Our Family Digest

Our New Goat - Sugar

2011-04-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

Below is her KSL ad

$50 - 75
baby nigerian dwarves
Roy, UT 84067 - Mar 31, 2011
I have 3 babies, 1 girl 2 boys. All dehorned and castrated. Really cute. Purebred, though not registered. I'm in Roy. Call or text me they will be 8 weeks on april 21st
Contact Name: Shawnna

Angelic decided she wanted to use her baby sitting money to buy a goat. The other girls decided that they wanted to buy bunnies. I found a cute doeling on KSL and asked the girls if they wanted to all go in together to get her. They all squilled in delight. I told them to count up their money. They had $40 in ones, and $10 in coins.

I texted Jeff and asked him "if the kids like the goat can they pay their money as a down payment? They have $40 and the goat will cost $75, we can then have them do jobs for more $."

He texted back "Is there even the slightest possibility that the kids WONT like the goat... That goat could stink like a wind off the lake. and be bristling with cactus spines and they will be asking to sleep with it. Curious needs to buy us a blind for our room. other than that go ahead i guess. ... i draw the line at lake stink tho."

So off we were to Roy and this was my face book post. "My kids want to combine their money and put a $49 down payment on a baby goat that costs $75 and can not leave its mom until the 21st. Now off for an hour drive to see if they like the little doeling."

Of course it was love at first sight. We were so enchanted we forgot to take a picture. We loaded up and drove away... then remembered and went back and got these photos. Shawnna had already put the little goats back in the yard so we had quite the game of chase trying to catch her again. Thankfully Shawnna was a young teenage 4H girl who loves her goats and enjoyed all the fun of kid chasing them.

Introducing Angelic for New Beginnings

2011-02-24T05:24:00.000-08:00

Angelic is lots of fun to be around. She has a good sense of humor, loves to laugh and do silly
stuff. Angelic enjoys making movies. Right now her siblings, cousins, and even a few friends are
working on a movie they call Dragon Troubles. Angelic normally likes to act out a dramatic role, like
the super villain she plays in Dragon Troubles. Angelic loves to sing, her love for singing inspired
her whole family to sing in the church choir last year. Angelic likes to make up stories, she writes
them down, tells them to her sisters, and acts them out. Angelic loves to read, and prefers to have
large amounts of uninterrupted reading time. Angelic’s favorite books are The Chronicles of Narnia,
The Secret Garden and The Hobbit. Angelic likes to read and memorise poems. We have a
poem book with silly poems about a house, this is her favorite poem book right now. Angelic loves
cats. We recently got a new dog and Angelic was not sure that she would like owning a dog at
all. She likes our new dog Thor, but still much prefers our White Siamese Cat Sammy. Angelic
helps take care of our families twenty chickens daily. Her favorite parts of the day are personal
reading time and family reading time. Angelic's favorite color is light blue. Her favorite vegetable
is broccoli. She does not like pepperoni on her pizza. Angelic loves pasta and rice. Her favorite
candies are Reese's peanut butter cup and Kit-Kat. Angelic’s best friend moved to Washington DC
over a year ago. She talks to her on Skype, the phone and email.

Thor's Best Day

2011-02-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Tumbelina in spite of loving dogs like crazy was having a hard time with Thor. She was scared of him, because he kept on jumping up on her, and because she could sense I was a bit scared of Thor. Thor does not normally jump up on people. But Tumbelina was a special case because she bounces around him and gets him all hyper, then when he wants to play she gets scared and turns her back to him and curls up into a little ball. Which in dogie language apparently means mount me. No fun for Tumbelina, and it made her fears worse and worse...\

So...

We called back Elise, Thor's previous owner, and told her we could not keep Thor. Elise instead told us she knew just the solution and would love to come by today to help us work it all out.

All the best web pages we have read on dogie training talks about treating the dog like he is in a pack and being the Alpha dog over him. Elise said that if you roll Thor over on his back, hold him down on his chest and lean over him looking dominant it would educate him quite well that you were unhappy with his actions.

While Elise was here she told stories of her three year old son pestering the dog and Thor being nice the whole time. The most memorable one for Hugs was one where the three year old stuffed a toy down Thor's throat, gaging him with it, and all the while his hand was in the dogs mouth he did not get bit. Ari was pretty sure she could trust the dog after that.

After some time Elise had Thor relaxed on the carpet, she asked Tumbelina to come and pet the dog. Elise told Tumbelina that if she pet the dog when he was calm that it would communicate to him that she liked him being calm. Elise also told Tumbelina not to play with the dog in the house. Tumbelina sat there for a long time petting the dog.

But the time Elise was gone Tumbelina decided she was no longer scared of Thor. She was having him sit and stay, lay down and go. Thor was so humbled from all the times he was flipped onto his back, and could no longer sense fear in her, so he was obeying every command.

Thor's day started out early with Papa taking him on a walk. Then Elise and her son visited. Next we took him too Petco to buy a gentle lead that Elise recommended. When we got home Papa took him on another short walk to test the new lead. Followed by my standard walk with him. Then to top it all Dee showed up with Dogie Christmas. Her friend Chris sent over all the dogie stuff she does not need any more since her dog of ten years died over a year ago.

The only thing that could have made Thor's day better would have been if we let him chase the darn rooster after he broke into its pen.

We all should sleep well tonight.

Welcome Our New Dog - Thor

2011-02-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

Tumbelina found us another great pet on KSL. She and I have been looking at dog adds on KSL for a year, and by far this is the best add we have seen. We went to see Thor on Sunday and could easily tell he was a well loved, cared for and trained dog. We happily took Thor home. We are very happy with our new dog. Sammy the cat is not sure he likes Thor, but Thor is sure he would like Sammy, if only Sammy would let him lick him to death... :) lol. The Baby likes Thor. When the dog was in the car we tried to point Thor out to the Baby. The Baby would not look at Thor, but Thor was excited to see him. Thor jumped over the seats to meet the baby. Only when Thor's HUGE head was in front of the baby did he turn to see the dog finally. The Baby smiled at him, and we all giggled, which startled the Baby. Later that evening the Baby was laying down on the couch, Thor came up to see him, The Baby gave him a big grin, then Thor drowned him in kisses...lol.. We will be telling Thor "no kisses" a lot when he is around the Baby. Below is his KSL add.

free

free boxer mix needs to find good home

midvale, UT 84047 - Jan 23, 2011

he is a 4 year old boxer mix, is very friendly with everyone, is great with babys on up, is great with cats, dogs, ferrets, snakes, birds, horses, cows, and lizards, these are just the animals i have had him around to know, i got him when he was 10 1/2 weeks old, is fully potty trained, indoor and is trained to use the bathroom in one area of our yard, he is trained to stay in the yard with fences open, although he likes indoors when its cold or wet, he has been camping will stay right by camp, follows a dirt bike or quad, he has been on a boat and on our water bikes, he is very happy doing nothing and hanging out in the house but can have the energy to be very active, has never chewed on toys or any of our things, he is fixed, he is a dark brindal with a white chest, some toes are white and a very thin blaze down the front of his nose, i am moving and cant take him with me, he is the best dog anyone could want, i couldnt have asked for a better dog with my son when he was born and has been his best friend for the past few years, please call if you would like to meet him. to a good home only!
I have also included a pic of his dad which was a boxer im not sure what his mother was, my mom has his dad.

thore boxer mix

thores dad full blood boxer

thore playing with his friend willy

another pic of his dad

thore and his dad when he was a pup

Good Bye to Our Ducks and Turkeys

2011-01-25T13:38:00.000-08:00

I posted this add at KSL.com

Free 2 Turkey Hens and 3 Ducks
West Jordan, UT 84084 - Jan 25, 2011
We need to get rid of some of our poultry pets so we can focus more on our chickens. We have two extra Broad Breasted Turkey hens 3 years old and 1-2 years old. We also have two white crested Ducks, one male and one female, 3 years old. And one white female duck 1 year old. The white female duck and crested male would be a good breeding pair if you are interested. We do not care what you will use the birds for, pets, food. Just do not tell my kids when you pick them up if you plan to eat them.

Thanks Jeanine

We were called back immediately.. The end result is our ducks and turkeys are off to a new home. We plan to start breeding our Barneys and Buffs for chicks, eggs and meet. That will take quite a few houses, not to mention food and effort. So we made the decision to simplify and give away all non chicken poultry. They are going to a family with kids that love animals, so they should be pretty happy. Curious George cried when I told him we were giving away his favorite turkey, but in the end he is happy for their new home. Giving the ducks a bath was also a good distraction. Here are some videos of their bath.

Secret Service Club

2010-11-14T14:49:00.001-08:00

Thank you primary!! Sterling comes up to me and says "Don't tell anyone but there is this secret club where you do service and leave a smiley face. This is my smiley face for Papa." The smiley face had a beard drawn on it to look like Papa, and Sterling ran off to put it on his made bed.

Some secret sisters.. I suspect Hugs and Tunbelina brought up all the clean laundry from the laundry room so it could be sorted and put away. On the top of the large mound of laundry is a bright yellow smiley face.

Jeff says "Mama I am afraid the Primary is encouraging secret combinations." Lol

Avatar The Last Airbender Halloween Costumes

2010-11-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

Appa and Momo

2010-11-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

Iroh

2010-11-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Toph

2010-11-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Baby - Sokka - Momo - Aang

2010-11-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Suki

2010-11-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Ty Lee

2010-11-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

Katara

2010-11-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Aang

2010-11-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

Our New Kitten Sammy

2010-09-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

Tumbelina asked me where horses were sold. I told her they were not sold in stores, but sold by farmers who owned them. Then a while later she asked me where she could find farmers that were selling horses. I told her KSL without realising the consequences of that.

Soon Tumbelina realized that the KSL classifieds sold lots of funs stuff. She came to me excited, she had found a free dog, and kittens for just $5. KSL became Tumbelinas favorite place, she would go on there every chance she could get and read descriptions of cats. I made up a picky list of things I wanted in a cat. It took Tumbelina three days to find a cat that matched my list and was still available. Now we have our new kitten Sammy, and he is a big hit. Below is the add description that Tumbelina found.

$10.00 OBO
Playful 1/2 Siamese Kittens
Kearns, UT 84118 - Sep 6, 2010

Darling,beautiful white-siamese kittens! 10 weeks old, fully wiened and litter trained. Clean and very healthy. Good with kids, kind dogs and other cats. Well socialized. They are good mousers, as learned by their mother, yet play well with people too. Indoor or outdoor, they are litter box trained from the start, then introduced to living in the yard and the shed outside (which also has a litter box). We let them in and out of the house. They play with our chi-wienie dog so cute!!! Also with our boxador just fine (she is very gentle).

The father is a very large, fluffy white cat, and the mother is Siamese. They are Siamese looking, but bigger, whiter, and fluffier with lighter markings than the mother. Just absolutely beautiful cats, with pale blue and blue-green eyes!!

We would like them to go to good homes, but are letting them go for a small price. We are afraid they might get in our neighbor's cat trap and need to find them a safe place to stay.

I just emailed the previous owners to let them know how the kitten was doing, afterwards I realized the email was full of fun info about our new cat so I am posting it here also.

The male kitten we purchased from you Poseidon is a big hit. The girls named him Samuel and call him Sammy for short.

When he first got here he cried for his family, but that has gotten to be less and less. He gets so much constant attention that I need to remind the kids that he needs food, water, time to potty and sleep.

The big girls have made up cute rules, mostly to keep their little brother in line with the cat. Things like don't paralyze (hold the cat by the neck) him unless he is clawing you, and put the cat down if he cries.

Both me and my husband are really happy with Sammy he is a good cat. He even seems to prefer the scratching mat we have for him and for the most part will scratch on it instead of furniture.

Thanks for a great cat.

UPDATE: Mama and baby Wash

2010-08-26T12:25:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: Mama and baby Wash are now accepting visitors. Please call before you come.
Jeff

2010-08-25T22:10:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: Washington Robert Peel, "Wash", born at home at 9:12pm after 1.5 hours labor. 9lbs 2oz, 20.5 inches long. Mama and baby are resting and doing fine.
Jeff
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40 People are getting this

2010-08-24T20:12:00.001-07:00

40 People are getting this text, no reply needed. UPDATE: 5 days overdue. ultrasound says baby & placenta both fine.
Jeff

Steps to Sundying with Setacolor from Dharma Trading

2010-08-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

I am following the Sun Painting (with Setacolor) Instructions found at Dharma Trading.

Cut out a cardboard frame bigger them the clothing item to stretch it on.
Make sure the sleeves are cut longer then the actual clothing item.
Fold the cardboard frame to fit inside of the clothing item.
Stretch the shirt over the frame.
Do this for all of your items you will be dying.
Make a workspace in the sun.
Cover your table with plastic to protect it.
On double layer clothing only paint one layer at a time.
Set up your workspace or table with everything you need.
Measure out 1 part dye to 2 parts water.
Measure out 2 parts water to 1 part dye.
Add in the lightening agent if you want a lighter color. (I did not notice much difference for using this)
Stir it all together really well.
Paint all of the clothing with water until they are all completely wet.
Paint the color mixture onto your prepared clothing items.
Press onto the cloth your sunblocks. The sunblocks should be wet also to encourage them to stick to the cloth. Everywhere you press a sunblock the cloth will end up lighter. Paper will stick the best, better then natural leaves etc.
Let the items dry in the sun for 15 min to 2 hours.
Remove leaves and sunblocks to reveal the design you created. (it would seem the cardboard sucks up the dye on the edges and makes them lighter. This will need to be fixed for future dying projects)
Repeat to dye the back sides and any other undyed parts.
Iron with an Iron on cotton setting for 5 mins.

Living Wet

2010-07-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

A few years back I bought my kids a "modest swimsuit" like this one below from swimmodest.com

They were soooo cute, and quite expensive. But my kids loved them. They lived in them, day in and day out they wore their swim dresses. I found there were quite a few advantages to children living in fast drying clothes in the summer.

Kids are always playing in the water, and most of the time not asking permission
Then they want to be dry and change their clothes. Like three times a day!
Their cotton clothes hold allot of water in them and drip it trough the house
The cotton clothes get stinky fast and are allot of work to wash.

Needless to say their little swim dresses wore out FAST! But I started to find other options. Rash Guards were being sold more and more along with other sporty fabric that drys fast. I now only buy fast drying fabric for my kids to wear in the summer this is why.

They make modest swimsuits for less
They cover better then swimsuits, less sun burns and skin cancer concerns
They dry FAST! The kids need to change ALLOT less.
As long as my kids hang up the wet clothes, I let them change into dry, because the fast drying ones wont stink and can be worn again once dry.
The kids will get wet anyways
They hold less water and drip less.

Target.com is the best resources for rash guards and fast drying clothing all the photos above are from target. This is how I afford them.

Check out Target clearance racks often
Shop Target sales online
Shop swim clearance sales at other stores that carry rash guards.. Kmarts is on sale now
Shop Amazon for the best prices.
Look through DI and Savers clothing for these things. And I do find it there
Don't spend $ on summer clothing that is not fast drying.

My kids are always wet!!!! But I am no longer stressed about laundry. I am still glad I made this decision three years ago.

Family Building Project

2010-06-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

A Great Team

2010-06-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

Cute Kids Playing While Papa Builds

2010-06-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Prize Rewards List

2010-05-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Feed the Ducks 50 points x4	Trip to the Library 125 points x4
Family Game Night 250 points x4	Rootbear Floats with Netflix movie 250 points x4
Science Night at the Movies points 250 x4	JumpStart Escape From Adventure Island for the Wii points 350 x4
Trip to Cabela's points 400 x4	Trip to Water Park points 400 x4
Pic-nic at Wheeler Farm points 450 x4	Utah Museum of Natural History points 450 x4
Family Pizza Night and Netflix Movie points 500 x4	K'nex Value Tub points 525 x4
Trip to the Zoo points 600 x4	Family Night at the Movies points 750 x4
Drive in Movies points 900 x4	12' Parachute points 1000 x4
Jungle Jim's Playland points 2000 x4

Meet Our Family

2010-04-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Name: Jeff a.k.a Papa, El_Heffe, DH

Age: Old enough

Talents/ Hobbies: writing, making things out of wood, current events, playing games, making games

Job: Technical Support for Local Phone Companies Internet products

Blog: El_Heffe's Lair

Published Blog Posts: In the works

Name: Jeanine a.k.a Mama, Je9Jeanine

Age: about 20?

Talents/ Hobbies: poultry, blogging, making soap, baking with whole wheat.

Job: Work at Home, Inbound Customer Service Calls for a Credit Card Company

Blog: Je9Jeanine

Published Blog Posts: We do not doubt, our mothers knew it.

Internet Name: Angelic

Age: 10 turning 11

Hobbies/ Talents: reading, singing, drawing, dancing, doing what is right, helping others, taking care of Cali (her cat)

What I want to be: a Narrator for a Audio Book, Zoo Keeper, and a Mom.

Blog: Angelic Reader

My Favorite Blog Post: Mine 25 Random things about me, Mama's Letter to my e-pal 2

Internet Name: Tumbelina

Age: 8 turning 9

Talents/ Hobbies: tumbling, walking on her hands, art, careing for others, cleaning, going to bed on time, teaching her siblings, taking care of animals.

What I want to be: a Horse Racer, Zoo Keeper, Vet, Mama, Inventor, Gymnast, Ballerina

Blog: Tumbelina's Jungle Gym

Favorite Blog Post: Mine i am aDOPTID, Mama's Flips

Internet Name: Hugs

Age: 7 turning 8, going to be baptized soon

Talents/ Hobbies: giving hugs, helping anyone especially helping papa, art, taking care of chicks, caring about others and pets.

What I want to be: a Zoo Keeper or a Vet

Blog: Hugs' Care-a-lot

Favorite Blog Post: Mine My Painting, Mama's It's blogging time... Mama's orders

Internet Name: Curious
Age: 4 turning 5
Talents/ Hobbies: helping Mama, making mama pictures, writing I love you mom, inventing, digging, being nice to the chicks,
What I want to be: An Inventor, A Policeman, A Fireman and a Papa
Blog: Curious George's World of Discovery
Favorite Blog Post: Mine The flushed down the toilet one, Mama's Curious's Real Adventures in Dragon Land

The Whole Family
Age: Almost 13 years
Talents/ Hobbies: homeschooling, poultry, reading stories out loud, gardening, making things
What we want to be when we grow up: together and happy
Blog: Our Family Digest, Peel Academy,

Meet our Animals

2010-04-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Everything on our land needs to fulfill a useful purpose. I will now introduce you to the animals on our land.

Name: Mama Turkey, a.k.a. Black Turkey
Breed: Broad Breasted Bronze Turkey
Age: three years old
Purpose: Making baby turkeys (poults), Mama Turkey has a very strong brooding instinct. Here she is sitting on her first batch of five fertile eggs. We hope at least one turns out to be a poult.

Name: Brown Turkey.
Breed: Broad Breasted Bronze Turkey
Age: about one year
Purpose: Making poults. She is not doing well at this. Brown Turkey was suppose to be a tom (shows you how much we knew about turkeys). Now she is suppose to mate with The Spanish Dancer but she wont. She just looks bothered by him in the photo don't she. How do you tell her in turkey language "have poults or go in the stew pot."

Name: The Spanish Dancer a.k.a. Prancer,
Breed: Moteled Black Spanish Turkey
Age: about one year and a half
Purpose: Dancing around the hens so they will like him and make poults. He is very good at his job, he dances almost 24/7. He is persistent and not discouraged by rejection which is good because Brown Turkey is totally rejecting him. Look past his bare patches, those are proof that he survived a dog attack.

Name: Kerry
Breed: Americana\ Welsummer mix
Age: Three years old
Purpose: Make lots of eggs, scratch about the yard and eat lots of bugs. Kerry is good at this and makes tan colored eggs. Kerry shows signs of being broody and soon she will be mated with Spike to make some chicks. Kerry will stop laying soon she is getting old for a laying hen.

Name: The Triplets a.k.a Flicka, Ricka and Dicka
Breed: Welsummer Chicken
Age: Three years old
Purpose: Make lots of eggs, scratch about the yard and eat lots of bugs. The triplets do an excellent job. They make golden brown, terracotta colored eggs, with brown speckles on some of them. The Triplets will also stop laying soon.

Name: Golden Spike a.k.a. Spike
Breed: Buff Orpington Chicken
Age: Unknown
Purpose: Spike will be the father of our buff flock. The Buff Chicks are still too young to breed with him this year. Instead he will spend this year breeding with Kerry and the Triplets. The mixed breed chicks we will raise for meat but not keep around for the long run. Unless some of them turn out to be so great we decide we want to.

Name: Puff and Peel-a-boo
Breed: White Crested Duck
Age: Three Years Old
Purpose: These ducks have no purpose... Other then a good lesson. They were purchased as a $3 dollar duck. Then I proceeded to make them a Duck Pond. BAD IDEA! I proceeded to spend over $500 dollars on the pond that failed. Why did the pond fail? Because it was a duck pond. The ducks ate all of the hundreds of dollars of plants I bought for the pond. The ducks ate the fish. And the ducks pooped in the pond, which given time will ruin the pond. Lesson learned... DON'T make a duck pond! They are also beautiful, and they entertained the kids well as ducklings. Puff and Peek-a-boo can not breed naturally, the crest of feathers on the top of their heads is a genetic disorder. Crested ducks can only be bread from one non crested duck and one crested duck. Two crested ducks create offspring that are not genetically viable. But Puff is vain and knows he is beautiful, he wants to rule the yard. He is in danger of the stew pot because he ate three of Mama Turkeys fertile eggs. BAD DUCK!

Our Chicks

Name: Buff Chicks
Breed: Buff Orpington Chickens
Age: Just over two months
Purpose: We are raising thees birds for meat and eggs. I am very happy with this breed. The chicks let the kids hold them and carry them around the yard like pet parrots. Orpingtons are also good at brooding their own chicks. Which will help them raise up allot of chicks for meat. Orps are also semi good egg layers and produce yummy meat.

Name: Popcorn
Breed: White duck
Age: Just over two months old
Purpous: A lesson in money. The kids saved up their own money to buy him. In the future he will breed with Puff or Peek-a-boo depending on weather he turns out to be male or female.

Name: Splash and Blue
Breed: Splash Orpington Chickens
Age: Almost six weeks
Purpose: Like the Buff Orptingtons thees will be raised for their meet and eggs. At one point we thought we would get into the more rare breeds of orpington as a cash crop for local people wanting rare birds. But we ended up changing our minds. Now these two are around to add verity. Soon they will be old enough to leave the brooder and explore the yard.

Name: Barneys
Breed: Barnevelder Chickens
Age: Born on Tax Day
Purpose: An extremely rare breed of chicken. We will breed these Barneys and sell them for cash to local chicken owners that want an extremely rare bread of chicken. As their flock grows we will consider replacing the Orpington flock with the Barnevelder flock. Barnevelders are docile and social with humans. They lay more eggs then the Orpingtons, their eggs are large. If well bread the Barneys can lay dark colored eggs with brown spots. If not the eggs will go lighter and lighter to a tan. The proper egg color is one of the hardest things to get right in a Barney. The Barneys winter well. The meat of the Barneys is said to be tasty. The Barneys do not get as large as the Orpingtons so they might not be as cost effective for meat as the Orps. Barnevelder's winter well. Barnevelder Chickens are beautiful birds, the adults have a double gold lacing on the feathers. Barnevelder Chickens are originally from the dutch town of Barneveld, allot of work is being done by Barney enthusiasts to try to bring back this breed.

Wild birds we have rescued

Breed: Wild Turkey
Year: 2010
Story: This wild hen comes to visit us from time to time. She is social with the turkeys and chickens. She gets boared of staying in the fences with the Turkeys though and flys off to explore on her own. Her body is about the size of our chickens bodies. But her legs, tail and neck are long like our turkeys. Her coloring is beautiful. When the sun hits her feathers they glisten rainbow colors. We considered clipping her wings in order to encourage her to stay around. But we have since learned that clipping her wings will still allow her to fly over our fences and get away, but will reduce her ability to escape from a predator.

Name: Hawkeye
Year: 2010
Breed: Common Pigeon
Story: We love raising abandoned or injured birds. Because of this I gave my phone number to the local pet store. Their workers have told me stories of wild birds being brought to them. A young couple found Hawk Eye in the parking lot of their apartments. He was just laying there not moving. They then took him to the pet store where they got our number. Hawkeye was not injured as far as we could tell. He seemed weak and lethargic. We quarantined him, gave him antibiotics, and food and water. This was all he needed to heal. Within three days he was trying to get out of his cage. Within five days he was getting out of his cage. He is now outside. He is still weak in flying. I think he thinks he is a chicken. We raise these wild birds with the plan that they will leave us and be wild. Hawkeye does not seem motivated at all to be wild. Time will tell.

Name: Snapper
Year: 2009
Breed: Canada Goose
Story: Snapper was brought to us as a gosling. He was yellow green in color. Snapper was abandoned from his mother in the wild. Someone concerned about him picked him up and brought him to a Veterinary Clinic where my niece works. The clinic was not set up with the needed warming mats and food. My niece brought him home to us. Snapper was a joy to raise, he instantly thought of us as his mothers. The most fun of raising Snapper happened after he grew older. I would take him into the front yard with me while I gardened. Then one day the kids started walking away to go play at their friends house. Just like a baby bird snapper followed the flock of kids down the block. We all giggled. Soon walks with Snapper became a favorite. As Snapper grew older we were eager for him to learn to fly. We would throw him in the air and watch him learn to fly farther and farther. Eventually he was flying so far that we had to let him fly in the front yard down the side walk. If we would run as a "flock" Snapper would chase us and then start flying. We had allot of fun flying lessons with snapper. On a few occasions Snapper flew in front of cars in the street. They always stopped and watched the flying lesson with joy. Snapper learned how to fly over our fences and right into a busy street. For his safety we took Snapper to the Wheeler farm where they have large ponds of ducks and geese. Snapper eventually got accepted into the flock and we assume he is doing well today

Year: 2008
Breed: Mallard
Story: We learned of these ducklings at a homeschool activity. A friend of a friend had them and wanted to find someone to care for them. The ducklings mother was hit by a car, thus abandoning them. I think the mother was sick, and that was why her judgment was impaired and she was hit. The ducklings were sick also. The ducklings started out as six or seven, two or three of them died at the original home. When we got them there were five. They were in a box on the door step of the home with no heater on a cold day. The chicks were sick. We put antibiotics in their water and fed them chick start with antibiotics. The first night one of them could not peep, he would move his mouth like he was trying to cry but no sound would come out, he died that night. We lost one a night for three nights. Thankfully the last two survived. They were always trying to escape, and did not like being around humans at all. As soon as they were old enough to they flew out of the yard, eager to live the life of a wild bird.

Non Poultry Animals

Name: Cali a.k.a. Calico
Breed: Calico Cat
Age/ Year: Unknown, 2009
Purpose/ Story: Eat mice and snakes but not poultry. Calico was a alley cat scavenging in our yard for food. Tumbelina who is always good with animals helped her learn to trust us. Calico was living on what she could find and hunt and almost starving. When we lived at the rental we could not bring her in as a pet, so she sat on our back porch and ate the food we gave her and slept in our warm dog house. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement because she found and ate mice. When we moved to the new home she became a fully fledged house cat. We learned that she was declawed and had all the personality of a house cat. She was very glad to be a house cat again. Who knows why she became an alley cat without a home. We are glad to have her, she is great at what she does, eating mice and snakes. Though she is tempted from time to time to eat our chicks or our rescued wild foul she has not yet eaten any. She has tried twice when she was low on food. Lesson learned, feed the cat and she wont eat the poultry.

Impacted Crop

2010-03-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

Our little baby black chick had a swollen crop, larger then his head. We could see through the skin right to the corn pieces in the crop. We were so worried about the little bird that we did not bother to take any photos, though that would have been interesting if we did. We read in the book Laddie about a goose popping open from eating too much, so we were all worried, because this little chicks crop did look like it might pop open. Poor little Hugs was besides herself in tears, but Tumbelina did a great job comforting her, and getting her mind off of it and work on a puzzle.

We read up on impacted crops in chickens and how it is often solved with surgery. We read in detail on how to do the surgery, and were getting mentally ready to try such extreme measures. Then we looked down at the cute little black chick, he was running around feeling great and pooping allot. Chickens with impacted crop starve to death because the food does not get past the crop to their belly. Obviously this little chick was doing fine if he could poop. Thankfully we decided to wait and watch him to see how he did. The next day the chicks crop was allot smaller and the chick was still doing fine. The little guy just ate too much.

The kids are so relieved and happy that the chick is doing fine.

New Baby Splash Orpingtons

2010-03-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

We found a lady close by who was hatching out some Splash Orpingtons. She hatched us out two beautiful splashes, one light and one black.

Notice the unique coloring on these chicks. The black one has some blue coloring on his chest and the light one has some blue coloring on its head and back, they are quite beautiful little chicks.

I did not realise how big our other orpington chicks had gotten until we placed these chicks up next to eachother. The buffs are a month old now, so they look huge next to these little chicks that are only a few days old. Because of the size difference we will be keeping them separate for a while.

Kids always love new baby chicks!

Curious says "They cheep allot. We also have grown up chickens and when mom put in food for the grown up chickens they just loved it and pecked at it (actually they are eating chick start but it looks the same). And now we are back to the little chicks. They're so cute cute cute cute and cute and cuddly. Bye"

Hugs says "They're very cute and cuddly. They hate to be holded like this. But I had to do it to get them close to my face, they would not be close to my face if my hands were in front of it."

Tumbelina says "The chicks go peep peep, and they sound really loud when one of them is away from the other one because they don't like being alone or else they feel like they are abandoned. And then when you put them back with the other chick they go, "Hey." And then they're all cuddly with each other. The end"

Angelic says "They're really cute. And at first we were worried about the black one because his crop got big. It gets big and then small every other day. At first the black one was really feisty he peeped really loud pretty much all the time when I held him. And Tumbelina would never let me hold the white one. That's all I have to say."

Staying Warm

The chicks bin got water spilled in it. The kids brought the chicks to me so I could keep them warm while they cleaned out the chicks bin. It did not take these little chicks long to realise how warm my netbook was. Before long they were happily nested under my netbook with their backs against the warm bottom.

Here they are in a nest of clean socks to help them feel warm and comfortable.

New Baby Buff Orpington Chicks

2010-02-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

Introducing our new baby chicks.

"We have chicks. And they're super de duper cute! And if you leave them alone they peep like crazy." Tumbelina

"Guess what we have chicks. And when ever you walk up to their bin they start peeping like crazy. And once Sterling picked up a chick and put him in a paper boat he made, and the chick went crazy." Hugs

"Our chicks are adorable, they're just a bungle. They'rs like, They're just a bungle of cuteness. They're so cute. They're like cute little yellow fuzz balls. They're really loud cheepers. And we have a home for them, it has food and water and sand and warming mats." Curious

"We have eight chicks. They're cute fuzzy and loud, they make enough noise for twelve. These ones are yellow but the first ones we got weren't. We got four of them on one day and four of them on another." Angelic

Chicks in Space!!!!

Here you see our chick class having some experiential learning. What is even better then looking at a diorama? Actually being able to walk around in a diorama! Now they can see first hand what order the planets come in and which ones are the biggest.

Our chicks also learned that pecking at Jupiter causes it to swing. That planets smell like markers. And that sometimes you can find in space left-over-matter from its creation, like that scrap of paper on the ground. Which a very curious chick picks up and gets chased down by his teachers in order to stop him from eating it.

Here the chicks are taking in the birds eye view of space. In which they learned that all those planets are held up by yarn tied with knots. Now they are trying to figure out how to unravel the universe by pecking apart the knots. Maybe this lesson is done.

Class photo: They sure are cute!

Chicks Learning About Shapes

Here the chicks are looking at the diorama called "shapes and sizes." Maybe if they studied it carefully they could learn the shapes names, and maybe even their colors. But the Chicks seem a bit distracted.

The birds eye view on the shapes does hold their attention better though. I should have know.

A Bouquet of Chicks

So Tumbelina goes and picks up the whole chick class in one swoop. It makes a beautiful bouquet doesn't it! Look carefully there is a chick head and a chick foot hanging out the bottom.

Oh no! It tickles and wiggles, maybe this chick bouquet will not work after all.

"Help! I am sideways, with my head being stepped on!" But he sure is cute!

Learning to Play Dead!

Here the lesson starts. "This is what you do little chicks, you lay on your back and relax. Then we pet your bellies to help you relax more. And when we leave you on your backs you are soooo relaxed that you stay there and do not move. Got it?"

I think they have got it.

You have no idea how hard it is to get eight baby chicks to all play dead at the same time. At some point one chick will decide he is done playing dead, then he will jump up and run around tagging all the other chicks so they get up too. It took us a long time. In this photo we are all excited, just one more chick and we can have it.

Success eight chicks playing dead

We were able to get the chicks to do this not once but twice.

They are so relaxed.

Falling asleep.

Funny thing about the chicks is they twitch their legs when they are on their back.

These ones really look dead! I think the class learned this lesson.

Class Dismissed! See you next time in chick school.

Yummy! Secret Green Shakes!

2010-02-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

Kerry told me about green shakes, made with spinach and kale. We call them secret shakes. The kids can watch me assemble all the yummy ingredients. Then when it comes time to put in the kale and spinach, they must go away so they don't see the "secret ingredient," greens. When they come back I tell them I turned it a surprise color, and I leave green food coloring on the counter. The kids drink it down and ask for more.

The second day the kids begged me to make shakes again. Then they got a bit more curious about the secret ingredient but so far so good. For a little bit Tumbelina was not drinking hers, so I reassured her that if I gave her the secret ingredient alone she would love it, (Tumbelina loves salad) then she drank it up.

Things we have put in our shakes so far: bananas, pears from a can, yogurt, flax seed, kale, spinach, ice, apples, and dehydrated blue berries. The blueberries turn it a funny brown when the greens are added in, my kids were a bit more skeptical, but still drank it up and asked for more. I think next time I will turn their shakes orange by adding in baby carrots instead of greens.

Everyone thought the shakes tasted like strawberries and kiwi were in them, but I have only used that above ingredients. I like to let them think it is kiwi color.

Lots of nutritious fun! Thank you Kerry for the idea.

Jeanine

Household Management Trick # 48936.. (I lost count)

2010-02-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

Maybe if I move the kids shower time to just before bed.. And have each girl take a turn a day, thus rotating through showers every three days. Then that will keep one girl occupied while I send the two other girls to bed. Then I have the two girls remaining sleep on different beds of their futon bunk bed. Instead of all the girls piled up on the full size bed. Then maybe that will separate the girls long enough for at least one of them to go to sleep. And maybe that will stop the girls room from degenerating into a giggle fest every night.. maybe.. just maybe...

My Kids Baby Names List

2010-02-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Below is the list of baby names my kids came with. You can tell what stories they are reading right now based on some of the names.

Girls

Emma

Sierra

Emerald

Athena

Aphrodite

Laurali

Bronz

Bronzen

Hwin

Aravis

Susan

Lucy

Roma

Shilo

Penny

Daisy

Rose

Poppy

Frankincense

Linda

Ann

Amanda

Boys

Michael

Peter

Edmond

Shasta

Corin

Caspian

Cornelius

Rick

Hunter

Chris

Alex

Rome

Frank

Bambi

Raymond

Ray

Bron

Coal

Kyle

Kolton

2010-01-20T16:49:00.001-08:00

We got everything moved in to the new home on sunday. Now we are up to our eyeballs in boxes, and happy to be in our new home.

Watermelon Feast

2009-09-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Brother Shelton came over today and gave us some grocery bags full of veggies, potatoes and corn from his garden. He also gave us a large watermelon. Curious's eyes got so big when he saw that watermelon. Right off he said, "I want to tell him thank you."

I said "That is a good idea Curious, lets do go tell him thank you."

Curious runs to the door "I want to tell him thank you RIGHT NOW!"

I said "I am sorry he is already gone you will have to tell him thank you later."

I then go into the kitchen and cut up the watermelon, while all the girls watch with big excited eyes. When it came time to call Curious to come and eat his he was no where to be found. We had just started to search around the house when the front door opened. In runs Curious, all excited, and exclaims "I told her thank you!!."

The girls all giggle, and we start to ask him about what happened. He could not have told Brother Shelton thank you, he lived two blocks away, by the new home we are buying. Curious ran over the the Maybes home, rang the door bell, and when Sister Maybe answered the door he exclaimed "Thank you for the watermelon."

Now the Maybe's were a logical choice. We have enjoyed allot of zucchini and corn that the Maybes have given us from their garden. Which the kids have thoroughly enjoyed every time we cooked it. According to Curious's report Sister Maybe said "I did not give you any watermelon, you must mean thank you for the zucchini."

"Yes, thank you!" exclaimed Curious, and then he hurried home to enjoy in our watermelon feast.

Little boys are so cute!

Thank you to the Maybe's and the Shelton's for sharing your gardens harvests with our family!

Jeanine

New Home

2009-09-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

23rd ward we are your new neighbors... Again! I just found out today that we are now under contract to buy a hew home! It took a long time to finalize!! I have been anxious to announce it. The best part is we got to hand pick the best ward, our same ward we love so much, and our children get to keep all their same friends. They love that!! The house is the third home west of Rheas house, so we will have great neighbors. The floor plan is almost exactly the same as the one we are staying in now, but without a half kitchen in the basement.

The home is on a half an acre like our family has always wanted, our chickens will love that. Thankfully it is not an hour away from downtown like all the other homes we were looking at. Which has one down fall... I am not going to move to live close to Freda and Danika, sorry gals. :(

It is a foreclosed home so it needs allot of repairs, the photos below make it look better then it is. The whole home reeks of cat pee BAD. The home is structurally sound with a good roof. The main repairs it needs #1 to get rid of the stink (thankfully Granny gave us GREAT info on how to do that.) #2 Repaint every wall (some are black with bats on them), #3 all new flooring throughout (the dogs and cats trashed it all), #4 repair some small plumbing problems in the bathrooms. So we will be busy for a while. But look forward to getting it fixed up right.

2009-06-26T19:08:00.001-07:00

Now I can post to my blog from my cell. I dont know why I waited this long.

How well we know our Mama

2009-06-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

How well we know our Mama

Respondents are S- Curious George (3), A -Hugs (6), C -Tumbelina (8), E -AngelTina (10)

1. What is something Mama always says to you?

S - I love you

A - She always calls me

C - She always says "Don't"

E - Woohh.... you attacked me

2. What makes Mama happy?

S - Playing ball

A - When I say "yes mam"

C - Obeying her

E - When her kids obey her, reading to her kids, quiet time, sleeping, oh and sitting on the couch that she waited for seven years to get.

3. What makes Mama sad

S - You don't usually get sad

A - When someone dies

C - That one time when Chad's sister died... You were crying

E - When Hugs drew an A on the couch, When Hugs drew with permanent marker on the back of the door

4. How does your Mama make you laugh?

S - By tickling me and saying "tickle, tickle, tickle"

A - When she tickles me

C - By tickling me in my stomach, because that is the part that is sensitive of tickling, if you tickel me there then I go, he he he he

E - When she says silly things

5. How old is your Mama?

S - Three years old (he said three right) No, not three years old, feeve years old...

A - Somewhere in your 90's

C - She's in her 30's, or in her 40's, or in her 50's or in her 60's or in her 70's, one of those (I think she got it covered)

E - I think she is somewhere in her thirties

6. How tall is your Mama?

S - Fifty feet.. lalalala

A - really tall

C - Six feet

E - Not as tall as Papa, about three inches shorter then Papa, which means (she is doing math in her head) 5' 3" (She got it EXACTLY right). It was just an estimate (she says while shrugging).

7. What is her favorite thing to do?

S - (he blows a kiss)

A - Go on the computer

C - Read boring books

E - Read A Wrinkle in Time series

8. What does your Mama do when you're not around?

S - sleep

A - I don't think I am not around very much

C - She sneaks up my birthday presents

E - Read, think, sleep, think, read, think, think....

9. If your Mama becomes famous, what will it be for?

S - falling

A - Her great cooking

C - It would be for working on the computer, answering so much phone calls.

E - Staying up late, and patience

10. What is your Mama really good at?

S - Hugging papa

A - Cooking

C - Shes good at making a pond and keeping cats from coming in our fence.

E - Being patient

11. What is your Mama not very good at?

S - Being a cartoon creature... like an alien

A - Not very good at waking me up, I wake my self up actually very much.

C - She is not very good at keeping track of Curious George when he leaves the house (she says that because I am always sending her to go and get Curious).

E - Getting asleep on time.

12. What does your Mama do for her job?

S - Go to work, type and say something

A - You answer phone calls

C - "Hello, what can i do for you today" and she says "May I please have your account number."

E - Answer phone calls about credit cards, and talk to the lady who says "coo coo" dove stuff, and says she stepped over a bomb, and she was very silly, and says she is the friend with the queen of France, and i think she was doing it for attention or something. (She is retelling a story about my funniest call I have had at work)

13. What's your Mama's favorite food?

S - Macaroni

A - I think your favorite food was pickles

C - Her favorite food is watermelon, and onions

E - I'm stumped, you like pomegranates, and watermelon, and stuff like that, but I cant think of what would be your favorite.

14. What makes you proud of your Mama?

S - Loving me

A - Her cooking

C - That you really like to write in my journal notebook.

E - That she is very patient

15. If your Mama were a cartoon character, who would she be?

S - Um... Lou, the puppy in "Cats and Dogs"

A - Micky Mouse, is also really good at cooking like Mama

C - The Muffin Lady

E - Super mom who has 10,000 kids

16. What do you and your Mama do together?

S - Love each other

A - My mama reads me stories

C - um.. Look at my sisters birthday presents

E - She read me the Trumpet of the Swan once.. Normally we both have trouble getting asleep, We talk about things... I cant think of anything else

17. How are you and your Mama the same?

S - Blue eyes

A - We both have blue eyes, like our papa

C - hmm.. Because we give presents on Christmas, and because we type really fast, and because we like to draw.

E - Were both girls with brown hair and blue eyes.

18. How are you and your Mama different?

S - Her black pants, and my underpants... her eyes, so pretty

A - I have blond hair and she has brown.

C - Because I'm a kid and your not, our birthdays are not on the same day. (notice Tumbelina is excited about her birthday in a few days)

E - She is taller then me, and older then me. She went to school when she was my age and I am homeschooled.

19. How do you know your Mama loves you?

S - She cameras me

A - She tells me

C - Because you say so.

E - Because she hugs me and she is very patient

20. Where is your Mama's favorite place to go?

S - The park

A - Tepanyaki.... I think?

C - With her kids off on fun stuff... And she likes it when she goes to Kerry so she can talk to Kerry.

E - The Downstairs living room to watch showes with Papa, to the temple with Papa.

Bonus Question by Tumbelina

What is Mama's favorite book

C - its um... A Wrinkle in time, oh and your other favorite is the scriptures

How well we know our Papa

2009-06-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

How well we know our Papa

Respondents are S- Curious George (3), A -Hugs (6), C -Tumbelina (8), E -AngelTina (10)

1. What is something Papa always says to you?

S - That I'm a good boy

A - I love you

C - Go to bed

E - I love you

2. What makes Papa happy?

S - Me obeying him

A - When I say "Yes sir" to him

C - Reading the scriptures, and obeying him

E - Napping, tickling

3. What makes Papa sad?

S - He doesn't get sad

A - I cant think of anything that makes him sad

C - (After thinking for a long time)...When someone dies

E - I don't know

4. How does your Papa make you laugh?

S - Tickle me

A - He tells good jokes

C - He tickles me

E - Tickling us and telling jokes

5.How old is your Papa?

S - Free (three), Every body in the whole wide world is free.

A - I don't know how old... 23?

C - 30 something

E - Somewhere in his 30's I think

6. How tall is your Papa?

S - Super Tall

A - Really tall

C - 7 feet tall

E - Not as tall as Nate, five feet and a half?

7. What is his favorite thing to do?

S - Watch me invent

A - Tell jokes

C - Talk to Mama

E - Tickle, and tell jokes

8. What does your Papa do when you're not around?

S - Sleep, sleep tight

A - Usually when I am not around he is at work.

C - Goes to work and talks to people on the phone.

E - I don't know

9. If your Papa becomes famous, what will it be for?

S - I don't know

A - Playing his harmonica

C - Being the greatest Papa in the world

E - His jokes

10. What is your Papa really good at?

S - Loving Relish, its yummy, its chopped up pickles

A - Playing his harmonica

C - my Papa's really good at reading fast, and typing fast, and he's good at making it so he doesn't get fired.

E - Telling Jokes, loving, giving hugs, and tickling

11. What is your Papa not very good at?

S - *Burp* *Giggle* Burping, because I burped

A - I cant really think of anything he is not very good at.

C - Sometimes hes not good at getting to work fast enough, and sometimes hes not good at taking his pills.

E - He is not very good at staying happy when he is tired

12. What does your Papa do for his job?

S - Um, work, he works at his work, and so do I, my work is KidZui

A - He goes to Qwest

C - He helps people with their computers, and he tells them what to do with their computers

E - Answers phone calls, and helps people fix their computers on the phone.

13. What's your Papa's favorite food?

S - Relish, and hot dogs

A - Chocolate

C - Lots of things, and really he likes relish

E - Chocolate

14. What makes you proud of your Papa?

S - Relish, *giggle* My papa loves relish

A - Lots of things

C - I'm proud of my Papa because he reads scriptures with me.

E - That I love him

15. If your Papa were a cartoon character, who would he be?

S - Chicken Little

A - Hum.. pretty tricky... Donald Duck

C - Hum.. He would be... Thunderbolt

E - He'd be a joker and tickle monster

16. What do you and your Papa do together?

S - Build inventions

A - We have fun together, My papa reads me stories.

C - We talk about my baptism stuff.

E - We talk, we nap sometimes, and hug

17. How are you and your Papa the same?

S - By being same handsome at church.

A - We both have blue eyes.

C - Were the same because we can walk, and we have toes, and we have fingers, and hands, and arms and elbows, and heads, and we can talk, and we also go on the computer.

E - We love each other, we like to tell jokes, we both say "awesome possum" and we both have brown hair.

18. How are you and your Papa different?

S - By being dropped by a giant.. Ill show ya.. (he falls on the floor screaming.)

A - I have blond hair and he has brown

C - I have black hair and he doesn't, and papa gets sun burned easier then me.

E - He's taller then me

19. How do you know your Papa loves you?

S - How I turned free, and next I'm gonna turn four.

A - He says so.

C - Because he wants me to wake up early and go to sleep early, and he does not like me staying up to late.

E - He says so.

20. Where is your Papa's favorite place to go?

S - The park

A - Tepanyaki

C - On a date with mama... and to Wendy's to get frosties.. and if they are not chocolate he is like "what?"

E - Monkey Jungle Gymns, and that place where they made the onion volcano thing (Tepanyaki)

Extra credit question by Tumbelina...

What is Papa afraid of?

C - a Dinosaur.

2009-03-22T22:02:00.001-07:00

Our poor turkey got attacked by a neighbors dog. Thankfully he only pulled out mouth fulls of feathers.

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Chickens Like Fishy Crackers

2009-03-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

Hugs just came in and told me in complete excitement that "chickens like fishy crackers, and it makes it so much easier to catch them!!". The kids love to chase and catch the chickens. They normally catch them by grabbing onto their tails. Hugs described to me how they are out there holding onto the chickens by their tails and feeding them fishy crackers one at at time.

Ever since we butchered the last of our three roosters, the back yard has become allot more fun for the kids, and for me too. I check on the chickens food, water and eggs more often because I don't fear being attacked by "Big Boy" the last rooster we just butchered.

The kids have been playing chicken. They run out and pet the turkey while she is laying down, and they play they are chickens. The highlight of this play is when all the other hens come over to be a part of their little flock. Who knew chickens could be so entertaining. Tumbelina plays that she is "Big Chicken" and Curious plays he is "Little Chicken" or "Chicken Little".

Yesterday when Jeff was hugging the kids he noticed they all smell like chickens. Needless to say all the kids were given a good bath today.

Dinner At Renees

2009-03-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

Jeff's sister has a large family of eight children. Many times on Sunday they host Sunday dinner for the large crew of our family. Renee and Lamont cook like a restaurant, so we always eat like kings when we come to their house. Today we had prime rib, potatoes, cheesy asparagus, carrots, rolls, salad, cabbage, mushrooms, and birthday cake. It was a lovely feast.

Today they sang Happy Birthday to me and Jenny. Renee makes great cakes, including being excellent cooks they are excellent bakers also. The birthday person always wears a large birthday hat that looks like a birthday cake with candles that velcro on top.

We normally come over after church on Sunday. Renee has one large kitchen table, and we pack the family in to other rooms with more tables, in order to fit us all in.

Curious gets to play with his cousin Lincoln who is only two weeks older then him.

The girls play sometimes with the neighbors, sometimes in the back yard, and sometimes with play dough. Renee has a playroom equipped with a play kitchen, a wooden train set, and cars.

Renee tells great stories about her daily adventures in local politics or helping out African refugees or driving a school bus, so mot of the time the adults end up in a long discussion, or listening to Renee's animated stories.

Duce is Renee's dog, he is a red Merle Australian Shepard, he has two different colored eyes, one blue, one brown. Generally he lives in the house, except when the family is over he sits outside the kitchen wind own smelling all the lovely smells and wishing he were inside feasting with us. Today for the first time he joined in on the happy birthday song, he sounded like a seal barking.

We love staying at Renee's house so much we are guaranteed to never leave at a reasonable time. Right now it is 11:10. Renee had six boys so she learned how to cut hair in order to be frugal. So Renee's dinner most often ends with the haircut line up. As I write this Curious George is sitting still just like his Papa did before him, while he gets his hair cut. Curious looks handsome and fresh cut, so we are no ready to leave and drive home.

Teaching and Learning to Read With The Scriptures and Book of Mormon

2009-03-15T00:33:00.001-07:00

Reading scriptures has been wonderful for teaching our kids how to read.

With Curious we have him watch as we point to the words and say them one by one and have him repeat the word, for his verse. In this way he is learning sight words Glen Doman style.

With Hugs we started with the phrase "and it came to pass" in the beginning chapters of the Book of Mormon that phrase is repeated significantly more then any other phrase. This was a good practice in increasing Hugs's confidence, when called on to read she would just rattle "and it came to pass" off with confidence. Thankfully the book changes the phrase around so it does not always use the exact same words or order. This kept Hugs on her toes and required her to read the words. Once comfortable with the AICTP phrase we would then find the individual words in the phrase and have Hugs read those words as we passed them in our reading. In this way we familiarised her with them as sight words. Over time we added in more sight words, one at a time. Now Hugs is confidently reading most of the sight words n her verse, and started onto the 3-5 letter words that follow the short value phonics rules. In this step by step way we can see Hugs increase in her reading ability.

Angelic, being our oldest daughter was the one we worked the most with reading. It would be too long of a list to go over all the different ways we taught reading. Needless to say allot of effort was put into it. But the mind focus was always to keep it a fun game, never drilling and boring. Angelic always loved learning new things, and school time. School has always been quality one on one time with mama.

Tumbelina saw Angelic reading, and us praising her. We did simpler versions of learning to read lessons with her. I love leap frog videos, they are excellent. But she just decided she wanted to read like Angelic one day. She would pick up books, and fumble through reading them, then bring them to me whenever she had a question. Honestly she is largely self taught.

Tumbelina can confidently read the scriptures out loud, with very minimal help from us. Angelic can read the scriptures will no help, clearly, and at a good pace.

Angelic should be in fourth grade and has just finished reading The Magicians Nephew by C.S. Lewis. She just picked it up one day and started reading.

It is amazing to see how well my kids read. I LOVE what Holt has to say in How Children Fail and How Children Succeed. My kids fit this pattern well, a child can teach them selves how to read, especially with good support from parents.

Jeanine

Crafts, and Potty Training

2009-03-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Tumbelina and Hugs have been making cute dinosaurs from scrap book paper. They really are quite crafty. The dinosaurs are almost as big as Curious.

Curious has been working on going potty. As an active little boy he often does not want to stop his play in order to go. In order to help him remember to use the potty we have set up a snack reward system. When ever he goes potty he earns treats to share with the whole family. This group reward worked excellent. This motivates the girls, and the whole family to remind him to go.

My husband is my most precious gift.

2009-02-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

Of all the blessings, of all the wonderful things, of all the inspirations, of all the care the Lord has ever shown me, none have ever blessed me so much as when he blessed me with my Husband. Second in line is the blessing to have been raised by good parents. Third in line is the blessing to pay these blessings forward, my wonderful children. I guess I could start my life description off like this... I Jeanine having been abundantly blessed with a goodly husband, having been raised by goodly parents, and having been blessed with many beautiful children of God to raise up unto the Lord....

Jeanine

What our homeschool looks like.

2009-01-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

We read scriptures together every night where everyone in the family takes turn reading. Angel can read through the scriptures at a normal pace with little to no help. Tumbelina can read through the scriptures a bit slowly with only 1-2 helps on the words in each verse. Hugs is working on her sight words like unto, the, this, them, etc, and she is learning some basic phonics.

We do a devotional in the morning where we learn music, memorize different scriptures or poems, and read and write our family history. This is reading and writing in journals.

My kids also play computer games that drill them in spelling and math principals while I am at work.

Angelic right now is reading through The Magic Tree House books as fast as I can supply them to her. She reads through one in the same day I get it for her, sometimes she has read two, so I have turned her onto some of the other classics we own. Since Christmas she has read Robin Hood, The Secret Garden, some other cute little books about cats and at least four magic tree house books, I can hardly keep her supplied.

Tumbelina is playing with reading chapter books. She has read at least 1 Magic Tree house book this month, one pony palls. Mostly she picks up books and reads them for a while and then looses them and forgets about them until she is inspired to read again by watching her older sister.

These are just the things I can measure for someone outside of my home. We have a habit of introducing learning into everything. Shopping at the store, internal economy where the kids earn spend and save money themselves, Car rides, dinner discussions, discussions before or after our reading/ devotional times, Family field trips, and learning activities we do with our homeschooling friends.

We normally take one thing and do it until it becomes a habit or a pattern that is natural and then build from there. It can be very unpredictable how long it takes for us to master each habit. I ordered the K-12 curriculum because I knew I would have less time to do all the research and prep I was doing before. But I failed to take into account how much effort it takes to learn a new pattern, and have it fit into my family, on top of my family adjusting to me working from home. We have now found 2 hours three times a week where we can fit in k-12. Based on my experience thus far I feel we will have the most success with the courses that are able to be taught to all the kids at the same time and require the least amount of preparation from me. For this reason we will be working in Art, History, Science, Music and Spanish.

K-12 added in a VERY wonderful new tool for Advanced Preparation. With this new tool I feel it is more likely for me to start teaching the k-12 core subjects in the future. But it is unpredictable how long it will take for us to start including the core subjects. That is going to take more preparation time from me.

Sunday Candy!

2009-01-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

Driving Arround In My Automo...van

2009-01-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

Ihop with Linda

2009-01-26T14:58:00.000-08:00

Videos we made

2009-01-26T13:11:00.000-08:00

Bloggin' with Fly Fusion By Leapfrog

2009-01-24T16:34:00.000-08:00

Right now I am sitting on my living room coach, watching my kids dance to music while I write in my fly fusion Journal with my fly pen. This is a fun way to blog, journal and participate with the kids, all at the same time.

My kids have also been having fun with the fly fusion. I have added their drawings, writing and things to their blogs.

The fly fusion seems to be sensitive to light. Journal entries I have written in dim light have been lost. Because of this I try to sit so my hand casts the least amount of shadow on the page.

Overall I rate the fly fusion high.

Music Maker is lots of fun the kids can mix and record and save their songs. Only one problem, the songs wont download onto the computer, so you can only hear them on the fly and it only saves ten songs.

Memory expansion is a plastic cartridge that removes from the back of the pen and is replaced with another cartridge. This means small pieces that are easy to loose.

Fly notebooks each have a sticker On the front that make them "unique'' the fly eye scans the sticker to know which notebook you are using. The only problem I have found with this is when my son took off the unique sticker. This made it so all the entries went into a generic notebook. The paper in the notebook have a very fine pattern the tells the pen where you are. I would assume this means each page is unique.

Jeanine

Family History

2009-01-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

Our families new home teachers are Dirk and Ray. Ray told us about Tammy's hard work on family history. How she compiled everything she could into a large three ring binder and every time there is new information for the family she mass emails her family with the updates for them to print and put in the binder. This re-inspired me towards family history, thanks Ray (and Tammy, lol)

I remembered my lovely family history book for the Thompson family (My dad's mothers side) called "Their Legacy," it is one of the largest books we own (not quite as big as our 1828 dictionary). We have now included this in our morning devotionals. What a lovely addition it makes, full of stories and photos of our ancestors.

Also I found at Seagull Book and Tape a book on clearance that is a fill-in-the-blank family history, it asks lots of fun stuff like "what was your happiest moment" and "what is your favorite book".

Now for devotional we are reading "Their Legacy," filling in pages in our book, learning the song Holding Hands Around the World and memorising D&C 75:3.

Jeanine

Silly Fun!

2009-01-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

Caught in Pixel

2009-01-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

Silly Faces

2009-01-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

D&C 75:3

2009-01-11T17:26:00.001-08:00

"Behold, I say unto you that it is my will that you should go forth and not tarry, neither be idle but labor with you might."

Yesterday in scripture reading we read this. 1 Nephi 12:23

"And it came to pass that I beheld after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and filthy people. Full of idleness and all manner of abominations."

After reading that it seemed rather important for us to avoid being idle. We discussed what idle was. At first the girls thought it was idle worship. After learning it meant not working they seemed rather impressed about the importance of working.

We then looked up that D&C scripture and decided to memorise it, and made future plans for the work we would do to help us avoid being idle.

Scripture Reading

2009-01-11T14:36:00.000-08:00

Saturday Jan 10th 09

Our steak president has asked us to commit to read the scriptures everyday for the rest of our lives, Angelic and Papa were the first to make this commitment.

Together they carefully reminded the rest of the family of scripture time. Now it has become a habit that the whole family remembers and enjoys.

Today Jeff was sick and I was running late on getting laundry ready for church. Angelic opened right up to her book mark and told Tumbelina where we were. Then Tumbelina helped Hugs find the right page. Next Angelic started reading, Tumbelina took up her turn right afterwards. Then to top all this Tumbelina started to help and coach Hugs on reading her part just like she had seen her father do. They continued just like that, orderly taking turns and helping each other with difficult words, just the same way Jeff does. All the time with out any prompting or help From Mama or Papa.

Making Duck Youtube

2009-01-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

Sterling the Big Mean Man

2009-01-05T23:02:00.000-08:00

New Hats

2009-01-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

My trainer at work sent cute hats she made for my kids.

2008 The Middle Year

2009-01-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

In the year 2007 we had our fire, and mom had her miscarriages, those two things along with the moves that were necessary because of the fire, made it a year of surviving.

This year 2008 seems to be summed up as the Middle Year. The in between year. In between what? I do not know yet.

2008 was kind of a year of recovery. They way you feel as a parent after Christmas has passed. You sigh in relief, and live in the moment. You play with your children's new toys, because after all you did like them enough to get them for the kids. You eat sweats because it is the holidays, even though you know it is not good for you. And you let the little upkeep things go by the wayside, for now. Because, you are in recovery mode. The time frame leading up to Christmas was stressful enough, now your body needs to just live, and relax. That was the year 2008 for my family. The majority of the stress of 2007 was over, and in 2008 we just lived. Much of life's maintenance passed us buy, we were just living, just recovering, just spending time. The year 2008 is the year of time passing.

2008 Events

Jeanine worked in the ward as an Activity Days leader.
Starz Unlimited danced in a temporary location while they worked towards obtaining a new building.
The kids got Whooping Cough and we were interviewed by some government agency for diease control.
We took over a month off of life for the kids to recover. And then went back to dance classes etc. But we could still visit Kerry because her kids had it also.
Kerry (Jeanine's BFF) got Jeanine interested in Ron Paul.
Starz had their dance recital.
Eva had a Webkinz Birthday Party, Crystal had a birthday party at Wheeler Farm, Ari had a (humm.. I forgot this one, I will have to update this when I remember) Sterling had a birthday party at the park,
We got poultry, our chickens, ducks and turkey.
Dee (Jeff's sister) and Sarah (our cousin, once removed?) became Baby Ben's care givers.
Mom played in the garden in the front yard.
We worked to rebuild our food storage.
Mom decided she loved making muffins, and they became a family staple.
Jeanine asked to be released from Activity Days so she could focus more on her families needs.
Jeanine and Crystal started attending counceling.
Jeanine started working at home for Alpine Access.
Jeff got a second job.
Both Jeff and Jeanine are taking inbound customer service calls for credit card companies, while they are working hard to pay off all of their credit card debt. There is irony there.
We enrolled the kids into K-12 for schooling at home.
Kerry found out she was expecting.
Granny moved to Dee's house to help take care of Baby Ben.
We moved the rooms around (again) because we had more space. We love the extra space, thank you Granny :).
We shopped for a new home.
The Economy took a crazy turn.
We decided not to buy a new home until our family was more financially stable.
We decided to run like a Gazelle, Dave Ramsey style and get out of debt.
Baby Ben died.
Ron Paul was blacklisted and could not be a presidential canidate.
Erica (Jeff's cousin, once removed?) went off to work on a cruise.
It is discovered that Baby Grant (Jeff's nephew) needs eye surgery in order to help him see better.
Nicolle (Jeanine's sister) came to live with us.
Proposition 8 passed in California.
Jeanine voted for Chuck Baldwin.
Obama won the Presidential vote.
The family (first Jeff, then Eva, then Jeanine following in their examples) took on our Steak Presidents challenge to read the Book of Mormon every day without missing. This task became easier then we thought it would be, and is now a natural habbit for our family.
Crystal and Eva showed their great reading skills as we read in the scriptures everyday.
Jeanine took up a hobby of soap making, along with Kerry.
Jeanine started using FaceBook.
Julie (Jeanine's oldest sister) joined FaceBook (now to get Linda on FB).
Linda and Hung (Jeanine's sister and BIL) came to visit before flying off to Irag. Hung with the army. Linda working in Small Business Policy Reform, in order to help small business growth in Iraq.
We enjoyed the holidays.
Jeff decided to take time at the beginning of scripture reading to teach Ari to read better.
Grant and Juliette headed off to LasVegas first, then California for his eye surgery.
Skylynn (Jeanine's niece) turned 1 year old.
New Years came

And now we are to the year 2009...So far in 2009

Sterling has started attending primary.
Baby Grant will have eye surgery this week. Say a little prayer for him.
Kerry should have a new baby by tomorrow.

Now Jeanine finds her self caught up in the question... 2008 was in between what? What will 2009 be the year of. That question is still unanswered.

Driving Past Lights

2009-01-03T20:53:00.000-08:00

Caught Learning Shhh.... dont tell them

2008-12-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

Hugs and Curious Crazy Kids!

2008-12-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Tumbelina and Angelic Sisterly Fun!

2008-12-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

Renee and Ali's Sing-a-long

2008-12-16T13:59:00.000-08:00

Every year Renee's Ward does a Christmas Sing-a-long. Attending this event has become a family tradition.

The evening starts out with some yummy dinner made by Renee's family. (Which is a must have, since Renee and Lamont make some of the yummiest homemade food ever. If they opened a restaurant it would be very popular. But I doubt it would be very profitable :. They would host tones of family meals, and give away all their great cooking. Wait.. that is what they do now. Like I said, great food!)

Then we all head over to the church to watch the "crimson club" (all the steak ladies in the ward, dressed in red) sing. At the end they serve cookie refreshments. And after all that...

We head back to Renee's house for some homemade pie. All around a wonderful evening.

All the sweet singing put him to sleep. So angelic, who could tell that only moments earlier he was in the hall with his Papa getting the what for about staying on Mama's lap. It must have been an effective talk because Curious came back and dutifully sat on my lap, so still, he fell asleep.

One down...

Two more to go... There goes Hugs and Papa.

Either Curious really wore Papa out in the hall, or those angelic singers voices are laced with a sleep charm.

I think it is the Angel Choir Sleep Charm. We will have to test it out next year and see if it has the same effects.

Apparently some of the crowd are immune to the Angels sleep charm. These cute little sisters are still awake and giggling. Hopefully Tumbelina and Angel they are not disturbing the neighbors.

Angel Choir Star #1, Allison blowing Kisses to her adoring fans.

Angel Choir Star #2 Renee looking down from her cloud.

Lincoln also came to listen to the choir.

See I told you it was an angelic sleep charm, it got Grant also! (Actually he was asleep when he arrived, but, well, he stayed asleep, and that is something ;). Look to the right. That leg is proof that Juliette Grants Mom was there too (we did not get her picture).

Look to the left, proof that Grants dad Michael was there also. (another picture we missed.)

"Take a picture of me like this."

Proof that Mama was there also. Action photos by my kids ;).

This is what you get when.....

2008-12-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

You give the kids the camera.

Hanging out at Renee's house after the sing-a-long.

KidZui

2008-12-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

My family LOVES Kidzui. This has become an essential tool in my family.

We homeschool our children and take and interest based approach. The main limiting factor in my family is keeping my kids time full of things that are interesting and educational to them. With Kidzui I can turn on the computer and let them go. I have the peace of mind in knowing that they will not be accessing anything objectionable. I also have the joy of walking in on them and seeing sneak peaks of what the are learning.

The other night when I checked in on my son he was learning which animals lived in the savanna. That experience reminded me of a few days ago when I walked in on my daughter learning about tornadoes. Of course it is not all learning.

My kids have discovered, through Kidzui, that they are fans of Hanna Montana. Which is a cute way for them to stay in touch with pop culture even when not in public school.

Yesterday I added Funbrain.com to all my kids favorites list and logged into one of the kids accounts and "mailed" funbrain to all of them. In this way they can stumble upon the webpages I want them to see. I love the feature of customizing webpages my kids can or can not access. This one option has endless possibilities.

I have also noticed that you have Kidzui Games, which is a great selection of games for young kids.

Chihuahua Day?

2008-12-15T14:40:00.000-08:00

Angel got so sick of members of her family singing the Chihuahua song that she made up a Chihuahuaday. December 19th. And anytime someone in the family sings any version of the song she reminds them that they would be welcome to sing the song on Chihuahua day. We were just singing Koala to the same tune and got the same reminder, all versions of the song are to be held until Chihuahua day. Lol

Want to celebrate it with us??

Any ideas on how to celebrate such a day??

Lol

Deorating the Christmas Tree

2008-12-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

The kids got bored waiting for us to get the Christmas tree ready so they started decorating Curious instead....

...complete with a Christmas tree stand.

Curious loves being the center of attention.

Wrap him in beads.

Beads, we need more beads.

Hang stockings on his fingers.

Add the final touches..

Ta-Da Curious the decorated Christmas Tree.

We did finally get to decorating the actual Christmas tree, which was almost as much fun.

Close up details of the Christmas tree.

Mary and Baby Jesus, in the center of the tree as always.

Little Elves displaying their hard work. But wait.... what is the rest of this stuff.

Santa's Mug with bubbling hot coco, by Hugs.

Stocking Paws, By Tumbelina

Now it is time to dance in the Christmas Tree Skirt. The skirt Angelic is wearing is the same skirt from my childhood. I still remember watching my mother sew on the trim while I waited in anticipation to see it finished. It did not take long for us to realise that it made the best twirl skirt. Thus a new tradition was born, each girl taking a turn twirling in the Christmas Tree Skirt. To my great delight I got to take over ownership of the Christmas Tree Skirt, and the twirling tradition continues.

Hug's "turn" ;)

Tumbelina taking it for a spin.

Ooppss, maybe it is time to stop. Lets do portraits.

Curious George Christmas 2008

Angelic Christmas 2008

Tumbelina Christmas 2008

Christmas Tree Skirt Display, and...

Hugs Christmas 2008

(with the aid of her giggeling sisters)

Now it is time for another tridition. Sleeping out in the front room under the glowing Christmas lights. Three sisters, still giggly and not really ready for bed.

Showing their angelic faces to mom, so that she will not suspect anything. Then once the parents are in bed quietly go back to the tree, pick out your favorite ornaments, and play with them until 3am at least. Mama found a pile of ballerina and soldier ornaments in the morning as evidence.

Bedtime for Curious, and a bedtime book. See the innocent looking face. Yes, Mama, I am going to go right to sleep.

All the kids look comfortable and happy sleeping out in front of the Christmas Tree, so Mama grabs one last cup of wassail and heads to bed also, totally unaware of the visions of sugar plums dancing in the kids heads.

Fairy Hugs Bear

2008-11-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

Fairy Tumbelina

2008-11-19T19:40:00.000-08:00

Best Friend Fairies

2008-11-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

Must be me!

2008-10-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There is
1
person with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Moving?

2008-09-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

The other day I recived this email from a neighbor.

Hi. The kids report that you are moving to the mountains. I'd love to find out about that if you want to tell me. :)

Below are my repiles

#1. I am still working out the specifics... I want to give you that accurate answer.. right now it is a coin toss...so stay tuened I will let you know soon when Jeff and I have decided the answer firmly amongst ourselves.

#2.

Forgive me for not writing back to you sooner.

It is funny the timing of your email. If you had emailed me just a few days earlier I would have had a quick and easy answer for you. If you had emailed me a few days later I would have had a response for you. But you happened to email right as were were on the cusp of discussing a change of plan, thus I was not able to answer the question at that time because I did not know the answer :). But we have discussed the plan, prayed about it, and confirmed it at the temple. So now I can discuss the plan because we have come to a decision.

Jeff and I moved here with the plans of buying our own home in two years. Once we moved here we fell in love so much with this ward and the members in it that we stopped discussing plans to move. Then we went through the year of the fire and miscarriages, and there was no extra anything to even consider moving an option.

The other day we found ourselves smack against the problem that we are not renting enough space for our family. Also we were reminded of our families goals to own some acres off in the boonies. With a new focus on our long term goals I went back to work, my main goal being to save a down payment to buy a home. This we planned would take 3-6 months of saving.

Several weeks ago we were contacted by a mortgage agent who seemed to have quite a good deal for us, but the deal ended in September. Thus we were left feeling that we could maybe get our home earlier then we planned if we closed by September. So we went house shopping and found the perfect home. Just as we were getting ready to make an offer we realised that the mortgage agent was offering a gimmick and we did not want to use this form of financing. Which again put the home buying plan off 3-6 months.

We defaulted back to the save for a few months then move plan, and were hopeful that the "perfect" home would still be on the market when we had pulled together enough savings.

Recently Granny has moved to Dee's home and we are now renting more of her house which makes us living her longer a much more practical plan.

I fond that while I was thinking about "my dream" to own a modest home on acres, and how close we were to obtaining it, I found that I was nervous. I did not feel settled about the plan we were working towards. I realised that the current financial status of our country makes me nervous about our ability to hold onto that home if we bought it. I do not know what bumps lie in the road ahead, and I was concerned with the current financial trend that I would loose my home as times got tougher. I did not want to get my dream home only to loose it during a financial bumpy time. For this reason I was feeling rather nervous over the plan to move.

I can not tell you how much owning a home on acres means to me. It has always been the "ultimate" future goal of our family since we were married. For me to put down this goal and set it aside was rather difficult for me. Jeff was feeling uneasy about the plan also, but was rather cautious to be as frank about his nerves because he knew how emotionally I was wrapped up in this plan. There have been a few times that I have joked that I will follow the Lord and do as he asks, until what he asks might stop my goal of getting a home, then I fear I would pick a home over him. Lol! So here I found myself stuck with that very choice. Continue with the plan to buy the home, and obtain the long awaited family goal. OR, trust your spirit when it tells you the plan is not good, and patiently put it aside for what the Lord wants you to do. Well it took me a week to be sure, but now I am.

We have decided not to move for about another two years. We will keep my extra job and Jeff will be getting another part time job also. In those two years we believe we can pay out of debt, finish building our long term food storage, and save of 5% down on a home. Also realestate market trends seem to suggest that homes will be less, or undervalued, at that time, also making it a good time to buy.

It may be that the people who buy the "good grapes house" (the name we gave the home we found, because of its vast amount of established grape vines with lovely grapes) by then will be experiencing financial hardship, and will entertain an offer for us to buy it from them, if we find we still want that very home the most.

I feel much more peace associated with this plan, I do not want to buy my dream home during a bad economy only to loose it. So we are staying here for another two years at this point.

Of course the upside to that is we get to have more time in this ward that we love :).

Jeanine

Adding an Update

2008-09-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hello, I have not found much time to blog in the last while. I have been in training with Alpine Access. The training process is very involved and there is not extra time to browse while at work, and when work is done I have a greater need to get away from the computer and be mommy.

Working at home and homeschooling is going great. I had my worries. This is how I make it all work.

Lock the kids in the dungeon!

LOL! not really!

In order to work at home one needs to meet the following requirement.

NO background noise. You can get fired if background noise is heard more then 3 times. FOR REAL!

Project: Keeping 4 fun loving happy kids as silent as little mouses from 8am-1pm EVERY week day?

Sound like a daunting task? This can be accomplished with the proper materials listed below.

1. Food glorious food (lots of it)
2. Separate space for the kids to play with as many closing doors as possible
inbetween you and them.
3. Computers (1 per child to be specific, much less then this and you run the risk of having knock down drag out fights that can be heard on your calls)
4. Learning games (so the time spent on the computer is not all waste)
5. A surprise bag (so you can pull out entertaining surprises when the children are having a hard time being happy and quiet)

This is what my day looks like.

Wake up - Feed & water chickens and plants. Wash a batch of dishes. Wash a batch of laundry. Eat.
Breakfast - assemble breakfast on the table for the kids so that they wake up to yummy food ready to eat.
Surprise - also place on the table today's entertainment surprise. Maybe something new. But also as effective is something old that has been put away out of reach. Books, learning games, computer learning CD's, crafts etc.
Lock up - close as many doors as you can on your way to your office.

Kids wake up to food and surprises and are self contained until it is about time for morning break.

Morning break - change any kids that need changed. Check on how the food was eaten. Clean up any food mess left. Assemble a snack on the table. Hug all the kids and listen to any complaints. Fix any computer problems the kids may be having. Find time to get a drink yourself or fit in a nature break. Rush back to your office closing all the doors. Log in for the next part of your shift.

Every break is like this.

Train your kids to come quietly into the office and wait to be signaled before speaking. If a child forgets this rule MUTE the phone.

End of the work shift. Log out. Turn off all computers, TV's and electronic entertainment equipment. After work time is live time, step away from the electronics.

Hug kids, listen to complaints, clean up snack mess, make lunch, get quality Mommy time in.

Family work time/ Family school time.

Send the kids off to play... and now take your break. Hopefully you will not crash out asleep on the bed, this will slow the rest of the day down :).

OH! did I forget the bribe??

I mentioned to the kids that Mama is working in order to help the family buy a home. If all the kids cooperate with Mama's work to buy a home then they also also get a reward...... A bunny! they could not be more thrilled. When we get to buy a home they get the reward of buying at least 1 White French Angora bunny. Which we will raise as an experiment to find out if we want to start breeding angora at the new farm.

OH the glorious computer! Nothing can entertain 4 crazy kids will as little mess, as little noise, as little fighting, as a computer. It is the perfect tool to enable the working mother some time to work. Just remember to use sparingly, turn them off when the work shift is done. Go outside and live and play when you can.

Now you know all about living and working and homeschooling at our home :)

Jeanine

Photos of People and Poultry

2008-06-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Time of the Ducklings

2008-06-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

Actually this story starts out with chicks. I found Welsummer chicks on sale at KSL.com and thought they were too cute. I Loved the color. I got 6 welsummer and 2 welsummer/ Americana mix. The man I got them from told me to go to IFA and get them some Chick started.

While at IFA I saw cute little baby turkeys and cute little baby ducklings (actually our ducklings had crested heads). How could I resist suck cute fluf? And it seems I was already in the poultry business. So I splurged and got one baby turkey and two yellow baby crested ducks.

They have a home in our Dog run, with two plastic Dog houses (holes drilled in the bottom to drain out any excess liquid). The Dog houses have hay spread on the bottom, and we added a light to keep the crew warm. While they were small we were concerned that they would hop through the chain link, But now they are too big. The back of my dog run has an open space where they can wander out of the run and into my back yard. They free range all over my back yard looking for yummy bugs, and living lots of great droppings all in the lawn, these droppings are high in nitrogen, so it is natural fertilizer :). Now when I hear commercials about fertilizer, I just think "get a chicken". On the radio they had an add that said "no one wants to be itchy and scratchy all summer. Get X product and get rid of annoying lawn bugs." What an add "What the? I think. Since when do lawns not have bugs? Goodness get a Chicken!"

A mama Duck and her baby duckling got stuck in our back yard somehow. She was trying to head west towards the Jordan river. My house is at the end of the subdivision before a BIG ROAD and on the other side of it (the west side) is the Jordan river. Trampled weeds could bee seen all around the yard from where Mama and her waddling trail of fluff and searched for a way out. There was not way out, except for a gate that was locked. Papa and I held a conference and decided we needed to do our own version of "Make Way for Ducklings". So just like the camera man in the book we became this little families escorts. We each got a long stick and used them to guide the family out of the bushes and to the back gate. Mama was rather reluctant to go out the back gate because of all the traffic. But after all that is where she had been trying to go all this time. Her babies hid in the last bush just inside the gate, also scared of the traffic. We gently coxed them out with the long sticks. Then we stood in the road with our hands up telling the traffic to stop, like traffic cops. As we guided the ducks across the street, darling children in the passing cars pressed their noses to the windows to get a good look. Down the street towards the river, across a small field, and into the rivers water, we guided Mama and her happy little balls of fluff. It is wonderful how these little ducklings follow their mother so dutifully. I wonder if mother duck can teach me how to get this type of obedience out of my children :). We had a fun family walk and adventure.

A Mommy duck was ran over by a car, leaving 8 motherless ducklings. I was not there when this happened but a friend of a fellow homeschooler was. So, last week at homeschool dance class I start talking about my ducks. This homeschool mother makes a B line across the waiting room floor and asks me if I would like to raise some orphaned ducklings, because they are trying to find a home for them. Would I? Goodness, not only would I love it, but my kids would love it, and my WHOLE neighborhood would love it!

Unfortunately these ducklings got sick and before I got them three of them died leaving five. The first night here two more die. The next day I go and buy some antibiotics for them and a better warming light. One still gets sickly. These pictures were taken before he died. Now we are down to only two ducklings, but they are on medicine and doing quite well.

Jeanine

Angel Baby #3, Family Planning

2008-06-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

Unfortunatly I just lost another baby at the end of May. As best I can tell this is Angel baby #3, but there may be 4. This miscarriage started rather early, I never knew I was pregnant untill my miscarriage started. I think I might not have realised that it was a miscarriage if I had not allready been through them, this was one for sure. For me this misscarriage has been totally different. For me it helped that I never 'knew' I was pregnant, and that it was so early, and especially because I 'let' it happen.

On my previous two miscarriages I fought against the miscarriage. I decided to believe that my pregnancy was only 'at risk' and if I tried EVERYTHING possiable maybe, just maybe, I could save the baby. Those were TORTURE. I spent my every min. thinking about the baby and how to save it. Loosing those babies was much more difficult.

Fortunatly this loss was mostly like a period that was a bit worse then normal.

There was one day where I sat despondant on the couch and did not get off of it all day, even though I had things I needed to do. That was the worst day. I also have not pused myself to do any work I do not want to, for now. I felt like I needed to go easy on myself at first. Thankfully I am feeling myself rise out of that.

"If you are going to loose your babies so easily... Why," you may ask, "dont you use some form of birth control?"

For me Birth Control is one of the most complicated health topics. Ever since Jeff and I were first married we practiced Natural Family Planning. This was our record for that time.

Baby #1 - 2+ years after merriage we decided we were ready to have a baby soon. We never made plans on when we wanted to get pregnant, that seemed to scary to do. So while we were still in the 'planning' phase we got careless about my cycle and got pregnant with baby #1.

Baby #2 two years after baby #1. I started having dreams about a dark haired dark eyed baby girl that belonged to me, and became EXTREEMLY baby hungry for a baby RIGHT NOW. So we tried to have a baby and had what I think was possiable my first misscarriage. Then three months after that we tried again and had Baby #2.

Baby #3 two years after baby #2. We decided we loved the spacing between baby 1 and 2 and planned to have baby #3 with the same spacing. Infact I was feeling so confident that I decided I wanted the baby to be born in Aug like his Papa and name him Jr. Well I miscalculated and this baby was born in July.

Child #4 While pregnant with baby #3 we found out we could adopt the beautiful dark eyed dark haired girl I dreamed about, she was now 3, She was born in the same month I had the dream about her. She is actually Child #2 by ages.

Angel Baby #2 Surprise an unplaneed pregnancy, we are totally excited. We replan our whole future to include this baby. Shortly after Baby #3 was born I felt strongly that another spirit wanted to have a body, so I felt that this pregnancy was this same spirit. I felt that I communed with this spirit and knew 'him', I strongly believed the baby was a he.

Angel baby #3 Surprise another unplanned pregnancy, this baby grows for almost three months like the one before. We are excited, but alas, things did not go as we hoped. Misscarriage was just like the one before

Angel baby #4 Just a few weeks ago, unplanned also. Lost the baby early-on before I 'Knew'I was pregnant.

You see for most of our married life we had the NFPing thing down. We could pick which months to get pregnant in, and when not to get pregnant. But something changed and now I do not seem to know my cycle well enough to avoid getting pregnant. Something else has changes also, I cant seem to carry the babies full term.

I WILL not use Chemical birth control this includes Spermacide, Pills and shots. I do not trust what they would do to my health, or my reproductive system. I will not fix my DH (he is not a dog). This only leaves the option of an IUD. I use to fear pregnancies that are valid with an IUD in and heard horor stories of babies being born with the IUD in the hand. Or the IUD causing a misscarriage after the baby grew for a while. Now I am concerned about the spiritual implication that the IUD might cause a woman to avoid pregnancy simply by 'aborting' all embrios. That basically the IUD makes it so the embrio will not implant even if it is fertalised. My soul struggles with this spiritual reality. I want ALL spirits to have a chance at life, ALL. I do not want to cause ANY spirit to loose that chance, ANY.

So I am at a paradox, loose a few babies through misscarriages because we have not been good at knowing our cycle for NFP. Or miscarriage unknown numbers of babies that do not have a chance to implant. Thus I remain in waiting and not making a decision. Maybe I need to go back to the basics of NFP, and do all the Newbie things to relearn my cycle. I think that is the best option. Then maybe I wont misscarry any because of an IUD or an unplanned pregnancy.

Jeanine

Could have guessed!

2008-03-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Curious George discovered that our printer is a scanner. He kept pushing the scan button and watching the lights move across the screen. I then showed him that if it was loaded with paper and he put his hand on the screen it would print a scan of his hand. Curious George was in love, as soon as the printer ran out of paper, can you guess what he did.....?

He started running around the house finding random objects to drop in the paper slot and see what the printer would do.

I love experiential learning !

now I know why....

2008-03-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

I had a great idea...

a Sandwich bar drawer in the fridge stocked with lots of fun sandwich makings so the kids could make their own sandwiches when they wanted to how they wanted to for lunch.

They ate all the pickles,

more then a pack of bologna,

dried out the bread though they only maybe ate two slices in total,
cut up all the tomatoes..
and left a mess everywhere
I thought it was a good idea too

Maybe after it is not so new they will get tired of eating bologna plain, and the idea will work better

My two Angel Babies

2008-03-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you fellow bloggers for checking in on me. The last post and this I think will be a part of a series of post in which I try to understand and resolve my feelings around the last year. That last entry did help.

I have been so dismayed, and felt that the Lords plan was not fulfilled in the miscarriage. I think it was a misunderstanding I had in interpretation of inspiration. I was inspired to give my baby boy a body, and to me that meant a life here on earth. Thus I proceeded to plan his future, and imagine him happily playing with his older brother.

I do not know if it was destiny or it it was just because of the weakness and imperfection of the mortal body. At any rate I feel strongly that the two-three months my son Jeffrey (named for his father) lived in my body were his chance at life. Other mothers have expressed their feelings that the miscarriage did not mean a loss of life for a spirit, and that the spirit had another chance to be born in their next child. Only for me there is not a next child, but I felt the spirit in me, this I can not deny. Thus if the spirit was given a body, though tiny and hidden away secretly in my body, and this body died, then the spirit went back to heaven, his earthly life over. I will not see it any other way. My spirit son lost his chance at an earthly life. Thus I felt sorrow that the Lords plans were wrecked. But instead it was my plans that were wrecked, my plans for another brother in the family. The Lords plan still was carried out, this dear spirit got his opportunity to have a body.

And my boy can know from heaven how deeply he was loved. I took as much time as possible to love him and morn him, I wanted him to know that his loss was also a great loss to me. I still pray that the angles will take good care of him, and love him, especially love him, for me. And I pray that they will care for and love my 2nd baby I miscarried afterwards. These two angles are being raised by angles.

I can not explain how I pleaded with the angles, how I told them I did not want them to raise these two babies, how I planned to raise these two spirits, and what I would give up in order to have that opportunity back. But alas, now, I am left to pray for their care. Not that I worry it will be sufficient, but because I want to be a part of it. And, I want these two wonderful spirits to know I love them still, and still care for their well being.

I do not know if I have three angle babies or not. My first miscarriage happened in the first two weeks, before I even knew to test to see if I was pregnant. I seem to feel that the ovum was blighted enough to not produce another valid host for a spirit, in some funny way that is my hope. No, that is my belief I believe there are two angel babies I carried, not three, though I have experienced three miscarriages.

MamaJean

My Anxious Little Angel Boy

2008-02-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

Shortly after my young 2yo son was born I had the strong feeling that my family was not complete. That an anxious little boy was waiting up in heaven to get the opportunity to have a body. This impression never left me. Each month when I was fertile I could feel the call to get pregnant and give this anxious boy spirit a body. I was not shy in telling others this. Already I had four children "enough" by the social standard and people around were starting to put pressure on me to be happy with only my four. At each of these moments I told them with complete confidence that I knew one more child was to come into my family. I stopped short of saying one more boy, for that fact seemed to be between me and the Lord.

IamCurious was born in July of 2005 and in October of 2006 I found myself unexpectedly pregnant again. Normally our family tries to get pregnant after the "baby" of the family is two, thus spacing the children out by three years. This was a surprise. We do natural family planning, and this was the first surprise we had in eight years.

I am having a hard time focusing to write this because of the anxiety symptoms I am experiencing while writing this.

I was so overjoyed. I felt that I was a helpmeet to the Lord, and that the Lord had given me a baby inspite of our best efforts, because he knew what was best for me and the baby.

Never before in any of my pregnancies have I felt like I knew the personality of my child, the way I felt I knew the personality of this darling little boy. I would giggle at his sense of humor. He was considerate enough of me to "pick" to be born in August as I dearly wanted him to be. But the anxious little thing decided it was a good compromise if he got to pick his year, for I would have planned to have him in August a year later. I felt his little spirit at all times, many times when I was alone I would close my eyes and feel his spirit. It was a strong unique spirit that was determined and funny. I would tell everyone, with joy, that I could not wait for this little spirit to be born so I could meet him. And thus happily I went about the early month and a half of pregnancy.

I made cute little turtle ornaments, inorder to announce to the extended family that did not already know, that we were expecting again. The turtle has always been a symbol of my inutero babies because when my mother was expecting me, my sisters told her I must be a turtle because I was taking so long.

Unfortunately on Christmas day things took a change for the worst. My body was thrown into a miscarriage. And that is all I can seem to write about for now.

Hoping to get some sleep.
MamaJean

This just warms my heart!

2008-02-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

Tumbalinas newest blog entry is so cute.

"I am adopted, my name is Tumbelina. I am thinking of getting a snake, but mom wont let me. I'm 6 and a half, I'm in first grade. That's all."

For homeschool we were learning how to spell the word Love just before she started her blog. She was so cute about wanting to write about her family that she loved. At first I was not sure that she was even writing in her blog so I asked her what she was writing about and she chimed in "my family" in the sweetest way.

Her first entry said this " My favorite Mama is Mama. My favorite sister is Hugs and Angel. And my favorite Mama is Mama, *giggle* *giggle* *giggle*, that's so funny. ( "Again" Angel says. "Yes that's because I love her so much" Says Tumbelina) And my favorite brother is Curious George, the cute little face ."

This really means something. Considering the fact that she lived in nine homes before she lived permanently with us (when she was about three years old).

One of the best things that has come of this blogging is to give Tumbelina an outlet to just be herself. She is so eager to please and fit in that she runs in circles around Angel trying to be just like her. Many times she wants what Angelic wants, her favorite color is what Angelic's favorite color, and when ever Angelic is complemented she tries to do exactly what Angelic did so that she can get a complement also. But when we started blogging, she answered truthfully about her own likes and dislikes. It is a nice way for her to express her uniqueness without worrying about fitting in so much.

Jeanine

Drum Talk - Off to a good start

2008-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

This last summer my BF Kerry called me up and told me about a great homeschool activity called Drum Talk , meeting at a near by park. Kerry and I are always interested in good ways to teach our children about music. This was only a few days after my house fire. And I had just washed my hair in some experimental hair thing that made my hair look like it was covered in Vaseline, even after three washes! But I was so excited I went anyways, I just wrapped my hair up tight and hoped noone noticed.

We loved George Grants interactive and fun way of teaching music. George is an expert in drums and has traveled the world learning to drum from different cultures. George talked about the current trend in teaching music, teach theory and notes first. George said this most often this leads to musicians who can play alone, but can't keep in rhythm with a group.

Kerry and I both did Marching band, and we saw firsthand how having a sense of rhythm made all the difference in a performance.

George starts with fun ways to learn the rhythm, until you become the rhythm. (at least that is how I put it.)

Watch this homemade Drum Talk Video and see the progression of simple activities, that seem strange, yet develop a great sense of rhythm and ability to drum.

George starts at the simple basics of the drum words and then carries it out to where the students are learning to read music, but the rhythm is established before they read music.

For Kerry and I this was the perfect way to teach music, inexpensive materials and support for the parent to learn first and teach to the child. Teaching the most foundational music theory and building up in a fun way that you don't have to force on your children. No "But, mom do I have to practice?" around here. It is one big interactive game. Our kids love it.

Angel

2008-01-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Angel

A.K.A. Perfect Little Angel, Lil' Helper, Angel (when I type it wrong :), Wendy, Oldest Daughter, 8yoDD.

Hi, I'm Angel. I have brown hair. Oh, I mean honey blond, Blue eyes and peach skin.

I'm starting to get a love of reading. One of my favorite books is Three Stories You can Read to Your Cat. The reason why is because it reminds me of my little brother Curious George. I HIGHLY suggest you read that.

My favorite color is baby blue, and baby pink. (She just much like babies.)

My Aunt Christine had a baby named Skylin.

My favorite candy is Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. My best friend is Khali. We've been friends since I was two, and she was one.

I'm working on earning enough money to buy a best friend necklace. After we save up enough money to go to a trip to the zoo.

Did I say I was eight years old? When I was baptised into the L.D.S. Church I felt a large spot of mistakes I have done, come off of my sholder.

When I grow up I would like to be a scientist, or a zoo keeper, or a really good ballerina. Thats all.

Love, Little Angel

Tumbelina

2008-01-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

Tumbelina

A.K.A. Tumbler, Best Acrobat in the world, Artist, Wall Climber, Head Stander, Tiger Lilly, Second Daughter, 6yoDD

Hi, I'm The Best Wall Climber. I LOVE Chocolate. I'm six. And I slipped (she says on the floor).

I have no tooth in the middle of my mouth. My Papa put a string on the door knob and my Mama put a rag on her shoulder. And my Papa tied the string to my, um, tooth. And then it fell out. And the Tooth Fairy didn't take my tooth. But I got the money.
And I copy myself allot.

I have brown skin, the darkest eyes of ever, and black hair. Where does my black hair go to. Um, right here, it goes to the middle of my back. And soon I hope my hair gets down to my tippy toes.

My favorite Mama is Mama. My favorite sister is Hugs and Angel. And my favorite Mama is Mama, *giggle* *giggle* *giggle*, thats so funny. ( "Again" Angel says. "Yes that's because I love her so much" Says Tumbelina) My favorite animal is horses. My favorite color is pink. And my favorite brother is Curious George, the cute little face .

Um, for fun, for fun, for fun (she is thinking of what she likes to do for fun). I LOVE to sneak. I want to tell them more about that stuff. Write that! Um, So... Can I give you a hug Mama, write that down.

I'm good at scaring Curious George. I'm good at waking up in the morning. I wake up before everyone else in the house, and nobody's awake. How can you type that fast Mama?

Some day I hope I have a kitten. I hope I can be um, a, dentist.

When it is scripture time I sit down and listen. I read perfectly in the scriptures. And I love helping Curious George.

Good-bye
Wall-Climber

Hugs

2008-01-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

HUGS

AKA. Best Hugger, Hug-a-lot, Hug-a-lot bear, Tinkerbell, Third Daughter, 5yoDD

Hi! I am Best Hugger. I'm 5, I have blond hair, blue eyes, and peach skin. And my favorite color is purple, actually that's just one, and another one of my favorite colors is pink, and another is green, light green, and another one of my favorite colors is rose red. That's all, Oh, Wait, that is not all, I have baby blue too. That's all of my favorite colors, I have allot.

I Like purple roses. One thing I like to do is draw princesses. Uh huh!

Ok, Let me think. My favorite animal is a koala. That's why I asked for a koala from Santa. And it was a Webkins.

Let me think again. And draw cute animals is one of my favorite things. Let me think, because I have to think out loud. And.... I said And (Mama forgot to start typing when she started talking :), And I like to play dress-ups with my friends. That's all my favorite things to do.

What I like to do in homeschool is, I like to read books.

I want to be when I grow up, um... (her eyes are looking up at the ceiling while she thinks), I want to be a captain of a ship.

That's all I want to say, Good-Bye
Hugs

Curious George

2008-01-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

Curious George

A.K.A. Curious, The Cute Face, Bob the Builder, Peter Pan, Fish (from Chicken Little), The Boy, Little Man, 2yoDS

"Hello, Hi, Hello and Hi." Says Curious

What do you look like: Curious George

What color is your hair: Uh, Blond. *giggle* I have a blond hair.

What color are your eyes: Uh Green, (actually they are blue :)

How old are you: He holds up two fingers.

What do you like to play with: Trains.

Tell me more about your trains: Thomas, um my remote control train.

Where did you get your trains from: From Santa

Can you tell me about Santa: Santa? I don't know his name (*giggle*). The kids, I talked about Santa. I says "can I have a train Santa?" And Santa says "yes you can have a train. But curious George is going to be happy." Curious says "Uh Huh, I am going to be happy Santa, I know."

Can you tell me what animals you like: How about a lion. I got lions and lions, bof of lions, I got couple of lions, and kitty cats, (he blinks his eyes cute)

"You good pushing your buttons." He says to me about my typing

"I'm tired, I'm tired of Santa. I want to lay down with my blanket."

Curious George lays down for a little while with his silky, his sippy cup, a pillow, a blanket, and a loving kiss from his Mama (that's the life :). And after a short while he says "I got to keep building (he is dressed as bob the builder) I got to turn on the light".

Thank you Curious George for talking good.

Flipped for Sea Monkeys!

2008-01-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

In The Beginning

Papa plays an online game that he has to check into often to feed his troops. He started calling his troops his sea monkeys, he would say things like "got to go feed my sea monkeys" etc. My children started asking questions, which of course, in true Homeschool fashion, lead to us owning pet sea monkeys.

Just Follow the Instructions Carefully...

We carefully read over the instructions, and followed them to a T. Within a few days "OH JOY" we had teeny tiny little wiggly dots. We watched those dots grow into specks, then specks with tails, then creatures, then creatures with wings, then we could see the spindles of the wings. The first dot did lots of loop-de-loops and grew bigger then many of the others, we called him Squiggly. Then we got another named Nemo, and finally the runt was named Pinocchio. We had nine sea monkeys live to adult hood, and were surprised when they first started to mate. We called it getting married, and wondered if the mated pair would always stay stuck together. The did not, and afterwards the tank was swarming with lots of little wiggly dots. We began to imagine with delight the tank full of wiggling pink creatures.

But What if the Instructions are Too Simple...

But day after day we noticed the wiggling dots got fewer and fewer, until there were no more left. I thought that maybe they were being eaten because the adults were under fed, but feeding did not seem to make a difference. None of our thousands of babies were living, we still had the original 9. I know the solution....

Buy more stuff...

Our Ghostly Gallon came shipped from Amazon in a large and colorful box. The kids were jumping up and down as I opened it with anticipation. This set came with an aqua leash, a million bubble wand, and a plasma packet, not to mention a few cool extras like a built in light and glow in dark tank we were TOTALLY SET UP!

The Master Plan..

Set up the Ghostly Gallon with the starter packet 1.

Let it sit over night, just like the instruction say.

Then... Transfer the our 9 monkeys to the ghostly gallon, because it is cooler.

Put the egg pack in the original plain tank.

Wait for the eggs to hatch wiggly dots.

Wait for the wiggly dots to grow up to medium small monkeys.

Transfer the larger sea-monkeys to the Ghostly Gallon.

Thus diversifying the population.

Continue to keep the babies separate from the adults.

The Best Laid Plans of Monkeys and Men...

When we transferred the adult monkeys they swam and squiggled much more then normal, it scared us, we thought they were experiencing throws of pain and death. We quickly transferred them back. Sea-Monkey #1 bites the dust, or maybe not, is it an Elvis Monkey? I think we squished Elvis with the aqua leash, he (actually a she, our largest she) curled up and laid on the bottom of the tank almost lifeless. But close examination showed us that he was still alive. IDEA! The Plasma said that it was like medicine for the sea monkeys. We added one recommended larger scoop to the tank. Guess what? All the sea-monkeys started to dance around the tank. Same as before when we put them in the ghostly gallon but we read or learned that they move faster if the salt level is right. Elvis got better and started dancing also....

Is it a Ghost Monkey?

But the next morning Elvis was sited again on the bottom of the tank, dead. And we counted only 8 monkeys. Did we throw away the monkey body, we don't remember, why did it show back up later, or maybe it didn't, did Elvis even die? GHOST MONKEY TO BE CONTINUED...

Back on Track...

The new eggs got the plush new ghostly gallon, because we were to timid to try moving the original 9 again. And they loved it and thrived, baby wiggly dots everywhere. I think almost three dozen lived to medium size. We got up our courage to again transfer the medium babies over to live with the adults.

Was that Elvis?

Before we transferred the medium babies, DH counted the adult sea-monkeys..... There were 9 again. Was that Elvis? Your guess is as good as mine... The medium monkeys lived well with the larger monkeys. All was good and happy...

And Then..

Two of our older sea-monkeys mated, shortly afterwards little babies dots filled the tank. I started the great sea-monkey baby rescue. And that is when I made the #1 mistake that kills sea-monkeys. Once all the 2nd set of babies were out of the ghostly gallon I started to transfer over the original 9 and the largest of the medium sea-monkeys, so that the new babies in our plain red tank could get a chance to live. When I transferred them over they seemed to HATE the fact that the bottom of their tank was not littered with gunk, or what ever settles to the bottom. Earlier we decided that the strange upside down dance the monkeys did on the bottom of the tank was all in search of food. So, I thought the solution was simple, simply add a large amount of food to the water and let it settle to the ground so they can play in it like they seem to like.

BIG MISTAKE...

First we lost Pinocchio, my youngest and most emotional daughters favorite. Mine too, he was so red, large, "fluffy" and beautiful.... Well, large and beautiful for a sea-monkey. Then we lost Squiggly, Nemo, and our 2nd favorite, a large male with a wonderful crown of fringe on his head. Sob!

"That is what you get for naming fish food" DH says.

We also lost a few medium ones. All the monkeys that were "suspected" to be dead were placed in a paper cup with a small amount of water. Then all of us took a death watch over them, hoping one, any of them would just wiggle a little bit and show us they were alive still. We left the cup out on the counter over night, to sad to flush them. The next morning "Two are wiggling" exclaims my second daughter. They revived and continue to live happy lives, such survivors. But we lost seven of our nine adults. Now we have about a dozen medium ones, and a hand full of wiggly specks of babies. Almost back where we started.

Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

.... But Elvis Still Lives ... See my Side Bar

My Friend The Monster

2008-01-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

My Friend The Monster

Our vacuum is a monster
Who gobbles up the dirt.
He gulps up paper, strings, and grass
As if they were dessert.

He pokes his nose in corners
And under every chair.
And all the little cookie crumbs
Had better just beware!

He roars across the carpet
And flips his tail behind;
Then sneaks around a table leg
To see what he can find.

And though he’s always gulping
Whatever he can see,
He’ll always be my monster friend

And never swallow me.

Janet R. Balmforth, “My Friend the Monster,” Friend, Oct 1972, 15

Our Morning Devotional at the start of the year.

2008-01-09T10:41:00.000-08:00

For our devotional we have been memorizing this poem That Really Matters Poem. My 8yo knows it all, my 6yo can read it all with the help of her memorization of the poem, my 5yo knows most of it, and my 2yo even quotes much of it with us when we are saying it. We started memorizing this before Christmas now we just review it in devotional.

We just finished reading various books about good character that we got for Christmas. And we just finished reading The Life of Our Lord by Charles Dickens.

We are learning these songs in our devotional right now We Are Different and Friends Are Fun.

That Really Matters

2008-01-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

That Really Matters

My mother says she doesn't care
About the color of my hair.
Or if my eyes are blue or brown.
Or if my nose turns up or down.
It really doesn't matter.

My mother says she doesn't care,

If I'm dark or if I'm fair,
Or if I'm thin or if I'm fat.
She says she doesn't care
for things like that.
It really doesn't matter.

But, if I cheat or tell a lie,
Or do mean things to make folks cry,
Or if I'm rude or impolite
And do not try to do what's right,
Then, that really does matter.

It isn't looks that makes one great,
It's character that seals your fate.
It's what's you are
within your heart, you see,
That makes or mars your destiny.
And, that really does matter.

Author Unknown