Happy Birthday To Me

I am now officially closer to 40 than 30. I had a birthday last week and wanted to share with my friends and family the lovely cake that my family made for me. They had a good time shopping with dad that day while I got to stay home and be on the computer uninterrupted for a couple of hours. It was strange and quiet here. I am not sure I like that. Even B#7 slept while they were gone. B#5 asked me what kind of cake I wanted so I told him that all they had to do was buy a box of Zingers(you do know what Zingers are don't you?) and line them up in a cake pan with a candle. Easy enough. Well apparantly there was a run on Zingers that day because they could not find a box of them anywhere. After several attempts they came up with the idea of making a vanilla cake with raspberry filling to duplicate Zingers. Then at their last stop they found some single packages of Zingers to put on the top of the cake. So WA LA, my Zinger cake.....

Everything Grows and Grows

One of our favorite children's tapes is by Raffi. We have been listening to Raffi for 17 years now, ever since B#1 was a baby. My sister in law introduced us to Raffi and we love to sing the Bubble song to the kids while they are taking a bath...okay, not the big ones anymore. Anyway, I digress...one of Raffi's songs says "everything grows and grows, babies do, animals too, everything grows". How true that is. Below is a picture of B#2's gander, Shem. He is now about 2 weeks old. His neck is still so soft though. I will try to get some updated pictures of the goats and ducks later since it is actually sunny today. I can hear the wonderful sound of the lawnmower as I type:)

Everything Grows and Grows

A Day for babies

Today has been a day for babies for us...the girls came in this morning to inform me that Otis(aka Rotunda) had four kittens in the compost bin of all places. I guess it is nice and warm in there?!? Then a dear friend who had taken one of our previous milk goats called to let us know that she had her babies today. We were very excited about that as we get to keep the sweet little doe. Now we will have a doe and a buck that we can breed for more babies....we love babies around here:) All of this on B#7's 7th month birthday.

who says homeschoolers aren't socialized?

On Sunday some good friends of ours came over for lunch after church. Between our two families there were 17 children and all of them play together regardless of age. Isn't that what really being socialized is all about? The ability to get along well with others outside of your own age group, that is what I call socialization.

Rotunda

I have been wanting to have some updated pics of the ducks and geese on here but haven't managed to get any taken. I need to do it quick as they end up fully feathered within a few weeks and aren't as cute anymore...B#4's duck did make it through the night and is doing great(phew!!!) Anyway, this is Rotunda(not her real name). The story behind Rotunda, which is my name for her, is that she started out as an Otis. The girls told me that our new kitties were males but as time went on we realized that they were actually females but we didn't change her name from Otis. Now Otis(do we dare call her Otisina?) is pregnant and should have her babies any day now. She has always been a bit rounder than her sister, Olivia(pictured on right), but now has definitely earned the nickname that I gave her of Rotunda.

Otis the cat, Rotunda the fat.

Gentle and sweet, pudgy and neat.

She waddles around; Till our laps she's found

purring and pawing; scratching and clawing;

Till she falls asleep;

We stroke her and scratch her, enjoying the rest;

Here on the chair with the cat we love best;

And one day soon her kittens we'll meet;

With Otis as mother their sure to be sweet.

There's nary a kitten, nary a cat, who could ever be

Like Rotunda the fat.

By B#2,3 and 4

The Mennagerie Grows

I remember when the girls first mentioned getting Geese...dad said no way...too mean. Well B#2 made an appeal to dad that if she couldn't gentle the geese that she wanted we would get rid of them. Dear dad agreed so today they picked up the long awaited geese along with 4 Khaki Campbell ducks. Everything was going along "swimmingly":), until one of the silly little ducks decided to try eating some wood shavings. She swallowed one that was just too big so B#2 tried giving her some water and mineral oil with a syringe. Then I come along to the scene trying to be helpful:) and dropped the poor little gal from several feet up. So far she is still alive, amazingly. We will see if she lasts through the night....

Little Man of Many Interests

B#5 is quite a character...He is a smart little man who already understands multiplication at 7 and keeps me on my toes in the math department. He looks up to his big brother and is interested in anything that B#1 is interested in. Since big brother got a gun for his birthday, B#5 thought he should have one too so he made this one out of a wrapping paper tube, tape and string. I think he did an amazinly accurate job of it too. Knowing his interest in guns, knives, hunting and all things Boy, imagine our surprise when he wanted to learn to play the violin. Big sister, B#3 is teaching him and doing a good job of it. Yea, there is something of me in him....not that I can play an instrument but that I love violin music. Maybe all that Vivaldi music made a difference:)

quick update...

I have had some different thoughts running around in my mind of what I want to write about but nothing solid yet. I spent most of yesterday reading through a book that was given to me by my great friend Maria from the Maxwell's conference called Managers of their Chores so I haven't had much time to write. I am still working on reading it but I am very excited about implementing it. I tend to be a person who loves to be scheduled, not that I have figured out how to make that work yet but I would really do much better with a schedule. Dear Husband on the other hand isn't necessarily a scheduled kind of guy so somewhere we need to find the balance. Anyway, thoughts running through my head these days are...excitement over our family devotion time and finding the balance of keeping our children's hearts and legalism. I had a long conversation with a good friend on this subject and just want to clarify my thoughts on it before writing about it.

Maxwell's conference

Wow!!! What a good time we had last night at the Maxwell's conference. Dear Husband wasn't really sure what to expect or really who the Maxwells were but he knew that I was excited about them coming so he was fine with going. The church was utterly packed with people from all over and I got to see ladies that I haven't seen in a while. That was an added blessing. Anyway the conference ended at 9:30 with an absolutely wonderful little mini concert by the Maxwell family(we love bluegrass) but we were too keyed up to sleep so we stayed up talking until about 1:00am with dh having to be up for work at 5:00am. Their messages and testimonies were such a blessing to our family. Even the kids had a good time. B#5 came to me after the conference asking if we could by some of the picture chore things that the lady was talking about(Managers of their Chores) and guess what...a wonderful friend of mine bought it for our family. We are so excited to try it out. More learning in my future...I could go on but I would just say that if you are reading this and have kiddos at home check out their website www.titus2.com and materials, especially the book "Keeping Your Child's Heart". You will be blessed by it all as we were.