Home Sweet Home

  Some new additions! Last Friday I brought 12 of these cuties home. Last July we lost half of our flock with the extreme heat waves. (Turns out even with fresh water and shade, chickens die when the weather hits 117 or higher!) I have learned my lesson and have plans to keep our feathered brood alive next summer (like a little plastic baby pool filled with water for them to wet themselves in or a mister I can hook to the hose and turn on during those hot days). The kids were making decent money (for their age...$1-2 weekly each) selling all the eggs we were getting, but then 6 of the 12 of our chickens died and then we had a couple who weren't real good layers, so that little business fizzled out. Six months from now when these babies start laying we'll be up and rolling again!  When we put them out in the grass to run around they still stay huddled together and liked to gather underneath our legs. This last Friday night we went to the Basha Elementary Family Fun Night. It...

Not so small anymore... So at 36 weeks I was still carrying pretty well, wasn't enormous or anything, really wondering if I might get lucky and have a child under 9lbs... Well that isn't happening! My belly seems to have exploded in the past week. This little girl dropped and is packing on the pounds. My whole pelvic girdle aches all day long and I'm pretty sure I'm doing the full on waddle now. As a reminder, here is me at 36 weeks: Two weeks later at 38 weeks (and only 3-4 days after the maternity shoot I just posted about), a very obvious difference if you ask me! A few weeks ago I let the kids take a bubble bath in the master tub. They are always asking to take baths in it but they make such a mess and get everything so wet that usually I don't want to deal with it, but I was feeling kind that night :) Pour in a little bubble bath and turn on the floor bubble jets and we had about 2ft of bubbles in only 6 inches of water! We took these pictures after they had d...

Maternity Pictures I asked my sister in law, Marisa, if she could come over and take some maternity pictures of me. I've never had them done before, but since we are planning on this being my last pregnancy, I thought I should get some done so I could have them to look back on. Marisa isn't a professional photographer and reminded me of that as she was taking our pictures, but I think she did a fantastic job! It's better than anything we could have done on our own. We took these last Saturday when I was just beyond my 37 week mark. I'm so glad we took them when we did because I swear I have ballooned out since then!  Brighton hasn't exactly been the picture taking kind of kid lately. He's all about wanting to make funny faces or not being in the pictures at all. This is the best we were able to get out of him that day. When I was frustrated enough with the chaos of trying to get a decent family picture, he was off and happy to be doing his own thing.  A bou...

Brings me such joy!   Last week we had a couple days of wonderful weather (low 70s) and I happened to glance outside and see what I've always wanted to see: all three of my kids merrily playing using solely their imagination without needing me for inspiration!  This horse hitching post is out toward the back of the yard behind one of our sheds. Brighton and Adaira were both playing on it - Owens version of monkey bars I guess :-) and Dale was playing nearby in a dirt mound. He saw me come out and take pictures of the older kids and so he immediately came and started climbing since he didn't want to be left out. This picture shows the dirt mound Dale was playing on before he decided to venture up the fence panels... Is it strange that I love to see my kids playing in dirt? Right after the play fun ended, I discovered a wasp nest underneath a stray asphalt shingle tile and some overgrown grass right beneath Dale's position on this fence. The trowel he was using to dig wi...