BIKE!!" Yes son, it's your bike your first big boy bike! I hope it takes you to your little boy dreams. Hubby and I smiled at each other and then at our four sons. Life just doesn't get better than being curled in our bed together, all sleepy eyed but excited, in our pjs laughing and talking, kissing cheeks and giving hugs.

Since it was Mason's day he picked what he wanted for his breakfast and he of course wanted mommy's french toast and eggs breakfast, but this time I added on a birthday twist, whipped cream and sprinkles on top! While I labored over breakfast, Hubby took all his boys outside to play. They raked, and played on the swing set, laughed and basically did boy stuff. They came in when I hollared it was breakfast time. Four boys came running and one came being carried lol. They ate until they thought they would explode and decided to play for awhile longer and then it was time for nap. Birthday boy couldn't escape a nap even on his birthday, he fell asleep about 3.5 seconds after being laid down it was a busy, exciting morning.

When he woke up I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner and told him I would do whatever he picked. What did my son ask for when I could have cooked him anything under the sun, McDonalds, in true kid fashion he wanted a Happy Meal. Well it was his birthday so I told him I would go and pick it up while he stayed home and played with Daddy and his brothers. I took off to the big town. I had to stop at the grocery store first to pick up a few things for the next night's dinner, then went to DQ and picked up an ice cream cake. This is the first cake I've bought for one of our kids birthdays but normally Mason's birthday isn't something we can celebrate much it's normally a tough time. So we wanted to make it extra special. The cake was spiderman and was really decorated awesome! Then I picked up birthday boys dinner. It seriously takes forever in the big town time moves differently there, I got home around 6:30. We ate up our dinner, all the little boys quite pleased with Mason's choice. After dinner I got all the plates in the garbage (paper plates), and wiped off the table so that we could play a game of Hi Ho Cherry-O and give our tummies time to be ready for cake. Mason got to start the spinning and he ended up winning the game in true birthday boy fashion. After that game we brought out the cake, lit the candles and sang Happy birthday to our sweet three year old. He giggled and thought it was funny then blew out the candles. I had to strip little Aidan down to his diaper after a spit up incident at dinner, that's why he's only in his diaper lol, it also came in handly when he was trying a few bites of ice cream cake. After the cake, we played Hi Ho Cherry-O one more time this time Orin and I won(we are a dream team thanks so much we worked so hard for this victory.) By then it was way passed bedtime and all of the kids were drooping and showing how pooped they were. Everyone got into their nice clean jammies, tucked into their beds with kisses and wishes for a good night sleep.

What a great birthday, Happy 3rd Birthday Mason John-Donald O. You are truly a gift from God, your father and I will never stop being grateful for you.

Mason's Birthday Party at the Children's Museum.

2009-04-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

Beware, many many adorable pictures!

On April 19th we celebrated Mason's 3rd birthday with my parents, sister, and her fiance. This isn't his actual birthday (April 21st is), but it was a sunday which obviously works better for all the rest of my family. I was SO SO excited to get to have my family join our family at the museum. It was so very helpful to have 6 adults watching 4 kids as they ran around in a fit of excitment, exploring like crazy. The children's museum is such and amazing place to take your kids if you are in Minnesota (they also offer free admission every third sunday!) They had tons of things to explore, create and learn. The boys had been looking forward to this for the last 6 weeks because of the fact that the traveling clifford exibit was going to be there. So we'd been talking about the Clifford slide non-stop. So we started the day out, getting all the kids up and ready and out the door by 9am, we drove out to the Twin Cities, and met my parents, sister and Nick at Perkins so we could share a birthday breakfast together. We ordered, laughed, talked and Mason opened his presents from my family (our presents were for his actual birthday.) He got a big 'ole Tonka metal dumptruck and a nerf gun from my parents, and two huge "battle throws" from my sister and Nick. He was thrilled about all of it, Brody pouted, he was thrilled too, but wanted it all himself lol. Mason was sweet and shared the battle throws with Brody, so they could share together. So we finished up breakfast, repacked all the kids in the van, and they all loaded up in my mom's car, and we headed over to the museum. We were super lucky, cause it happened to be the 3rd sunday of the month when we wents so it was free, and Macy's the building it was connected to had free parking. It was great, and we headed from Macy's to the inside Museum entrance. Everyone was so excited we just couldn't get in soon enough.

Once we got in and all checked in, we headed over to the paint your own face station, all the boys painted their faces (except Aidan, I didn't want to irritate his skin, being so young and just getting over being sick.) After that we went into the Gaullah Gaullah (sp?) Island exihibt. It was pretty cool, but the boys thought it was no clifford. We headed to the next section that was about how different things worked, Brody and Mason each got to make their own paper which they thought was pretty cool, Brody more so than Mason. After only two exibits, Mason was getting fiesty and wasn't listening, it was cause it was taking SOOOO long to get to clifford, (we spent a lot of time at each exibit.) So I said, "Ok lets go to Clifford first and we will get to everything else later." Knowing that this would refresh the boys they jumped to attention and were ready to head to Clifford. I can definately say that the "clifford slide" the boys had been waiting for was not what we expected. They thought it was going to be a huge slide down clifford. It was only 2 feet tall, 4 feet wide and made of foam. They still went down it a few times but they were diappointed. The rest of it was fun though, they got to look at letters for Clifford, and see the Clifford post office and play with all the other fun things in the exibit. After that we went to the Habitat, where they got to run around seeing how different animals lived and were they lived, there were puppets and all sorts of things to play with. Then we went to this AWESOME place that had a large ant hill that you could explore, a turtle shell you could climb into, and a little stream with water flowing with little plastic animals in it that you could pick up. It was just so much fun! Then we headed to the area that was like a little town for kids. Everything was the perfect size, a big kitchen area, a Restaurant, a grocery store, post office, doctors office, it was just great they loved it, and Brody even got to play with crutches that were just his size and got to see X-rays of hips, and we got to show him and Mason and Orin (Aidan was passed out by that point) and show him where Daddy's had been broken. At this point it was afternoon around 3pm and the kids were ready to get out of there, get something to eat and rest. We all headed back out the the cars to load up and we said goodbye to my parents and sister and Nick, and went our seperate ways. Once we got home we fixed dinner, talked about the museum and then we all played Candyland before we all headed to bed for the night.

Mop top begone, a new do for summer for Brody!

2009-04-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

So after much debate (between Brody and I) we (I) decided that he needed a hair cut. Hubby jumped in there saying I couldn't cut his hair...hpmf, so I made Mason look a little dorky for a couple weeks so sue me. He decided he was just going to buzz it off like we did last summer for the two older boys. Brody wasn't happy but eventually, he mostly agreed but thought the buzzer might eat his head off. I told him don't worry it wont, and told him when he was all done he could toss his hair in the yard so the birds to come and take it to help make their nests. That convinced him and we were ready to roll. Here are some pictures.

Brody posing for a picture to show off his locks.

Brody starting the haircut, it tickles! At this point Brody is pretty sure that the buzzer

is going to eat his head off.

But once it's all done and he can feel the cool breeze he's quite happy and went to throw the extra hair to the birds for their nest. Yay!

Crazy, Busy, Love-Filled Easter!

2009-04-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

I know that I'm quite late on getting to this blog but it's been quite the busy time not to mention I have had a new addiction that has been taking up the limited amount of computer time I have during the day. Two words. Farm. Town. It's a farming game on facebook, it's fun to plant and harvest crops and work towards getting a bigger farm. Go figure that my farm love travels into the cyber world. Oh well it's a cute game that kids think is cute too, on the off chance that I'm playing right when they wake up from nap, again, I don't go on the computer when they are awake, too many other things to do! But anyway back to the topic at hand!

Easter has passed and we sure did have a wonderful time during it! We started off the day waking up early to the big boys hovering over our faces in our bed telling us it was time to find easter baskets! Turns out they had been up earlier and decorated out walls/cabinets/trim with black perminant marker. Wonderful. They obviously got in trouble this was not how we wanted to start our Easter sunday, but you can't always get what you want. So their punishment was that they couldn't have any of their Easter candy that day. Which to boys with lots of candy in front of their faces that rarely get to eat it is definately punishment enough. So we pushed the bad stuff aside, and brought all four kids downstairs to find their hidden easter baskets! We watched in wonder at how exciting it was for them to search and search for them. Except Aidan who needed help lol, since he can't move on his own and all. Eventually they all found their baskets, next year the Easter Bunny will have to hide them harder! They were all thrilled with what the Easter Bunny gave them. The 3 oldest boys each got some smarties, a chocolate easter bunny, and a pack of peeps. Brody and Mason both got a spiderman digital camera as their "big gift", Orin's "big gift" was 10 little toddler soft tonka trucks, and Aidan got some linkadoos, a motion light and sound toy and some teethers, they all loved it. The nice thing too is their Easter baskets were gallon buckets (decorated in holiday theme) that I get to use for cleaning and other chores for as long as they last. Not realizing how much time we'd spent putting batteries in things, unwrapping toys, and watching Orin have his first piece of candy...ok first bunch of pieces of candy lol, we didn't realize how late we were going to end up being to the in-laws Easter party! So we ran around the house like crazy, dressing children, packing diaper bags, packing the dog stuff and dogs, and children all into the van. We were really late but in time for the Easter Egg hunt! It was a blast, because at the in-laws there are 17 grandchildren(four of which are sadly out of state we miss you guys!) which makes it so much fun for the boys, they ADORE all of their cousins. So we ran around looking for eggs and other cute little presents that decorated my sister in law's lawn. Everyone had fun! We even managed to get some cute group pictures! We chatted with everyone for awhile and just had a fun time being with family we love. The kids played and played and then so soon it was time to head to my parents house for Easter dinner. We had so much fun at the in-laws that we didn't realize it was time to start getting ready to head to my parents house until it was time that we should have already been there...whoops! We whirlwinded on out, with promises of returning soon when we could spend more time there, which we definately will do! So we loaded up eggs, goodies, children, two dogs and us and hurried on over to my family's Easter dinner.

Easter dinner can be summed up in on word. YUUUUUUUUUM! My parents made a delicious prime rib roast, roasted asparagus and scallions(which I made tonight that's another post), toasted bread, and yummy fresh salsa. I ate until I thought I would explode. But dinner was actually AFTER the easter egg hunt that my parents had set up for the boys. They had SOO much fun running around looking for the eggs hidden all over the back yard. They screamed in excitement and ran around so fast I could hardly keep up to take pictures. The dogs (Dexter, Bella and my nephew puppy Huckleberry) had a bunch of fun running around too, which was nice. There is nothing more calming than sitting on a deck talking with adults while you watch your children running and playing with their doggie buds in the yard. Also my parents had the itch to be sneaky so they decided to hide an egg for each of us big kids (My sister and her fiance-Nick, Hubby and I) we searched around and I remembered back to my childhood when I was the kid that looked forEVER to find my stinkin basket (that very well could have been sat on the kitchen table without being able to find it without the aid of the "hot and cold" game after my parents called the easter bunny to find out where he had hidden them) and figured it would be a miracle if I found mine lol. But with the aid of Hubby (who found mine immediately) and my parents, yes still playing the "hot and cold" game with me, I managed to find it hidden under an over turned feed bucket at the edge of their woods. Yippee go me...the 23 year old that still needs mommy and daddy to help her find an egg. If I hadn't had them no doubt I would have wandered around for the 15 minutes my attention span allows then sat on the deck and pouted. So after all the Easter egg hunting, dinner eating, children and dog watching, and fun adult (well some of us still act like we are five *cough*Dad and Sister*cough*) it was time to leave since we had a long drive home with 4 sleepy, getting grumpy kids and two dogs that were bound and determined to fart us to death on the hour drive home. So we got home around 10 p.m. or so maybe later I have no idea, unloaded sleeping children and restless dogs, and got everyone slipped into jammies, and tucked in bed with kisses and wishes of Happy Easter. It was a wonderful Easter, and though this post was mostly about family, easter egg hunts and easter baskets, we did not forget the true reason for the season, our Savior. I hope all your Easters were as blessed as ours.

My Easter Eggers are FINALLY home! And the puke has been flying.

2009-04-09T19:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start with the best news first. FINALLY after all this waiting for a shipment of Easter Eggers to come in I went in yesterday and they assured me that by 10am they would have a shipment of 50 day old chicks (chicken man had no idea what he was talking about, he didn't even know about the different breeds, I hate when they put him to work in the chicken area) I was expecting 2-3 day old chicks because they are shipped in, but these chicks have to be at least a week old. They are huge and have almost all their wing feathers and half have tail feathers coming in. The nice part is they are the same size as my Australops and so there hasn't been any fighting they seem to fit in nicely together, they are all sweet birds. I got home, chicks in hand and went right to the big boys room to wake them up (I went at naptime and Hubby was home sick with the flu.) I told them I bought new beautiful chicks for all of us. The boys promptly told me which one was "their" chicken and wanted to hold them. I supervised them holding (Mason likes to smush things) and the did really well. Mason picked a black one and Brody picked a yellow one (talking about their "base" color not their strips). Brody told me his chick was named Zoey. I asked Mason what his chick was named and he said "It's Black Guy" I told him that the chicks were girls so guy wouldn't work (not to mention if the chicken got in trouble I didn't want to be yelling "Darnit, Black Guy you always make trouble." What would the neighbors think? He settled for Blackie. So after looking at the blue tub that was the brooder and my big obviously not not 1 day old chickens *rolls eyes*. I was lucky I had another 106 gallon tub (I wish I could buy a stocktank) and got everyone set up in that with two waterers, and two feeders. They have plenty of room for now but I will definately have to figure something new out in a couple weeks. HOPEFULLY a coop! Come on hubby! The boys spend sometime enjoying the fact that this tub was clear and they could lay and watch the chicks.

Ooops, sorry to distrub you, please don't attack.

This is the new brooder for now. Nifty? I think it works well.

I also made sure I checked out the vents and butts of all the chicks before I picked them. That makes me feel a lot better. I really don't want to lose another baby :(

Did I mention the cat finally found the chick's brooder? Well she did.

Hello my prettys, hmmm chicken nuggets with legs?

Oh no that woman that feeds me is using that weird thing that flashes at me.

I promise I wasn't going to eat them. *Jedi mind tricks* You didn't see anything, cat's do not like to eat birds. I'm innocent. I wasn't really even looking, plus you aren't the boss of me. You will remember nothing. *wave of paw* Cat, "Oh and you can post pictures of me on the blog anytime you please, as I am the most beautiful creature to walk the earth. This is not up for discussion, get that flashy thing again and flash me. I will pose.

Do not be jealous woman, this type of beauty is just beyond you. There is no reason to dwell on it. You DO feed me, I suppose that makes you a good enough servant. Now leave me alone.

Now on to the not so happy part of the last few days, I've been surrounded by vomit. Everywhere, it's evil. I've been puked on, cleaned up puke, aided puking in the toliet. Now I have a big ole pile of vomit laundry with my name on it, woo. Hubby is also home puking and is thinking he wont make it in tomorrow either but because of this flu and last week's hip pain he's missed so much work that he's terrified of losing his job cause his field of work is the WORST right now to find a new position, nothing like the money he's making now or anything near us. I just dont want him to drive to work and be sent home, it's a long commute and he feels so rotten. Anyway, that's about it, I have tons of work to do, I still haven't caught up on all my cleaning due to very needy kids puking everywhere. All four of them. I will get it done tomorrow though. I'm making pancakes for breakfast for everyone so that's real simple and easy to clean up. Then I will get to work on my oodles of laundry and vacuuming I have to do, I will also try and get on my hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor. Oh and the bathroom, I will scrub that too! All and all the entire house will be clean as can be and I will make yummy food I'm determined. Today was tough cause of pain and errands and the fact that because of puking and crying kids that were miserable, I didn't crawl into bed until 2:30am.

R.I.P Black beak

2009-04-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

Black beak died last night from pasty butt. I KNEW I should have been picking the chicks instead of Hubby who's idea of the healthy chicks were "the one's that were hardest to catch." I was sick on Friday and fell asleep at 4pm (by accident, Hubby should have woken me up but he refuses to wake me up if I'm sleeping) Saturday I got up and was cleaning the brooder after breakfast and was checking out the chicks because I know with shipped chicks pasty butt can be a big issue when they include sugar water/food in the shipping boxes. Our fleet store DOES ship all their chicks in and doesn't hatch them theirselves, unfortunately. I noticed that poor Black Beak had a NASTY case of pasty butt that had developed sometime between my late morning cleaning of the brooder on friday and the cleaning on Saturday. I cried, and then I got a warm wet wash cloth and got as much off as I could but I ended up having to pull some of the hardened pieces off. I noticed her "poop shoot" was swollen and it looked like a hemmoroid. I got her back in the freshly cleaned brooder with fresh water and food and all her healthy happy chick buds. I googled pasty butt and basically it said to do exactly what I had, so I was hopeful. I sat next to the brooder on the floor for almost two hours watching her and trying to encourage her to drink water (another tip mentioned), but she wasn't having it. She just stood there staring at the wall not moving, eventually she started to lower herself into a sleeping position and I took a break and stretched my legs and tried to stop my panic...chicks are hard on a woman with severe anxiety disorder and painc attacks. Anyways I went back to check on her and I cheered to myself as I saw that she had moved to the water dish, she was tipping sleepily so I stayed to watch if she would drink, she wasn't sadly, and I reached in and moved her just slightly away from the water cause she was falling asleep and I didn't want her to drown. I told her to be strong and told all my girls how special they were to me already and I would keep them safe and happy their whole lives. I told them all about the radish greens from the garden, the tomatoes, the everything delicious they would get with garden season and that they would get to tear through it when the season was over. I went to bed hoping for the best, and hoping that black beak was just tired from the ordeal of her cleaning. When I woke up this morning of course I kissed my sons and told them good morning first and then I rushed to the chicks...there were only 5. I ran to my bedroom in tears and asked Hubby..."Where is black beak?" He said, "I found her before I went to bed, and she was dead" I asked him questions about was he SURE she wasn't breathing or have a heartbeat...he was just waking up so he didn't realize how heartless his response was, "She was stiff as a fricken board, she was dead." I'm really upset about this and miss her very much she was a beauty. I wasn't going to post about this but as stupid as it may seem to some people, people that think "it's just a stupid chicken" "you'd only had her 2 days", it just sucks. I feel like a terrible chicken mama, it only took me two days to kill a chick. The rest of them are clean and healthy and are very tired of having their butts obsessively looked at. So we will be picking up 7 Americanas (more or less and EE but EEs are a mix and not totally classified breed, but reguardless you get the same blue/green eggs) instead of 6. I, I repeat I, ME, MYSELF will be picking out these chicks and looking at them for a long time before I take them home. I really just want to cry today. Even on a sad day I'm long winded. I'm obviously not posting pictures to go with the topic of this post, and didn't take any I was sleeping, and probably wouldn't have anyway. I hope everyone had a better day.

What yonder sound doth come from my livingroom?

2009-04-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a semi-busy day. I got done a bit of laundry and folding and dishes but not near what I had hoped to accomplish. All that aside we DID have to go to the doctor for Hubby, who's hip had been in pain thus making him not go to work since Tuesday. We needed to go and get a doctors check so that we would have a note to prove that he was actually out from pain and not him using it as an excuse to get out of work. So I dropped him and baby Aidan at the doctors office knowing it would be a wait, it was later in urgent care hours (we couldn't get an appointment), and that Aidan would be well behaved and easily managed. I was taking my camera out to take a picture of the clinic's sign for my blog when I realized OH.MY.GOSH. I left the battery at home. Stupid stupid me! I wouldn't have cared if I hadn't known the special event that would take place after Hubby was out of the doctor. Thankfully it DID take a long time for him at the doctor because I drove myself and the three oldest all the way home and back so that I could get my camera. I'm VERY happy that I did too. We got back to the doctor and still had to wait for him which was fine by me I wanted to take a couple pictures, and I had a magazine of fun kid toys to look at not to mention Glenn Beck was on the radio, and the kids were sleeping. About 20 minutes after we had gotten back from our marathon trip back home to get my battery, Hubby and Aidan came out and hopped in the van. I was SUPPOSED to take the kids to Walmart to get what we needed while he was at the doc, but my battery for my beloved camera was more important. He rolled his eyes at me but was indulgent as ever. We ran over to Walmart and I rushed through in a buzz getting the few things that I needed and rushed out so we could get to the REAL thing that had all our family excited.
Soooo, we went across the street to the fleet store, unloaded all our little monkey children and reminded them of why we were there which woke them up very very quickly. We all hurried into the store, knowing the direct mark we needed to hit, loading up our carts with the two little ones, and the two oldest running along side us we went to...the chicks!!!!! I had told Hubby before we left for the doctors that I could not wait anymore and I wanted my chicks that day because I knew that HAD to light a fire under his butt to get my coop built, unless he wanted chickens running around the house. So there we were surrounded but tubs and tubs and tubs of baby chicks peeping away, eating, sleeping and pooping like good chicks do. I rushed around looking for the tub of EEs...it was empty, the shipment was sold. I wanted to cry. Hubby said it's ok, they have plenty of Black Australops (which was my first choice when I first started looking into chickens in the first place), I made a little pout and we headed to their little tub. They were the most precious chicks there, maybe I was biased. They are perfect and wonderful and we decided to get 6 because they have another shipment coming in on monday that should have some EE pullets in it, the chicks should be close enough in size that I can pick up 6 of them when they get there. It helps that the BAs were really small and younger than the Buff Orpingtons that were our other choice. They were a lot bigger and very cute too as you can see. As much as I wanted to be the one picking out our girls I couldn't hand over the camera to do it. I wanted to get a ton of pictures to document just one more step for us in the direction of homesteading on a little piece of land (compared to other friend's farms that is.) We've decided (especially after reading the Urban Homesteading blog, in which a family is self sufficent living on 1/5 of an acre and last year produced over 6,000 pounds of food. I want to link but no matter the color I change it to it still comes out invisible,) we will have our homestead no matter how much land we have with everything that we can do within the rules of our town. I love that Hubby is so much on board with everything as me, although I'm sure he will make sure to say the chickens were ALLLLL my idea when it comes to chore time. No matter though. Because I am now a chicken mama to these 6 beautiful baby girls! Because I made the split second decision to get the chicks that day when I got home I had to think fast and make a make-shift, not exactly beautiful but definately effective brooder. I grabbed an empty rubbermaid tub I had and since I didn't have time to cut away the top of the containers plastic and cover it with hardware cloth. I filled the tub with pine shavings, the same ones that they had at the feed store in their tubs. I got the chicks in there with their food and water dishes that they were very excited about. I grabbed a great idea off one of my chicken boards and toss the kids baby gate over the top of the tub, grabbed my heatlamps and bulbs and got them situated on top of the baby gate keeping the chickies nice and warm but not too warm. I am so happy I've gotten to spend so much time on chicken boards and to have wonderful friends like Shellie that know so much about chicken life to help me figure out how to make sure that these babies are all happy. Hubby is actually so happy about all of this that he's decided next year he's adding on to the coup (two seperate sections completely though) and building another run, and we are getting meat birds. He is very very excited about eating some nice fresh chicken. So that will be an exciting new addition to our little homestead next spring. Anyway! That was my big surprise, we have chicks, they are eating/sleeping/pooping/drinking in their little homemade brooder in the living room, chirping away. Oh and don't mind all the drawing on the inside of the tub. While Hubby was "watching" them they managed to sneak over with the crayons that they HAD been nicely using on their coloring books, they then used to "decorate" that empty tub. The chicks enjoy their artwork though and have told me that they enjoy the fact their the boys had worked so hard to decorate their new home. Well I need to end this for now and I hope you all enjoy the pictures!!

Oh and I thought that I would throw in this adorable picture of these ducklings that wanted to come home with us but alas we can't have ducks, at least not yet, hmmm I wonder....

Oh. My. Goodness.

2009-04-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Something big (and little at the same time) has happened in our ever growing household. I will make a HUGE-O-MONGOUS post about it tomorrow complete with pictures. This is a good happening, don't panic. And NO I'm not pregnant, like that would be a big surprise post anyway :p. It's 2:30am. I'm exhausted and happy. I can't wait to share tomorrow, but it wont but until afternoon-ish because I have so many things to do. Due to severe pain days (I'm sure it's cause of the cold weather, snow, and new stress, I just haven't gotten everything done. Tomorrow I have a new inspiration to make my home perfection again, and the promise of my husband that he will spend his day off work not on his videogame but actually helping me clean. Holy cow. I know, don't have a heartattack. Oh and just because I adore this picture I'm posting it of Orin and his new cousin Huckleberry.

Holy Laundry Batman!

2009-03-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Here is where I was actually going to be brave and post my pictures of the mountians of laundry, the laundry that is overtaking my house and may or may not have eaten one of my children. This monster laundry is making me mad. I do not like you laundry, you are bad and you should be ashamed of yourself for multiplying like you are. Time out for you...right now!

I am not currently posting the pictures because my beautiful new camera that I love and was just holding and caressing as I pointed at the baskets of clean ready to fold laundry piled on my couch, it's screen told me, no I refuse to work right now because my battery is dead. You are a bad camera mother, I've been telling you I needed recharging but you did not want to put me down to charge me. I am therefore punishing you when you need pictures for your blog. I hung my head in shame and dug out my new camera's charging system and it is now being fed the energy it needs. I will be editing this post in the morning with pictures of laundry done and needing to be done hoping that is a real motivating factor. To those of you that do not have four dirty little boys and dirty hubby you may not understand what being down for the count for two weeks does to laundry and to a house when your male-folks are allergic to cleaning and scared to put clothing the magic machine that cleans them add soap and press a button. I need to do 2-3 loads of clothes (and bedding) a day to keep up with everything. So saying it's the lesser number, 2 x 14 = 28 loads of laundry. I don't have quite that much to do but it is very much near that number. I have 5 loads done and ready to fold but that's it. Today I was going to attack my laundry mountain, threatening it with soap and laughing as it was piled into the basket heading to the...dun dun dun laundry room. But shoot to me I woke up having a very very bad pain day. My pain pills managed it enough that I could hold my dear children and cook for them, do ONE load of laundry and pick up here and there. Tomorrow I WILL wake up having a good day (please please) and I will get my house in tip top normal shape. My slaves....um I mean children will definately be helping. They are very excited and even said as I tucked them in with hugs and kisses, "Mommy do we have lots of work to do tomorrow? I will be so good, I'm the biggest helper!" This caused arguing between the oldest two of who the best helper was, Brody pulled out his new trump card, "But I'm a vampire and I'm faster and stronger than you, my muscles are huge." This is what I get from letting him watch Twilight with us, he is now sure that he is a fast, strong, and handsome vampire. That is fine, I need a vampire's help to tackle this house.

Anywho, tomorrow I'm determined to have the house spotless, as many loads of laundry as possible done, folded and put away, as well as having a roast, fresh mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, fresh baked rolls and green beans ready to serve by dinner time. This is my goal. Oh and possibly tossing in a pan of brownies (I say brownies because I will cheat and use my box of mix since my parents bought use 7 boxes of them when Dave was in his accident and the thought of baking something more time consuming with everything else is too much.) I will take pictures of my victory tomorrow as well as the laundry I have to start out with. I refuse to take pictures of the house because I will get teased that what I consider and disgusting mess is not more than a few things on the floor. OCD is part of me and I love and embrace it.

I dont think I will be doing my scrubbing tomorrow though, but thursday I will be on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor and the bathroom nice and clean. I need to make my goal attainable considering my body's new restrictions. Plus Hubby will definately yell at me if I do everything said above and scrub the house. He is very much protective of my health and body and I love that about him. But what can I say I love being naughty and I love that naughty to him is cleaning too much. I want the best for my beautiful children and my wonderful husband. There is no way that is wrong. I'm not saying this to brag, please understand. I'm saying this because I feel like it my job as a stay at home mom to make sure I do my "job" when I know how hard my husband works for us. And I really do have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and can't help myself.

Anyway that's my blog, it's a blog for me to re-read in the morning to inspire myself to live up to what I really need to do tomorrow to feel happy again. Also we've decided that our awesome Dexter (the black lab) has proven himself in his potty training that he will no longer be crated up at nigt I'm making him a bed in our room where he can sleep as long as we have no accidents in the morning. I can't wait until Bella (the not housebroken, not very intelligent but adorable puggle) is at the point where she doesn't need to be crated at night. Their crates are full of fluffy blankets and have more than enough room to stretch and lay in, and we do believe in crate training all our dogs and having a spot that is just theirs to escape to away from the boys of endless energy.

Also for those of you out there that enjoy Vampire books, I suggest the "House of Night" Series that startes with the book "Marked" It's a great read I'm on book three and I've been reading them for two days in my free time. Yes this is a suggestion for you Shellie (and Andrea too :D ) Read and enjoy. Oh and I've suggested this to Andrea already but Shellie you HAVE to read the Undead and Unwed series. They are HILARIOUS, I was literally laughing out loud, they are amazing.

Well Hubby grumbled off to bed while I insisted I needed to update my blog as I've been slowly stopping with the daily posting that I need to do for my resolution. I also need to write this here to remind myself, to give my mom the link to my blog! I think she will enjoy reading, at least I hope so! Good night dear friends, I hope you all are having sweet dreams.

Oh and Andrea I'm reading and following your blog, until the phone is something I can use, we can use our blogs to keep each other updated!

You non-believers take this! The pics are here!

2009-03-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Muhaha, I have loaded new pictures to my computer. Not very many since this weekend was fairly uneventful BUT friday was a trip to grandma and grandpa's house! Safe and far away from the road the older boys played with their brand new cousin!

Isn't he a sweetheart? His name is Huckleberry Dumbledore E.(insert sister's fiance's last name.) He is a golden retriever puppy and is 8 weeks old and is my little sister's new baby, therefore my new newphew and my son's new cousin.

Here is Huck running along trying to keep up with the oldest two, who insisted that they had to run SUPER fast, because they had so much energy left, and they couldn't sleep if they were full of energy. I was fine with this! Run my little children run fast and run far! NO! That's too far, come closer to the house.

I guess you don't have to be THAT close to the house. But I like it! it! Look at those beautiful boys! Boys that were far too busy exploring with a new puppy in Grandma and Grandpa's yard to look at the camera while I was snapping pictures!

Now after all the playing with the puppies we spent some time playing trucks in the living room with Grandma while she rested a bit. Boys sure wear you out. Orin was sure that it was officially his job to destroy the racetrack that I rebuilt over and over, Aidan was content to have his bottle and sit on my lap.

They had so much fun play trucks, then farm, then coloring, we all know that Grandma's have the best things to play with and know exactly how to perfectly apply multiple fake tattoos upon request. Hubby eventually got there after work and my sister and her fiance arrived shortly after that from work. Grandpa got home before all of them and immediately started making dinner for us all. Dad, it was fantastic!! He made us all toasted baguette brushed with olive oil and garlic salt, roasted scallions and asparagus, and delicious ribeye steaks! Yes you can drool, just lean away from your computer. Orin enjoyed his food quite a bit, I will leave you with a picture of his smiling face. Man btw this photo thing is tricky my text doesn't want to go where I want it to and all my pictures go up to the top. Is that normal picture people? So new at this. ANYWAY, look at this beautiful boy.

And not to forget my youngest angel son here is a snapshot of Aidan baby in his carseat, fresh home from a shopping trip!

It's obvious Aidan was taken surprise by the huge black thing stuck to mommy's face. I will make sure to get a picture of his beautiful smile for next time. I also added pictures to two other posts I made before. And Shellie my camera is a Nikon D40! I posted a picture of the box on my last post. I guess I was too excited to actually mention the name, silly me! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

I got it! It's mine, and no I'm not sharing!

2009-03-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

Thursday Hubby ended up having to stay home from work because he got a chunk of metal in his eye AGAIN and had to go to the doctor to have it removed. We packed up the herd and loaded into the car. I was really grateful that he was home because I had a few errands that I had to take care of that day in preparation for Friday. I dropped off Hubby with Orin and Aidan at the doctors office thinking that it would take forever for him to get in (urgent care is normally quite the wait) and knowing it would be too hard to take the take carry babies with me while I ran to the DMV. I kept Brody and Mason with me and we hit McDonalds secretly before running to the DMV. I severly needed some coffee and I got both of the boys a juice box to sip on as long as they were patient and well behaved while we waited in line. As I normally am, I was so happy to live in a county with only 36,000 people in it. We had the longest line I've ever seen at the DMV before and I've been there three times. We had to wait in line behind a whopping 1 person. We went in and had to renew the tabs for our SUV that had expired in December but hadn't been running because it needed a new alternator and Hubby had a broken hip. I needed to get the tabs Thursday cause I wanted Hubby to start driving the SUV to work so that I would have the van at home for doctors appointments, errands and in particular a trip to Grandma's on friday during the day. By the time I got back to the docs from the DMV Hubby was already done and I was shocked! He announced that he had to go to Walmart to pick up a perscription for his eye. So we headed over there and made a B-line for the camera section where I showed him my dream camera and told him to hold it and to see how it would fit so nicely into our lives, and by ours I mean mine, I'm not sharing! He pretended to think it over telling me it was a big investment and he wasn't sure. He told me to take my cart and the three oldest to go get the groceries that we needed. So I meandered around the grocery sections picking out 10 dozen eggs...yes TEN DOZEN EGGS. They will be gone all too fast. We need our chickens and we need them now. We picked out some yogurt, and apples and hit up the gummy section were we picked out Hubby's favorites Gushers, hoping to reward him for getting me my present.

Then we headed back to find him, and he walked us over to the camera counter. At this point I started vibrating with joy, glee and all the other descriptive words for happy. He told the lady we wanted the camera, but then she said that unlike the internet package it didn't come with two 4G memory cards. I didn't see the problem, the 15 dollar 2G cards seemed like a fine compormise for me, seeing as how I wanted the talking to stop and the camera in my hands. Gimme gimme gimme!! Hubby then did the unthinkable. He said, I think we will just wait and order it online. MORE WAITING? WHAT? Husband! I gave birth to four beautiful sons to carry on your name husband! I cook your meals with a smile Husband! I wash you dirty icky work clothes HUSBAND! Me? Wait? WHAT! NO! I proceeded to have a breakdown. There was my camera, sitting on the counter, it was calling to me, Sarah, please please take me home, there is no where I want to be besides your hands, my lens see only you! Hubby how could we leave it there not knowing where it would end up! Oh I couldn't bear it any longer. I told him, "But I dont care about the memory cards, it's the camera I want, we could buy the memory cards if you want them but I dont and it's my present! Oh hubby please dont make me wait, I can't I can't!" The tears were there on the edge of coming out, and I stomped off to another isle, quite similar to the two year old. The camera counter people looked at me like I was a whiney child. I was, I apologize sweet Hubby, I forgot my meds, I was whiney, and I needed my camera. I talked in my sweetest voice, I kissed him and I begged. Yup, dignity begone, I begged. He looked in my eyes, and they must have said, "If you want clean clothes and food for your body you will walk back to the counter and tell them you were wrong." I am embarassed of my fit yes, but I apologized and he understood and told me not to forget my medicine again. He walked to the counter people, I hid behind him touching him in a loving way showing I wasn't really evil, he told them he really did want the camera. They discussed things I didn't listen to cause I sneaked with the kids to the memory cards to hide and then he waved me over telling me to bring the memory card of my choice...apparently I picked wrong, I got a 2G one and he went back and grabbed a 4G instead, ah sweet Hubby. He bought the camera and kept it in his cart away from me. Fair punishment for my outbrust, I should have gotten a spanking. But that's all over, I will never walk in the camera section again though for fear of seeing the counter people that think I'm a nutso. We checked out the rest of the stuff in the cart, I told Hubby I loved him thiiiiiiiiiiis much and he was my favorite Hubby. He was still a little miffed from my behavior, but barely, he loves me and my crazy self just the way I am. I told him to go get his perscripion, so I could sneak and buy him his favorite truck magazine.

After Walmart, we stopped to get take home dinner and headed back to the homestead. We all sat down to eat while my Hubby who is almost in pain when there is something new in the house that he can't open eyed my camera box. He looked at me and said, "How can you sit there and eat with that camera sitting there unopened?" I looked at my food and said, "Cause I'm hungry" haha! He rolled his eyes. I was just happy that it was home with me, it's new mommy and I knew it wasn't going anywhere and I certainly didn't want to open it near a pile of boys eating. Ew. I ate as fast as I could, not very fast when you are the only female surrounded by 5 males. Hubby wouldn't take his eyes off the box, sitting there begging him to open it, and him knowing that I would cry if he opened my present. Finally (to him) I got around to opening it.

It was beautiful, the most expensive thing I've ever owned. I will take care of it for ever and ever and love it and it will document my family's life for years. Hubby was mortified when I started reading the manual before putting it all together and taking pictures. We work in such different ways. But the way he was shaking in nervous excitement for me, I put down the manual and put together the camera and started taking pictures to show him. He was upset about me not having the strap put on right away because sometimes my arms and hands go completely numb and I drop things. I handed the camera to him and he put the strap on for me and snuck taking a couple pictures. Hey! I already said I wasn't sharing Hubby, take your finger off that button! But that was Thursday and it was super!

White is not what I expected this morning.

2009-03-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up and looked outside this morning and instead of green grass starting to wake up from it's long winter nap, there was a thin layer of snow! Are you kidding me. Nope I refuse to believe it. I'm not looking outside again until it's gone. See ya later snow, it's spring time!

I will post again tonight, too flustered at the moment!

What? Still no dirt!

2009-03-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here are the cups, labeled and ready for dirt and seeds!

Due to the fact that I've been healing and gaining strength back from my sickies, and working with other medications I have treating other issues, I've been slow going on things I normally swoop through and get done. Normally cleaning the house to perfection is an easy accomplishment, leaving plenty of extra time to do other tasks that need attending to. We've been putting off and putting off planting our transplants but we are running out of time! I do not want to go to the nursery and buy transplants when we've already invested so much time and money into our seed set up and all the different varieties that we can have when we start them ourselves. I promise myself that I will start getting all the dirt into our cups, and hopefully start getting the seeds in place and watering them. There on so many things to accomplish on our mini homestead that it's overwhelming. We still have to get our coop built and get the dog kennel transformed into a chicken run which shouldn't be too difficult since I just need to run hardware cloth around the base of the kennel. We are lucky that we live in town in some aspects because we dont have snakes or raccoons to bother the chickens, just bunnys and squirrels and neighborhood dogs, but the kennel alone will keep out the dogs and the other animals wont much bother the chicks. I'm going to transform one of my large rubbermaid tubs into a brooder box for the chicks and I really want to hurry up about it cause I want my babies at home and growing! I also need to remember to pick up a pack of marbles at walmart when I go out to put in the bottom of the waterer so that the chicks don't drown...not that's it's a large waterer but all the wonder people in the chicken forums I'm on have suggested doing such and I really value the information of all my friends that already have chickens. Shellie be prepared for lots of e-mails as I freak out about new chicken things!

We also have so much work to do outside it's crazy! We bought some new grass seed so we can overseed parts of our lawn that need shade grass, we are hoping to have a wonderfully plump soft lawn this summer. There are also bits of trash that have blown into our yard from other places I really need to get out to pick up and throw away if it ever stops raining! We also have a large fence that has to be put up soon (and purchased which we will be doing soon!) That will be a lot of work for sure, almost 500 feet of fencing, lots of posts and cement and chain stretching but it will be unbelievably worth it and I'm SO excited to have it up so the dogs can be outside playing more and that I wont have to be as anxious with the kids outside. Then after all that work we have to retill the current garden as well as expand it to almost three times the size, it will be almost an entire city lot of pure garden. But while we've been stuck inside Dave has finally managed to hang up some of the things I wanted him to hang up, a painting in the kitcen and a shelf next to the front door to hang keys on and put the cell phone and whatnot on so we can grab our things on the way out and not lose them.

I got the house all cleaned up yesterday, putting away a bunch of the stuff that we picked up at the fleetstore which is nice. I really want to do some baking in the next few days, I was reading a blog I love called Chickens In the Road ( http://suzannemcminn.com/blog/ ) and she had a great idea for homemade poptarts, I have some strawberry rhubarb jam in the freezer that would make an interesting poptart for sure! I have a few other baking projects I want to get done but easy does it for me as medication adjusts and I get back into the routine I had before my world was turned upside down and inside out. Tonight I'm making chicken alfredo and garlic bread for dinner, I REALLY wanted to get a baguette loaf and slice it up and butter and toast it, then roast some heads of garlic to spread on it to go with it but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that or not cause we would have to run out do get it and it takes forever when we go out. I'm still hoping that if we go out that Hubby picks me up a present that I've been hinting at for a couple months now. I won't say what it is unless I get it though, but I REALLY want it. We'll see and I will have to talk to him about it when the kids wake up from nap. I hope he will want to go out. I have said over and over that I will start getting pictures up here and I really will, really. You dont believe me? I dont blame you, but I will!

Time to get dirty!

2009-03-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I didn't manage to update since after laying the children down for bed I promptly laid down and passed out. But yesterday started out as a lazy weekend day, we woke up later than usual, with the oldest two curled in our bed watching cartoons (late as in 9:30.) We got up and started putzing around only to have the cellphone ring. Hubby answered it and looked over to me and said, "Do you want company in a half hour or an hour and a half?" My jaw dropped since the house that I normally keep in perfect condition was quite a mess due to me being sick for 5 days, while 5 boys ran about making messes. I opted for an hour and a half , with hubby's promise to help clean up. We started running around like crazy getting everything picked up, dishes done and kids dressed and ready. So much for our lazy day, but it was very much worth it to have our brother in law and two of his daughters drop by. Since we are so very far out of the way of anything it's rare that people just drop in, but they were heading out to pick up flooring for a house that they had just bought as an investment. So they got here and Hubby, BIL, the nieces L&L, Brody and Mason, and Dexter and Bella all went outside to play and for them men to talk. I stayed inside with Orin and Aidan, Orin was upset to be left inside but the mud was too mooshy for my new walker to trudge through, and Aidan was getting ready to be laid down. After a while of playing outside everyone came back in, quite muddy but full of good cheer. The kids went off ot play while the adults talked, we talked about different plans for the house, for the garden expansion project, and for our future homestead and self sufficent life. We also discussed selling our garden's excess produce at the farmer's market as summer arrives.

Then the visit came to an end and we said our goodbyes, which also getting ready to head out. We got all the children ready, and loaded up into the van and headed to the big town (the little town is where we live and it only has a gas station, laundrymat, post office, and two bars), to get some needed supplies. We first stopped at our local Farm and Fleet store that had just moved to a new location that is way bigger. We are so happy for the owners that they have be successful enough to make the move, and have been trying to buy all of our items from them as opposed to chains like menards and walmart so show our support. That is also where we will be getting our chicks when the time comes. I've very very excited about that. Now because we dont have enough seeds (yeah right!) for our garden we bought more lol. We got a nice pack of 2 year roots of asparagus that we we thrilled to plant, it will be so delicious to be able to walk outside in a few years and snap off fresh asparagus to cook up for dinner. We got another set of 100 onions (red this time, we already have 100 each of white and yellow.) We will have so many onions it will be wonderful. I also got a small set of shallots and need more. I will buy garlic in the fall to get planted for next summer, we have a few heads in the ground now from last year. I also finally found a nice big pack of Blue Lake pole style beans. I had bought Blue Lake bush earlier but I am just not a big fan of the bush beans since ours were very scrawny last year. We got a pack of regular cucumbers and lemon cucumbers, (we will have lots of cukes this year, thank goodness for the farmers market.) I held off getting more tomatoes, since I already have 15 varietys and over 40 plants that will be going in this year. We also got another bag of grass seed, so that we can over seed our yard and get nice thick grass in. I think I'm just about done buying seeds except one type that I have to order online, my beloved Black Krims.

Then I had to go to walmart to get some water, two Twilight movies (one for my sister's birthday present), a painting for the kitchen and a few candles. We stopped to pick up dinner on the way home which I'm so sick of but we just didn't have time to get everything, get home and for me to put things away and cook, plus hubby was feeling pretty sick with a gross tummy so he had to lay down when we got home. We all had dinner (except hubby) and then I made a blankie nest on the floor for all the boys to lay on, hubby crashed on the couch and I curled up in my chair and we all watched Twilight. Well Orin and Mason got antsy and had to got to bed but Aidan, Brody, Hubby and I all finished the movie, and it was a fun time.

Today was a slow morning, the boys played downstairs with Hubby, and since I was having a tough morning painwise I got to lay in my bed and watch The United States of Tara. But after naptime we are all going to get to work on our transplants, the kids are going to play on the swing set...well Brody will but Mason and Orin won't give up a chance to play in the dirt I'm sure. Maybe if I'm lucky I can convince Hubby to just let me work on the planting while he cleans up the garage which is a total mess. We'll see. I will definately be taking pics of the planting though and will make an update of that later. But anyway I'm going to rest and enjoy the rest of naptime. Oh oh and we are totally going to grill for dinner tonight I'm so excited! Yummy chicken and homemade potato skins (not on the grill.) Tasty tasty!

Long Time. No Blog.

2009-03-17T11:34:00.000-07:00

So wow. It's been a really tough few days. Like I had been blogging about early last week the boys one by one (aside from Aidan and Hubby who thankfully avoided it) started getting fevers and coughing. Well with Thursday came the vomit. Mason started it, in my bed gross, and then I started. Mason and I were really not doing well at all. I struggled hard through Friday managing to stay on my feet and always make it to the toliet (woot, score mommy.) Of course Hubby's boss made him stay late. He called home when he normally would, but instead of telling me he was leaving he told me he wouldn't be home until 7pmish (normally he's home at 4:30.) Of course being the coughing, snot oozing, vomit machine I was I started crying lol. I kept plugging on though until Hubby got home and took over and I crawled into bed, not to return until Monday morning.

Yesterday I was still throwing up but didn't feel as bad as before so that was great and today I've managed to keep most everything down, woohoo. So anyway, kids are all getting better, no more vomit, no more fevers, still some coughing and snot, but overall they are feeling a lot better.

Yesterday we took the kids outside to play for a little bit and Bella came out to bark...I mean play too. We didn't stay out too long because they were still not feeling all that great and the yard was basically water and mud. They found little piles of snow here and there and threw snowballs at each other though and that was pretty fun for them. Not much to say about yesterday it was just a "try and survive it" type of day.

Normally I'm not such a wimp...I did give birth for four children for goodness sake. I just haven't had the flu like this in probably 4 years. Anywhooo...today is St.Patricks day! I'm thinking about making some cupcakes with green sprinkles, I've so unprepared, normally I have special cupcake cups, special clover sprinkles (or whatever the holiday is). But this will do and all my men big and little will enjoy the special treat. I'm going to make chicken tacos and red beans and rice for dinner tonight. Tomorrow I'm making chili and garlic bread, I've been craving chili big time. We also need to get our transplants done, all the sickness has pushed back the planting and now that it's hopefully all over we can get a movin' on it. I'm actually going to work on labeling all the containers so we know what is planted in there once I'm done with this blog.

Considering this blog isn't really written as nicely as I would like it to have been I'm going to end this and get on to my chores. Update later when I have something more to talk about then puke and snot.

Pictures and Fevers and Shots Oh Wow!

2009-03-11T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today Hubby went back to work for the first time in almost 4 weeks. It was weird not having him just a hollar away. I missed my man, but I know that not working makes him feel like less of a man. We talked about it and I realized how much he bases his value as a man on his ability to support his wife and children. It makes me respect him a lot for that. So as much as I wish that he could just be home with me forever I'm glad that he's feeling more fulfilled now. I feel bad cause I haven't had a chance to ask him how his day was, since as soon as he walked in to the door I tossed my coat on grabbed the keys from him and ran out the door. He got home right when I was supposed to be at my appointment for my weekly B12 injection. Thankfully I was only 15 minutes late and since it was just a quick shot they were able to still give it to me, and I had to pick up my prescription for my pain medicine on my pain contract today too. So after the shot I popped over to walmart (across the street) so I could fill my meds, and meandered around while they filled it, spending more money that I wanted to...like always! Walmart loves to suck the money from my pockets. I got myself a bunch of cucmbers and some mushrooms (I totally plan to make some filet migon later this week and wanted to sautee up some mushrooms to go with the steak, and some to toss in a salad to go with the steak. I got a bunch of chicken breast because it was on sale for $5 a package so I saved a couple bucks and replenished some of my chicken stash. With this tax return I've been trying to stock up as much as meat as possible in the freezer, since meat is the most expensive part of our diet and we are blessed enough to have gotten a HUGE chest freezer from my parents as a housewarming present when we moved in in 2007. They also gave us their old vacuum sealer so I can seal all the meat up nicely to avoid freezer burn. So I have about 15 pounds of chicken breast, 20 or so pounds of hamburger, hot dogs galore, bacon, and steak. How we got the steak is actually a funny story. A couple weeks ago I was sitting in the living room watching Hell's Kitchen (Tivoed from the night before) and they had turned Hell's Kitchen into a steakhouse. So there I am drooling over this delicious steak, wanting just to be able to sink my teeth into the tv when the door bell rang. No one ever comes over without calling (we are 100 mile round trip from our family, and it's to cold and snowy for the neighbors to drop by) so I was puzzeled. I opened the door to this man a little older than me and he asked, "Can I speak to the boss of the house?" I laughed to myself and considering I hadn't brushed my hair yet that morning I smiled and said, "Sure I'll go get him." So I told my husband who had been downstairs and informed Hubby that I was letting him be the boss of the house for a few minutes, he laughed at me and went upstairs. He talked to the guy who was shocked that my husband was the "boss" of the house, apparently he thought the boss would have been one of my parents since I look younger than I am and I'm only 23 anyway. He told Hubby that he was going door to door selling meat, oh yes my dears he was selling boxes of STEAK (and chicken, pork and seafood). I looked towards the Heavens knowing there was a God and that he had sent me "steakman." I informed steakman that I had been watching Hells Kitchen and they were making steak, he thought that was great (obviously sensing a sale on the way.) He brought a huge box of steaks in the house and pulled out new york strip, filet migon (both bacon wrapped and not), T-bones and some other fancy cut that we never bought they were all too spendy. He said that they boxes normally ran $399 bucks. But that he was selling them at $160 for the whole box because the company was giving out coupons for the month. Now we have never even thought about spending so much money on something that was as decadent as that, but the fact that we had just gotten a huge tax return and that in 6 years we had never gotten steaks like that for ourselves we decided this time to splurge since it was a really great deal (we are talking pounds and pounds and pounds of the best cuts of meat, you couldn't get that good of a deal anywhere.) So now we have the delicious steaks that I'm SO excited to grill this summer, but I will pan sear the filets for dinner this week since our grill is covered with two feet of snow lol. So anyway, what was the point of that? Oh yeah we are stocking up on meat so that we wont have to worry about buying it later on during the year if money gets tight. I also have made quite the stockpile of rice, flour, sugar, and other pantry items that have a good long shelf life. The only things I cant really stock up on are fresh produce and some other fridge items. I also dont stockpile milk, I know it can be frozen but truth be told I have no room in either my upstairs freezer or my chest freezer for that so I dont. I do stockpile cheese though, it freezes really great. Oh and canned goods I stockpile. I'm sure I have enough food in our house to feed my family of 6 for at least 6 months easy, which is good to know. No matter what happens I have the means to keep food in the kids bellies. Now what I need to work on for stockpiling is diapers, toliet paper, wipes and paper towels. I always have enough and we never have run out before we went out, but it sucks to have to run out just cause your box is low, it would be nice to have a bunch of boxes in the closet to just pull out when needed. I know I can stock up on 5s cause Mason and Orin are in size 5s and holding, but Aidan is in 3s and I dont know how fast he will reach size 5. I've never had to move up to a size 6 and I doubt I will with Aidan either before he's potty trained. It will be nice to have all the kids in the same size again, even nicer to get Mason PT and out of diapers so there are only two little diapered butts. I know it will probably be 2 and a half to 3 more years until I'm completely done with diapers but I actually dont mind it. I am not in a huge hurry to be completely done with the baby stage. Not to say that I'm in a huge hurry to make another baby to extend it though lol.

Today Aidan and I really played a ton, it was so fun to blow raspberries on his tummy and help him practice rolling and then I had a good idea. I started posing him in different "scences" around the house while forming a fun picture blog starring him. I have a few more pictures to take and I think tomorrow I will post a funny blog with a story to go with it.

Mason and Orin still have fevers today, but Brody's fever has passed, although all of their coughs are getting worse. They aren't wheezing and their lungs don't sound full so I dont plan to take them in as of yet, I think it's just a virus, but I will keep and eye on it and if it gets worse at all I will take them all in.

Now that I've managed to scoot off on some wild tangent I'm going to stop. I manage to always write huge novels here, and today I didn't really even talk about todays events. Needless to say they were normal, lots and lots of cleaning, playing with my baby boys, and generally doing my best to be a good mommy and wife. Keep an eye out for the Aidan picture blog coming soon, it will be very cute/funny.

Oh and Shellie if you are reading this I need to talk to you eventually about a question on how to get pictures on my side bar, I would really like to get pictures of each family member up there like you have, so people can see who I'm talking about. Thanks hun, although I'm not sure if you read my blog or not lol. Lord knows I'm beating my brains out to read yours! Blogger is having a fit on me and telling me I can't see yours cause my cookies are busted, I saw them for about 15 minutes then it shut me out again.

Whoops missed a day, oh well.

2009-03-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

So I missed yesterday but with good reason. Yesterday I woke up to not one but two boys with a fever. So I had those two settled in on the couch in the living room while I catered to their every request, maybe I'm not so much nurse mommy as maid mommy! Either way I dont mind doing what I need to do for my sick little men. Dave took the little ones downstairs in the hopes of keeping the germs seperate...ha! After a morning of chatting, snacking, coloring books, reading, and leapsters it was time for nap for all the boys. I put Mason in the big boys room, Brody in my room, and Orin in his room. Aidan stayed with daddy downstairs to nap. They all slept really well and were not happy when I went to wake them up. Orin went down with daddy again, and I carried Mason into my room and put him on the bed with Brody, who was crying about wanting to watch a movie that wasn't on On Demand. So Mason got to pick a movie. Now movies are very special to kids with very limited tv time. Mason picked a veggie tales pirate movie. Part way through the movie I snuck in and launched an attack on my sons. That's right I picked up my weapon and started to pummel my giggle monsters...mommy's weapon of choice? A fluffy feather pillow! So yes ladies and gentlemen we all had a knock down drag out pillow fight on the bed. Soon the bed just did not have enough space for the glee filled sickies so we went into their room. Oh there was screeching, and giggling and squeals of delight as we swung our pillows. Then all pooped we laid on the floor with our pillows and discussed our next attack. With the help of my little plotters (oh I admit I did the plotting and they just laughed and agreed) we decided that I would call Daddy and tell him "Hurry come to the boys room we have something to show you" Then I ran back to the room armed with a pillow and they hid in the corner and when daddy walked in we all pummeled him. Theatrically he flung to the floor defeated the turned into a horse that Brody immediately climbed on. Sensing the unfairness of it all I turned into a horse for Mason and we had a battle to the death...twice. Each boy won once, but then Daddy had to go back down with the babies as he had spent an entire 7 minutes away from them. After the pillow fight the boys watched the rest of their veggie tales movie. The hubby made peanut butter sandwiches for dinner since I had taken it upon myself to wrestle with our old crib that had not been taken down yet and get it apart and stored in the utility room with the help of my sickies. Then I decided I'd gone that far so why not attack the second crib that we bought for Aidan (Orins new crib had already been put together within days of it's arrival). So after a lot of grunting, whining, procrastinating and yelling at pieces of wood I got it together and the mattress and sheets and bumper on it while the boys ate dinner. Now thankfully both cribs are set up and the dressers are rearranged and it's looking great, I'm thrilled we bought matching cribs and bedding sets they look great together. Now I just need to go and buy some fabric that looks good with the colors of the bedding set and make matching blankets for each bed. After all that was jammies kisses and bed for all the boys.

Now onto today...
Today what with all my efforts at separating the babies and the big boys, preventing germs and all that....Today three of my children woke up with fevers and coughing *head desk.* I passed out meds to my three sickies, Brody, Mason and Orin (thankfully the baby seems to be avoiding things thus far). The three sickies curled ont the couch (thank goodness for big couches and little bodies) and Daddy settled into the recliner with Aidan in his arms. The boys all watched some tv and had breakfast, a very mellow morning for sure. I on the other hand was flying through the house like a bat out of hell, scrubbing out puppy kennels, picking up the living room, the kitchen, doing laundry, managing meds, keeping up on fevers, and anything else that came up. I was moving moving until naptime, and I got all the kids down for a nap, then hubby laid on the couch to take a nap. Man, I wanted a nap lol. But I fooled around on the computer until it came time to wake everyone up (which I hate to do when they are sick but they needed to get up and move around and eat so they could get back to bed.) I was fully intending to make chicken tacos and red beans and rice but then all the boys ganged up on me with puppy eyes saying. "But oh dearest mother/wife, we would just be ever so grateful if you would take pity on our lowly selfs and allow us grilled cheese instead" Now how can I refuse puppy eyes that say that to me. So they ate grilled cheese (which I despise) and I has rice and lemon butter shrimp. Chicken tacos and red beans and rice tomorrow my prettys, for the little dog too!! We all played around with Bella for awhile before going through the last drinks, diaper changes, bathroom breaks, and doses of motrin before all their little angel heads touched the pillows. The all were asleep almost immediately, hubby and Aidan went downstairs where hubby played his videogame and Aidan fell asleep on him. I cuddled into my chair, relishing my nice relaxing moment, got on my computer to talk with friends. Coughing got crazy, like a chorus floating out of the little sickies' rooms so I brought cough medicine to help them sleep (it's still not working well.) Then I settled back into my cozy chair hoping for relaxing conversation which is not what I got. Oh well, there is an X at the top of the screen for a reason, so it's nothing to fret about. I decided to just avoid the stressful conversations all together, since I have plenty going on in my life to keep me occupied. Kind of a shame to not be in contact with some friends but they know where to find me.
Hubby goes back to work tomorrow for the first time in almost 4 weeks and i have to say I really am nervous about it, I hope that everything goes well. I'm just nervous because we are having a blizzard and because we live out in the country the roads are terrible and his commute is 37 miles each way. I'm sure he will be fine though.
So tomorrow (technically today) I plan to take care of the sickies, take care of all the pets, catch up on laundry, get everything picked up, sweep, vacuum, mop, and make sure I have dinner ready when hubby get home from a hard days work I think I will also bake a dessert if I have time with everything else I have to do. We'll see how it goes but I will definately be working my butt off! I need to end this now though it's getting super late and I will have to be up soon with the sickies. Funny thing is I'm very much looking forward to waking up and making a nice cup of hot chocolate and staring out my window at all the new snow fall. I'm sure that moment will last all of three seconds though before the kids beckon me hither and thither lol. Tomorrow will be an interesting day to blog about since it is always a juggling game when hubs is at work, ironically I always get more done when I have everything on my shoulders. Ok really. Must. Stop. Blogging. Good night.

Second Part of Sick Day.

2009-03-08T21:51:00.000-07:00

So sickly B was feeling in better spirits in the middle of the day which resulted in laying in goofy positions on the couch, sometimes upside down, some times with legs splayed in odd angles, all these position bringing out serious giggles from B and from nurse mommy. Then the fever went back up, and he had to snuggle up cozy again with his handheld leapster videogame thingy, he actually hid under the blanket with it which was very cute and brought me back to the good old days of hiding under my own blankets in bed with a novel, listening for my parents footsteps so i could immediately get into "fake sleep" mode if my door was opened. At the time I fully believed myself to be an amazing actress, faking my parents out to the core. Now I realize that my parents totally knew what I was up to and were too tickled at my obsessive reading to say anything, or they realized that I was probably so exhausted that my fake sleep would turn into real sleep.

While he was playing his game under his blanket on the couch I decided to go and clean up the bathroom. I scrubbed every square inch of it, save for the ceiling. It took me about two hours! I took breaks of course to make sure that sickie B was doing well, during the time he made requests for juice and snacks, then wanted to switch out his game for good old fashion coloring books and crayons. He was a big trooper and even made the effort to come over to the bathroom and tell me that i did a really good job. Aww what a pie! After I was done with the bathroom I sat down for about 15 minutes to rest my broken body. Then asked sickie B if he was up to hopping into the tub. He was totally ready for that and although he wanted to take the bath all alone (relishing in the one on one pampering) I told him we were gonna toss M into the tub too, utilizing the hot water, and knowing that he would have more fun playing with his brother in the tub than by himself. So I got those two into the tub while Hubby had O and A downstairs keeping each other company. Hubby said he would pop those two in the tub tomorrow. Before we have been bathing B, M, and O together but O's tub chair takes up a lot of room and as the boys get bigger it's hard to fit them all in there with the seat. Now B and M will bathe together one day and the next day O and A will bathe together. This arrangement will probably change when we are outside in the dirt all day during the summer and all the mud balls will have to get baths before bed.

Anywho...so I got the oldest two in the tub, washed their hair and soaped them up nice and clean then loaded the tub with bathtoys. Geez they probably played in the tub for an hour while I squirted them with foam soap, squirted my self with green foam soap to make it look like I had foam boogers hanging out my nose (yes this was a huge hit, especially when I wiped them and flicked them at the kids.) Then after they found me boring and just wanted to play with boats, and other little action figures in the tub I dragged in a load of laundry and sat on the floor folding it until the water got cold and I had to pry them out with all my strength. Wrapped them in clean fluffy towels, they got dryed and lotioned and into superhero jammies. Hubby was super helpful and made mac n cheese for dinner since bathtime took forever since I let them play till the water was cold like I said. So Hubby, B, M and O munched down some dinner. I cleaned up after the bath and moved B's blankets from the couch back to his bed, and made M's bed while I was at it since I didn't have time before scrubbing the bathroom. After dinner I got O, wiped off and into soft clean jammies and a new diaper and laid him down and hubby and i kissed the three oldests good night and Hubby and A went back downstairs to hang out (A will fall asleep while Dave plays his game) then they come up stairs and Hubby will tuck A into his bed next to my side of the bed,and he crawls in and we will all sleep tight until morning. For now I'm alone and blogging in bed, munching on kit kats, but right now that's fine by me. Sometimes a woman needs a good night of blogging in bed with chocolate.

So after two long blogs today about the normalities of like in the O________ household I think it's about time to end this and let myself drift off to sleep like I should, since it's 1am.

Change of plans.

2009-03-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

So I woke up this morning and thought everything was normal, planning to get our planting done with our little boys. Well little did I know that our oldest B had a nice little fever going on with a icky cough. Thankfully all the other little foreheads and lungs seem to be doing fine. So we did our normal routine, drinks, bottles, diapers, etc, and Dave took the younger three (M, O, and A) downstairs to have cereal and to play well away from the sickie. So I gathered up B's blankets off his bed and made him a cozy nest on the couch like my mom always did for me when I was sick as a child. I tucked B in with hugs and kisses, gave him some motrin to get the fever down and some cough medicine. I gave him a little water bottle full of nice cool water, and asked my brave little man what he wanted to eat. B whispered quietly, "Cheese and crackers please mommy" kind of a strange breakfast request but when a sickie asks mommy is here to serve. B also got to pick out the movie of his choice to watch, which is always a treat because we limit our children's television intake. He picked Transformers, so I'm sitting next to him while he munches his cheese and crackers snuggled up tight and cozy, and whooping and hollaring as the Autobots attack things and turn into cars. It's so fun to watch kids turn from a tiny sleeping newborn, to a 4 year old that talks so well and has a better vocabulary than some adults I know, who has his own likes and dislikes and will tell you them. I have no question in my mind that being a mother had been the most beautiful, amazing, difficult and interesting thing I have ever done with my life. I am so very grateful to have been blessed with 4 amazing children. And I tell ya, if we won the lottery I would LOVE to have two more. But with the economy and since the accident finances are too up in the air to think about having more without being irresponsible and incredibly selfish. But anyway, I love my kids was the point, haha! Anyway, I'm going to get back to tending to the sickie, and then later scrubbing the bathroom. I might blog again tonight if anything happens of interest, even if it doesnt, cause blogging is such a nice release and I love being able to go back and read blogs from years past and remember what it was like when the kids were younger.

Outings with the family

2009-03-07T20:24:00.000-08:00

Today was a pretty slow day to start off. Hubby and I got up and got the boys ready together, swooping through the house changing diapers, making bottles, giving good morning hugs and kisses, and getting everyone dressed. After the usual whirlwind morning routine, Hubby took all the kids downstairs to play while I made up some eggs and toast for breakfast, (I wasn't feeling well at the time so I opted out of breakfast at the time), For 1 man, and 3 growing boys I made 12 eggs, and 10 pieces of toast. So glad we are getting chickens since I will probably have to make closer to 20 eggs at a time by the time that all four growing boys, 1 hollow legged man -that's where it all must go theres no other room- and 1 mama are all sitting down for a nice breakfast. Tomorrow I plan to make french toast and eggs, that will take 21 eggs, and a full loaf of texas toast! Holy Food Batman! Normally I would cook up a package of bacon too for everyone but I didn't take it out of the freezer and I'm not comfortably blogging from bed so tomorrow will be bacon free. After bellys properly stuffed and plenty of playing it was time for nap. All the boys passed out, yippee!

After naptime, we all scurried about finding 5 pairs of shoes at the bottom of the entry way closet of doom...not matter how many times I clean it, it's destroyed moments later. With all big and little feet covered (the littlest set by a blankie), We got on our thickest sweatshirts, and boogied out to the van. Reguardless of how many times we go out it's always exciting for the kids which makes me excited too. We first went to walmart and got things we needed (and didn't need!) Veggies, chicken, diapers, bottles, and an exersaucer for Aidan. I'm stoaked about the new exersaucer cause they are a Godsend when we are outside working in the yard, he can play right next to me while staying clean and happy with plenty of toys and a little spot for a snack and a cup. This one happens to fold flat for easy storage and carrying which is better than trying to shove a huge exersaucer in and out the door when we go out. Plus once we are done with it I can give it to my little sister for when she decides to have babies and it will be easy for her to store until the time comes.

Then we headed over to Menards, where we ran to the seed section and it that bad boy up, buying so many seeds it was just crazy, I already have SO many at home, but hey I dont care I'm so happy! We got ourselves a huge bag of potting soil for our little transplants that we want to start tomorrow. But we forgot the growing lights...AGAIN! I might just have to send hubby out for those in the morning, I need to get my precious tomatoes going, oh tomatoes how I miss picking your perfectly ripened self off the plant and munching you in all your fresh glory....I think I'm sick haha. We got a bunch on little onion starters too, and by a bunch I mean 200. Now where I'm going to plant 200 onions I have no idea, but maybe some of the neighbors would be interested in some if we run out of space. No doubt some of them will be used as "green onions" and not be allowed to mature into a full big bulb. I'm also excited for fall to get in a huge batch of garlic, yum yum yum. Hubby and I meant to look at paint for the house before we left but didn't have time with the chorus of "Mommy, Daddy, we's are STARVIN'" So we checked out with all our goodies, and loaded the munchkins all up safely in the van and headed to Culver's for some take out, at this point it was 7pm :-0 holy moly how did it get so late?? We got dinner and zoomed home and fed the kids. After we were all done eating everyone got into clean jammies and crawled into bed where they now rest, sleeping like angels. Tomorrow they will help us plant, and when you add dirt and little boys the only result is radiant smiles, albiet dirty radiant smiles, I can't wait. I should be busy labeling the cups that each breed will go into but I figure I can take care of that later tomorrow. I'm considering trying to make fried chicken for the first time in my entire life tomorrow. I've never done it and I've never seen anyone in my family do it (we are northern we are not big fryers), but I think that cooking a batch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and some buscuits would be a delicious meal. We'll see if I end up doing it tomorrow or some other time though, I was planning on making a turkey but I didn't take that out either so I will probably make that Monday. Anywho, I will go over meals on the day they are supposed to be and stop blabbing or I will have nothing to talk about tomorrow.

Busy day...comparatively.

2009-03-06T21:04:00.001-08:00

As of the last few months since being diagnosed with fibromyalgia I've been moving a lot slower in my work. This is making my OCD go nuts when I am in too much pain to clean like I used to. But today was one of my better days! I did my dishes three times as per usual, and got the kitchen all scrubbed down, washing all the appliances and scrubbing all the white cabinets. After that hubby and I carried the dining set into the living room and I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed my kitchen floor like a mad woman. It was so nice to sit back and admire the shiny floor. It's been awhile since I've been able to do a hands and knees scrub like that normally I just mop daily. I also cleaned and decluttered the living room, scrubbed out the puppy kennel (I have to do this daily, as Princess Bella thinks housebreaking is overrated, not to mentionion, "Go to the bathroom outside?! What do you think I am, some kind of animal? Pulease!") I swooped through and made all the boys beds again, put away 3 loads of freshly laundred clothing, dusted a bit, and vacuumed the upstairs. Tomorrow the only think I have to finish up is a good hands and knees scrubbing of the bathroom floor as well as a good scrub down of the rest of the bathroom as well. I detest cleaning the bathroom because, well, I dont like my bathroom! It is severely in need of a remodel, which if we can refinance the home and get out of foreclosure (from hubby being in a car accident that almost killed him and took him out of work for almost 5 months) then we will remodel the bathroom. We have priced the remodel at about 700 dollars. Which I think is an excellent price for a new tub and surround, new counter top and sink on the vanity (I will be refurbishing the vanity, I really think I can save it with some major effort), a new toliet, new sheet rock, a new toliet, new tile flooring and freshly painted walls. Once the project gets underway I will definately be posting before, after and durings, pictures! We are so lucky to have such a talented and helpful family that has agreed to spend an entire weekend helping us remodel. Thankfully we have a toliet in the laundry room (lol just a silly freestanded but totally plumbed toliet in the middle/side of the room) to use for going potty while the bathroom is underway.

Anyway, so that's what I did today which was a great accomplishment for me as of late, and before it would have been just my morning chores. As I learn to live with the chronic pain (even with the help of pain medication that I've been on since Oct) I'm learning to get back to my old habits which is making me happier and happier! Tomorrow I fully intend to bake somethign delicious for my herd of boys large and small, maybe a raspberry cheesecake. I would like to make a romantic dinner for hubby and I but I'm not sure that is in the cards. We love to fondue together but we just did that in Jan and we try not to do it often since it's just not very good for you. I'm hoping he will sit and watch a movie with me so we can get some snuggle time in.

There is a ton of errands and things to do tomorrow so I will update with that for sure and I will be going back and adding pictures to my blogs tomorrow if I have the time and can get my pictures on this little laptop. Have a great night everyone!

So much for my new years resolution!

2009-03-05T20:51:00.001-08:00

So my new years resolution this year had been to blog daily. Here it is march and this is my second blog of the year! I haven't even touched my other blogs this year. So much had been going on around here in the last year, it seems time is always short. We are anxiously awaiting planting time! We have been slowly collecting all te seeds we are wanting in the garden, we have SO many varietys of almost everything and our garden will be huge and plentiful this year. I'm hoping that our first attempt at growing our own transplants is successful. We have all the small containers and we are going to purchase our potting soil and growing lights this weekend as well as a heating pad since the transplants will be growing in the basement and we want them nice and toasty for good germination. We will be planting our tomatoes (the ones we have at least), our bell peppers, broccoli, and cauliflower this weekend, our peas will be planted inside but closer to the last frost. They seem to grow really fast and we are HOPING to shove three rounds of beans and peas into this year's growing season. Hardly any of the snap and sugar peas made it into the house last year. Brody and Mason, then 3 and 2, learned to pick effectively and eat even more effectively. I want to be able to freeze some of them for use during the winter, since they are so ridiculously expenisve. I plant to do a HUGE amount of canning, dehydrating and freezing, hopefully it will carry us through the whole year, except for needing fresh stuff during the winter. With any luck when we move to our farm we will put up a greenhouse. It would be great to be able to grow year round not to mention having the ability to plant a lemon tree. Greenhouses are very expensive so no doubt it would take quite some time for us to save up for it but it would pay for itself through the years, especially if we are lucky enough to land on a piece of dream land that we will never leave.

I'm slowly getting ready for the chicks but not fast enough in my mind. We have a bunch of lumber out in the garage that I need to go out and measure and write down so I know what else we have to buy to have all the materials for the coop. I also need to buy hardware cloth that I will use to cover the dog kennel run that I have that we will be using that should provide enough space for our ladies to play in, and I plan to let them free range in our soon to be fenced in yard with supervision whenever possible. With only 10 girls, we really wont need all that much space for them so that is benifical for us. We have to figure out a way to run electric to the coop though because in winter I will need to have a heater out there, a heated waterer, and I would like some lighting because I've learned that chickens tend to stop laying in winter because of lack of light. The boys are so very excited to get their chicks and we talk about it all the time and look at pictures, and like to make side trips to the feed store just to watch the babies peep and jump around, they could watch them for hours I'm sure. They are also all excited to get out and working in the garden. It's so nice to have something to work on as a family, everyone working the land with their hands and reaping the benefits of that hard work.

We are also more than excited for the ground to thaw to get our fence up, a blessing for the dogs that spend most of their time inside, not that the lazy animals seem to mind it much. In fact Bella the puggle finds the cold, snowy outside repulsive. Hopefully she will take spring, summer and fall with a better attitude. It's almost been in the 40's this week so I really want to get out an old newborn sweatshirt for Bella and take her and Dexter on a nice long walk, they need to get out and stretch their legs outside. Dexter runs laps around the house after going potty but then comes right back in to prance around the house until he passes out next to me while I do some chore or another. Bella is too busy pooping or peeing to do much else. I swear that dog is a poop factory. She has to be kept in the kitchen and dining room cause it has hard flooring that I can scrub after an accident but she doesn't mind it's plenty long of an area, and she's allowed to come on the carpet as long as someone (me) is constantly monitering her and playing with her.

We have an apple tree in our yard that last year produced very little fruit and what it did produce was bad. I'm researching ways to get our tree to produce more and to organically prevent against pests. Depending on how long we stay at this house (hopefully not much longer), we would consider grafting the tree to get better fruits and a better production. But that would take quite a long time. We also have a black walnut tree but with the accident last year I didn't have the time to go and gather them and hull them and prep them for a fall/winter feast. I really plan to work our little piece of land hard and get all we can out of it to support our family. Even if we dont save oodles of money with our own veggies and eggs we will have the peace of mind of knowing exactly how and where it was grown and getting to eat it at the peak of it's freshness. We are looking for a woodstove to hook into our central heating and cooling system, Dave's dad has his rigged up that way, and it would be nice to be able to give our furnace a break this next winter and save on costs. My parents have TONS of woods on their 10 acres that I'm sure they wouldn't mind us clearing for them, and we could have the wood.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much of this is a repeat of the last blog, but all things are coming together and we are so excited that it's going to be reality real quick here. I'm also very excited that I got my clothes line up last year (albeit late in the season) and definately plan to use it in place of my dryer, especially now that I know that I can toss the clothes in the dryer for about 5-10 minutes and they wont be crunchy they will just be nice and soft. But I need to go and buy a few new packs of cloths pins, the ones I got last year were crap and half of them broke (they didn't have springs they just had a hollowed center) and they were left outside all winter. Luckily the dollar store sells the spring ones now. I think I might even decorate them!

But this is the end now, because I've written a novel. I need to work on my resolution and update daily, we'll see how it goes!

First Post. New Blog.

2009-02-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

I am new to blogger, but not to blogging. Up until late I had been blogging on Livejournal (since Dec 2003.) I decided to make the switch after seeing all the blogs on this site that had subject matter that I was very much interested in reading and that would inspire and educate me on my journey into the self sufficent life.

So I will start this post like a normal introduction post..

My name is Sarah(23), I'm wife to David(24). We are parents to Brody(4), Mason(2.5), Orin(17 months) and Aidan(5 months.) We are one big happy family that enjoys being together and works hard for the things that we want. We have a black lab named Dexter(1 year), a puggle named Bella (3 months), and a cat named Smokey(1 year). We are getting our first batch of chickens in a couple weeks, once hubby starts working on the coup and remodeling the old dog kennel run, into a chicken run. We are planning to get 10 as we live in town and want to cause the least amount of mean glares from the neighbors. Nothing in our ordinances says we can't have chickens but we want to take care not to give anyone a reason to take our girls. We are going to be buying all pullets, I want to get 4 easter eggers, 3 sussex, and 3 golden laced wyandottes. I'm stoaked because our local feed store carries all of them, so we can go in and pick up our order from then when we are ready and take them home right away. We've already started gathering up our chick supplies (feeders, waterer, and heat lamps) and it's making it more real and more fun.

We are planning to extend our garden this year to double the size in the hopes of getting a great amount of veggies, to can, freeze, dehydrate and sell at the local farmers market. I'm excited to subscribe to other readers so when I get to the point that I start canning I can be inspired by all the others that are also canning. We are putting up a fence around our property this spring and this is an exciting developement because we plan to plant grapes around the fence and train them onto the fence, in a while they will expand not only into a good place to grow but also creating a privacy fence out of a chainlink fence. We are going to attempt wine making, and are considering growing hops and brewing our own beer (we don't drink beer or wine lol, but it would be nice for gifts or for hosting gatherings, alcohol is expensive to buy for people who don't drink it.) We are excited to work towards our goals more and more every day, and I'm glad to be a part of blogger I've already learned a ton from blog hopping lol.

Sorry that this entry is kind of bland and disjointed, but all sorts of things are going on around me and I am having a difficult time giving this my complete attention. I promise the blogs will be better as time goes on and I plan to add a bunch of photos as well once I take some new pics and get them loaded on this computer.