Lambs!!!

Auntie Ria and Uncle David have sheep and sheep have babies every spring! They got a bunch of early lambs this year and it just so happened that we were there that same day! Here are some cute pictures of their lambs. The two extra kids are Miss KC and Mr. RJ :) cousins :) The big boys were playing it much too cool to pet or hold lambs. Maybe next time I'll sneak a picture of them petting one ;) 

Can't barely see this well loved lamb! 

Funnies!

E has quite the sense of humor...

And one I loved from online..

Cement Pouring Day. 2014

J helping to level it. 

Beautiful! 

S smiling at a kid while Papa try's to wrangle his hand into the cement. I held his legs and Papa got his hand in. He was so excited to be woken up to go outside! 

The finished step!

In order left to right, G, R, E, Papa, Mama, J, L, J3, and S! 

Gingerbread Houses and Men 2013

We followed our Christmas Eve tradition again this year and decorated gingerbread houses. We invited G&G F to join us and had a guy house and a girl house. The girl house is on the left and the guys on the right. 

J3 and G did these while I supervised. They had a great time at their own little table with their own candy selection. And surprisingly some even made it on to the gingerbread men :) 

Camping Out With Cousins

Uncle D, Auntie A and O and K asked if J and L could spend a night out at the lake and when Grandma F found out she invited E and R to spend the night out with her too!! So we spent the day at the lake and then the kids slept over with cousins and Grandma and we went home, did cow chores, slept the night and came back the next afternoon to pick them up. 

J couldn't swim but he could boat!! Here is him and E in Uncle D's boat.. Later on Papa took J, L and E for a row and they were gone about two hours. They had a blast!! 

Uncle D braving 5 girls in Grandpa's boat! Going for a ride. They did do some fishing in smaller groups.

L swimming with several floaties. 

Uncle D and J, L and E fishing. They didn't catch any. E had one on her line but it got away at the last minute. 

A closer fishing picture!! That Uncle D is sure a great guy!! 

G and J3 playing on shore! 

Waterfight!! Auntie A and Cousin K in the background! 

J3 and G sleeping on the way home.. very strange to only have 3 kids for the night. The truck felt super empty! 

I never did get a picture of all the cousins.. My sister A and her family were there too.. We had a great time though!! 

Ah... Hot Dog Roast :)

First some stick clean up. We had 8 six month old pigs in this pen for about a month and they did a fantastic job tilling in the leftover hay, flattening it out and pulling out sticks!! Papa spread some seed in there about a week before we moved them which is a super easy way to get some nice seeding done!! A little bit of raking around the edges and we have a nice flat seeded area! 

Tucker had a stick too.. but he really didn't think we should BURN it.. he'd rather chew on it :) 

Sitting back relaxing next to the house waiting for the fire to die down a bit so we could roast hotdogs. 

Ahh what a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon!! 

The Pictures Really Say It All!!!

And just for the record I told J3 to get out of there. He HATES to be wet.. He wanted to be there... 

at first!! 

The rest of the kids had a BLAST!! 

Ham and Bacon; A Piglet Story.

Saturday morning Papa and I were having a nice relaxing coffee in bed before a busy day and the phone rang. It was my uncle and he had a interesting quandary. Would we help him out?? I told him we'd talk about it and get back to him. Soon.. So we chatted about it for a minute and Papa gave me the go ahead.. I was a bit surprised I will tell you. I honestly didn't think he would say yes.

Turns out my uncles sow had a batch of piglets the night before and he was pretty sure she was not going to be able to keep up with them all. She had 15!! 14 lived and he wanted to give us the two runts to raise! I had a chiropractor appointment that morning so I got to go to town, have a wonderful lunch (you may have seen pictures on the fb page) all by myself and then visit with my folks a bit before heading out to pick them up. I had a great visit with my Aunt and Uncle and totally enjoyed seeing all their pigs before heading back to town with these two little piglets sleeping in a tote in the back of the car. They slept all the way to town and only woke up when I found the M family and dragged them, 2 parents/6 kids, to the car to see them :) Then I almost couldn't get out of the parking lot! People I haven't seen in years saw the piglet and I was swarmed :) The kids LOVED them!! Cousins K and RJ were out shopping with their grandma and got to see the piglet too!

It was a bit crazy in here when I brought them home later that day, but I did manage to get some pictures. L has Bacon and E has Ham. Bacon is quite small but makes up for it in attitude!! 

It's amazing how fast they grow! We got them on Saturday and they were less then 24 hours old. They slept most of Saturday, ate a LOT in the evening, slept all night, ate like crazy (4 times in about 3 hours!) on Sunday morning (we took them to church :) ), slept most of the afternoon, ate like crazy again Sunday night, slept all night and woke up starving this morning. All we really have to do to feed them is stick the bottle in the tote.. they fight over the bottles until they are both sucking and then they eat, switch, fight over the bottle again, and eat some more.. The whole feed takes less then 10 minutes and if you can keep them from fighting over the bottle too much or if they are really hungry you can feed them in about 5 minutes. 

The girls really love them and I often see E crooning over them. I named them Ham, the bigger one, and Bacon as a constant reminder that these pigs are just like our other pigs (except white) and will be food just like the others, no matter how much fun they are now! 

Today they will get a bigger tote and a bit of milk in a short container. Uncle Joe told me that, as early as next week, they could be eating out of a trough and not needing the bottle so much! That is fast!! I'll, hopefully :), keep you updated :) 

Summer Has Arrived :) Sun Burn Anyone??

What a great day in the sunshine!!! 

Yup everyone of us had a 'bit of red' after our fun day in the sun on Saturday! 

I did oil them up with JenK's Burn and Rash Salve that night

 and the next morning we had 6 little brown faces :) 

I guess Spring decided to skip us this year and Summer moved right in :) 

We had great temps of 23 and 24C (mid 70'sF) for the last couple of days!! 

AND WE ARE LOVING IT!!!! 

Fun in the Sun in The North :)

Little Miss G in her little pink boots and purple jacket taking her first walkabout in the spring warmth. 

Little Mr. J3 who can find all sorts of things to do with sticks besides make water rivers in the mud :) 

I have pictures of the others too.. but they are not uploaded yet so I will have to do them later as our internet is at it's limit for the month :*( 

IT'S MELTING!!!

March 21st/13

6 days Later on March 27th/13.

5 days later on April 1st/13

This really doesn't show the snow melt as well as some other areas in the yard and cow pen but these are the pictures I have. Under the trees in the yard we have grass and the cows have a LARGE patch of grass showing. The driveway in front of the house is almost totally dry except where the snow melt rivers run thru it off to huge puddles below the driveway. Yesterday we got rubber boots out and washed the snow pants and put them and the snow boots away!! Spring is coming!! :)