J's Birthday.

I can't believe he is NINE ALREADY!!!! 

Making the filling for his blackberry pie.. 1st one for him and for me :)

Thank you Grandma G and Auntie R for your wonderful long distance help :)

Rolling out the top. 

Papa lighting himself on fire.. oh wait those are matches.. 9 of them.

 Apparently pie can't have candles??

Just after J blew them out.. it was a little bit of a rush job as Papa's fingers were getting a little bit warm. LOL. Crazy man!! 

J and his pie and cool  plates (I love American Walmart!!)

The favorite gift :) 

A watch.. someone around here figured someone in the family should have the time on them at all times and no it wasn't me :) 

 Neither Papa or I wear a watch. He breaks his, mine scratches kids heads and annoys me. 

A cool computerized chess board that actually helps you play better :) 

New shirts from Grandma F. Looked WAY to big on him.. fit him perfectly. Yeah. 

Happy Birthday J!!! 

Thankful Thursdays. Jan 24th/13

Ah well it's been a long day and there is still a fire to stock and a cow to milk. So this will be brief. Apparently I'm also having trouble typing... I guess my nap earlier didn't do me as much good as I'd hoped. It's 9:25 pm. Kids are in bed, G is still chattering and kicking her feet. We've recently found if we leave their bedroom door open she is much happier at bedtime and will go to sleep with much less fuss and carrying on. This is suppose to be a thankful post so I'll tell you about my day and why I'm thankful for pretty much every minute of it.

I woke up 3 minutes early. I almost never set the alarm but yesterday I did. I really didn't want to be running late today. I got up, filled the stove with wood, made myself a cup of coffee, did my morning devo's and checked my email and FB. Then after a glass of water, granola bar, banana and shower I jumped in the car to go to my doctors appointment. I left the house, alone, at 9:20. By 12 I'd seen the doctor; both baby and I are fine (heart rate was 135), had blood drawn, read a good chunk of my book while I waited in various places and eaten a Teen burger.. fulfilling a craving I've had since Tuesday. :) I was going to get a chocolate shake to go with it but they don't sell them this time of year?? It must only be crazy pregnant ladies who want a milkshake when it's - 5 or what ever it was outside.  What is with that.?. for sure a good thing though if you talk to Papa :) or know me much at all.

I got home and found my wonderful hubby working hard on the house... The way he was half asleep when I left I half expected the kids to still be playing and him to be in bed. Instead they'd had, and cleaned up, breakfast and had even done their morning chores!! Impressed!! Papa and I chatted out in the house for a bit and caught each other up on happenings and got a few little things done while we were there.

Papa went to work a little while later and as the big kids were happily playing outside in the snow, I fed the little 3 a snack and got them ready for naps. Big kids came in, did an hour of school while I sat with R and J and had myself a little rest while making sure they napped. Then the bigs put leftovers together for their lunch, ate and cleaned it up and went back to school, while I did some laundry and some prep for some school stuff I'm hoping to do tomorrow. Bigs finished school. Little's got up from naps. Play time!! And nap time for me. I set the alarm on my ipad but it didn't wake me up. I woke up to E screaming with a bump on her head. I needed to get up anyway. We worked together and cleaned all the floors. Very nice!

Supper was a salad with beef roast, hard boiled eggs, crackers, Ranch for the kids and Blue cheese for me. Kids ate theirs with 'Animals Are Beautiful People' and I ate mine with "The Nanny" on Netflix in the entrance... the only place I can get a good enough connection to watch Netflix.

After everyone got ready for bed J read them a chapter in a Robin Hood book he enjoys. I picked out the kids new reading assignments for the morning, we prayed together, gave hugs and kisses.. and I went into the entrance to finish the Nanny I'd put on hold. Now I'm here at the computer. Typing slowly so my fingers don't have to re do every word more then once!! Oh wait.. I ate a very yummy chocolate my wonderful sister in law sent me up for Christmas.. I still have half the bowl as I've been hording them for those moments when you just NEED a fine chocolate. My oh my are they fine!!

I got a few things done today that needed doing and a few I put off for another day. I washed and hung a load of laundry. Washed another load and dried it. They are both still either drying or sitting on the chair in the living room. I got my regular clothes out of my dresser and in a tote and my newly found mat clothes in the dresser. I got the load of girls 24 month clothes, that had previously been stored in the bus in a black plastic bag that I washed and hung to dry yesterday, in a tote. Which has been on my to do list for ages.. but I didn't have any empty totes and I found one :) I started my 'puzzle swap.' An idea that Papa's mom does with hers. You cut the top pictures off the puzzle boxes and one of the little pictures off the side of the box. Then you put the puzzle pieces in a ziplock bag with the little picture and store the big picture in a tote with the bags of puzzles. I plan on doing all our puzzles as it's a great space saver!! But alas I ran out of ziplocks a while a go so I could only do those puzzles that were already in ziplocks. I also played with J3, cuddled with R, chatted with E, helped L with a problem, listened to J and played with G... she is walking quite well now and she loves it if you pretend she's scary and run away while she's walking at you. So I must say all in all it was a GOOD day. And now I must go milk Miss Isabel.. while checking FB :) Oh and I have a date with a large cup of tea :) and a book after that.

So good night all!! Hope you had as Thankful of a Thursday as we did :)

Marshmallows And Toothpick Creations.

J with his shapes :) 

L with his shapes. 

L with his creation. I think it was a house. 

E with her shapes.

E with her train creation!! 

The BEST part of making shapes with marshmallows and toothpicks is....

You get to eat the marshmallows when your done!! 

Cool Hair Dude!!

J3 went outside recently in our unusually warm weather. He got so warm with his hat on it made his hair wet and when I took off his hat his hair did this!! He wasn't very happy about me taking his picture. His hair stayed that way all day long!! 

Super COOL DUDE!!! 

Weights and Measures 2013

We've started a new tradition this last year. After running out of room on our measuring wall I decided to make a new wall by the kids bedroom door and only measure on J's birthday. All the kids. Once a year. Simple. And BONUS I remembered!! After we oohhhed and ahhed over them L and I measured them out for you and we weighed everyone too :) So here you go.

Kid stats.

J is 53.5 inches tall and weights 95 lbs.
L is 47 inches tall and weights 53 lbs.
E is 43.5 inches tall and weights 40 lbs.
R is 39.5 inches tall and weights 31 lbs.
J3 is 36 inches tall and weights 32 lbs.
G is 26.5 inches tall and weights 18 lbs.

J grew 2.5 inches and gained 25 lbs. We are pretty sure he's using all that poundage to spike up again soon.. he's slowed down eating since his birthday and is sleeping more. Growth spurt coming up! Time to go buy him some more pants!! Because he just turned 9, post to follow soon, he is now officially out of his booster seat!!

L grew 2.5 inches and gained 8 lbs.

E grew 2 3/4 inches and gained 5 lbs. She is now in a booster seat!!! YAY!!!

R grew 3 inches... and gained 3 lbs. Seriously.

J3 grew 4 inches and gained 4 lbs. FOUR INCHES!!!

G grew a lot :) She was 8.4 at birth 2 months before these numbers were written. So she gained about 9 lbs and 6 inches.

Here is one I did a couple of years ago.. just for fun.

General Farm Update.. January 2013

It's been a while since I did a update so here you go.

Maggie is home now and her and Isabel seem quite happy together again. We have not yet had her preg checked but the fact that she's not gone into heat since she's been home and the waddle in her walk makes us think we should have a calf arriving in the next several months. Isabel has also not gone into heat since we had her AI'd and we are hoping she too is bred!! IF Maggie was bred the month she went to the Bull's place we should have a calf in March. If Isabel is bred she should calve in August. Isabel is still giving about 5 or 6 gallons a day. Lucky pigs and chickens.. I just wish I had the energy to make cheese!!! Maybe soon :)

Chip is getting less exercise now that Tucker seems to leave him alone more and is no longer loosing weight.. Papa thinks he is about 120lbs. One bonus from bringing the ski doo home to give the kids rides is that Chip follows it around, Papa is ON IT!!, and gets some exercise. He has made himself a new bed under the floor of the new house and seems to revert to puppy hood with numerous naps and unawareness. He's only 3 so I'm not sure why or even if he's changed or if Tucker is just so much more active that I've actually noticed how inactive Chipper really is.

Waiting for Papa's return one snowy day! 

Tucker has a annoying habit of chewing on bike helmets, gloves, baseball gloves, odd shoes and whatever he can get his mouth on. Other then that he seems to be fitting right in. He's about 5 months old now and quite large. I barely have to bend to pet him. He has learned to stay off the porches and to sit if he wants attention but he still has a ways to go. He tried to follow us out the driveway the other day and Papa had to chase him back a couple of times. He is very bright though and that works in his favor.

Laying hens are laying eggs again!! YAY!! Some days we get a dozen other days only 1 or 2. I'm sure I have an egg eater in there somewhere but finding them is the thing. We've lost a few older hens, as we do every year, which is life. We haven't got a hen under almost 3 so it's no wonder we loose one here and there. Most of them are between 3 and 5.

Pigs.. Well we finally butchered the last two butcher hogs 10 days ago (and had bacon for breakfast YUM!!) and got the sausage done 2 days ago and Papa smoked a side of bacon yesterday to see how it was. It was YUMMY!! Anyway that means we have 8 growers (5 months old) to butcher next year left, two proven sows and one gilt. Papa picked the friendliest gilt and kept her to breed. She is not purebred and is multicolored so it will be neat to see what her babies look like. The pigs just got a new large straw bale in their pen and Papa forked a bunch of it into their barn so they are happy pigs these days with the warm weather and something to play with.

Papa slicing bacon for breakfast! Check out that pan behind him!! 

As for the rest of the place it is surviving winter well. Papa has mornings to clear snow with the bobcat and he's made great big piles of snow every where for the kids. The kids have tunnels and caves and trails and all sorts of fun stuff out there in the snow. The snow on the entrance side of the roof has not come off in almost 2 months.. it's been too cold for it to move. The other side gets more sun and has come off once in the last month. Right now there is A LOT of snow up there and we are awaiting the BOOMING THUNDER OF FALLING SNOW!!! Papa has taken the bobcat and cleaned out the snow on the ground on the entrance side so it won't pile up and make a mess this spring. We thought the snow would fall today as it is 4C/40F here today, I even kept the kids inside because I was that sure, and so far nothing, but it is overcast and normally the snow goes on sunny days. It's already cooling off here so I think if it is still warm tomorrow it might fall then. If not it will wait until our next beautiful sunny day.

The snow by the front door... this actually fell this morning but only the part hanging down. 

Some of this fell but not all of it. Every warm meltly day on the farm we have red patches... butchering spots that show up as the snow melts.. looks terrible but you get used to it. Isabel was waiting to be milked and she was watching me with interest as I took the pictures. 

 As for a house building update.. there isn't really one. Between butchering, holidays, sickness, and work we've not had much time. Papa is waiting on a few quotes for trusses/i beams for the floors between the two additions. 

I almost forgot the cats! They are spoilt as per normal. The two kittens we got this summer have learned how to get up on Midnight's perch above the back porch. There is a bit of a ledge up there and they all 3 fit nicely and make good use of the heat coming through there. Hunter, the orange male, is still giving Tucker a hard time which is good for Tucker. I have no idea where he sleeps but I would guess in the large addition in the spare bales there. His brother showed up 2 nights ago after having been MIA for almost a year. They look a lot more alike then I remembered. The brother (what did we name him? I'll have to look on old blog posts.) is a bit more rough and tumble then Hunter and Papa says his eyes are goopy. If he sticks around we'll have to do something about that. I've only seen him once, that I know of they do look a LOT alike!, and I'll be surprised if he stays. Here is the original post on the two orange cats.. whom we were told were females but both were males. The one that stayed was renamed Hunter.. I wonder if the other just left before we knew they were males?? Anyway the 4 regulars are very friendly to each other and we often see them all 4 on the Travel-all's hood when it's warm. I hope the return of the other male doesn't mess that up! Anyway that's the farm update. Hope you enjoyed hearing about life on our place :) 

What Is Your Rank?

We've been watching M*A*S*H with the kids and they are fascinated with the ranking system. They wanted 'ranks' so I went online and found a list of army ranks and we decided for our purposes we would only use the ones that were one word. So we had Private, Corporal, Sergeant  Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel and General. Right away all the kids said Papa was the General and I was the Colonel. Ranks for the rest of the crew I did according to ability to do things. I thought it was a fair way to rank them. Here is the list.

Private G
Corporal J3
Sergeant R
Lieutenant E
Captain L
Captain J.
Colonel Mom
General Papa.

They wondered at there being no Major but I told them Majors in my mind should be in high school and they accepted that.

We wrote out our list and taped it to the wall.

When Papa got home the kids were full of Sergeant this and Captain that and they told him what we had done. He laughed and said that it wasn't true.. they were all Privates. We were all taken aback.. WHY??
Well it turns out he's right. Because no one child is allowed to boss another child in our home. J is not in charge of E or L. L is not in charge of R or J. In the army a person of higher rank can give a person of lower rank an order and the person of lower rank MUST follow that order. Our children are encouraged to remind another child of the rule they are breaking if another child is breaking a rule but they are NOT allowed and greatly discouraged to tell a child what they may and may not do. I often tell them... NO BOSSING ALLOWED!!! Or IS that YOUR job?? So now we've got a bunch of Privates in the Griggs Army and no need for a list at all :) But it was fun while it lasted :)

Thankful Thursday...a day late :) Jan/04/13

I'm thankful for sunshine, giggles, naps (mine and kids), potatoes (with cheese and sour cream! Yum), snuggles, baby kisses, papa kisses :), good neighbours, and the fact that even though this thankful Thursday is being written and posted on Friday it can still bless someone and make them smile! Have a great Friday!

Baking With The Kids!

Putting raisins on the cinnamon rolls. YUM!! I made 4 doz and froze a bunch for later.. still have some to enjoy later :) 

We did quite a bit of baking before Christmas. We made several batches of chocolate chip cookies and froze them. We did a batch of ginger snaps and a large batch of buns. We did cinnamon rolls with raisins and craisins. We did a couple of pies, some chocolate no bake cookies and we did some caramel popcorn!! It was really easy and we all enjoyed making it. Here is a little movie of the kids watching the popcorn pop in our air popper.. I love G's little happy squeal half way through.. and how Mr. J3 snags a piece.. so LIKE both of them!! 

The caramel popcorn was really fun.. easy and fun!! I posted the link on our fb page when we made it. 

Here it is!! http://www.houseandhone.com/2011/12/hone-made-caramel-pop-corn.html?m=1

This was a real hit at our church last Sunday and I have a feeling I will be making it again soon. We doubled the recipe and it still didn't last long! 

Cleaning the last of the caramel out of the bowl! 

The finished caramel popcorn... drool... drool.. 

Little Miss G Pictures.

J reading her a birthday card from Grandma F. 

Cheesy smile. Looks a bit like J3 in this one!! 

In serious awe of Christmas lights.

Yes I'm beautiful.. even with cheezies on my face!! 

You want me to WHAT?? 

How about I share instead??

Or stick my tongue out at you!! 

Patty cake?? 

OK OK I'll SMILE!!! 

Look at those teeth!! 

Oh oh... I think I pulled something!! Or filled something!! 

And here is a quick movie of her saying HI and nodding yes.. She normally does a seriously exaggerated nod with her head and gets her chin involved too.. like she's trying to actually say YES!!!