R & R

On the second day of preschool Wesley brought home something special. Something that has traveled around our house and brought with it lots of misery. He brought home some blasted virus. For two weeks now there has been the lovey sound of coughing, hacking, sneezing and crying. Wesley got it first, then Greta, then Sean and now me. The kids magically got over it fairly quickly with just the residual cough still coming from Wesley. But Sean and I have discovered our immune systems might not be up to par with what preschool can dish out. Talk about being miserable. I haven't been able to talk in four days now. I'm hoarse from coughing so much. I whisper now. Wesley constantly leans in to hear me and then asks "Why are we whispering, Sissy isn't sleeping?". This totally sucks and I hope this horrid virus leaves our house soon. Yet, as bad as this is, preschool is still worth it.

Sean's parents left on Saturday to head back to New Mexico. I'm glad to report they somehow didn't get sick. I'm so thankful! They stayed with us for a full week and we miss them dearly. It was so nice to see them and the kids adore them. I truly wish we lived closer so that we could get together more than once or twice a year. But Thanksgiving will be here before we know it and we'll get to see all of Sean's family. Can't wait!

That's all that's happening around here, I'll just share some pictures from when Randi and Rich were here. I'm off to drug myself up with NyQuil (love that stuff) and hopefully get some sleep. (mumbling to myself....preschool's still worth it....preschool's still worth it)


Wesley was in hog heaven with fresh new people to chase him


Some of my favorite people


The mouse babies were released last week, goodbye and good luck!


Rich preformed an energy audit on our house while he was here, somehow the house passed. Surprised me.


Every hour of the day is a good time to swing, according to Greta


Happy

Best Birthday Picture. Ever.

My father and Greta share a birthday so we celebrated his Birthday on Tuesday. They came over for some tasty dinner and pie (and NCIS premiere). I made Dad wear Wesley's party hat and Greta wear hers. Needless to say she wanted no part of it. This picture will go down in family history. Hilarious.

The After Vasectomy Sale!

Do you know what the best part of the vasectomy has been? The fact that we don't need any of this baby stuff anymore. Therefore the first (and only) "after vasectomy sale" is in full swing. I have gone through this house and piled up all of the stuff that we no longer need and I have to admit that the pile was quite large. Then I divided the crap stuff into two categories: Craigslist sales and eBay sales. Craigslist got the big stuff, stuff that would be nearly impossible to ship, things like the jumperoo, bassinet, breast pump and car seats. Ebay got the small stuff like maternity clothes, front packs and other light things. It has gone so well! I'm not even finished and I've made over $400. It's nice to get some return on the massive investment that went into having babies. Besides making some money it has been very satisfying getting rid of the clutter in this house. I highly recommend an "after vasectomy sale" to everyone done with babies!

Month Twelve: Happy Birthday!

Dear Greta,
You turn one year old today. My how this year has flown by. My little girl is growing up too fast. You are just the light of my life and can't imagine our family without you and your mischievous little grin. One year ago today at precisely 10:49 am you came into this world and made our little family of three into a family of four. Things were crazy in the beginning (as they usually are) but we quickly settled into a routine. Months went by and you grew into a bubbly, happy baby. Things got easier and life returned to normal (or at least a new kind of normal). Now you can move and move you do! You get where ever you need to be and are thrilled with the mobile developments. You are my little miss independent! Oh and you love your older brother. You light up around him and follow his every move, scooting around as fast as you can to keep up with him. I know you can't wait until the day you can run with him. Your father and I absolutely adore you and can't wait to see you turn into an amazing woman. Happy Birthday little one!

Now for the pictures. I have fourteen pictures to share, and that's down from about fifty. So it's a tad picture heavy. It's not every day your little girl turns one. :)



Granny Randi and Papa Rich came all the way from New Mexico, and they shall never leave...I won't let them.


The youngins all posed for this picture right on the giant crack where we had foundation work done. Classy eh?


The rare photo of the elusive ones known as Josh and Jessica. Might be the only picture I have.


The birthday girl with her knitted blanket from Noni. Thanks Mom, you did a beautiful job!


All the youngins got in on the present opening action, even wee Emery.


She's my little doll face.


Family photo time (thanks for taking the pic Jessica)!


Happy smile time with old Mom.


Emery posing for the camera, with Blake's sexy legs in the background...oh la la


The hat lasted about two seconds


Cake


Cake face

MIA

I have been missing in action when it comes to this blog! There has been so much going on I haven't had a spare moment to sit down at the computer. Here is a summary of the past weeks happenings. Sean's folks got here Saturday evening and we've been having a great time with them. So glad they are here for a week. Sean took the week off so we are just enjoying all the time together. Wesley is in hog heaven with all these playmates around! We celebrated Greta's first birthday on Sunday with a small party. My little girl is growing up too fast! I'll have a proper birthday blog tomorrow. Wesley is thoroughly enjoying preschool and can't wait to go twice a week. He's learning fun new songs that he sings to us and has several friends that he talks about. I'm overjoyed that he's having so much fun. My rat babies (really mouse babies, but the name stuck) are getting big! All six survived and their eyes are open. They are really acting like adult mice so they are going outside to rejoin nature this week. They really enjoy being all curled up in their toilet paper nest, so I'm going to put their nest in an old shoe box, along with food and water, and cut a little hole in the side. Then I'll put the shoe box in the hedge row under some brush several miles from our house. They are welcome to live in their shoe box for as long as they'd like, just as long as they aren't living in my house anymore! :) I'll kind of miss their little faces looking up at me from their nest. Good luck rat babies! That's all for now, pictures tomorrow.

Death of a strawberry bed

Exhibit A: Strawberry bed the beginning of August. Strawberry plants in the bottom and pole beans covering the top. Goat hasn't taken too much interest in it. She might take a munch here and there when passing.



Exhibit B: Strawberry bed the beginning of September. Dym "discovered" the pole beans and over the span of a week totally decimated them. Strawberry plants were next on menu. You'll notice the goat has a partner in crime. Wesley helped her strip the vines off of the trellis.



Exhibit C: Total annihilation of the strawberry bed. It is now a goat bed. ...grumble grumble... Next year I shall try "goat proof" crops (if there is such a thing).

Rat Babies

So this weekend I was out in the horse shed doing my twice a year cleaning and disturbed a nest of baby mice. They were up in the wall and when I cleared away the straw holding them up in there they came out. Little tiny things, they have hair but their eyes are still shut. I couldn't just leave them there on the dirt floor without their Mom. So I'm their Mom now. They live in a mixing bowl and share a heating lamp with Cecil the tortoise. I researched a bit online and found that infant formula is a good replacement milk for them, so Greta shares the last remaining bit of formula from her sippy cup with the mouse babies. They didn't care for it at first but after a day of not eating they've decided it's not that bad. I was trying to feed all six individually but that took way too long to accomplish so I learned last night to just soak a chunk of banana bread in formula and put it in their nest. They gather around it and drink away while nibbling on the bread. I think they'll survive. When they get big enough I plan on releasing them into a field many many miles away. For now, I'm their rat momma....I know they're not rats but I like calling them my rat babies (ever see that Friends episode when Pheobie finds the rat babies and carries them around in a shoe box? Yep that's me.) You've got to admit they are cute, in a rodent kinda way.

Peek-a-boo!

Someone is mobile! She's not exactly crawling but it's the closest thing to it. And she can get around! Plop her down in the kitchen and poof she's in the living room in about two minutes. I'm glad everything has been thoroughly baby proofed. I feel bad about not blogging about Miss Greta lately. With preschool starting and all the projects we are constantly doing, she's been overshadowed. Life with Greta has become a breeze. She's a happy girl, content to scoot her little butt around the house (usually trying to keep up with big brother). I kid with Sean that there is light at the end of the tunnel and we're emerging onto the other side. She was a handful when she was younger, the constant crying and touchiness made for a very trying first six months of her life. Now that she's mobile everything has changed and she's morphed into a happy, well adjusted baby. Phew! We made it through!

The egg waiting game

My "laydies" are getting big! I haven't blogged about the chickens in quite some time so I thought I'd share what's happening in the coop. Nothing. No eggs yet. Now hens don't start laying until they are roughly four months old and my gals are just now four months old. What's working against them is fall approaching. Fall (and shorter days) signal them to slow egg production. So they might not even start laying until next spring, which is a bummer...I'm so looking forward to fresh eggs. I have a plan though. To combat the shorter days I'm installing a light in the inside coop. The light will be on a timer and will come on before the sun comes up and will stay on once the sun goes down, in essence lengthening the daylight that the chicken get. This will fool them into thinking it's time to lay those eggs! I hope to get that installed this weekend as the days are already getting shorter. This will (hopefully) let me collect fresh eggs all winter. Hope it works!

I've been sprucing up their outside aviary giving them stuff to do. I figure being enclosed in a pen must be pretty boring so I added a big wire spool, a mountain of concrete (which they love!) and a wood A-frame to shed water from their food dish. I hope soon I can add a big branch from the oak tree to give them something to perch on.

Computer guru in the making.

This long awaited day has finally arrived. Wesley had his first day of preschool today. I tell you what, I was nervous for the kid! He's a tad bit on the shy side when he's around new people so I knew this could be difficult. We really pumped this up for the past several months and he did just wonderfully. Don't know what I was concerned about. He didn't want to let go of my leg when we got there this morning but the teacher came over and distracted him so I could make my escape. I half expected a phone call telling me to come back but none came. I went to pick him up and the teacher said he wanted to hold her hand for a little bit but finally warmed up and started interacting with the other kids. He was smiling so big when I got there showing me the things he made and even introducing me to his new friend. The teacher informed me that two kids were having computer time and having a hard time figuring it out and Wesley went over and told them how to work the computer. That makes me giggle. Our little computer guru, just like his dad.

You might ask what I did with my two and half glorious hours to myself? I had a nice Jillian Michaels workout (something I haven 't done since April, doh!) and cleaned the house. I tell ya what, preschool is the best $65 month I've ever spent.

Siding and Preschool

I've been a bad blogger. All I leave you with for over a week is pictures, boring I know. Things have been busy around here. It's funny to me how slow things can be and then for some unknown reason they pick up and I'm super busy. I guess that's just life. I have to admit that I'm just not ready for the weather to change. And it is changing. Quickly. The nights are getting colder and the days shorter. It's making me realize all the things we were unable to accomplish up until now and, of course, it is making us go into high gear to finish them before winter arrives. Luckily we are provided with a long four day weekend that starts today. What are we going to do with this precious stretch of time? Put siding on the house of course. When we bought the house there were sections of siding that needed replacing and when better to replace them? Why six years later! Let just say it hasn't been at the top of our "fun things to do" list. But this weekend is the weekend it will get done. It's not like we don't have the siding. It was ordered and delivered three years ago and has been sitting, stacked up in the shop. Guess we've just had too much on our plate the last three years. Babies will do that.

On that note, my oldest baby will be starting preschool on Tuesday. I'm excited, he's excited...it's a win win situation. We attended the preschool open house two weeks ago and I was impressed with the set up and the teacher. Wesley was shy that evening and spent his time sitting on Sean's lap while all the other youngsters played in another room. I just hope he warms up (socially) to all the other kids once we're not there. It will be a sink or swim situation I suppose. Tuesday should be interesting.
I hope everyone has a nice long Labor Day weekend!