L's Birthday

L wanted chocolate covered cookie balls for his birthday cake! Super rich and yummy. 

Funny card Papa made him. 

Opening the iPod. 

L is our happy, drawing, dragon loving, deep thinking boy. He enjoys games, biking, making stuff, reading, playing with S or G. He spends hours with his nose in a book, or making paper dragons. He got an iPod for his birthday and he enjoys searching up animals, texting people, and taking gobs and gobs of pictures :) 

R's Birthday

R had a great birthday, quite a while ago but I'm catching up! She loves to 'do beads', ride her bike, help with the littles, sing and act things out, play babies, bake and decorate, and give hugs. 

Mixing up her chocolate cake!

Papa decorated it and he did an amazing job! 

7 years old! I love J3's face in this one :) 

Millers happened to be stoping in that night and stayed for the party! 

Looking at her gifts :) 

Buff Orpington Chicks are here.

Papa is home with the chicks! 

Oh they are so cute! S is not going to look! 

All the kids and Papa talking about chick care. S is in love! 

E checking on them while they stay warm by the wood stove and we get their new home ready.m

Ah home is ready. Time to eat! 26 buff Orpington chicks. Mixed run, so Roos and hens. They are all doing great and we haven't lost any. 

Yup. They are in the house :) 

Interior Walls

The wall behind the woodstove and the door into the 'farmer bathroom'. 

Putting up the laundry room/bathroom wall. 

S loved wall building. Obstacle course anyone? 

The laundry room wall up. 

The farmer bathroom full of church tables and chairs. R photo bomb :) 

The three stick frame walls out to the straw bale hallway wall. The 4x4 support for the bale wall is there too.

The doors are up in the hallway too, but I don't have a picture on my Ipad. The wiring in the bathroom and laundry room is almost done too :) 

Girls Room Door

Here is a picture of the girls room door in the straw bale wall. The 6x6 frame keeps the walls from squeezing the door frame and making it hard to open or close. 

T Moments, 8 weeks old.

First bath

An often seen expression. 

Sleeping while hugging Papa.

First time in the new stroller.

His chest is so wide it just amazes me.

Sleeps in such odd positions.

First real smile caught on camera. 

First visit with his doctor. Well except when she delivered him. 

Visiting the chiropractor, Megan. He loved it and just lay there so contentedly. 

All wrapped up and chilling in the car seat while I put wood on the fire. Baby sausage we call it when they are all wrapped up like this.

So T is now almost 8 weeks old, he's 12.8 ish pounds, sleeps fairly decently; only waking once in the middle of the night and then once between 6 and 8am. He loves to sit and watch the kids play or be packed around by E or J or L or Papa or I and sleep on us, or sleep on the big chair in the living room. He loves baths and if I put one hand behind his head he floats and kicks like he thinks he can swim. He grabbed a toy yesterday and then started to cry when he moved his hand and the toy came with. I had to rescue him from it as he couldn't let go of it and he got pretty upset. He's already grabbed my hair and my headphone cord. He's still covered in hair, even his ears and he's getting more active during awake times and his awake times are getting longer. He's such a fun little guy to be around, wide eyed and content, that when he's cranky he sets the tone for the whole house. S will come running up to me, tears in eyes, to ask if T is 'Fine? Fine?' If T cries for more the his normal fussy feed me cry. The other kids fight over who gets to hold him and if he's in his chair he is often petted and entertained. 

S's Baby

S loves his baby 'brouder' and is playing more and more with babies. He carries them, burps them, kisses them. So sweet to see him loving on his baby while I'm loving on his little brother. He doesn't call T by his name but calls him brother in S language. 

J3 and the New Tub

Dusting

A whole new challenge in the house ;) 

Verse of The Week

I drug out Papa's white board the other week and we've started using it for a verse of the week and our to do lists. Verse on the top, to do lists on the bottom. It lives right by the fridge and is in a good spot for reminders. Papa picks the verse every week and I write it out. The kids really enjoyed wiping off their school work as it was finished for the day and it was a great motivational thing while we still had lots of school to do. Levi drew the flowers on this one.

A Rare Look

At the back of the house. 

And a closer look at the three steers. Ivan, Patch and Milton. Ivan is one year old and Patch and Milton are two last month. 

Papa The Sleep Master.

This was Easter Sunday during church :) He's the sleep master all right! 

A Piggy Post.

Pigs in the bush in the back. See the two strands of hot wire that keep them in? 

The two gilts we are breeding this spring. The red one with the black mark on her face we think we will call Daisy and the all black one is Blackie. This was before we separated them out and brought the boar home. 

A better picture of Blackie. You can also see our pond and a few more pigs. 

Lots of pigs lined up by the hot wires. They are super friendly and I'm too big of a chicken to go in there and give scratches so I talk to them over the fence and the follow me that way. This is a better picture of our pond area in the back. Lots of work to be done back there yet. Pretty low on the list at the moment. 

Some of you might remember Big Girls one surviving piglet. Here she is on the left in the above picture. She's still a bit smaller then everyone else but she has lots of character! These two pigs are less then two weeks different in age. She's the runt for sure! 

Big girl sleeping in a nest by the lagoon. She managed to hurt her front foot, yet again, and wasn't moving around as much as the others. She's much better now but this may be her last year. It's her last chance to raise a litter, of her own, as she has so many problems with her feet and lost all but one piglet last year. If you remember she raised Gillys piglets last summer with her one survivor when Gilly didn't have any milk. Gilly is gone now and hopefully that will change our farrowing out to the better and everyone will be able to raise their own piglets this year. 

Oh and these pictures are a few weeks old. Daisy, Blackie, Big Girl and Little Girl are all in a new pen up front now with the boar, Big Red Tamworth. We should have piglets mid/late August. Daisy's piglets will be 3/4 Tamworth, 1/4 Berkshire. Blackies will be half Tamworth, 1/4 old English black and 1/4 Berkshire. Big Girls and Little Girls with all be half Berkshire and half Tamworth, like last year. We are very happy with their piglets from last year! 

Spring Soccer. Thankful Thursday.

P.E. Outside today consisted of laps with the bike and running up and down the driveway and some fun soccer! We are about a month ahead in snow melt and spring growing! Yay! Beautiful day! 

While T did this