~9 Kids For A Day~

B's needed someone to watch their kids for a few days so a few of us from the church group 

took their 3 kids for a day. 

They had a blast!! They played outside, inside.

In this picture they have made a town and have a mayor and all kinds of rules and regs. 

My crew learned quite a bit about how a town works from the B bunch.

All lined up and ready to head out!! Us to AWANA and the B kids to their house. 

We didn't realize until right before we lined up for pictures that we had in the house for the day 

a 10 year old girl

a 9 year old boy

a 8 year old boy

a 7 year old boy

a 6 year old boy

a 5 year old girl

a 4 year old girl

and a

1 year old boy

and last but not least

a 4 month old girl!!

Craziness!! In a GOOD way :) 

Doing jumping jacks to get rid of some energy!! 

I misremember why they are all sitting in a circle but I'm sure it was fun!

 Haha I remember they were trying to make words using only the 1st letter in the names of the people in the house. We only had one vowel so it was quite hard! 

Too Many Diapers.. A J3 Adventure!

Mommy told me to go get a diaper... 

I have a stinky bum

I got LOTS of diapers..

I put them on the couch! 

 Because my bum gets changed on the couch.

Mommy sees my pile of diapers!

TOO many diapers.

Go put some back! 

I try.

They are not being helpful diapers! 

They all fall on the floor! 

I pick some up,

I pick some more up,

some fall down,

I pick more up,

more fall down,

I get annoyed and throw them ALL

ON THE FLOOR!!!

Mommy laughs and takes more pictures! 

Too many diapers!! 

Mommy says go bring me the bag! 

I can do that!!

I go get the bag.

Do you know how hard it is

 to put diapers in a bag

 while your holding the bag?

VERY HARD!!

Mommy helps.

She holds the bag 

I put diapers in the bag!

YAY!

I take the bag and put it away! 

I still have a stinky bum.

I still need a diaper.

I take ONE diaper 

and go to the couch. 

Ahhh.... nice clean bum :) 

Ladybugs~Clay

R's 'little man' had to watch her make her ladybug and had to be in the picture! 

We recently watched Thumbelina with the kids on Netflix and she LOVED IT!! 

Super cute and fun to make!! 

Big Boxes Of BIG FUN!!

Papa's Granny Vivian has been sending us up gift money for the kids for years. 

We started saving it.

We finally found what we wanted to spend it on!! 

Now we have to wait so we can enjoy it! 

Papa ran to the 'city' a couple of weeks ago to pick it up.

It's EXCITING!!!

But not TOO exciting.

As we have to wait! 

And wait 

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Then Papa got home YAY!!!! With a bunch of GREAT BIG BOXES!!! 

In the boxes are lots and LOTS of pieces... 

Did I mention LOTS?? 

YUP there are LOTS!!!

But that's OK because when the boxes are opened and the pieces put together we will have this!

And THIS!!!! 

But first we have to wait just a little bit longer.. til Spring has truly sprung 

and we can see the ground

so we can set them up 

and then we are going to

PLAY!!!

So right now we are still waiting

and waiting 

and waiting 

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SMILES!!! :)

Smiling so big her face is trying to split :) SUCH A CUTIE!!! 

A more regal reserved look.

 R put this chew toy on Baby G's head for her 'crown.'

Note the amazingly soaked front of her sleeper...yup she is a drooler!!

*Star* ~Bottle Feeding~

J holds the calf bottle for Star while L, E, R and J3 and I look on. 

Star was born at about 90lbs which completely and totally put L, E, R and J3 out of the running to bottle feed her. She's strong. J could barely keep that bottle in place while she drank!! He dropped it several times to his chagrin. She's a rough little thing (she bumped Papa on the nose and made it bleed!!) and both Papa and I have been trying to teach her some manners!!

 It involves quite a lot of kicking on my part and a bit of learning to stay off the human on hers!! 

No joke! 

We fed her with the bottle for less then a week before bucket training her. She drinks quite nicely from a bucket now at 2 weeks old. She's getting about 2.5 gallons of milk a day and an arm load of hay! I love watching her eat the hay.. she has pieces sticking out every which way and she chews every bite very exaggerated. 

J3 loves her and comes to me several times a day and asks 'Calf?' and we go out on the front porch to visit her. Star trying to suck on any feet that get too close (sometimes succeeding!) and J3 staring at her and petting the kitten. Chip is normally on the stairs pacing excitedly so I go pet him for a bit. He's not normally allowed on the porch as large dog + small child = large dog, sprawling and crying child, but we've let him up a couple of times when the kids aren't out and let him gaze on Star too.. he's as much of a sucker for baby animals as the rest of us :) 

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!! :) 

And She Is A Yeller...

A short clip of Baby G yelling!! She does this a lot :) She almost never cries.. just YELLS!!!

And We Have A Calf!!

It's a heifer, our first one!, full story to come soon.

And They Will Know We Are Griggs' By Our

CAR SEATS!
Several people have made the comment "WOW that is a lot of car seats!!" and it is :) Four car seats and two boosters! Papa needed to haul some neat stuff, we will cover that in another post, so we took the opportunity to bring them in and clean and 'fix straps' so they're good to go again!

Baby G Pictures 3.5 Months Old.

Baby G is 3.5 months old. We got some great pictures of her this week and I wanted to share them :) 

She loves to chew on her fingers.. no teeth yet but the way she drools and chews I wonder if she won't get some soon! J3 got his 1st at 2.5 months for a couple of weeks then it reappeared about 3 months later so it's possible she could be teething.  

I love this one! She looks wind blown with her bib all crooked. I love the color of this sleeper on her but, as you'll see below, her feet tend to escape. 

 Baby G has a CAPE!! Oh wait it's her bib on backward!! 

Umm... I WILL chew on this yummy thing.. I WILL!! 

WHAT IS THAT THING!??

Maggie :)