Seed Planting!

This was awhile ago already, these seeds have come up already. 

Some have died, some have thrived. 

The ones that are still alive we put into clear plastic cups to watch them grow better. 

We will soon re-pot them in those same cups with more soil. 

Then we will plant more :) And hope they will live :) 

Did I mention I have a bit of a black thumb?? 

Tips?? ANYONE??? !!!!! 

Spring School Update! ***Brag Alert!***

E and L Finished Grade 1 Math Today!!

They've been working really hard at school the last few weeks as spring is arriving and they really want to be outside instead of inside doing school. L and E have 6 PACEs, 2 each of Science, Social Studies and English, and 6 or 7 small extra assignments left and they will be finished Grade 1!

They both placed very high in their 1st reading assessment, almost as high as J did last year! J averaged 55 cwpm (correct words per minute) with an accuracy of 94% on his first grade 1 reading assessment. L averaged 39.5 cwpm with 97% accuracy. E averaged 43.5 cwpm with 95% accuracy! Their teacher says that is amazing as she almost never sees scores like that!! WAY TO GO L and E!!

J has 1 more Math, English, and Social studies PACEs left, 2 more Science, Word Building and Creative Writing PACEs left. So 9 PACEs total, a couple he's part way through, and 9 or 10 extra assignments left and he'll be done Grade 2!

J also had a reading assessment test recently and even though we'd talked to his teacher and understood that she would be testing him on several levels we were still surprised at the results!! For Grade 2 the target is 72cwpm. She couldn't score him as he read both sheets in less then a minute. He read 99 words in 48 seconds with NO errors. For Grade 3 the target is 92 cwpm and his average were 136 cwpm with 100% accuracy! For Grade 4 the target is 112 cwpm and he read an average of 120.5 cwpm with 100% accuracy!! He is amazing and we are very proud of him. I don't think we've actually found his grade level in reading accuracy yet. This scoring will not change his schooling very much. We will have to work harder at finding books that he can understand and enjoy at his reading level. Right now he is reading the Sugar Creek Gang books which he loves. They are set for a 4th or 5th grade reading level. WAY TO GO J!!!

Papa worked 6 days last week and will work 5 this week, was suppose to be 6 but he's home sick today, and we have been getting all our PACE work, reading (Raz kids and books), along with our house chores and some fun projects done every day. Papa has the 1st week in April off and we could push it and get the PACEs done by then but we won't. We've had a little bug and it's better not to push so hard. It no fun for anyone! With Papa home for a week we will likely get all their science extra's done then. So I'll give it an extra week and say we should be totally and competly done by the middle of April. Though I just remembered J has a worm farm to create and unless spring comes faster then it is now...there will be no worms out and about for a bit yet. Maybe we'll head on over to Northern Worm Ranch and get a few :)

R IS FOUR!!

Mixing up the cake. Tried a new recipe this time as she wanted a PINK cake!! It started out pink but baked up light brown but she said it was ok. I made a simple white cake recipe out of my Mennonite cook book and added the juice from a quart of blackberries from my wonderful mother in law :) into the batter! The blackberries I layered on the bottom of the cake pan and then put the batter on top! Super good! The cupcakes were AMAZING and we are totally doing that again!! 

There were 3 birthdays in our home church that week so we made extra cupcakes and brought them to church. HB stands for HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! :) 

Our little four year old Princess :) wearing a poncho Grandma F made her!! 

The cake. I love decorating R's cake. It's so easy! Her birthday is right when all the Easter stuff comes out in the stores so there is tons of stuff to choose from the decorate it with. She picked these chocolates and the sparkler in the shape of a 4 but she didn't really like the sparkler.. it was a bit well... sparkly for her! She had a wonderful birthday!! 

A Day With Friends! Better Late Then Never.. :)

10 blond haired, blue eyed kids under 8!! We've gotten together with this family, which I met through the Momys  forum, several times this winter and early spring. We are really enjoying getting to know them and we've finally taken some pictures of the crew together!! Jen is also the wonderful lady that took Baby G's baby pictures! 

J handing out cookies :) 

Jen holding G while I hold Baby G.

 Yes I look like a dork.. yes that is why you almost never see pictures of me :P 

Jen on the other hand looks wonderful!! :) 

Thanks J for taking the picture!! 

Jen's Blog is Here

Hello world...it's me....J****!

Checking out the cows through the back door of the addition.

ABC's of The Griggs Family

A is for action..with 6 little pickles we see lots of that :)
B is for Baby G, cuddly and sweet.
C is for cows, big black and whites.
D is for dog.. Chip is his name, Papa is his game!
E is for E******* our 5 year old princess :)
F is for fresh!! Fresh air, fresh eggs! Fresh out look on life!
G is for Griggs! Yup that's us!
H is house, building for years :)
I is for Isabel, our new black and white!
J is for three, Papa, and the biggest and littlest boys.
K is for kids which we have 6 of so far!
L s for L*** the only non J named boy :)
M is for Mommy... Who try's to keep life running smoothly!
N is for North, the place where we live.
O is for odd, which we are for sure!
P is for pickles and pigs, littles and bigs.
Q is for quarrel, something we try never to do.
R is for R*** our 4 year old princess :)
S is for snow and sunshine, never really in balance.
T is for Travelall, our big yellow truck!
U is for united!
V is for Victory in Jesus!
W is for work, good thing we enjoy it!
X is for x a lent! Which the kids are doing in school :)
Y is a question we get rather a lot of!
Z is a zed or a zee, you see?? :)

Jen over at Our Pecuilar Lives, button on side bar, is blogging the ABC's which gave me this idea :) It started out at a reminder list of what I would do if I blogged the ABC's and turned into this fun post. I probably will not blog the ABC's, but if I ever catch up I might :)

Baby Doll??

L recently decided Baby G was a great dress up toy!! 

Papa's hat and R's new poncho dressed her up cute as can be!! 

And There Was Light..... And Other Happy Thoughts :)

Papa and I picked out a new touch lamp for our bedroom. He picked it up the other day. Touch lamps are very cool.. Just ask J3 :) 

The kids all took turns checking it out and turning it on and off. 

This lamp replaces the one Papa bought second hand before we were married :) 

The old lamp we fixed every two years or so until this winter it died completely. 

We paid less then $3 for this one :)

 It was part of Papa's Christmas present from his bosses paid the rest!!

We also picked out new feather pillows, and gave our old ones to the boys, 

a new microwave, to replace ours as it turned off at weird times :(,

and a new phone set to replace the one we bought when we moved in this place almost 7 years ago, 

the hand sets no longer held a charge for more then a couple hours, and that gets really old!  

 Thanks Guys :)  

The Joys Of Farming :) New Calf

Isabel started walking the fence line around 1pm and by 3 her bag was dripping milk and by 3:30 we had a nice little heifer calf on the ground!! This is the only picture I'm going to post of the process of birth :) Those are the calves feet :) Isabel had been laying the other way but turned around just before giving birth and we got to watch, and I taped :), the whole thing! Maggie was a royal pest during the delivery and we ended up, again, having to take the calf away from BOTH cows so Maggie couldn't steal it. Maggie stole the last calf that was born on the place and he didn't get that first critical colostrum and he's rather stupid to this day! Thankfully he's a steer and will soon be freezerised :)  So because this is a heifer and we are planning on raising her to be a family cow we really wanted her to get the best possible start, and not be stupid! After a few tries getting her to nurse off Isabel we gave up and milked Isabel and fed the calf with a bottle.. we decided that was the best idea as we've also had problems getting the calves to STOP nursing.. so MAYBE if she's never nursed off the cow.. MAYBE we won't have the thief problem later in life??? We can hope anyway! 

Right after the birth :) Papa was keeping Maggie off so Isabel could, we hoped, lay down and have the rest of the calf.. she 'hung out' for a while half out while Isabel looked for her and Maggie licked her!! As soon as Maggie was gone Isabel pushed the calf the rest of the way out and started licking. 

Both of them getting their licks in :) Papa moved her on to the hay instead of the snowy spot she was born in.

All four of the older kids and I got to see the birth.. Papa decided to let me watch the birth and he watched J3 and Baby G. Thanks Babe!! The cows had no problems with the kids this close as long as they were quiet.  

Here she is in her little pen :) Wind proof with a heat lamp to help keep her warm. It has defiant advantages, it's right outside the front door and the kids can visit anytime :) 

This was last night before we set up the heat lamp.. yes.. J3 is in his PJ's :) 

I believe the heifers name will be Star. I need to get a picture of why yet and you'll hear about it when I do :) Because we plan on keeping her she gets a new letter, not I or M, for the first letter of her name instead of an I name so we can name her offspring after her to keep the offspring lines straight. For example if she'd been a bull we would have butchered him in about 2 years and so he would have had an 'I' name so we'd remember who's calf he was. 

4 Wheelin'

Our very cool friend Mr. G brought over his 2 kids, a GT and his 4 wheeler 

and took all the kids for rides around the place! Super cool! They had a BLAST!! 

Afterward they drank hot chocolate and watched R's new movie with us!

THANKS for the fun visit G's!! :)