A Weekend Away From The Farm!!

Papa's bosses recently gave us a free night in a very nice hotel in the 'city' as a Christmas bonus. We'd gotten one last year as well but hadn't been able to use it so we lumped the two together and spent a weekend away from the farm! We had a AWESOME time!! Here are Papa and the kids, in PJ's,  watching 'How to Train Your Dragon!'  Even Baby J on the floor is watching! Thanks SO MUCH C and R!! 

The hotel room was almost bigger then our house!! It had the main room where the kids are watching the movie and this bedroom where Papa and I and Baby J stayed with a full bathroom! 

Here is a picture of the whole room! I packed in laundry baskets, much easier to pack and find stuff in. That's our swim stuff on the floor there. We went swimming and had a BLAST in the hotel pool. The door on the end wall went to a little balcony and over looked a quiet road! 

Here is the other half of our bedroom. Baby J slept in the crib! His 1st crib sleep! Mind you the 1st night he was more out of the crib then in! But the second night he slept 9 hours straight! He's does have a strange sleep pattern. The little black fan on the floor we brought from home. He's very used to white noise. The door by the mirror goes to the bathroom and the other one goes to the main room. 

The bathroom! There were 2 tubs so the boys had a bath in one and the girls in the other!! They love baths! 

The other half of the main room. 

Two sleepy little girls slept on the hide-a-bed!

Two excited little boys had a harder time sleeping on the bed in the other room! They are not used to sleeping away from each other and had to say 'goodnight' before they went to bed. 

Baby J asleep in the crib. Night 2. He kept hitting his head and hands on the metal bars so I rigged up a soft barrier.. He didn't need it though as he didn't move from this wrapped state for 9 hours! 

Papa and Baby J watched some TV together. Baby J looks like he'd rather be watching cartoons with his siblings! 

We had a great weekend. We watched several hotel movies and took the kids for a 3D movie. Papa, E, R, and I hadn't seen a 3D movie before and we LOVED it. We ate sushi and Mc D's, went out to Earls and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant! We met some friends and the 2 couples took our 9 children out for supper!  We swan, shopped (and we got pretty much ALL our Christmas shopping done!) and went driving down Candy Cane Lane to see the lights! The kids loved the pool and we're going to have to start our Sunday afternoon pool trips again now that winter is here! We didn't think about our farm 'to do' list at all and enjoyed not having to do chores morning and night. We were lazy and totally enjoyed ourselves!! B&B stayed at our place and did chores and kept the fire going! Thanks SO much you two for cow sitting for us!! :) 

The Immaculate Truck.

Papa was given this IHC truck a while ago and he was, as ever, stoked about it. He told me all KINDS of details. Very few which I actually remember! One thing I do recall is that it was, in his words, IMMACULATE!! Now to me that word means similar to PERFECT. So here I was picturing this beautiful paint job and rust free body with working windows and doors. You know a nice looking extended cab truck..something you wouldn't mind seeing everyday. Well it turns out my idea of immaculate and his are TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS!!! Here are some pictures of his new truck.. Papa got it towed to his place of work and is planning on putting some hours into it when he has some 'free' time. Ya RIGHT!! As you can see it's in pretty good shape..except the hood doesn't open or close, the passenger side door has a hole in it. The bed was VERY full of 'stuff' and there is rust on the bottom of several, if not all, the doors. Never mind the rust above the windshield and the 2 inches of dust inside. But I have to admit it looks a lot better in the pictures then in real life.. maybe because Papa insisted that it was immaculate and so my 1st look at it was rather jaded. I hopped out of the truck and burst out laughing... I teased Papa so badly about his so called 'immaculate' truck that he blushed!! LOL. Now that doesn't happen very often! Oh yeah and for ME an immaculate truck should run, you know START, idle, GO!! Drive!... umm  it has a ways go to before it lives up to Papa's dream for it.
Oh and Thanks to Giver a Yank Towing for saving me another long day dragging yet another truck out of the bush. I really truly appreciate not having to sit in that 2 inches of dust, leaning hard on a frozen steering wheel (which only have power steering when the truck is ACTUALLY RUNNING!!) wrenching my shoulder and back out of place so I don't hit a tree.. always waiting for that big nasty spider to fall down the back of my neck or that lonely mouse to scamper out from under the seat right when I'm concentrating on trying to get that one stuck tire (and there ALWAYS is one) to go the same direction as the rest of the truck. Oh the stories I could tell.... remind me sometime and maybe I'll tap a few out for you all out there but tonight I'm off to bed to snuggle with that IHC loving man who I love and who loves me. Oh the things we do for love :)

Baby J Loves His Jolly Jumper!!

Hanging out in our bedroom doorway. His playpen is on buckets so I don't have to hurt my back lifting him out of it :) Works great!

Papa has since put a hook up in the living room and Baby J LOVES it, spends hours in there jumping away!!

Note his wet shirt. He's a little Drool King! 5 kids and we got our 1st drooler! 

It's Christmas Time!! :)

Sorry these are blurry! Just a short note.. decorating a Christmas tree with 4 children is fun.. and VERY fast! I think it was TOTALLY done (even the little shifting of ornaments we had to do because R would put all hers on 2 branches!) in about 10 minutes!! It was amazing!! 

That pink thing on there we got this summer with a bag of clothes and the kids carefully put it away 'For the CHRISTMAS TREE Mom!' and remembered it and brought it out and placed it 'just so.' Not sure what the attraction is but they love it and it's their tree after all! We also searched high and low for hanging ornaments that were stars! And couldn't find any! We're going to keep looking though. We're looking for glass yellow or silver stars that hang on hooks so if you know of any please let us know! 

As you can see we got out tree up! The boys and Papa went out one Sunday after noon and walked through the lease until the found it. Mr. B and Mr. M put it in the stand for us one night while we were waiting for Papa and the kids and I decorated it reasonably soon after that. We decorated the whole house and I'm going to take pictures yet. It was a BLAST!! The kids loved the red bows and lights. I hung a lot of the heavier ornaments on tacks on the wooden window frames in the new addition. It gives it a feisty look and saves the tree the weight! I also took down all my curtains and hung stockings and ornaments and cards from them. My little Nativity that I painted years ago is on display as is the wall hanging behind the tree! The kids love the wind up musical violin Papa got as a child and also the wind up snow globe I found years ago with the Nativity in it! Papa has found me 3 bluegrass Christmas carols and we play them and just simply enjoy the season! 

A Scary Couple of Days.

Little Miss E gave us quite a scare last week. She wasn't feeling too good and I thought maybe she had a cold but she had this funny rash. So when I talked to the health nurse about Baby J's incredible eating habits, I mentioned it to her. Well she thought maybe it was a strep rash and urged me to take them in. E had the rash one day and R the next. So, after a bit of calling around, I packed up the kids and headed to my moms. My mom took J and L and I took E, R and Baby J up to the ER. 

The ER was very busy and some people had been waiting awhile. A nurse, Cindy whom was there while I laboured with R, came out and chatted with us and assessed E. Another nurse also came out and took a look. Louise and I have a good relationship and it was good to see her. She was super busy and Cindy took over after that. They both checked her breathing and her oxygen levels. They were LOW only 75!! We were the next ones in! They put E on 'magic mist' or Ventolin almost the moment she got on the bed. This is the same meds as she now gets in her inhaler but they give it too them in a mask over their mouth and nose in a larger dose. Then they started to tell me what we were looking at. Probably asthma. But they did x-rays and ruled out pneumonia and bronchitis. They did 2 more rounds of Ventolin and her oxygen levels made 88. Now I didn't get a whole lot of information there. Actually I got very little. I think they were trying to not panic me. Which seems a bit counter-productive as I panicked more without the information. 

Papa came to pick up R, Baby J had to stay with me, and took her to grandma's house. While he was there I left the room for a minute and they gave her a liquid steroid which she promptly threw up again. They told us while Papa was there that she'd probably need to stay in over night. Ok, we can handle that. Papa stayed for a bit, talked to the doctor and then left to bring R to Grandma and go finish off the last 2 hours of his work day. It seemed under control, she was breathing better now and he would come back when work was done. Nothing really he could do there. Well. Not very long after he'd left another nurse came to tell us that we were bumping the guy next door, who had a run in with a chain saw, and taking his ambulance to the CITY!! That was the 1st's I heard of it. Oh she thought the doctor had told us. NOPE!! Didn't even see him again!!

 Within minutes I was frantically trying to get a hold of Papa, I could go with E but Baby J could not go. They had no way to strap him in, even though he was in his car seat. The paramedic's had her on the stretcher before I'd packed up Baby J and all the mittens, jackets and 'stuff', as it was I forgot her boots there! Papa was still not there. Later on Papa told me that when the nurse called him, and I was there when she did and he's right, she told him that HE was taking us to the city. Not that we were going with flashing lights and FLYING along in the ambulance. So Papa finished the job he was working on, looked at another job and then made his way down to us. Well we are already in the ambulance, E had to be hooked up on oxygen and they'd already hooked her up in the ambulance and done everything they needed to do. I was being asked if Baby J could stay with the nurses and I kept saying. NO He's just up the hill he be here in a minute. E was stable as far as I knew and I just couldn't leave my baby with nurses, even though I knew most of them from other visits. I know none of them socially. It was almost to the point where I didn't really have a choice when Papa drove up. I'd already called his work again and he'd left so we knew it wouldn't be long. (The male paramedic John asked me what Papa looked like so he could be on lookout for him.. I told him he's not a big man and will be very dirty!! And it worked!! John recognized him! LOL) 

Papa grabbed the baby seat with Baby J in it and the diaper bag. For ease of use I'd clipped my purse to the car seat and so he got that too.. 

E was half asleep and both paramedic's were super good with her. Lights, sirens, and SPEED. I actually have no idea how fast we were going as no matter how hard I looked I couldn't see the speedo, but we were MOVING!!! John told Papa, Follow me but don't keep up! If you get caught they WILL charge you with speeding! Papa had to go home before hand to get some stuff as we had NOTHING with us.  E was pretty sleepy and out of it so I talked to her on and off the whole way there. She was still on oxygen and her numbers where good so the main concern was on going care. They did give her another dose of Ventolin about 20 minutes into the ride but by the time we hit the outskirts of the city she was doing MUCH better and they turned off the lights and sirens and slowed down! You can't see much from the back of an ambulance and I fought car sickness the whole way! Thankfully I'm good at controlling my nausea and only felt nasty!
When we got there they rolled her right to Pedi's ward and, even though they knew we were coming they still didn't have a room ready for us. So we spent 10 minutes waiting at the nurses station. E was VERY thirsty and John went down the hall to get her a drink! She'd been asking for one since we left town and slurped it up so fast I thought she'd choke! She drank A LOT that night. Then peed in her sleep on ME! I was soaked, her bed was soaked, she was soaked.. and she has no memory of it at all. She had no memory of the ride in the ambulance until several days later and yesterday when we were in town an ambulance went out of town and she told me "I think that was the one I was in!"


That night they did the Ventolin mask every hour until Midnight and then every 3 hours for the next day! E perked right up but still could not be without oxygen. If we took off her oxygen her numbers fell so quickly the nurse wasn't even out of the room yet and she turned around and put it back on!

My friend Amber and I were going to meet in the 'city' at W.mart which is close to the edge of town and about as far into the city as I like to drive. (Did I mention I dislike driving? I DO!!) Anyway Papa and I were going to butcher our steer that week and I was going to bring it to the meat cutters that Wednesday. Amber had JUST moved and I didn't know her new number, though thinking about it now I do know Matt's cell and could have called that. Never even occurred to me! Anyway my Mom had posted on FB for me and that is how Amber showed up at the Pedi's ward in the city. What a wonderful thing to see someone we knew! Her little boy Z had also spent a night in pedi's and she was very helpful as she knew the floor well. After they left B, Amber's 4 year old, cried all the way home! She was so worried about E. So they spent some time making things for E which she really enjoyed the next day! Yummy cookies!
We had more visitors that day. The T family had a doctors appointment just down the hall and spent part of the afternoon with us. Miss T was VERY worried about E and sat by her while she slept and was very careful not to wake her. Miss T had been in the same room we were in and you could see that it had connected with her. Big Mr. T spent over an hour with Baby J in his arms.. mostly sleeping! Baby J just could not sleep while we were there and it made life rough! Big Mr. T tried 3 times to put him down and Baby J just woke up! Thank you for persisting :) The T's also looked after E and Baby J for a bit while Papa and I got out of those 4 walls and went for a little walk. Papa headed home to be with the kids overnight and it was really nice to have a few moments with him.
E had a great night. Slept so hard that the nurses didn't even wake her with moving her around and checking on her. Baby J had a better night and I actually got some sleep!
The next morning E was put on puffers and taken off the mask that was giving her Ventolin. She liked this much better and was up and around more playing. She had pulled her oxygen tubes out of her nose early that morning and the nurse and I didn't notice a change in her levels at all. So we started giving her oxygen only when her levels went down. We found when she was concentrating her levels went down but we'd tell her to breath and she'd go right back up! She holds her breath when she concentrates. Grandma showed up fairly early that morning and spent the morning with us. E was pretty excited to see her and Grandma and E made a string of beads for R. Our Pedi came in with a group of interns and E got very shy. Fishbowl effect! They were all very kind and we'd seen several of them but there were 5 or 6 of them and it was just too much! They talked about her for a bit, told us we could go home and left! E wanted to stay! She was having too much fun watching movies and being waited on! :) Amber and her kids showed up with cookies and grapes and Grandma brought coffee (Thank goodness.. I REALLY NEEDED SOME!), Hot chocolate and donut holes! So we had a snack. And as we were snacking Papa and the kids showed up! E and R hugged like crazy!! They were like glue for several days afterwards! Amber left and we sat the kids down in front of Toy Story 3 and took a couple of deep breaths! Baby J was asleep on my lap and it felt very much like the world had been lifted off our shoulders at least enough to breath! The Pedi came in again and chatted with us while the kids watched their movie. He was amazed at how well she was and told us what to look out for, what to do and gave us more info on why and how and now what. I'd talked with the respiratory nurse the day before and learned A LOT and Papa was going to talk to her yet so we waited for her and packed up, signed papers and finally took the kids down to the HUGE play room they have there! It's fabulous!! The whole place is fab! The nurses were helpful and full of information. They taught me how to read the machines and clues and hints to what are warning signs. I learned a lot in those 2 days! The play room has a cool kids door and just about every toy you can imagine! The kids loved it! E and R played food and babies.. just like at home.. but rarely more then 2 steps apart! Papa and the resp nurse had their chat and then, just like that, we were walking down the hall and out the doors. E's boots got left behind somewhere (we still haven't found them.) and so Papa carried her thru the snow falling down to the truck. It was amazing.. we were light as air and floating.

For long term care we have a couple of puffers. One E takes every day and another for whenever she has trouble breathing. By day 4 at home she could take deep breaths again and hold it for a bit, which is what your suppose to do with a puffer. She got amazingly better amazingly fast. Her eczema went away almost completely with the oral steroid she was on for 5 days. She'd lost a little bit of weight but is now gaining well. We saw our Pedi the other day and he is EXTREMELY happy with her progress and at Christmas she gets to go down to only 1 puff on her daily puffer a day! She probably has had asthma for a while. She used to have croup and it seems somewhere in the last year or so it turned into asthma. The nurses kept thinking I knew more then I did because they couldn't believe it was only her 1st attack! I got the impression that's fairly rare. E has a little blue backpack she carries when we go out. Puffers, benadryl, epi pen, eczema lotion, we got it covered! We're going to pick her up a little bag for her stuff soon. This one is clear with blue trim and I don't think everyone needs to see what she's carrying with her. The new bag will probably have princesses on it :)
Sorry this took so long I know some of you were waiting for it. I found it REALLY hard to write. Several times I wrote for a bit and then had to leave it for several days to re-process or process some of it. I look at the happy healthy child running and chatting and singing and be thankful that it wasn't worse then it was and that it's controllable and she's fine! And she's here with us! God is SO GOOD to us and I thank Him for my children every day!

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD," plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11


I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who help. The doctors, interns, nurses and paramedic's. Mom for watching the kids, Ang and Korey for the use of their cell phone and for keeping the fire going! Amber and kids for everything you did to help keep our spirits up! And the T family for being there when we needed you and for understanding! Thanks also for those of you who were praying. God heard you. 

BUNS!! More Cute Hair Pictures.

They love it when I 'do' their hair!! 

Beautiful smiling faces! 

Bed Forts :)

One night the kids where playing with their dress up stuff. They 'needed' a house so they made one! Out of beds, blankets and dress up clothes. They loved it. 

Peeking out the windows! 

Lincoln Logs!

J's house. L had all the green roof pieces so J just went without. The little logs in the front are people! 

L's house. He has a deck and everything! And the bottom one is L's from the top! 

While Papa and I have been building on our house J and L have been building their own houses! Great jobs boys! Lincoln logs are a favorite around here. Though we are going to have to get a few more as there is barely enough for 2 kids to build with them.. and the 4 of them would all really like to build houses together. We've recently re done our toy system. We like it. The toys are all sorted into large boxes and they get to pick a box. If they are done with that box they put the toys back in the box and get a new one. They take turns picking a box and often have to agree on one! Teamwork! It also works great for the cool toys that we never used to see much because they just got lost in the toy box. Each child can pick a smaller set of toys and play with them and no one looses pieces and we all have a great time! Dino's, puzzles, cars, Beauty and the Beast stuff, Lincoln logs, Lego, all get used more regularly now!!

Billy the Steer 'D' Day!

The kids were super excited to butcher the steer. Here they are all watching from the window. They have also been missing the beef we've have been doing without. Steer butchering = BEEF to them which I think is awesome! If you look thru the window you can see a hay bale and a black blob.. that's Billy the Steer moments before death. Papa walked behind the hay bale and stunned him between the eyes with a small cal rifle, that we borrowed :) Then he slit the jugular with my big kitchen knife. Quick and painless. 

This is the steers back. For a jersey holstein, angus he was VERY tall and consiterbly fatter then I thought he'd be. Grassfed beef.. very yellow, good for you fat! We skinned and gutted him before cutting him into about 6 pieces to take to a local meat shop. Normally we would hang and cut & wrap him ourselves but we have no place to hang him this late in the year without him freezing solid (which is not good for aging), and we've been super busy and not slowing down much, so we decided to have him done. We were going to cut him into quarters and lift them into the back the the T-all but he was BIG and we knew we could not lift them in. Even in 6 pieces we had a time getting some of the bigger ones in. He weighed in at 656lbs at the butcher shop! Just a warning. There is a kinda nasty picture of Papa coming up! I think it's funny because it has happened to him a few times and he has a way of getting FILTHY doing something that someone else doesn't even get dirty doing! He has a reputation at work for attracting dirt just by looking at it.

J REALLY wanted to help and he cut this foot off by himself with the meat saw. 

As Danno likes to say.. DON"T LICK YOUR LIPS!! 

Weekend Project. Day 12!

By the end of day 12 we had walls all around, doors and windows in, ceiling finished and were using the space!! Here is the top of the tall wall. It's bowing in a bit and we'll have to fix it before we plaster but for now it's fine! It got VERY cold here after this and neither of us want to freeze while we fix a crooked wall. 

The rest of the tall wall. That window and door go into the trailer. 

Papa lighting the very 1st fire! The stove will not be were it is forever. But with straw walls not being plastered just yet we wanted it in the middle of the room. There is about 5 feet all around the stove. We've been using it for a couple weeks now and have had no problems with it. The 1st night we checked it several times and let the new pipe stink up the outdoors until it was seasoned a bit. That white sink is the milk sink, the table is where the machine stuff is stored. The white hose is what we wash up with, it is always warm as Papa has connected it to the washer's hot and cold and mixed them together in the hose. Very nice! 

Here is the front of the room. Washer and dryer to the right. I use the wash hose to fill the washer and the drain is already working. It looks much more lived in now :) Those cupboards on the left side are no longer inside and there is the table from the living room there, which we set up to cut and wrap a pig. There is room for the electric meat saw and the table in the middle of the room! Very nice for butchering! There is also plastic on the outside which helps a lot with odd drafts. We did not get to stuff the holes completely as we were pressed for time. 

A Little Girl 4 Year Old Birthday!!

Just realized I'd forgotten to finish this one! E turned 4 in October! Here is her smiling self! She's getting so grown up! She loves to 'do' hair! She insisted she have 3 'ponies' for her party! 

Waiting for Papa to light the candles.E with her cake. J is in the blue shirt. R and L (yellow shirt) with the T trio behind the table. She picked Princesses, what ELSE! for her cups, plates, and napkins but wanted a rainbow cake! 

A very cool gift.. I'm not sure what it was but all the kids were INTO it! 

Beautiful Mrs. B holding little Baby J. 

It was a great party and we had a snack supper with the crew before cake. YUM!! The letters on the rainbow spell out her name! Then she wanted ducks for candles and a caterpillar, bird and flower. The whole thing is made with Smarties! :) 

Meatloaf!

Maggie calved on the 29th. She picked a beautiful day, only -10C and had him in a protected spot. Here is Papa and Maggie taking a good look. Papa got a straw bale and spread it around for them and rubbed him dry with it. His name is Meatloaf! Papa picked it and it suits him. I think we should call him Meatball until he's big enough to be Meatloaf :) He's super cute! I looked out the window at 8:25 and there was still steam rising off him! I missed the birth by just a few minutes! Maggie did well on her own and we've had no problems since! She was quite ready to give him to Papa. Barely mooo-d at him at all while Papa was checking him out. When Papa left it took her awhile to realize that she still had her calf! We gave them the day together and then took him away. He did nurse most of the day and still took to a bottle wonderfully!! He's a great little guy! Much smarter then Bullseye was! 

This picture reminds me of a nativity! Papa, Maggie and Billy the Steer all looking intently at the new calf. The pigs were nearby and the kittens and Chip all came out to take a look too. Bindy came over and sniffed him briefly then promptly took over the nice clean straw and lay down in it! The day Meatloaf was born started SERIOUS count down for DEAD day for Bindy! That black bucket that you can see by Billy the Steer fooled me a couple of times. When laying on it's side, at a glance, you too could think it was a new calf! 

Meatloaf went to live with the laying hens in the greenhouse for the winter. He is SUPER friendly and J and L enjoy playing with him! He loves being pet and follows you around everywhere! Yesterday he found a way out of the greenhouse and explored his pen. Very cute to see him running and jumping and having a great time in snow that goes almost half way up his legs!! And, bonus, he stayed in!! :) 

A Morning of Eagles!

See him? This Golden eagle showed up this morning. That gap in the trees is our lagoon. We just butchered a beef and the hide, skin and insides went into the lagoon. This morning there was at least 4 bald eagles and this one BIG golden!! 

Zoomed him in some!! 

Later in the afternoon the boys were outside and spotted him in a tree right above the tramp! It would have made a great picture but my camera found that moment to be out of battery juice! By the time I remembered I had other new batteries and didn't have to wait for the rechargeable's it was too late. He'd flown off. Both J and L were very excited to see him so close. We've lots of butchering to do yet so I'm sure we'll see him close again! There was also a TON of ravens/crows and a few magpies out there this morning. Papa said that some dog like creature was out there as well as he saw tracks and drag marks. They better leave my chickens alone! 

Weekend Project. Day 11!

Day 11 was a ceiling day! We actually only worked about a half day on the house. The temps were suppose to drop to the -20C range and we spent the other half of the day getting the cows, pigs, chickens: water, housing and feed ready for the cold weather! This included a quick trip to town and some fence building. We also got the addition water hose in shape so it wouldn't freeze!!  

Oh and this was the day I took all those nasty stickers off the panels!! Managed to get a system going that worked well but MAN did I have a headache afterwards!! Paint thinner is NOT my friend!! :)