Moving Around- October 2009

Lately we have spent many hours re-organizing and moving things around the house. We started by moving the 3 girls into the biggest bedroom upstairs that connects to the bathroom, and putting both boys in the smaller of the two rooms upstairs. This is the first time Stephen and I have not had a baby in the room with us since Martin was born. James is only 4 months old, but Martin was so looking forward to sharing a room with his brother and James sleeps great through the night, so we thought we would give it a try. So far it has been working out well and Martin says over and over how much he loves having a little brother.

Here are a few highlights of some of the things we have been working on.

Re-organizing the girls bedroom.

Lots of little helpers.

Stephen is un-doing the new bunkbed set so we can move it to the other bedroom.

We made tags with pictures on them to put on the kids drawers. Since they will be helping pick out their clothes and helping put them away, I wanted them to know where they went to try and maintain some sense of order. Millie's are on pink paper, Bella's on green, and Elaina's on yellow. As long as we can keep Elaina from peeling them off and eating all the sticky tack, we will be doing great!

A whole pile of things for me to go through. About 95% of that went to good will.

James hung out in the swing in the bathroom while we were moving things around. He enjoyed watching all the action.

Martin, Millie and Bella helping bring up all of Martin's clothes to put into his new dresser up in his room.

Here is Martin's dresser with tags on it.

There is James' dresser with tags.

Little James Wyatt going down for a nap in his new bedroom.

Lots of muscles moving the piano upstairs.

One day while Stephen was at work, the kids helped me assemble this DVD cabinet he got me for Mother's Day earlier this year. They all got to hammer and help in some form or fashion. Here is Millie helping load the new cabinet with DVD's

Bella Jane vacuuming out the bookshelf up in the sun room.

Elaina wiping it down with a clean up wipe.

Martin helping wipe it down.

All my little helpers hauling books upstairs to load the nice new clean bookshelf.

More piles to go through.

Martin getting ready to take a nap in his obstacle course of a room.

To be continued.........

The Tunnel 10-14-09

In the process of cleaning things out around the house, the kids found this blanket and wanted to make a tunnel on the back porch ramp. It was a great idea! It kept them busy for hours! They would take turns going up and down with those little cars from Mamageese and Papa Carl. They loved it.

Moving Mable, Amos Duncan and Helen 9-13-09

We have just been able to start rotating our milk cow, Mable, miniature Hereford bull, Amos Duncan, and little heifer, Helen in the Promise Land Patch here between our house and the farm. We wanted to since earlier this year, but there have been a few things working against us. First of all, we don't have a barn for them to seek refuge in during the sweltering hot summers here, so we couldn't take them away from their only 2 sources of shade by putting them in a paddock with no trees for days at a time. A few other minor things like water, not enough fence posts, and Helen being to little and walking under only 1 wire when we needed to have 2 up. We have worked some details out and the season is changing and cooler weather is here (in spurts I might add). So since October 10th, we have been rotating them about every 2 days. It works great with Stephens work schedule, and they are really cleaning the pasture up quite well. In a few of the paddocks, Stephen has shredded the weeds down after we moved the cows out and it looks beautiful! He has calculated that it will take them 58 days to work their way all the way around back to the first paddock. It is so fun seeing all the things we have been learning for 5 years now finally come into place.

Everyone in their boots ready to go.

Millie was walking just ahead of Stephen and un-hooking the wire from the posts for him.

Stephen had the animals tied so he could move the fences without them getting out.

Elaina monitoring the extra fence posts.

Work Day at the Farm 10-12-09

We recently went over to the Burow's (the goat dairy) for supper and loaded up the back end of the truck with goat manure for our garden. We all gathered at the farm, worked a little, and had lunch together. It was so much fun. All the ladies were in the kitchen working, and all the men were outside working. Then we all had lunch together. Fun times!

Here are the guys unloading CJ's truck.

Bella and Aunt Linda made chocolate chip cookies and put M&M's on top. Bella was trying to sample one before lunch and was hoping to not get caught.

Here is James Wyatt zooming around in the walker.

Amanda and Kevin relaxin' in the living room.

Everyone dishing up for lunch. We had chicken broccoli cheese and rice soup with 7 layer salad. It was all quite tasty!

Baking a Cake 10-8-09

We wanted to make a special dessert for Papa the other day, and after talking to Auntie EM (my sis, Erin) on the phone, she gave us this recipe. We actually got it years ago when Erin and I were working at North Belt Baptist Church from the secretary, Mrs. Hale. I remember it being very rich and quite delicious. It was fun making it with my kidos years later. The recipe is:

For the cake:

1 cake mix (the original recipe calls for a butter cake mix, but we have used a chocolate cake mix and a spice cake mix and both have turned out wonderful...especially the spice for the fall)

1 stick of melted butter

1 egg

Mix it all together well. You can use the beaters or just a fork. I have done both, and either one works just fine. Spread out in a 9x13 pan.

Then for the topping:

1 box of powdered sugar (I never buy boxes of powdered sugar, I buy bags. So FYI 1 box is 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar)

2 eggs

1 box cream cheese

Mix well trying to get all the clumps out and making it nice and smooth. Pour the topping over the cake part. Bake at 350* for about 45 min. Let it cool for about 20 minutes before you serve it. Or it is also fine when it is completely cooled.

Here are all my helpers.

Everyone got a chance to stir.

The cake part is smoothed out over the bottom of the 9x13.

Pouring the topping over the cake part.

Here is the final product. Martin already sampled it.

Martin's Snake Story 10-7-09

One day as Martin was playing outside he saw something that wasn't quite right. He came busting through the front door, "Mama! Mama! There's a snake outside!!! Quick!!" I decided I would get him to tell you the story. So here's how it went through Martin's eyes.......

I ran into the house and, Mama there's a snake!! And she said OK. We had to get our rubber boots on and get out hoes to chop him. Here Mama goes and she wacked! and she missed! Thats right Mama. And she was diggin it out. And it was commin' out mad! And his head was flat, and commin' out mad! He was making his neck up like this (he proceeded to crawl on the floor like the snake was doing). And he was spittin' it out. Well Mama wacked it and she got it, yes she did! Hooray Mama! OK Martin was choppin it, that way it will get dead. He'll die that way he will get hawks and owls. Hawks could eat snakes too. They could do it! But Martin was just in his red undies. Hahaha.

Picking Flowers 10-06-09

Every Spring and Fall, what I call my "Wedding Flowers" come up in the yard. The kids faithfully keep 1 and sometimes 2 vases full for me. I just love it. I remember picking flowers for my mama, and it is so sweet to see Stephen encourage them to do that for me. They usually have a whole handful and come up to me with their hands behind their backs and say something like, "What do I have?" I say something silly like, "Your toothbrush?" And then they pull their hand from around their back. It melts my heart to see their pure joy in doing something for me.

There are the girls looking for the flowers.

Martin was pushing James in the swing.

There is James enjoying his ride.

Martin usually picks the whole stem.

Millie usually picks about 3 inches of stem.

Elaina picks one at a time and brings each one to me.

And Bella Jane usually picks just the flower tops. Apparently she picked the whole flower and stem in this picture, but most of the time it is just the flower tops.

There are my 5 babies.

Then later on, Martin enjoyed being pushed in the tire swing the 'unconventional' way which was of course more fun.

Martin Made Oatmeal 10-05-09

Martin made oatmeal for breakfast the other day. He sat patiently by the stove and waited for the water to boil, then poured the oats in, then poured some more oats in. I had to come check the consistency and add a tad more water since he got a little 'pour happy'. He would stir it often, and let it set seldom. Thankfully you can't mess up oatmeal to bad. He proudly called the girls to the table, prayed, dished up and they all ate.

Here he is with his prize.

We usually pour creamer on the oatmeal to sweeten it just a tad.

As you can see, they really seem to enjoy it. I think it is their favorite breakfast.