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.

F is Four

F's "Finking Face"-a tribute to her mom's thinking face.

 Fantastic F is four years old today.  Her personality really hasn't changed all that much this year from last.  She has become a little more sassy ("Mom, I will only do what I want to do!), but she still keeps us in stitches with her exclamations and funny stories.

We had a little party with a pink and purple cake and some presents.  Grandma and Grandpa came over for a visit.  Big Sister L called F on the phone today.  She is just so tickled that she is four years old...until I say she has to sit on time out for four minutes now!

Happy Birthday F!

Life Cycles

We got a fun package from the UPS man yesterday!  Thirty-two live caterpillars!

They are much bigger than the ones we ordered in 2008, so I'm sure they won't be hanging around as caterpillars as long.  We are going into a Life Cycle unit in our little homeschool and I am planning on having the kids do real science experiments.  They will present their projects at a science fair at the end of May.

The first thing I had to do was figure out how to keep them from being harassed by the younger set of kids.  At first I was going to set up the chick brooder, but 32 little cups don't take up that much room.  They are living in a pizza box and we attached little velcro dots to the bottom of the cups to keep them from tipping over.

We moved them from the big cup to the smaller cups using a paint brush.  Did you know these caterpillars have silk, just like a spider?  They create little webs inside their cups which make it really hard to move them, even with a paintbrush!

We held our first "Observation Lab" today and each kid chose a caterpillar to be "theirs."  They will watch their caterpillars grow and change over the course of the next few weeks.  The other caterpillars will be exposed to different temperatures to see how crysallid formation and butterfly emergence is affected.  We will also take a few out of their cups to experiment with tropisms. 

And just in case you think I came up with all these experiment ideas by myself...I didn't.  I have a cool book that I ordered in 2008 with the caterpillars (only 5 back then).  The book says that kids as young as Kindergarten can do the experiments, but back then IJ was my only school aged kid and he was the Kindergartener.  A preschooler, a toddler, a baby on the way, and the flu kept me from overdoing it last time!  It's different now...except the whole toddler and baby on the way part...

Nesting

Each day I obsess over something new.  Sunday it was freezer meals.  Monday I tackled egg dishes (eight batches of Dutch Baby batter-8 dozen eggs, plus two quiches-another 2 dozen, and 20 egg and sausage burritos-3 dozen eggs).  Tuesday I had to renew my driver's license because I somehow forgot it expired on my last birthday...again.  Four years ago I was pregnant with F, so that is my excuse.  And since I had to drive so far, I stopped by JoAnn and scored some awesome fabric deals.  So that meant that Wednesday I obsessed over diaper sewing.  And I'm getting pretty good at making diapers, if I do say so myself!

D modeling his baby sister's new diaper: pink isn't really his color!

The diaper in the picture is considered an "All in One" because it has a waterproof layer, several absorbent layers snapped inside (snapped for easy removal and quick laundering), and a snap closure (so we don't have to look for diaper pins).  There is even a pocket to stuff even more absorbent layers!  I have no problem pinning diapers.  In fact, I prefer to pin.  But I can never find the pins when I need them and I own a professional quality snap press, so snaps are it.  These diapers sell for $30; I can make them for less than $2.

"I've been a very bad dog!"

The dogs are driving me crazy.  M heard on the news that there have been an increase in small earthquakes in the area.  He thinks the dogs can sense the earthquakes and it is affecting their behavior.  One dog has had three accidents inside at night-I stepped in one in the dark and was happy to wake the Master for clean up duty.  Another dog won't sleep in her bed (that would be The Pathetic Doberman) and prefers to sleep right outside our bedroom door.  The Pirate keeps sneaking in with the boys.  We set up a baby gate at the end of the hall to keep the dogs where they belong.  That just makes them bark and whine at the gate.  I got to wear M's earplugs last night after giving him such a powerful evil eye that he thought another earthquake hit! Pathetic Doberman has also returned to her annoying habit of following me wherever I go.  You have no idea how annoying it is to have a dog follow you around nonstop.  She is worse than the kids.  At least the kids understand the need for privacy!

Earth Day

Once upon a time, I had a friend who hated Earth Day.  She told me we made funny friends because I like Earth Day and Earth Day made her want to burn tires and drive around in her gas guzzler throwing trash out the window.  She was right; we did make funny friends.

A Happy Earth Day Indeed

Today I celebrated Earth Day by recycling my plastic...but I didn't know it was Earth Day when I did it.  I was just on my way to town to obey my inner urge to purchase massive quantities of meat and make freezer meals.  Then I bought throw away dishes and disposable diapers (although I cut out pieces for more cloth diapers this morning) and LED light bulbs and storage containers for hand-me-downs.  I think I'm well-balanced, don't you?

While I was gone, M rototilled the garden and planted tomato starts.  He mowed (parts of) the lawn.  And he got his BBQ groove on with some Copper River Sockeye and steak.  For this I am extremely thankful because I came home and put together 13 freezer meals and have three more trays of meat and dozens of eggs to process tomorrow.

The kids took another dip in the pond this afternoon.  They are so lucky to live here!  Now we are enjoying a delicious dinner that reminds me of the days when we used to come down here for vacations.  We are only missing three special people.

Pitbull Piranha

Our meat birds are growing like crazy.  We've had to separate them from the layer chicks because they pile on top of each other to sleep and my little Easter Egger suffocated.  Poor thing.  The boys are mostly responsible for feeding, watering, and letting them in and out of their coop, so I had no idea how big they were!  I weighed one of the meat roosters and he weighed 3.5 pounds!  It's unbelievable how much more dense these little meat birds are.  I weighed a mature Rhode Island Red just for comparison and she only weighed 3.7 pounds.

It's only April...yet...

...yes, the kids went swimming in the pond!  The Pirate joined them and had a blast trying to climb up on the paddle boards.

At one point, IJ jumped off his paddle board and swan to shore.  The Pirate wasn't sure if IJ needed saving or what was going on, so he got a little too excited swimming after IJ.  He got my Mama-Panic on when it looked like he was going to push IJ under, but he only scratched him.  IJ knocked him over the head and told him to, "GO ON!" so at least The Pirate knew his boy was safe.  After that, The Pirate gleefully swam in circles and chased The Pathetic Doberman around the pond.

The Pond Princess

These are F's "Muddy Slippers"

"HAT!"

Now I'm busy experimenting with egg dishes that I can freeze (I've learned my kids prefer a higher egg to milk ratio in quiches and a potato crust instead of a pie crust) and cutting out pattern pieces for pajamas and diapers.  Because I know that it won't be long until I can't reach my sewing machine or get the freezer door open...