More Cute S Pictures

S is 3 months old today! He was 11lbs 11oz on Sunday and has been gaining an oz a day so he could be 12lbs today! He smiles, laughs and coos. He loves to stand up on your lap or wherever. He really enjoys kid watching from his chair and the fan and the bubbles on the computer too :) He normally sleeps 5 to 7 hours straight at night now and has two nice naps during the day. He loves to fall asleep on people and hates baths. The kids fight over who gets to hold him and G will often come sit beside me and demand to HOLD AM! (She can't say her S's). They all try and make him laugh which makes them laugh and our house is full of laugher. They love it when he farts and quickly wipe up spit ups. He hasn't peed on anyone recently :) 

Asleep on my shoulder. 

With Mrs. M. Also asleep

Checking out Mikey.

Chilling with L on Granny's rocker. 

On the way to church...I love the hat! 

Loving some floor time in his little auzzie outfit :) 

Cow Update

The calves got moved to the back where the pigs have been and given the pond and the lease. Milton is looking awesome but Patch is still a mere shadow of what he could be. He is finally out of the 'bag of bones' category. He just doesn't seem to be a good keeper no matter what we do.  

Our friend S came and AI'd (artificial insemination) Maggie last Sunday and we did get confirmation that Isabel is bred and should calve right before Christmas. They are both AI to brown swiss and we are hoping for a heifer :) The cows are looking wonderful. Sleek and fat. They have the last hay bale on the place as they are out of grass.  We've fed 4 bales this summer including the one they are eating now. Our place is just too small to feed two milking cows. We only have the 2.5 acres in grass :) you see. Oh and M's acre :) They cannot go in to the lease as it is too much bush and their bags would get torn up. Our winters hay is already arranged, we trade meat birds for hay, and we just need to make delivery arrangements and get the storage spot ready and stack and tarp it when it gets here. 

Pig Update

The piglets are doing really well and gaining weight. There was one that we were watching as we think he got stepped on last week in the excitement of a piglet getting stuck in the electric netting. Papa turned the fence off and the piglet got out on its own but this little guy of Big Mommas got caught in the mix and was limping badly. He could still get around but he's slow and competing for food. We were going to take him out and bottle feed him. Big momma was stressed enough to try and take a snap at Papa. Totally unlike her and Papa smacked her for it and she looked repentive but we are more careful now. He disappeared a few days later and we are assuming he is dead. It's really too bad but its reality. 

Ham and Bacon are doing really well and are out of the 'cute' stage. Ham is probably 75lbs.  Papa wants to butcher them before winter as we cannot house them with the other pigs in the barn this winter. So we are feeding them hotter then we normally do. They are getting lots of milk and 2.5 gallons of soaked feed a day and growing like crazy! Pigs you see are not color blind and are racist. The white pigs being smaller would not fair well with the big black pigs and the black piglets. It would be too much stress for everyone so we must keep them apart. UPDATE: we may have one sold! 

The butcher pigs for this year, the 8 we kept from our sows last year, are doing really good. Papa spread corn in the cows winter feeding area from last winter and let it sprout and then put these 8 pigs in there. They love it! Papa went out and taped a couple (using a tape made to weigh pigs, you just get two measurements and it tells you about how much the animal weighs. They have them for calves too) and the biggest one is 280lbs! Great news as I took a look in our pork freezer and its pretty empty in there! 

E's Great School Day!

E has been really working on her school work this year. She's been making sure she reads the instructions and follows them, writes neatly and checks to make sure it all makes sense. It's paying off! The other day she did 14 pages without a single mistake! This is a big improvement from her normal and we are very proud of her! Good job E!! 

Last Of The Scratch Coat

This was awhile ago. We finished the scratch coat that day and, other than filling in deep spots,  have been working on the brown coat ever since. 

Two little stucco-ers :) They were quite a lot of help with the scratch coat! 

Papa is ending up doing a lot of the brown coat alone. Pictures to come soon! 

Some New S Pictures. 2.5 months old!

Tummy time...checking out Daisy! 

Smiles! 

Cool toy mom! 

Flirting with Grandma! 

Walking with my brother! 

S on his blankets from Grandma! 

An almost smile! He loves patty cake! 

The 7. Sept 13

S Supervising. See his hand in the air? He's saying 'Get to work!' 

A Little Update. Sept /13

Well I've been a bit MIA this last little bit. It's been busy around here and I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed with school and canning and house building and farming and I could just keep going but that won't help. So I'll focus on the positives.

 We've finished our 1 set of PACES this week and now are moving at a much slower pace in school. I don't know what I was thinking jumping in with both feet like I did. I guess I deserved the dunking for not thinking it through. 

 J, L and E are now finished 1/4 of their PACE work for the term and now we can take some time off later if we do end up moving into the house. We are slowing down for a bit now though, that pace works fine in the middle of winter with little else going on, but is way too much for this time of year and this time in our lives. 

R is almost half done her reading program, two years of watching others do this program is really working to her advantage and she reads like a pro! 

J3 is learning the songs for the reading program from R and loving his school time with a picture to color. 

G is also coloring pictures but she'd much rather be OUTSIDE. And even a mention of an animal can send her running to get her 'oots. Or boots as us non baby's call them :) 

S is also doing well. We had a bit of a heart murmur scare with him but the pedi in the city couldn't find it so that's a good sign his heart is fine. He is 'underweight' to maintain his growth curve on their charts so I'm waking him to nurse if he doesn't wake himself during the day and he seems to be gaining. I'm not super concerned as this is what our girls did too..and they are just small. It's in their genes. He is grabbing stuff now and trying to get it in his mouth. He also smiles a TON and giggles too :) Super cute! 

We took the kids to the beach yesterday and spent a couple of hours just relaxing. It was wonderful. It was needed. The weather has been strange for September and we've had +30C several times this last week. The leaves aren't even changing colors and the gardens and grass are still growing. Very odd weather for here. We are loving it. We pulled the kids little pool out again and the spent hours building boats and playing in the water. We might do that again today as its suppose to be very nice today and Papa and I will be busy stuccoing :) 

I'm going to try and keep posting a post a day for a bit and try and catch you all up on us, the farm and the house. Have a wonderful Saturday! 

Happy Anniversary!! 14 years!

 14 years ago in little bunkhouse in wa. State Papa and I said our vows, for the 3rd time , to Papa's Pa (Grandpa G who married us) and his Mom and his Aunt and Uncle; M & J, and God and were finally 'officially' married.  

I remember J was so pleased his eyes didn't stop twinkling and M made cookies  and we all had a good time. 

For those of you who know the story, you know it was a long crazy one... For those of you who don't; I'm going to try really hard to write it out on of these days  We actually celebrate our anniversary on Sept long weekend just to avoid all the confusion. Papa got me a little rose bush this year! 

Happy 'official' anniversary my love. 14 years married, 17 years in my heart. God has blessed us richly!!

The Griggs Family School House

Is back into that school routine! 

We started last week. Mostly we started last week because of R.  She has a 12 week reading program to get done by November 22. That's 14 weeks from last week. With our crazy life we decided we better start early so we can take some time off later if we need to. Moving in to the house could disrupt school :) 

So this year we have J in grade 4, L and E in grade 3 ( and starting piano) and R in grade 1. 

J3 is a bit put out...he'd like to be doing school too...so we print out some pictures for him to color :) and make sure he holds his crayons right :) 

So far...it's a bit crazy. I'll admit it.  G and J3 aren't super happy about having to stay inside and play in the living room while the others do school. Papa can't watch them outside because he's busy building house. I'm trying to get all our meals ready in the morning while the kids do school while marking books, helping as needed, dealing with G and J3's little troubles, teaching R to read and tending baby S. AND we are all trying to get done by nap time so we can go out and help Papa with the house stuccoing. Yeah RIGHT! I think we've made it out twice to help after lunch since we started last Monday.

 So now on the couple days a week Papa is working we are scrambling to do laundry and put up veggies and fruits as well as daily chores and school. I'm tired just typing it out! I think we may need to cut back on the amount of school the older 3 are doing for at least the month if September and make it up later as its just taking too long every day. That's one of the truly beautiful things about homeschooling! If its not working out? Try it a different way! R's school only takes about an hour a day at the very most so we might just have to cut back the older 3 to an hour a day and see how that works. It would also help if we could stick to the plan :) 

Anyway I'd better go supervise P.E. outside :) I think we might work on our soccer lessons! 

These are the kids school pictures this year!