Poor Sick Baby

We've seen a lot of this around:

D has had a fever for a few days with a congested cough and runny nose.  He has been doing a lot of sleeping and crying.  The illness is one of those where we are unsure if he should go see a doctor.  We made an appointment, but cancelled after he started running around and playing again.  He is up and down.  Every day he gets a little better.  But not better enough for us to resume normal life.

They didn't dress in matching outfits on purpose, I promise.  D takes turns with our laps.  Sometimes he is absolutely inconsolable and only wants his daddy.  M does not like it when his babies are sick and suffering!

The other kids got an entire day off school today...almost.  They had to do history and literature.  But the rest of the day was spent watching a cartoon series they discovered at the library.  Anyone ever hear of King Arthur and the Knights of Justice?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  According to Wikipedia, the show was ranked  as first on the lists of The 10 Most Ridiculous Adaptations of Arthurian Legend (2009) and the 8 Mostly Forgotten '90s Cartoons (2011).  This was done by a site for nerd news.  I haven't explored the site yet so I won't post a link just in case, but it looks funny so far.  Anyway, my kids LOVE this show.  It's like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-only the heroes are football players transported back in time to rescue King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  I can barely sit through it.  I must be old.  And female.

Happy Birthday, M!

My dear, sweet, hardworking husband celebrated his birthday weekend by:

...cutting and packaging enough chicken to last a year...I think...AND:

...boiling up the carcasses to make stock.  The meat we picked from the stock carcasses is REALLY GOOD. Grubaliciously good! 

We also celebrated with pizza, italian sodas, and ice cream.  Party in style!

More Life Cycles

Life and death.  Life and death.  Our Life Cycle Unit has grown past the hours of school time and encroached upon every area of our daily life. 

I've been so tired this last week with the growing of this little life inside me.  I just want to sleep all day (one day I took four naps).  I'm tired of going into public and having people ask me if I'm having twins or if I'm due any day now.  Don't they know any better than to mention anything like that to a pregnant woman?  Shouldn't they just keep their mouths shut? Or say something like, "You are positively glowing with new life!"  Not, "Oh my gosh! You are HUGE!"  I have only gained 17 pounds as of this morning.  So all those people can just go to the lake of fire and fry!  Okay...getting past the cranky.  I haven't had a lot of motivation to get anything done.  In the last paragraph of this post, I wondered how motivated I would be to...

...pluck and gut our meat birds while 8 months pregnant.  Well, it's done.  All 20 birds are dead and resting before their trip to freezer camp.  Was I supremely motivated and full of energy like I was a month ago making freezer meals? NO!  My motivation was: I'm not getting any less pregnant!  It's a three day weekend!  And I don't want to pay their feed bill anymore!  And when it is done, it will be DONE and I won't have to do it again (like laundry).  I won't traumatize you with butchering details, but these birds are the fastest, easiest birds to process.  One of them died when M picked him up.  Two heads fell off all by themselves (practically)! I am getting very good at my job in the processing and we have become quite efficient with our routine...okay, enough with the death...

...on to the LIFE!  Funny how we spend two mornings (four hours total) taking care of our food and then the afternoons saving little guinea keets from the big mean hens in the yard:

I found this little one being pecked by a hen in the nest.  It is our first guinea to hatch!  I quickly rescued it and brought it inside to treat its wound and keep it warm until we could get a warm spot set up.  It's living on the other side of the chick brooder until some siblings can come and keep it company.  Two chicks ended up with the pasties (a chick problem that can kill them), so I spent some time nursing them and trying to save their lives.  Really, a very strange way to spend the day.

We captured some frog eggs at the pond and S now has his very own life cycle project:

Watching the tadpoles turn into frogs!  We will let them go in the pond when the project gets boring or forgotten.  Like the butterflies.  M let them go yesterday (without warning me) so he could use the terrarium for guinea keets.  Out with old, on with the new, eh?

Life Cycles continued...

We've had a total of 9 chicks hatch (two died) and many of our butterflies have emerged as well.

The two chicks that died happened to hatch under a hen that wasn't broody-just sitting there laying her daily egg.  When the chick came out, she killed it and tried to push it out of the nest.  I hate it when that happens.  We try to avoid killings by going out to the coop every few hours.  One of these days we will set up a solitary confinement area where a hen can set to her heart's content without other hens getting in her way. 

Since we can't tell who the biological parents are, we call them all "barny" variety.  We have two austra-likes and five buff orp-somethings.  We have at least ten more eggs, maybe more!

Butterflies

Our butterflies are emerging, right on the heels of the chicks!  I haven't been too pleased with the Classroom kit.  The individual cups each caterpillar lived in were too small and several crysallids either formed crookedly or fell off the lid because it was too slippery to form a good base. 

Another one JUST emerged, so I'm going to go watch it!

Surprise Chicks!

Last night, IJ celebrated his 10th birthday with a small sleepover.  He had four friends stay over after having a bunch more here for the afternoon.  One of their activities was chicken chasing.  I asked them to stay out of the chicken yard because I didn't want my broody hens disturbed.  I had no idea that the chicks were actually hatching!

Aren't fluffy chicks the BEST?

I candled the eggs last night to see if I had any obvious duds.  One eggs was so opaque, I couldn't find an air space no matter what direction I turned the egg.  I held it up to my ear to listen for the rotten egg splash, but instead I heard a tap-tap-tap.  I love that sound.  I came back in the house to tell the kids and M about it, but M didn't believe that I could hear tapping.  He said I made it all up.

This one is still slightly wet-not cute yet!

This afternoon, I finally convinced him to come out and see for himself.  When I reached under the hens (there are three brooding in the same nest box), I heard the peeping of a new chick!  I pulled it out (it was the little black one above) and I heard more peeping!  I had to reach even further behind the three hens to get that fluffy one in the first picture.

The Mamas (one is facing backwards)

Those chicks totally caught us by surprise.  It takes only 21 days for a chick to hatch, so I guess those eggs were a lot older than I had thought.  Most of the eggs were placed on May 7th, but I knew some were older.  I just didn't think they were that old!  We have no chick food and had to quickly throw a brooder together so the chicks wouldn't get squished under their three mamas.  What a fun surprise!

Double Digits

Happy 10th Birthday, IJ!

Spring

Sorry I haven't been sharing how much fun we're having.  We are just a little too busy doing this:

And this:

And this:

And LOTS of this:

Plus, my computer is slowing waaaay down.  It is 10 years old, so I guess we are just going to have to upgrade.

Pacific Science Center IMAX

To finish off our astronomy unit, the kids and I headed to the Pacific Science Center.  We were so happy that M was able to take a day off work and come with us!  (I think he made it a priority when I informed him I would be sending the three older kids into the planetarium alone-kids under 4 are not allowed.)  We arrived at the science center in time to see the movie, but the ticket booth did not have our purchase order from the school and needed us to check in at a different gate.  They were kind enough to let us in without payment so we wouldn't miss the IMAX film: Hubble 3D.  From the science center website: "Through the power of IMAX 3D, Hubble 3D will take you on a journey through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of our celestial surroundings, and accompany space-walking astronauts as they attempt the most difficult and important tasks in NASA's history. This film, one of the most popular ever screened at Pacific Science Center, offers an inspiring and unique look into the Hubble Space Telescope's legacy and highlights its profound impact on the way we view the universe and ourselves."

Pillars of Creation: Nebula, Hubble Image

I guess I should have known this was a 3D movie by the title, but I wasn't really thinking about it until they handed us the glasses. The movie had already started and the theater was pitch dark.  We had to stand on the side until there was enough light in space for us to find seats.

The 3D effects were awesome.  I loved watching the kids (all the kids in the theater, not just mine) try to reach for stars as we traveled through the universe.  The absolute best part was the launching of the space shuttle Atlantis, which happened exactly three years ago today.  The room shook with the noise of the engines and I felt like I was actually there (except I wasn't being burned to a crisp).  I was completely awed at the experience and wished with my whole heart that I could have brought Grandad to see this before he passed away.  He loved space and kept up with all the current events in space exploration with his numerous astronomy magazine subscriptions.

I've seen this called the God's Eye Nebula

If you get a chance to visit the science center, go see this movie!  There is no better way to peer in to God's majestic creation and experience that His ways are not our ways.  He gave us these magnificent brains, complex enough to build the equipment necessary to survive trips into space, yet we still can't understand the whys and hows of little Planet Earth.

The rest of the day was fun too.  We ate lunch outside (and watched our boys chase pigeons), played in the game exhibit (the boys finally got to play the big chess game), walked through the bug exhibit (D loved the giant motorized bugs, "Bye-bye bugs!"), saw the butterflies, and enjoyed the dinosaurs.  The kids have been playing dinosaurs out in the dirt all week, so D called out, "Di-sor!" and wasn't scared at all.  We got out of there before traffic and had an uneventful drive home.  We can't wait to go back and see King Tut in the fall!

Easy Freezy French Toast

Wow, what a busy week I've had and it's only half over!  So far we've had standardized tests, homeschool PE, swimming, chess club, Awanas, a midwife appointment, several long phone calls with my dear grown-up daughters, and all the rest of the "normal" things we do in a day.  Today we have the last set of standardized tests, an open house function for orchestra, and a Cub Scout meeting that has yet to be planned.  When I have weeks like this, feeding the kids has to be easy, otherwise I end up driving thru McD's-YUCK.

Time Saving Tip: Kids (older than 6) top their own French Toast

Introducing my new recipe: Easy Freezy French Toast.  It is seriously easy.  I've removed all ingredients from the french toast batter except for milk and eggs.  Why add the tasty extras when the kids are just going to drown their food with syrup, cinnamon and sugar, or jam? For this last batch, I used a good two dozen eggs...maybe three.  I wasn't counting, just clearing out "old" eggs.  [And when I say "old" I only mean they were laid about five days ago.  Store eggs are several weeks old by the time you bring them home.]  I blend them in my VitaMix with just enough milk-eyeball it.  I have to use the VitaMix because our eggs are so fresh it is hard to incorporate all the whites by hand.

The bread came from the free bread lady.  She has a friend that runs an Oroweat outlet store, so she picks up all the old bread and gives it out for free.  I load up about once a month and save hundreds of dollars on the grocery bill. So not only is this method time efficient, but money efficient too!

One of the best Christmas Presents Ever!

Then cook on the biggest griddle you have, coated with oil.  Frying the batter-dipped bread in oil is what gives french toast its texture, so don't skip the oil!  I use a Misto with vegetable oil because I don't like globbing and wasting oil from the jug.  Butter tastes better, but it burns too easily (and costs more).  When I get on a time-crunch mindset, the last thing I need is to burn something.

Half of the Leftovers

I make enough french toast to feed a small army three times.  The kids can pack away at least a loaf and a half.  And the best way to save time is to be efficient...in this case, I won't have to bring out the griddle and wash it when I'm done three times, only once.  I cool the leftover french toast in stacks of four, wrap each stack in a paper towel, put four stacks in a gallon-sized freezer bag, and freeze.  When we need a quick meal, I pull a bag out of the freezer, microwave a stack (still wrapped in the paper towel) for one minute, and serve with butter and cinnamon sugar...or nothing, depending on how late we are!

Tropisms

We had a fun science moment this morning (after two hours of giggling-I mean math).  We experimented on whether or not a caterpillar responded to external stimuli, in our case, light and gravity.  Our first experiment asked, "Does a caterpillar prefer to climb up a branch or down a branch?"

We put this poor little caterpillar, who is behind all the other caterpillars developmentally, on a dowel held vertically.  We watched him climb halfway to the top and then I flipped it over.  He turned around and climbed toward the top again.  So we learned that caterpillars crawl away from the force of gravity.

The second experiment asked, "Does a caterpillar prefer to crawl toward light or away from light?"

For this experiment, we took the caterpillar, dowel, and flashlight into the bathroom and closed the door.  The scariest part was when the caterpillar fell off the dowel and landed on the floor.  "Don't anybody move!" I was worried he would get stepped on!  We held the dowel horizontally this time, and showed that he preferred to crawl toward the light. 

The last experiment asked, "Which force is stronger? Light or gravity?"

I asked the kids what we should do to test both forces at the same time.  Only IJ was able to figure it out.  He said, "Is it like the cat and buttered toast thing?  Tying buttered toast to a cat and dropping it to see if it just hovers?"  Exactly, my fine young scientist.  We held the dowel vertically, as in the first experiment, but had the light shining from the bottom.  We found that both forces work against each other and the caterpillar was very confused.  It took longer for it to decide which way to go.  But it eventually chose the light.

The absolute hardest part of this experiment was keeping my kids from being so silly!  They are always laughing!  I told them whoever makes the next joke has to leave.  And it was me.  I was trying to get a good picture in the dark and I made IJ move so the bathroom doorknob was not in the background.  He wondered why it was such a big deal to not have the doorknob in the picture.  I said, "Because it would be like, 'Oh, there's the D Family Bathroom Doorknob! I hope the kids washed their hands!'" And that was enough to send them over the edge to the silly place of no return.  School was cancelled until after lunch and kids were sent outside.

And that is how a typical morning runs.  Non stop laughing and not much accomplished!

Camp Coleman

Well, we enjoyed another weekend camping with our Cub Scout pack.  I include myself because Camp Coleman is only about five minutes from my house and I made a few trips to bring food and pick up bikes, etc and I did all the shopping and preparation for Saturday's lunch.  E really wanted to camp too, so us girls "camped" in the living room in a tent.  We ate oven-toasted marshmallows and chips, just like the boys did.  I slept in my own bed though.  M and the boys rode their bikes to camp on Friday and I came later in the van so M could get home and bring their camping gear in the Honda.

Commuting to Camp

Our pack camps four times a year, once for each season.  It is always risky in the fall and spring because we have to pick something close (we have a lot of soccer and baseball players) and it almost always rains.  The weather was great Friday and Sunday-not too great Saturday.

Camp Coleman has all sorts of fun activities, but the boys mostly played Jackpot (a football throwing game), Gaga Ball (a safe version of dodge ball), and rode their bikes.  The boys did get to climb this awesome climbing tower:

IJ on the Top

IJ was the ONLY kid, siblings included, that got to the top.  Those kids played and played and played and never noticed the rain.  One would think that after playing all weekend, the kids would be tired and ready to drop.  But my kids are still outside, climbing trees and riding bikes and who knows what else!

Our pack has doubled since we moved here.  This has made our camping trips a little more complicated.  Our claim to fame is being a "family pack."  Siblings are always included in activities and everyone in the family is welcome to come camp with us (we had about 80 people this weekend).  One thing always happens: the families bond.  You can't spend 48 hours standing around a camp fire in the rain without getting real and getting to know the families you scout with.  No one can fake their reputation that long (it doesn't take long for people to learn that I'm not the perfect homeschooling, skirt-wearing, mom of many that can do it all that they think I am)!  You get to know their parenting style, the kids behaviors and oddities, their likes and dislikes, and just stuff about their lives.  You listen to the single dad talk about his divorce.  You know how married couples met and what their wedding was like.  You feel free to discipline/correct other people's children.  You know which kid is the "drama queen" and to ignore him when he falls off his bike.  You know who is allergic to what.  You do this for a few years and then when a family has to leave because the grandfather has a heart attack or you find out their friend has cancer, you worry and grieve right there with them.  Although there are so many different kinds of people in our pack (and I don't get along with or even like some of them), when the weekend is over, I just feel like we as a pack are really experiencing The Pack Feeling.

The Bears

When we meet back up on Thursday for our den or pack meeting, there is a connection between the people that camped.  So that is why I like Cub Scouts more than I dislike it.  And probably why M was able to convince me to fill the position of Committee Chair for the next two years. 

Just in case you missed me...

...here is a quick list of events this past week: IJ and S took the first half of the annual standardized test and did it in a public school setting, M built/fenced a new giant garden, we butchered two roosters and two guineas, the boys and M are on a Cub Scout camp out in the rain, and the caterpillars are already making crysallids!  M has the camera, so no pictures until tomorrow!  I've been standing in the cold rain for five hours, so I'm going to go curl up on the couch with something hot to drink and something fun to do.

Genesis 1:28

New life blossoms everywhere we look.

The Asian pear tree bloomed for the first time in 20 years.

Life truly is a gift from God.