Monday, April 28, 2008

What's been happing around here

Well, my life has been kind of crazy and my blogging has been put to a hold for awhile. So here is what's been happing here for about a month.

*I had been intently cleaning my house for our upcoming Holydays (which takes weeks). My life was so focused on getting it done that many things got put off.

* I had my best friend (Ginger) get married on April 11th and most of her close friends didn't even HAVE a clue she was having a long distance relationship going for awhile and then one day(Kevin) just packed all his things up from (Montana, where he lived) and drove straight here for her. Well, that surprise ended up them being engage a week later and married several weeks on from that. So, I planned a bachorlette evening for her so we could have time with her and NEWS on what all just HAPPENED. Mr. Bachelor (Kevin) could not be many hours away from her and HAD to drop her off the restaurant to see if it was an ok place for him to trust us with her. I almost got mad since he thought I would do something a line of craziness. Well, as she was telling us some other BIG news, she also mentioned that she is going to have a private wedding and ONLY immediate family was invited. I just sat there in my chair holding back sobs, for we have been child hood friends (since 3) and I felt hurt and had to hold it in. I didn't want to say anything since it was her wedding not mine and I didn't want to hurt my best friend. I HAD to accept it like it or not. Her sister planned a bridal shower the day before she got married and I had so hard of time seeing those "newly weds, who couldn’t be separated,” and on how much I have lost my connection to my friendship with her. It sure put me in depression for awhile.

*We finally had our Holydays and had to do potluck cooking/Sabbath cooking for many days in a row. We had several days of late nights and full days as church services. I performed two songs in our local Ensemble choir and was working on getting ready for our next performance.

* I have been doing pre-school as much as I can and Ashley has dance lessons on Thursday afternoons. Ashley is reading many books now and we are about ready to start two vowel words by the end of this summer. I have been planning out things that I need to order for school next year and what all classes I want her to be put in with "Home Source". I think I will be spending about $150 for the girls this year. Most of what I will purchase will be used with my other children too, so it is not all bad to think about it that way. We will be starting school in Aug. sometime officially for Kindergarten since I will have many things throughout the year that will be given days off. But our school work now is going fine and I will be going through summer with her reading.

* Last week a big tragedy happened with two of my chicks. I aloud my girls to be in the chicken coop (box) in our garage for a little and I went inside to do sometime and came back five minutes later to the door and called my children in. I went out to check on my chicks and I found two chicks in their dirt box dead. I immediately yelled at my children "what just happened" and yelled at them "you killed them" over and over with great sobs with hurtful feelings toward my children. For the first time in my life I fully lost control and I was red in the face and made them confess and sent them to bed. I called John, (in sobs) that our children just killed two of MY chicks (my pets) and one other chick is missing and couldn't get an answer out of the girls what they did with the other chick. I went all around in my garage thinking they shoved the chick in a box somewhere and was searching in rage for this chick. I had the garage door open for a few minutes and thought maybe it snuck out without me seeing it. So, I went searching all around our yard and neighbors yards and couldn't find it. I finally gave up and went in my girl’s room and asked them again what they did with the chick and both didn't answer and I just got up and said you just lost your dinner for the night and told them goodnight. I so needed a break from my children so *I* could calm myself down. I got the whole confession the next day on how they were holding the chicks and they more a less chocked them to death. We also, the next morning found the lost chick, which came out of hiding place back behind our washer/dryer all limping and looked cold. I picked her up and put her in the box with the other three chicks and turned on their heat lamp. As, I looked closer at this chick I saw that she wasn't able to move her head much and I wondered if her neck was somewhat broken. I don't really know how this one got injured but by several days past she was able to move her head more and eat properly. She is fully recovering now and can't tell she had this injury any more. The lesson I learned here is that, NEVER allow young children without supervision to hold anything that is fragile. My girls are BAND for even touching the chicks for quite some time now. I'm not sure when I can feel like I trust the girls again with the chicks. We all did our sorry’s the next day and many long talks of what they just did too. All is better, and I'm able to talk about it with much more ease and *LOVE* with my children now.

* Yesterday we worked all day on building the chicken coop. We finally got the outside fencing done and I can put them out during the day and bring them in at night since the building part is not finished and they have no inside cover. I have just temporally put a tarp tent in so they have a place to go when it is raining. I think they are quite enjoying their run and they have seemed to be more a challenge to collect for the night too.

*It is John and I anniversary (7yrs) tomorrow. We plan on going this weekend, for the first time since we have had our children, a getaway for the parents. We are going to the coast for two nights and driving up to Vancouver, Wash. to go to church there for our Sabbath, while our good friend (Rebecca) will stay at our house for those two days and also take the girls to church. I will tell more details more next week after we've gone.

That is pretty much the news you missed so far since my last update.


d so far since my last update.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Update on chicks

Just thought to update on the photo's of our month old chicks. We are letting them go outside and roam when the weather is nice and spring like. They have grown very fast and is still growing like a weed. They like to fly to the top of their box and use it as there perch now. We are in the process on working on building their outside coop.


Roaming outside.....
Girls love to hold them still



Being chickens and scratching at everything



Finding yummy bugs to eat....


Friday, March 28, 2008

Ashley dance recital

Ashley with her teacher


Two weeks ago Ashley had her very first dance recital for her Tap/Ballet class. This was a special occasion for the parents to see what their child was doing and of course we got plenty of photo's and video tape of it. We went and bought her a brand new outfit for her performance(she picked the outfit). As a mother, I felt very honored to see my precious little girl perform with great enthusiastic attitude. The teacher told us that she loves that she is not shy and will just pipe up to go first and has great spunk. As a mother who loves her daughter very much, thought to buy her some flowers for a treat at the end of her performance. She was dressed up for her class at the store and wanted to show everybody what she was wearing(a little conceded she is). She wanted everybody to see how beautiful she is. As we got to her class they had a 15 minute practice before performance and all the parents just stood outside the doors and waited for them tho be done. Hannah was very excited too, but she was wanting to perform too in her ballet outfit.
The performance was an hour long and we got to enjoy all the kids perform in this class. Ashley made friends in this class and she asked if we could sign her up again, and that is what we did. Her spring term class starts tomorrow. I have many pictures to share to you all.





Pretending to swim


After her performance pictures




Ashley being funny with her teacher


It's ballet time.....





Just being herself



What a ballerina you are




Ready to pose anytime



Dancing to their tap song

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

It's working now

Just wanted you to now that anybody can make commits on my blog here now. Sorry, I didn't realize it was turn off to public users. So make comments.....If you please.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Chicks

Our newest members of our family are adorable and quite MESSY! I wanted to raise chickens this year and have been longing for adventures of some farm life I can have in the city. I told John I really want to live on a farm and have goats, chickens, and some sheep, and horses. Maybe someday I will live on a land that I can farm on. You are allowed to have six hens in the city limits so I'm taking full advantage of me getting somewhat of a farm I can get. We got the chicks on Wednesday (after our field trip). I was told to get," White Horn Chickens ", for I wanted egg layers. They will produce more eggs more than other breeds. So, here we are with little chicks in our kitchen, in a card board box with a heat lamp on them. When we first got them they had no feathers to be seen and now their feathers have grown into almost to their backside. They are a week and half old now. They are also getting little stubs of feathers growing on their backsides for their tails. Yesterday, they started to jump up and flap their wings to get some air and I watch in amusement that they are growing so fast each day. John deided to experiment on what they will do with some dried up flower buds with a little stem on them and dropped it in the box. WOW!! They all of the sudden became a football show, watching them running with the flower buds while others are trying to take it away and tackle the other one. One would get it and others would tackle and grab it for themselves and it just went on tell the buds were all gone. We just laughed and wished we had this on video tape. It was so funny and the girls just laughed so hard that they were falling over with excitement. Our girls are constantly asking to hold the chicks, but of course we have already taken some days away from them to hold, as a punishment for not leaving them along in the box or treating them not nicely while holding them. It has been a constant battle for them to listen to me about the rules to having the chicks in the house.

I had one chicken when I was younger and I only had it for two weeks or less before it died. I think I should have gotten more since I think it wasn't kept warm correctly with help of other little bodies to huddle with. So, I get paranoid at night when all is quiet in the box and run to them checking if they are all breathing. They are like nursing babies and sleep all lot, and eat, and POOP all the time. I make sure I get them out at least twice a day to experience other things and mostly I am trying to tame them as my pets. I pet them on my lap and have them cuddle up with me and sleep away all cuddled up in my arms and hands. They have already becoming more laid back and wanting to be cuddled more with me. The girls are too bouncing and can't sit still real long so they can't get them calmed down to much yet on their laps. I will name them soon, if even I need to put food coloring on their back ends to know who is who at this age. We have plenty of wood to build a big size coop and they will have an inside building and an outside area for them to run around soon I hope. I have been taking plenty of pictures so far, so I will share some of them.




My girl night pizza party pictures of friends...you now who you are.

Huddled together in the hand of Christine




My time with them and working on taming them....also an intrigued cat




Pictures of the girls and the chicks








Friday, March 14, 2008

Upcoming Story of our new additions to family

Stay tuned this Sunday....
I will be posting pictures of our new additions to our family," six baby chicks". This is the second half of our story happened on Wednesday.