A Few Quizing Pics.......

Leah and part of the crew in one of the final matches. Playing "ninja" on one of her breaks. Does anyone else even know what ninja is? I think it is the craziest game ever I thought Leah just made it up until I realized that everyone else seems to know how to play it also. Weird. Leah and her bud Olivia (also in the first picture in the shades). The team and the second place trophy. The team, the trophy and the massive tournament bracket. Good Stuff! Julie

Funny kids.

I have been painting the hall (I am on color #3, but that is another story) so I am getting an earful of the three littles playing in their room. They have been playing up there for maybe 45 minutes and Madeline asked if they could come down and play a game. I told her "yes" as long as they cleaned their room first, here is how the next 5 minutes went: Madeline: Mom, that's not fair, you are being mean to us. Me: I am sorry you feel that way Madeline. Madeline: But I want to play downstairs......... Me: Then clean your room. Madeline: When can we come down? Me: Once your room is clean. Madeline: What about our snack? Me: No snack until your room is clean. Madeline goes into her room in a puff. Here's the conversation I hear in the room...... Gideon: Come on guys wet's cwean our woom, so we can have a snack (yes, he has slight "l" issues). Anna (little Ms. Sassy lately): I don't want to clean our room. Gideon: But we won't get a snack and we will have to stay up hear forever and forever. Anna (Shouting to me in the hall): Mom, we don't want a snack and we don't care if we have to stay up in our room! Anna was promptly scolded by Gideon and Madeline. Aparantly Anna was the only one who felt that way. A few minutes pass and Madline comes out in the hall and asks: Mom, if you don't eat or drink forever, will you die? Me: Yes, Madeline, you will. I haven't seen them since. I hope they are cleaning....... (I apologize for how my messages are being totally clumped together. I am typing and sometimes retyping it and this keeps happening)

The made it to the championship!!!

I have been following Leah and her quizzing tournament this weekend very closely. I think there are 7 local teams here in the West Liberty area and Leah's team came in 3rd out of the 7. So not bad, but I was curious to see how they would do in a tournament of 77 teams. They lost their placement game, but then kept winning. Today is the championship game and they are in it!!!! Since they lost once, they had to play the other team twice to win the whole tournament. As of right now, they won their first game against the other team and they are playing the championship game as we speak. I have been face-timing with Ryan's iphone and believe it or not we lost the connection at 75-65, our lead and 1 more question. Ryan just called and we lost by 5. The other team got the last question, which would tie it, but they got a team bonus of "5." How disappointing to be so close..... They did great though! 2nd place is AMAZING!!!! Way to go!! Julie

Happy Birthday Logan!! (an update also)

Well, my firstborn son was born 11 years ago today. He was induced two weeks early and was 8lbs 14oz. He was beautiful and extremely easy to be in love with. I know people say this all the time, but time just flies. I remember his birth so clearly. Now he is truly becoming a little man. His is starting to show how mature he can be and I adore his willing spirit. Logan is such a gift to our family. I love him way more than I can type on this blog. Happy Birthday dude!!!

Madeline, Anna and Gee drew pictures for Logan and suprised him by "cleaning" his room and putting the pictures on the door.

Here's Logan tonight eating his requested apple crisp.

At mama and papa's Sunday.

At our house Sunday (yes two parties in one day).

A cow/calf update...... Things are going well. Mama cow and twinlet at the farm seem to be doing really well. It appears that mama passed all/most of her ickies and it also appears that twinlet is nursing. Yeah, big praise! Bottle baby (unofficially named Sparky by my BIL Jason) seems to be doing really, really well. She ate like a champ today and by the end of the day she was even trying to nurse the bottle like she is suppose to. Like actually rooting for the nipple and latching on. I would say I am pretty optimistic for her at this point. We even found a superd farmer that gave us a gallon of precious colosrum. It is a guess as to whether it will do her much good, but hey, it doesn't hurt. She is still not eating two full bottles like most calves her age, but I bet she will be by tomorrow. I am giving her 4 to 5 smaller feeding instead of 2 big ones to help her stay healthy. I will feel much better though if in a week she is still doing good. I think she is still at risk for many things..... Thank you for praying and please keep her in your prayers (all of them really).

On a side note, I am not so sure I am cut out for this livestock thing. I can see myself getting a little too attched to the "stock."

Julie

A Silly Request?

Could you say a little prayer for our twinlets? We still have the bottle fed calf in our chicken coop and I'd say her future is sketchy. We are getting different reports from different vets/farmers, but what we are hearing is that this little one really needs some colostrum in her. We have been giving her colostrum replacements from TSC, but the thoughts are that those might not be good enough. We/I almost literally spent all day yesterday dealing with cattle issue. I really don't mind, I kind of enjoy it, except I am worried. Being extreme rookies does not help. Mama cow (at father in law's) looks as if she is taking quite some time to expel the afterbirth (sorry if that paints an icky picture in your mind). For now she is ok, but we need to watch her. Also, yesterday we got concerned for the twin still with the mama. Mama is very protective of her, but we are not sure she is nursing ok and she keeps getting stuck in the brush/fallen tree that mama likes to hide her in.

The baby at our house did not eat like we hoped at all yesterday. I went to feed her in the morning and she wouldn't eat at all. After multiple attempts throughout the day (with little results) we finally got her to take another pint last night. She still looks good, isn't dehydrated, knows how to suck, etc. She just seemed uninterested. Best case senerio is that the 3 pints she gorged Monday night was quite a bit for a little girl like her and she was full/had an upset stomach. Worse case senerio is that this is the beginning of the end for her. She needs to eat.

All of last night was spent at the farm (Thank you to my VERY responsible two oldest babies. They seriously took care of business here at the house with the 3 littles while we were a mile down the road). The plan was to get mama and calf in the trailer so that we could move them to a "stall" up by the barn. The hope was that if we could get them to the stall we could watch and see if the twin was nursing and we could possible milk colostrum from mama for our bottle calf. And maybe even reunite bottle baby soon. We had to move the stall's current residents out (a mama and calf that were ready to go back to pasture) and then somehow load the "wild" mama and calf in the trailer. Long story short, a very unhappy mama cow would not go into the trailer, even with her baby in there. We lost all daylight and called it a day. We did however see a couple promising things there. One, mama is really cares about her calf. Being in a pasture between baby and an angry large animal with horns is not cool. Two, baby peed three times (once on Ryan - ha!) in the hour we were messing with her. I think she is probably getting some milk from her mom.

I am not sure how today will go. I have the number of 3 local dairy farmers that I am going to call to see if any have any extra colostrum. Yes, a tad bit out of my comfort zone. It is really important though, even now, that our bottle baby get this. I hope they are receptive to me. It is a little tricky in these parts. These farmers have a "farmer's mentality" if you will, God love 'em.
I am concerned that no one will want to be bothered with such a trivial thing, plus colostrum is often times needed for thier own calves.

Oh and just another little crazy thing added to our list of already crazy things, the rest of Leah's fair silkies are due to arrive today. Normally this would not be a big deal, but the breeder called me last night (My phone literally went off when mama cow was about 4 feet from the trailer with baby cow. I had about 5 guys giving me the look of death). Aparently one of the 6 chicks has been exposed to coccicidiosis. Sooooooo, that chick may be DOA or it may be fine. At any rate, all the chicks will have to be quarantined and treated with meds for 3 to 5 days. Really isn't a huge deal, but enough to add a little more stress.

I am suppose to be leaving Friday at 11:00 to go to Pennsylvania for the weekend with Leah. Ryan has been totally cool with being here with the kids, but in light of the animal things we have going on, well I think Ryan might go in my stead. Although Ryan is a big help, the kids and I typically do the animal stuff around here. It would be a lot for Ryan to be here with all the kids and having to take care of some high needs livestock.

Ok, this post was much longer than I was planning. I guess I feel like I have time because I have been up since 3:30. Even though I am a little tired still, the house it extremely peaceful right now. Kind of nice.

Anyways, would you pray for the twin calves, especially the one we are bottle feeding? I would really hate to see either of them die.


Here is baby in her "stall" in our chicken coop. This was yesterday morning.



How beautiful is she?



Here is mama and calf out at FIL's farm in the brushy pasture.




Julie

Twins!

A couple of our White Parks have been looking like they were due to give birth soon (I will spare you the details). This was a bit concerning to me because they were not suppose to be due until early May. The man we bought them off of seemed pretty sure of his dates. A vet we know said that the calf would not make it if is were born this early (if in fact the early May date was correct). Well my father in law called this afternoon and said that we had a calf and he/she looked healthy. We darted right over there to check it out. Sure enough there stood the sweetest looking little calf ever. It was hard to see because the mama cow gave birth in the trees/brush, but all looked well. We left to get Leah from school. Well about 6:00 this evening, Ryan called and said my brother in laws (who also have cattle over there) found another White Park calf in brush. At first they thought maybe another one of our girls had given birth, but it was obvious that the other 3 were still pregnant. Apparently our new mama gave birth to twins. My brother in law thought the baby was trash that had blow into the field and when he checked it out, there she was.

So we have twin girls, but there is a problem, the mama wants nothing to do with the extra calf. We think she probably dropped her first and maybe didn't even realize she did and went along her merry way. She probably then gave birth to baby #2 and bonded with that one. The "extra" calf stood and walked on its own and tried to nurse everything in the field with udders. It got knocked around pretty hard. It also tried multiple times to nurse on its mama and she wouldn't have anything to do with her. By the time I got to my father in law's the baby had been taken to the barn. Ryan went to TSC and bought "formula" for the baby. He and Jason (the brother in law that owns the White Parks with us) finally got the baby to drink the bottle and now she is here. No, our barn is not up yet, but we cleaned out the extra side of our chicken coop for her. It is plenty of room for now.

She is adorable. I will post a picture in the next couple days.

Julie

Laura Story - Blessings

One of my favorite songs right now........

I love this verse!

"But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:24-27

I was reading this verse this morning and it really hit me kind of hard. For some reason verses about waiting on God really convict me. I think it is because I recognize that I am so impatient. Having hope is not always easy for people like me. By the grace of God though, I can have complete faith and hope in Him. How awesome is that?

Julie

Seeds are here!

Yeah! My seed arrived yesterday and I must say, they are very pretty. I have been reading up on planting heirloom seeds quite a bit and I am a bit worried. It is going to be tricky to plant them without worrying about cross pollination. Or I could just not worry about using the seeds year to year and then cross pollination wouldn't be a problem. But then that would defeat the purpose for me a bit. Hmmmmm......still not sure how I want to go about this. Anyways, here are a couple new types I am going to try:

These are suppose to be really good for canning. I think they look cool.

These look really interesting! A cross between a cherry and tomato?

All the prettiness!

I am not totally sure why I felt the need to include this picture. Leah snapped it of me while we were waiting in the Dr.'s office for her sports physical. Which, let me add here, was really rushed. My very fickle 13 yr old wanted to run track, then didn't want to run track, then back and forth about 200 times. She finally decided she for sure wasn't going to do it. Track sign ups came and went, track practices started and all of the sudden Leah decides she just really wants to join in. ARGH! So we rushed her sports physical in (our Dr.'s office was very accomodating) and the rest is history.

Eggs in a basket. Can you tell those are suppose to be heart shaped? No, I don't always make bigger breakfasts, I don't want you think I am a super mom. This morning we had "toasted oats" (aka generic cheerios) and bananas. These eggs in a basket though are always a hit with the kids.

Bread made with my new bread recipe! I am so very happy with this recipe and it even easier than my old recipe. This is even made 100% with my freshly ground whole wheat flour. Let me know if you want the recipe.

Perfect sandwich bread!

Things are busy around here as usual. We had some sickies here on and off over the last week, but I think all is on the mend. March is pretty busy for us because we have about 50-ish birthdays going on, 4 of which are in our immediate family. Plus, next weekend Leah and I will be gone all weekend to a quizzing tournament. That will be lots of fun, but it will be a little hard for me to leave the rest of the family for a very full weekend. Bless Ryan's heart for single parenting for the weekend.

Our White Parks are doing pretty good although it seems as if one are two are getting closer to giving birth than we thought. This could be bad if they birth too early. We are hoping their due dates are off. It would really stink to loose a calf.

Well, until later!

Julie

"Children Of God" - Official Music Video

I love this song and video!!! Give it a listen.

A couple kid funnies...

So we are coming home from church tonight and the kid's had a couple good ones. Today is Ash Wednesday and we went over to church for a special service. We decided that for lent as a family we are giving up TV. I am sorry to say, but for us this will be quite sacrificial. Anyways, this evening service marked the beginning of lent for us. So, no video for the kids on the way home. Leah and Logan knew it was coming (they helped us choose this), but we had to explain to the kids that we were not going to watch a DVD because we are going to take a few weeks to focus more on Jesus. Madeline asked if she could still watch cartoons at home, and we said no. Anna was pretty quiet, but then all of a sudden she very boldly declared, "Mom. Dad. You guys are being mean!" She said this with her arms crossed and a ton of attitude. It was so funny. We tried to explain again why we weren't going to watch tv, but she was very unimpressed. She had the four older ones in the car laughing out loud.

Since we had no DVD on the way home, Madeline felt to need to talk all. the. way. home. We even asked her a couple times if she could just stop talking for a couple minutes. Maddie talks a lot, but even more so when she is tired. Anyways, we had the radio going and Ryan actually flipped it to a country station. An oldie from Alabama came on and Madeline said "turn this up, I like this song." Ryan turned it up a bit and Madeline then said "this is a cowboy song." It was just cute. Ryan and I use to listen to country music a lot in high school. Now we rarely do, so I guess that type of music is somewhat of a novalty to our kids.

Speaking of Madeline, she is definitely going through a time of enlightenment. She is really starting to piece together the mysteries of life and is maturing so much. Right now she is really into everything Jesus. It is so cool to watch. She is listening intently at church and can repeat her bible verse and tell us about the story weeks later. In church tonight we were reading out loud together about how Jesus was tempted by satan. Madeline started going on about how she knew that story and how Jesus "didn't listen to satan." It is just Jesus talk almost every day. I can't really tell you how much I love to see her so interested in her Savior.

Julie

Just ordered seeds!

I am really looking forward to gardening again this year. I feel like each year I learn a little more about what works and the kind of things we want to grow and eat. I think in general I am just ready for spring and for things to start growing/blooming again. Our little piece of property is so pretty when it is green and lush. The snow can be pretty too, but now it is rainy and extremely drab.


Two years ago I grew my own seeds in the garage. The grew well, but after I planted them we got a late frost and every one of them died. I ended up buying starter plants (like years before). Last year I didn't even bother with seeds. This year I wasn't planning on doing seeds either, but in my efforts to become more self suffient (and I just like watching things grow), seeds are the way to go. Especially heirloom seeds. Also, if I do it right, I will never have to buy seeds again. Heirloom seeds are "pure" if you will so I can dry the seeds after the garden is done and have my seeds for next year. You cannot do this with hybrid plants/seeds. It is like making a copy of a copy, it just doesn't work well (ever see Multiplicity, "pizza Steve......"). There will be no consistancy in your product, if you get anything at all.

So I just ordered a bunch of heirloom seeds. My hope it that this year my whole garden will be nothing but heirloom varieties. I have been reading up on heirloom seeds and I think they will be a bit tricky at first. Many heirloom seeds are open pollinated which means they can cross with other seeds of the same type. For example, if you are growing more than one type of cucumber, those two types will cross pollinate. This will not effect your end product this year, but the seed you save will probably be a mix and will effect your plant next year. To my undertanding, this does not jump accross species. A pepper and a cucumber will not cross pollinate and create some crazy new veggie (a pucumber?). Also, fortunately, heirloom tomatoes and beans are not typically prone to cross pollination. The way to "fix" the cross pollination problem is to only plant one variety of a certain species or to plant them far enough apart that cross pollination will not happen (I think it is debatable how far that should be). I ordered a number of different variety of seeds for some of my plants and now I need to consider how I am going to do things. I will probably cut back some on variety and try to plant some far enough apart that they don't cross pollinate.

Even though planting heirloom seeds will be a bit more work, I am hoping the benefits outweigh the negatives. Being able to use them year after year is a big plus, but also how cool will it be if my kids grow gardens some day and grow the same seeds their mama did?

FYI, we bought our seeds from Seed Savers online, but their are lots of reputable sites these days offering heirloom seeds.

Julie

Happenings....

Yesterday was Ryan's 35th birthday. The kids and I made him a cake and took it to Colepak and ate lunch with him. The kids also made gifts and cards and took them to him. It was a fun time. We don't go to Colepak all that often anymore so it is a treat for the kids. That was about it for birthday celebrations yesterday. I am sure more celebrations will come. March is a very busy birthday month for us. We tend the clump together the parties.

I just have to say, I love my husband so much. I praise God for giving him life and bringing him into this world. I can't tell you how many times I wonder how I got so very blessed with this awesome man. It is such a priviledge to be walking through life with him.

Happy Birthday Ryan !!!

Well, we decided to build a barn. I am really excited!! We have been talking about this for a while and we almost started last year on one. We decided to wait until spring and it looks like it will be started next week. Yippieee. Our plan is to use half the barn for livestock (happy, happy) and half for storage. We have a very nice Amish man building it for us.

Long term I am not sure what our plans are for the barn. The storage will be awesome and is very needed right now. On the livestock side, we are thinking maybe a hog and a dairy cow. Yes, we may get our own milk! I have been pushing for a dairy cow for a couple years, but they are a lot of work and with no barn, well, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on. I just love thinking about getting our own fresh milk, making our own butter, etc. Really it is the missing piece for us in being somewhat self sufficient. Our barn will also be used to house our various 4H projects and probably our meat birds when we have those throughout the year. Good stuff.

Some other "good stuff" (and this is the REALLY good stuff) has been some more devotion time with the older two kids. We have been listening to "Walk in the Word" recordings lately. They are really very good. They aren't necessarily geared toward kids, but Leah and Logan have no problem with them. Although we do pause it occasionally to explain or reiterate something. A couple nights ago they were talking a little bit about the end times and how we are really living a blessed time right now. Our children can choose to follow God, or not. The physical consequences of their choices are relatively easy right now. The day will come when they are not so easy. The message was not spoken in a gloom and doom tone, which I liked. It really evoked some emotions in our kids and lots of questions. There was a lot said in the 26 minute program, but we sat with the kids for close to an hour and a half just talking. We "just talk" with our kids a lot, but this was a little heavier, but very good. I think the general tone was hope and restoration, not "the end of the world is coming." I believe that is the best attitude to have.

Which brings me to another conversation......

How do you deal with the "talk" of the state of our country? I know in my neck of the woods I hear a lot on both sides. This came up some in our conversations with the kids, especially with Leah. Leah has asked me a couple different times about where I feel the US is heading. I think she is scared a bit. I don't really blame her. I remember being her age and going to church and hearing the pulpit banged about the end of the world coming. It is certainly one way to scare you in to being a "good little kid." Now that I am older, things look a little differently to me. Fear isn't really a good tactic when dealing with issues of the heart, which I believe is what Christianity is all about. Don't get me wrong, I reverently fear God. How can I not? But I refuse to live in fear or teach my kids to live in fear.

I really feel like the US is heading in a very bad direction. I think things around here are going to change, for the worse. I believe that the US cannot continue to reject and blasphamy the blessing of God for very long. God will not be mocked. The Bible tells us of a day where the Holy Spirit will allow men to have the desires of thier hearts. Right now we are living in a time, where as bad as things can be, the Holy Spirit is restraining the evilness of man. He will stop restraining at some point. That is a scary concept to me, let alone my 13 year old daughter. But you know what? I still will not teach my kids to be afraid.

God has blessed and continues to bless us, and I intend to live that way. It gets very frustrating to me (and all of my limited supply of grace) to see Christian people live as if they are not the chosen children of God. God will never abandon us and we have complete hope in Him. If God is watching the sparrow, how much more does he care about me?

So, how does this concept of God and our future affect my daily life? Well, I do like to be prepared. Yes, our hope is in God, but God expects us to use our abilities and our brains to walk through this life. I "hear" about where the economy (and the US) may be heading, and I don't necessarily disagree. I just disagree with how some people choose to live in light of this knowledge, in fear. Our family is preparing in many ways for an uncertain future. One of my favorite ways is by learning to be more self-sufficient. I guess I just feel like these are skills that we "should" have anyways. I think overall though we are trying to find a balance between being prepared for what life has for us and living our lives to the fullest. We are not always successful, but when we focus on the hope we have in God, well I think that keeps us in check.

Okay, this post got a little heavier than I was planning, so here are some cute pictures of Asher to lighten the mood.

Ok, I just love that he loves his Mickey Mouse. So cute to see him sleep with him.



"Say cheese Asher....."



"CHEEEEEESE........."






Madeline wanted a chore, I was happy to help the girl out. She now feeds the dog. Madeline is VERY task oriented. She has already told me that if we get a cow, she will milk it. She even explained how, even down to "you squeeze the things with milk gently." Ok, well, I see another chore in your future. Please ignore the messy garage (it tends to accumulate junk all winter because no one wants to be out in the cold) and the neck pillow Madeline is wearing.

Yummy chocolate cakes for Ryan's birthday. They were quite yummy, definitely a "keeper" recipe. The kids called Ryan at work on Tuesday and asked his favorite color, cake and icing flavor and animal. So these layered cakes were stacked and frosted in blue frosting with our whole family and a horse on the top. It really turned out kind of cute and the kids were very proud.

This is everyday life for our house, so I took a picture of it. I do this with the bread like twice a week. One loaf of whole wheat and two small loaves of cinnimon swirl. This is before their second rise. I love using my freshly ground whole wheat flour, but it is not rising nearly as much as I am use to. I think I might look for a new recipe.

The 3 littles presents for daddy.

Until Later!

Julie