Painting With Grandma!!

 Grandma offered to come and teach the kids how to oil paint.. Bob Ross style!! 

Here she is in what she calls 'my bossy pose' lol. She was explaining the first step! 

Here are the paintings after several steps. 

I love how each one is different! 

Several steps later... 

And 5 hours later they were DONE!! 

Well the kids paintings were done,

 Grandma got so busy helping she missed a few steps in hers!

What a great fun activity with a wonderful Grandma!! 

CORN!!

                                 

                           We bought a couple of boxes of localish corn, around Billy's pond, 

            and friends of ours picked it up in the city for us and we ate like kings for a few days :) 

We also decided to do an experiment and  freeze some. 

No blanching.

 Just cut it off the cob and freeze in bags. 

We did it team work style!! 

The kids shucked it, G (picture above) brought it to me and I cut the kernels off and bagged it. 

So far we have had to limit ourselves HUGELY as this is the best corn EVER, besides fresh on the cob, and we are already making plans to do TONS more next year!! 

In other words.. it was a HUGE success and we are loving it :) 

Oh and if you were wondering, this is a catch up story, these pictures were taken Sept 16th :) 

Boys... Need Tools...

Papa decided it was time for these two to start helping out around the place :) 

(Anyone who knows us know these two boys are already a BIG help on this homestead!! )

But he had a bunch of nails that needed pulling out of some 2x4's and he knew these two would be up to the job (they love working with tools anytime!!) and they were! But first they needed the right tools for the job!! 

Riding!!! Thank You T Family!!

We met a friend of ours in town a while ago and he invited us over to visit with his family. 

While we were there he gave the kids this little motorbike. It had a mechanical problem but Papa put it right and off they go!! 

J's typical look while driving.. He loves it.. honest!! 

Papa giving rides! 

L SO very excited to be riding by himself!! 

The Griggs Family would like to say a GREAT BIG THANK YOU TO 

M & S, M, L, J, D, R and E!!! 

THANK YOU!!! 

A couple weeks later another family stopped in and brought their two motorized kid toys for the kids to try out for a couple hours

 :)
E loved that she could ride this one by herself!! 

Riding along enjoying the day!

Thanks to the G family for the fun visit!! 

Birthday Girl

Making the cake! 'Chocolate Mom!' 

7 years old. She pretty much made her cake by herself, and loved every minute of it! 

Ready to blow out candles! 

Wearing her party headband from R. 

G, wild little critter. 

Opening gifts! 

J3 making his 'grandpa man face.' 

R with her cheeseball firmly in place! 

Oh look Breyer horses!  I missed her first look at them with the camera, but she loves them! 

Oldest (J)  and youngest (S). They love to hang out together. 

L looking suspicious.

  

E's birthday never fails to remind us of the year she was born. She was less than a week old and we got 2 feet of snow and lost power for 3 days. It was an interesting time. We all slept in the living room to keep warm and we were grateful we had a propane stove top to cook on. 

Opening her gift from G&G F and showing it off down below! 

Happy Birthday E!! 

Here is a link to her 2nd Birthday picture!! 

Thankful Thursday.

Today I'm thankful for:

Sunshine, it's almost November and we still have no snow. Beautiful sunny days with only a little wind. A wonderful fall season.

Pork roasts. We are cleaning out the freezer and we have several pork roasts left, some ribs and tenderloin and bacon. Today's supper is a pork roast cooked for hours at a low temp. with applesauce, baked potatoes and green beans. I hope I can fully enjoy the tastes and savour them. 

Sick days. Papa is home sick today and while I'm not happy that he's sick I am thankful he can take the day off and get better. 

Sleeping children, schooling children. The oldest 4 kids are quietly doing school. The youngest 3 are all asleep in their beds. I love quiet time and I've missed it. 

Our new woodshed. Papa fought his cold long enough to put the last little bit of tar paper on the woodshed roof this morning while the kids and I put the last of the 5 cords in it. We still have slabs and smaller rounds that need cutting up and brought in to the shed but the bulk of it is done. 

And the one slightly 'off' one for today is.... I'm thankful for homeschooling. I truly love having my children at home 24/7 and love that I get to teach them but I get very annoyed and stressed with the supplemental work they are required by the government to do each term. Maybe someday I'll morph into a unrestricted teaching style but for now I'd better get up and get at it. 

Have a great day ya'll :) 

Firewood...And a Place to Keep It.

Papa and I finally decided on a good place for a woodshed so we decided to build it before we changed our minds. :) 

We used a post pounder to pound in 10 posts for the foundation. Here is E running the post pounder..J and L had a turn too. 

After the posts were levelled and squared we made a 2x4 beam to hold the trusses. We made these trusses years ago, in fact they were the same ones we used for our straw bale barn here.

Trusses waiting for spacing. Foggy morning. This is right off the back door and the milking parlour..we are also planning a cow candy mixing area, tool storage, and a small critter pen under the roof.  Critter pen for calves.

Here it is as it stands today. This whole project started last Monday and we are hoping to get the tar paper, and the rest of the strapping on it today and start filling it. The tin will need to be ordered in so we'll put it up later. We are expecting snow this week so we want to have it ready before then. 

Walls and floor will be pallets. Calf pen will be at the front on the other side of this picture right next to the milking area. I'll post a picture when it's got wood in it. 

Kids rolling wood that needs to be split away from smaller stuff. We bought 5 cords from the mobile work crew this year and its nice stuff! The wood to be split line up went all the way around the trampoline in this picture when we were done! So I've been splitting wood too. 

We have had beautiful weather this October so far. It's been amazing and we've have been spending lots of time outside.

I want to say HI to Aunt Linda and Granny Sarah and THANK YOU for the very neat baby gift and letter Granny Sarah! Thank you for being such a wonderful sweet person! May God bless you both! I think it would be wonderful fun to make cookies with you and I know that your grandchildren are very blessed!

I do plan on blogging more but I'm finding myself quite stretched lately so I'm very sorry to say posts will likely be sparse for a bit longer. I will try to post E's birthday pictures soon though.. :) May God Bless you and keep you. May the sun shine on you and your coffee never run out :) 

S Laughing.

A Lunch for Papa.

What Papa found on the table awhile ago.

They made it themselves :) 

Morning Ramble and S Update

So it's 6 am and S is up. He's hungry and now that I can blog on my ipad I can write this up as he nurses. He slept 7 hours and I got 6 hours, in a row! Pretty amazing since I've rarely gotten more than 3 hours in a row since his first paediatrician appointment 6 weeks age. At his appointment last week she said he was gaining enough and I could drop some feeds at night. S must have heard her as he started sleeping longer hours that same night. So this is my third night with some decent sleep.  This will change my life. I may actually start blogging again. I've already started doing crafts with the kids again. I'm drinking less coffee, by almost half, and as the kids and I joke.. I'm feeling human again. R once got it mixed up and said she was feeling rather chickenish. We still laugh about that. 

S's appointment went well. He's now 12.5 lbs and 60 cm long. He's just about outgrown his 3 month clothes. If fact I have his next size in the house and will probably switch it in this week. His reflux is much better. He's even waking up on his back. I put him to bed on his side. He used to only sleep on his tummy. He has started to enjoy playing on the floor and rolling over belly to back and back to side. He is very strong and holds his head up really well. He loves to stand and is grabbing random things and trying to out them in his mouth. He loves to laugh. S is almost as cheerful as R was, always smiling and giggling. He is our smallest boy so far by a pound or so for his age. He's a Griggs :) where are J3 was a Fehr. Us Fehrs have bigger genes :) I'm the second smallest of my family and Papa is the biggest of his.. Makes for kids of all shapes and sizes. 

The paediatrician said we don't have to see her again so long as his breathing stridor doesn't get any worse but continues to get better. She said it should be gone or almost gone by 6 months. So far I've noticed a slight increase since he started sleeping longer hours, or maybe I'm just actually coherent again and it's always been like this. I'm truly not sure. I don't do well on little sleep. I NEED at least 4 hours in a row and I feel very fuzzy and out if sorts when I don't get it. I feel like I've lost some time. I know where it went though. It went into keeping S healthy and that's a good thing, a great thing, a calling even, so that's ok. 

The paediatrician did find a mild heart murmur this time but because it comes and goes its not a cause for concern. I have one too, and so does Grandma G. Mines never caused me a lick of trouble. 

The kids loved the paediatricians office. It's on the 10th floor, as high as any of them had ever been, and there are neat windows that show you the city from a new height. It makes me dizzy :) We found several landmarks and enjoyed the fall colors. But we were dissatisfied as we couldn't see our truck. We're funny like that :) 

That night Papa made us mussels steamed in white wine, with takeout sushi and oil and vinager and bread.  It was fantastic. I think we all felt like celebrating. It was a great day! 

Oh and P.S. we found a great new way to go shopping for kids with kids. iPods and iPads! Seriously! One of us would go in and take pictures of ideas and then come out and show the other and we decide and than one of us goes back in to buy it. Because we rarely shop without them and because we don't do Halloween we don't like to take the kids into stores this time of year. So this new way to shop worked awesome. It would work even better on two phones as you could text stuff back and forth! For us to be able to text Papas iPod has to have wifi and neither of the stores did. 

Anyway S is asleep again and it's only 7am so I think I'll try to get a couple more hours of sleep. 9 am is wake up time around here for the kids and lately for Papa and I too. I've checked the farm. The big pigs are sleeping in their big round straw bale, Maggie is snoozing and Isabel is getting an early start on her hay, the laying hens are up and about pecking around, the piglets (weaned yesterday and their first night alone) are huddled in a bunch in some straw inside their triple strength pen, the kittens in the tote in the entrance are wrestling and I can hear their feed bowls clanking gently together as they play, G just started singing in her playpen so I will go lay her down and shut their door...to much light and she needs to sleep more. 

Here is a picture of S in his chair and new sweater. I have a non blurry one..but this will have to do for now as the other ones on the computer :) Have a wonderful day! Oh and Happy Thanksgiving Canadians!!