Things Are Jumpin’

We’ve been blessed with some days of sun lately and, wow, it’s been shear bliss.  Like this:

See what I mean?

That’s how we’ve all been feeling.

Yesterday was particularly nice.  My dad was able to come for a little while and we got the fence extended for the dogs to give them more space in their run. The goats have a little less room but they had quite a bit to begin with and they can make a little sacrifice for their personal body guards. 

They seem to like it:

Don’tcha think?

While we were working on this the kids were in their swimsuits having a water gun fight. No really.  Yes, they’re crazy.

Then my dad had to go and after feeding everyone lunch and putting Elias down for nap I went back to work.  This time on finishing out a section of the dog kennel for the rabbits to move in to.  Their current wasn’t working out and I wanted to give them a bigger space.

More happy critters.  They have a solid floor so they can’t dig out and nothing can dig in. 

Enough projects for this day.  This morning I woke up to rain.  Wah!  What a bummer.  I really needed that sun for just one more day!  I needed to wash up the brooder box and let it dry in the sun, we’re getting more chicks on Friday.  tee hee

Alas, I’ll have to cross my fingers for a dry day sometime before then.  Gideon had a fever today so it meant no church for us either, can’t even split up since Rob is out of town and won’t be back until late tonight.  Then it hit me.

I have this box sitting around that I bought for a project and it would make the perfect item to organize my garden ideas in.  So I got took my outdoor project hat off and put my craft project hat on and voila! a month by month garden box:

I slip the packets of seeds that I’ll plant in the month section and write my to-do list for the month on the divider itself.  There’s a miscellaneous section and a dreams section, of course!  I’m sure it will evolve and grow as I figure out what I’m doing.  Now I’m looking forward to Spring more than ever!

Gabe is 9

And the celebration took a whole week!  Ha!  Not really but sort of.  We were having a hard time coordinating when family could come and when friends could come so we did a family dinner last Saturday and had friends over yesterday.  His party couldn’t start until he went out for testing for the Highly Capable program.  He’s technically already pre-qualified for next year but the school is having him finish the test anyway.  I’m sure he did brilliantly but we won’t get the test results for a couple of months.

As usual, I don’t have a lot to say but I do have a lot of pictures:

The family dinner.  My sister and dad come as well as my sister’s foreign exchange student and a friend of the family.  Also my friend Nora and her whole family come since it fits in their schedule better and they’re pretty much family anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gabe was given a choice of the kind of cake he wanted and he picked a chocolate fudge bundt cake with sprinkles.  Easy enough for me – yay!

Elias says “I Matman!”

After the party my sis takes all the kids with her and gives us a couple of days off.  Sunday we got to go to church, then to lunch and even shopped a book store all by our lonesome.  Rob worked the next day so I even got to do a few things by myself.  At first I felt a little lost but I managed to do a few fun things just myself.

Fast forward to his party yesterday (some of the pics aren’t here because I don’t know if a couple of his friends’ parents are OK with having their photos online).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rob concocted this wonderful Angry Bird Triathlon in keeping with Gabe’s party theme of choice.  The kids were divided into teams doing the different activities.  1) Coloring an Angry Bird page, points were given for coloring and then for the kids’ pick of favorite 2) Completing one level of the Angry Birds game on the iPad, points equal to their score 3) Playing the Angry Birds Jenga game, points given for pieces knocked down.  Elias mostly just bombed the photos I was trying to take of the activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were prizes for first and second place.  We were all a little surprised when Gideon won first place.  Apparently all his time “practicing” at both the electronic and “real” Angry Birds games has paid off.  Gabe came in second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had every intention of making Gabe’s cake again.  He wanted lemon so I baked that cake, two rounds, put the first round on the platter and covered it with raspberry filling.  Mmm.  Looking good.  Then went to move the second round and could tell right away it wasn’t going to be easy.  The second piece was falling apart just sitting there.  I did everything I could to move it in one piece and managed to get it on the bottom round but it just disintegrated.  I even tried “gluing” the major pieces together with frosting but I’d be working in one area and the other areas were falling apart even more.  I have no idea what happened.  So I had to make a call to a local grocery store for an emergency cake.  They did the grass and sky and I put on the Angry Birds pieces (from one of our games).  Oh well, at least we had a cake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterward the kids get to try out one of the games Gabe got for his birthday.  At one point we walked out to meet the chickens, a couple of Gabe’s friends were so excited to meet real chickens and had lots of questions about them and their eggs.  I ended up sending two of them home with half a dozen eggs.  They were possibly more excited and them then they were the goody bags.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No post is complete without a cat picture, right?  Silas and Savannah spent the party trying to figure out what the heck was going on and had to have some time to chill after.

It was a great time celebrating our oldest.  We are so blessed by him.  He’s smart, funny, inquisitive and we just enjoy him so much!

Aw, Nuts!

Overheard today.

First, a big sliding noise and a loud thump.  Then,

Gideon: Stupid socks! These stupid socks are giving me nuts!

[Apparently running on the wood floors in socks is not the best idea and Gideon says something is “giving” him nuts instead of “making” him nuts.  His older siblings may have my sense of humor.]

Gabe: What kind of nuts?  Walnuts?  Pine nuts?

*laughing*

Zion: Peanutbutter nuts?

*more laughing*

It went on and on.  Poor Gideon can’t get no respect. (I did make sure he wasn’t hurt when he fell though.)

TnT’s New House

Time for a Titus and Tru update.  They are doing great.  Titus is huge and mellow and Trulea is huge and dramatic.  Typical girl.  LOL  But sweet as pie and they have a new home!  Here with us still of course but my dad was able to make enough progress on their area of the barn that they got to move in last night.  Their new sleeping area is in what used to be an office.  Yes, an office in the barn.  One of the many modifications by a previous owner that didn’t suit our own purpose but we’re making progress on alterations and this was a big one.  We really needed a space for the dogs so that they could be with the goats 24/7.  As it was we had to house them in the kennel in an area where they couldn’t hear or see the goats or interact with them at all.  During the day, if it was nice (ask me how many days that is here in WA) they could go to their pen inside the goat enclosure but it offered no shelter except for a doghouse they are quickly growing out of and we had to move them back and forth a couple of times a day. 

So my dad cut and framed a door in the office and fashioned a half wall and gate from found objects around the property and in the barn.  Now the dogs have a “room” with access to the outdoors 24/7.  The room is across the hall from the goats’ stall and the door leads out to their pen.  It was heaven today to not have to hustle them about and midday when it started to rain to not have to rush outside and move them to where they can have shelter.  Yes!

Piccies:

 

 

 

 

Trulea took to it right away.  She loved it and bounded inside and outside and back in again.  The blue thing is one of the kids’ old pools that got a hole, now it’s a dog bed.  :) 

Titus on the other hand didn’t like the feel of the floor, it scared him, and he went directly outside and refused to come back in.  He REALLY wanted to though, he lay down just outside with his head on his paws, the most pathetic look on his face, and commenced to whine sadly.  Very sadly.  Poor sad boy.  Later I convinced him to come in but he turned as quickly as he could and left again.  *sigh*  He has, in fact, never been inside a building before and never felt anything under his feet but grass and dirt.  So I covered the floor with the same shavings I used in the kennel and by morning he was coming inside just fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tru did her darndest to convince him to some inside, she tried to show him it was fine, barked her encouragement, she’s a good sis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s it is with nice clean shavings.  A good warm place for a guardian dog to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the view from the barn hall, the office door opens and half the room is for Titus and Tru and the other half is still suitable for storage.  It’s not much but it makes me a happy girl. 

Progress

We have been in the house since the last weekend of May.  Unpacking is still going on.  Balancing unpacking with the kids, normal household to-dos and all the new outside chores has been a trick.  Once the necessities were unpacked I kind of lost interest.  LOL  I am one of those folks who, when faced by a lot of visual chaos, will retreat out of shear overhwelmedness (I know that’s a word because I just made it up).  So it takes a real mood to tackle a lot of the organizing projects around here.  And of course then my time is just so short so finishing ANYTHING even with a bug to get it done takes ten times as long as it should.

*sigh*

Anyway.  All that build up just to say that I worked on the playroom today.  AKA the basement.  But that sounds so dark and awful.

Here’s the before pic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes it’s messy but also, there’s still some boxes and the toys never got organized and I’ve realized I don’t want the futon in that corner after all or my craft cabinet where it is (you can *just* see the edge of it on the left).

Here’s the after:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I moved the futon, it is Jeremiah approved now, and the toy rack is now in that corner with the Cars rug and Little People buildings and the dress-up chest is accessible now (the gas stove is in the way).  There is a lot of this room that you can’t see in the picture, it’s a huge L-shaped room. Behind me is one leg of the L and my craft cabinet and the kids’ reading hut and bookshelves.  Just to the left in this room is the Lego desk and closet with all the games and puzzles. 

The carpet is still hideous but at least it’s clean and the walls need color to make it fun and more inviting but at least we’re making progress!

Thank you, Grandma!

Oh we surprised the kids big time yesterday!  Rob’s mom sent us some spending money as a Christmas gift and yesterday, on the way home from a birthday party, we pulled into Toys-R-Us instead of going home.  THEN we got to tell them they could actually purchase for themselves some things that have been on their wish list for a while. What a joy for all of us, Rob and I got to say “yes”and their faces were just lit up!

Zion chose a scooter and a cute basket (thanks to the scooter being on sale).  She’s been wanting one for so long.

Gideon and Elias wanted the same thing so we/they pooled their portion and got them a Batcave add-on to go with their Geotrax train set and they each got to choose a smaller item.  Gideon picked a stuffed Angry bird (a green one of course, his favorite color) and Elias chose a two-pack of Cars characters that also go with the Geotrax.  The love of trains in this house is not going away anytime soon that’s for sure.

Gabe looked and looked but didn’t find anything he’d been wanting.  He perused.  He browsed.  He checked out a lot of things but ultimately decided to shop elsewhere. So after we went home Rob and he went back out and checked out GameStop.  Ooo, we love it there!  And Gabe SCORED!  GameStop was having a sale.  Gabe got two game guides and a set that came with a game guide, a game and a Lego toy.  Wow!

You can see how happy they are.  Well, Elias may be a bit overtired but he’s happy on the inside! Thank you, Grandma Marlene!

And because I’m overdue, puppy shots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are HUGE and they are characters and so sweet, like giant teddy bears and they were a couple of days shy of 4 months old in these shots.  More puppy photos soon.  :)

Oh The Silliness!

I cannot fully explain the silliness that is Gideon.  It’s just something you have to experience for yourself to truly understand.  He has this sing song voice that is just so darn cute.  He laughs and he laughs and he suggests ridiculous things and cracks jokes that leave us rolling.  He’s just so unexpected.  And he loves for me to document his silliness on film. 

Yesterday he told me I had to take his picture while he pinched his lip and pulled it out.  Um.  OK?  Only I couldn’t take it at the time so I said I’d have to do it tomorrow.  That’s today.  And he remembered.  So here he is.  Pinching his lip and pulling it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was it everything you thought it would be?  Well, here’s a couple more photos taken on his insistence.

 

 

 

 

Yep.  Pretty silly.