You spin me right round

We found a Sit and Spin at a garage sale and my son has been spinning and singing this song all day. He won't spin unless he's singing the song. Turn your speakers up for this gem.

Conversations with a three year old.

So Alex and Abby were over for a play date yesterday and Alex was sitting on the couch talking to himself saying "A-L-E-X....Alex". Curiously I looked at Wesley and said "Wesley, do you know how to spell your name?"

He said nothing.

So I said "W....."

Wesley looked at me and said "E-S-L-E-Y, yeah Miss Cindy taught me".

Good to know I have no clue what my child is learning in preschool. :)

Diary of a retired goat milker.

My days as a goat milker are coming to an end. I will honestly say I won't miss it. I think it's an interesting task to complete in life but I have no desire to ever milk anything again. Dym has done wonderfully teaching me the ins and outs of milking. She's put up with my inexperience in the beginning. My total lack of knowledge that almost resulted in a bad case of mastitis, but luckily it didn't. We were in a nice routine there of milking twice a day. Her kids were growing like weeds, the milk was flowing. I got her down to once a day milking about a month and a half ago. My life got easier. Now we are nearing the four month mark and I'm ready to move on from this gig. The kids are now ginormous, she's done a wonderful job raising them. Dym is a very good mother and I'm thrilled I didn't have to bottle feed them....from what I hear that's a miserable job.

Two weeks ago I started the daunting job of drying up a dairy goat. I went from milking her once every evening, to milking her once every other evening. It was like I was alive again! For one solid day I didn't have to haul the milking machine out to the shop, lead her in, make her jump up on the milking stand, hook her up and hold the machine under her teats for 10 minutes while my knees screamed out in agony. I didn't have to bring in the equipment and sanitize it. I was free! That first time I milked her after skipping a day I got two gallons of milk out of her. Two gallons. Can you imagine carrying two gallons of milk between your legs? She's a 150 pound goat, so that would be like me with two gallon jugs of milk hanging there. To say she's a good milk goat would be an understatement.

So I did the every other day milking for two weeks. Today I'm changing it to taking two days off between milkings. We'll do this for a week or two. I thought everything was going to go smoothly and she'd be dried up by the end of May. That is until I looked out the window this weekend and saw that sneaky little baby boy goat nursing away. He's got to be nearing the 90 pound mark and there he was crouched under her nursing. Guess I'm going to have to separate the kids from Dym. I hope the neighbors like a whole lot of screaming goat babies. Lord help me.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to everyone! It has been an enjoyable, relaxing weekend of fun, friends and family. Friday we were thrilled to have some dear friends over for a visit. Dru and Charity were in town and came to see us with their two little girls. Wesley had a ball with them and I was amazed at how well they all played together. It was so nice to see Serenity and Isa, as I haven't seen them in a year and a half. It's amazing how fast little ones grow! We've decided we are going to make a trip out to visit them this summer, can't wait!

Wesley started off the Easter weekend on Thursday with his preschool class having it's Easter party. It was the first of three Easter egg hunts. Yikes, three! He was supposed to gather only the eggs with his name on them but we didn't know this so he just grabbed all he could see (like most egg hunts). I finally figured this out after looking around seeing each Mom bent over going "No Seth this isn't your egg, put it down." Oops. So we quietly dumped out the massive amount of eggs from his basket and quickly made a get away. It was fun and Wesley enjoyed seeing the Easter Bunny.....even though they whole time he was saying "I'm pretty sure the Easter bunny is Miss Cindy (his teacher)."

Then yesterday we went to our local city's Easter egg hunt. They had advertised it as having 5000 eggs with $400 dollars hidden inside the eggs. Sounded like fun to me. Apparently it sounded like fun to every parent in the city because it was a mad house. At least they divided up the eggs into different categories according to age, otherwise poor Greta would have been trampled by the bigger kids. Both kids were in the three and under category so Wesley was able to make out like a bandit.

Greta is going through her "stranger danger" phase and is stuck to me like glue most of the time when we are in public.

Alex and Abby were there with us, they were mad collecting fools. 

Then today we had another egg hunt at our house. Kids love hunting for eggs, so we might as well live it up while we can! Wesley colored the eggs all by himself this year. I was impressed at how careful he was with them, not making much of a mess at all. We colored two dozen although we could have easily done four dozen since the chickens are laying like crazy. I have eight hens, I get eight eggs a day. Anyone want any eggs??

My favorite picture of the weekend. All kids together this afternoon.....Greta in one of her moods, not loving all the new people around the house today. Poor little doll, I'll be happy once the "stranger danger" phase is over.

 I wish you all a happy Easter....I hope better than Greta's.

Off to see the wee one.

I got back this afternoon from my whirlwind trip to see my newest nephew. With Greta in tow, I left Saturday morning for a two day trip. Greta did awesome on the car ride, enjoying Elmo's Word most the way. Little Bennett is one super cute newborn! He's so quiet and mellow, I don't think I heard him cry once all weekend. It might be due to the fact that he was, literally, never put down. How does my sister luck out with all the mellow babies? I hope she knows how lucky she is!

Greta is in her "stranger danger" phase and tears up if anyone even so much as looks at her. Needless to say she was stuck to me like a baby monkey. It took several hours for her to warm up to everyone and start playing with her cousin Emery. Those two played pretty well together, looking like two little twins side by side. After all they are only 7 weeks apart.

Greta's baby doll stroller was a huge hit with Emery. He took his sippy cup for several long walks.

I had a great time seeing everyone including Blake sister, Stephanie. Thanks Sis for letting me come up and see that adorable little one, congratulations!

It was always either Stephanie holding Bennett....

.....or me.

The Wednesday Write Up

-As the kids grow so does their ability to push each others buttons. I swear all I do all day is break up their screaming matches. It's utterly exhausting. All Wesley has to do to make Greta cry is growl at her. Literally he walks up to her, bends near her and growls like a dog. She then melts into hysterical screaming and runs to hide between my legs. He sits in time out a lot these days. *sigh*

-I'm going to see my new nephew this weekend and am very excited! Can't wait to hold that tiny little man. I'm thinking about bringing Greta with me just to split the two kids up for a couple of days. It should be fun!

-I can't believe Easter is coming up so fast! It should be enjoyable this year with two walking little ones. We'll be going to the city Easter egg hunt and I can't wait.

-I forgot to blog about Abby's birthday. Jessica's little one turned three years old this past Monday and we celebrated it on Sunday with a small party. She's a doll and we were all happy to be there for her. Happy belated birthday Abby!

The birthday girl and her horse cake, which Wesley can't take his eyes off of.

More horsey stuff.....me thinks she likes horses.

Greta was there but clung to me like super glue.....stranger danger is strong in this one.

Released!

We finished up the new goat pasture and let the three out yesterday to graze. They were so excited. It took four weekends, some rainy, but it turned out awesome and I have to thank my hubby for all of his hard work. He's not really an animal guy so this means a lot that he'd do all of this for me.

I think he's more excited that it's done than even I am because now he gets his weekends back! Poor guy. Now on to the next project!

Fridays at the Park

The park was calling to me on Friday so I packed up the kids and off we went. I brought bread to feed the geese and ducks, hats and lots of sunscreen. Can you believe we're already hitting the 90's on a regular basis. Geez, it's the beginning of April! Oh well, the sun was out and the kids had a ball. I discovered Welsey is quite the ladies man. If there was a girl on the playground he was next to her talking to her. When it was lunch time he didn't want to go because he would miss his "girl". The whole way to Wendy's he told me to hurry up so he could get back to his girl. Oh boy, I'm not ready for the infatuations. We got back to the park just in time to see his girl drive away. He was so sad until a new girl appeared. He immediately took his kids meal toy over to her to show her, and poof! A new friendship was created. Off he went to build tee pee's under trees and dig for buried treasure.

My little boy is sure growing up and I credit preschool for him coming out of his shell. I'm thrilled with our choice to send him to 3 year old preschool. Best $65 a month we could spend. Greta thought she liked the ducks and geese until she fed one and 47 showed up immediately. It was a bit overwhelming for a 18 month old.

It was a great time and we now have a standing date with the park every Friday. Wesley is hoping his "girl" will be back.

Spring Happenings

Busy busy busy! That's spring in our household. The garden is being planned out since I have a ton of new plants to squeeze in. I got my seeds from Burpee and have started several indoors. I've got trays of bell peppers, hot peppers, chives, cilantro, lettuce and lavender. Every day Wesley goes over there with his spray bottle and thoroughly drenches everything in sight. We're having fun with it.

Hubby was out again this weekend working on the new goat pasture. He made some good progress but without both of us working it's slow going. I'm the babysitter. Greta is not at the age where she can wander around unsupervised. She's still into placing everything in her mouth. Hubby did get 40 something T-posts put in and all the 4X4 corner posts set in concrete. Everything is ready for the field fencing to be put up this coming weekend.

The future inhabitants of the pasture are more than ready to trade in their current pen for the new one. They have been forced to stay in their pen instead of the backyard ever since they discovered the tasty deliciousness that is baby cherry trees. Oh boy do they make their displeasure heard. I never had any idea that baby goats could be THAT loud. We're talking brain numbing screams. I imagine it would be the same noise if they were being eaten alive. I hope, for our neighbors sake, that their voices change soon. Our two full grown goats aren't loud at all, maybe around dinner time they'll call out but it's a low octave, not this high pitched cry. This new pen will all be worth it if they will just be quiet and eat grass.

I'm still milking Dym every morning and I just want to quit. But I can't. I have no idea how to dry her up and I've been trying different things to no avail. I believe she's weaned the kids as I haven't seen her nurse them in about a week. I've got to try harder to dry her up....so tired of milking.

The other set of kids (my children) are enjoying the spring warm weather. We spend hours outside discovering new and exciting things. Greta discovered walnuts this weekend and proceeded to go into the walnut grove and fill her little plastic golf club container with the nuts. She's just like her brother, always collecting stuff. Hope you are out enjoying this weather as much as we are!