Hair cut

Isabella asked me to cut her hair the other night.  I was very tired, but I agreed earlier that day to do so.  I get a bit nervous cutting the kids hair as they get older.  When they are 5?  Who cares if you mess up!  They won't even know if  you did.  But at 15?  Oh my.  That is a different story.  Not that I have messed up, but still.  Isabella prefers her hair short.  I don't mind, it's her hair :-)  The only issue is that her hair has some curl to it, and you can never quite tell how it is going to respond.  We were outside today so I thought I would get a few pictures of her.  The first one is a 'before' picture.

A decent outdoor day

Can someone tell me where spring is?  I'm afraid we will skip right over spring and jump right into summer.  I don't like when that happens.  It is more difficult to adjust to the high temps.  For now, there are no high temps...brrrr (for spring mind you).

Two little boys hanging out.  I was thinking how long it took for us to get Jonah to wear long sleeves and long pants as we headed into fall/winter.  We've only had one day that short sleeves were wearable, and Jonah freaked out.  So I suppose it will be the opposite, he'll be wearing long sleeves and pants when it is 95* out, until he gets used to the idea of short sleeves/pants.  Silly boy. 

Please excuse Aubrey's bloody head, he had just banged his head, opening his wound up.  So much for getting him stitches!

Although Jonah won't wear summer clothing he will wear his new sandals, provided he is also wearing socks.  Baby steps, baby steps.  Aubrey on the other hand is obsessed with these winter boots.  He's not too keen on his new sandals, which match Jonah's.

Checking on the baby trees.  Jonah has the nurturing spirit in him.  He is very intrigued by the trees and wants to take care of them.

Getting a closer look.  We Jeremiah was able to finish off the fencing in the front yard.  This should keep the goats out, and stop them from eating the garden.  But I worry a bit for these baby trees as some are literally only a large stick size, making them vulnerable to little boys :-)

 Here Jeremiah is 'fixing' a snapped branch.

We took advantage of the nice weather to get some painting in.  I had painted some arrows on some rocks for their treasure hunt and all the kiddos wanted in on the painting action.

Aubrey painted the longest.  Jed and Jonah painted for a bit, but went off running after each other.  Aubrey painted the afternoon away.

So cute.

It was neat to see how focused he was, and how he really was trying to carefully paint the top of the rock.  He wasn't just slopping on paint.  Though he had difficulty in keeping the colors from mixing.

Thoughtful artist.

.At At some point Saoirse joined us and she brought along a few more things to the 'table'.

Thankfully the messes stayed outside!  I must remember this for future painting time.

Saoirse at work on something.  I wasn't sure what she was doing at first.  But she came up with a cute idea:

Stamps!

See all that mucky mess!  How wonderful that it is *outside*.  Yes, I am repeating myself, but that is only because the following day the boys found the paints and decided to have a painting day inside....along with the mess that follows.  Oy.


 

Here is a wee sign of spring. Maybe, as these are on one of our apple trees, and these started coming out when they were inside...our warm house.

Update on my "Milk Jar Help" post

Although we have only started milking last weekend I have been using the colored circles and the "y's" and "k's".  The "y" stands for yogurt and the "k" stands for kefir.  I feel that it's been long enough to give an update to see how they are working for our family. 

So far I've only had one problem with this system....I don't have enough of them!!!  Ha!  I have plenty of the plain colored circles, probably too many, though they will come in handy should we loose any.  I did not have enough of the y's and k's.  Being that I had a large batch of yogurt in my dehydrator, and not enough y's to go around I took action.  As I thought more on it I realized how much easier things are to label, and that I should have more of these labels handy for some of my other milk type products.  I was trying to stick with one color per day for the milk and one color for the other milk products (yogurt, kefir, etc).  I did not have any more brown paint chip cards so I decided to make due with what I had.

It didn't take too long to make the circles, cut them out and write what was needed on them.  I then laminated them, and after cutting out the magnets from the magnet sheet, Jonah attached the magnets to the back of them.  I was a little bummed that some of the marker smudged.  I really wasn't up to using a permanent marker, like I did the last time, as I don't like their smell.  So I went with regular kiddo markers.  Oh, well, they will still work! 

So here is a shot of my current stash of labels:

 Lots of y's!  I made some for coconut kefir, animal kefir, villii (a room temp culturing yogurt), whey, coconut milk, coconut/nut  milk, and one for starters.  There's nothing quite like opening your fridge to see a bunch of glass jars with white stuff in them and not exactly knowing what is in each!  Problem solved.  Although masking tape works great, I would have to actually find said tape and find a pen...every. single. time. Not fun.  This is working like a dream for us!

 Ok, so there is the problem of them all staying in their proper place.  But, still better than hunting down tape and pen.  The girls did not know I had made new labels.  One of them went into the fridge for some yogurt and proclaimed we were out of it.  I told her there was no way we were out of yogurt as I had just made up a large batch.  I told her to look for the jars with the y's on them.  She was thrown off because she was looking for a brown circle.  As you can see I have them in purplish colors now.

 This picture and the ones that follow have nothing to do with my labels :-)  Just some pictures I took before I put my camera away after taking the label pictures.  Flannery and Saoirse have set up a drawing station at the desk.  They sit on the opposite side that you are supposed to.  We have wide window sills, and they use those for seats.

 Saoirse at work.

 Flannery has been very much into tracing pictures and coloring them in.

 Isabella was sitting on the couch across from the desk working on her math...until her little brothers convinced her to draw them some pictures of helicopters, dinos, cars and such.

Flannery's notebook that she insisted I take a picture of.  Oh, look!  A pencil sharpener!  We only have five pencil sharpeners in our house.  They either don't work, the batteries are dead, or they are lost.  This does not bode well with 7 kiddos using pencils and no pencil sharpener. 

A long awaited dream, coming true

It is funny when I think back to pre-family days, and the dreams I had for my future.  Although those dreams did include being married and having a large family, not much else is the same.  When I first became interested in gardening, some 13 or so years ago, one of my desires was to have fruit trees.  As we've had more children that desire increased :-)  Fruit can be expensive.  I'm still wondering if it is possible to have our own banana plantation!  Ha, ha.  I'm only joking...sort of. 

Each house we've lived at I wanted to get some fruit trees.  But alas, it wasn't so.  When we were in the midst of building this house and I was serious that we were never moving again under any circumstance, I wanted to plant fruit trees before we even moved in.  At the time Jed was a newborn, and well, we were in the midst of moving.  And so the dream remained, in my thoughts. 

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of getting online and choosing our first trees!  With a budget to work with I chose 5 apple trees, and one each of peach, cherry, plum and almond.  Last week a very large box arrived, the delivery man stating that it was a box of trees.  I tore into it.  Well, I suppose I would have torn into it if it hadn't been for the many gazzilion of monster staples that I had to pry off first.  And yesterday, in the very cold and windy weather, Jeremiah and I planted those dream trees.  I suppose it was mostly Jeremiah doing the planting, now come to think of it :-)  My job was to help find where we would plant them, and then after the holes were dug, I was to hold the tree in place as Jeremiah filled in the hole.  Of course I had the very important job of taking pictures.  At least that is what I tell myself. 

Before we get to the pictures I must share what happened immediately before we went out to plant the trees. Over a year ago I was in Walmart when a gentleman approached me.  He asked me why I had so many canning jars in my cart when the canning season was over.  We started a discussion which ended with him giving me his card and an invitation to come to his home to pick apples this past summer.  He told me that if I could keep track of his card, to call him and we could come and pick as many apples as we wanted.  The summer came, and I had kept his card safe for those 9 months.  I called, but never got a response back.  All eventually was forgotten...until last night!  This gentleman called and apologized for never calling me back!  He said he had been out of town, and when he returned the apples had all dropped.  He explained that he and his wife's health has been poor and that he plans on giving up the apple trees.  He said that we could come by and take a look at them and pick out any ones we wanted.  I think the plan is that if we care for the trees then we can have their fruit!  I told him that we were just about to go out and plant our baby fruit trees and what a wonderful opportunity it would be if we could come by and learn how we should be tending them.  In the meantime, as we wait for our trees to mature, we will have this opportunity to still have fruit!  He also mentioned he had peach trees, but I'm not sure if we will be doing anything with those, he wasn't clear on that.  I am just excited to learn about orchard care from someone who has been doing it for years, and excited at the prospect of a source of fruit! 

Here are the pictures I was able to take yesterday:

All nine trees in a bundle.  I had just untied the small ropes that held them all together, and opened up the plastic bag surrounding the roots.

 The digging part :-)  I stood faithfully by taking pictures.   Except for the times I needed to run into the house to look up information (can tree roots grow around rock, do fruit trees have tap roots, and such).  Or take the baby inside, or get my boots on, or...ok, so I stood by some of the time.

 Jonah insisted on me taking a picture of him.  He and Aubrey we very interested in the tree planting process.  At one point they needed to be brought in as they were getting a little too close to the action.

 Flannery trying her hand at digging. I think she found it easier to use the pick ax.

 Hard work, I tell ya.

 There were only so many pictures to take of holes, so I found other subjects :-)

 More action shots. 

 Of course using my new camera for the first time had nothing to do with taking pictures of everything else!  I will have to tell that camera story some other time.  Let's just say that it will take some getting used to a new camera set up and getting used to using an SLR after being without one for a year.

 Total cuteness, even when blurry.

 Who can resist cute little booted feet?  Too large pants all scrunched up, wearing his older brother's sweater. 

 Our plum tree!  It's funny because when I woke up this morning I looked outside my window first thing to see my trees...except that from that distance they look like large sticks!  Ha, ha.  If it weren't for their tags still being in place I would have had to really look for them!

 We bought our trees from a site called "Trees of Antiquity".  They have a selection of about 150 trees!  Many were already sold out when I was ordering, which helped to narrow my selection.   It is pretty difficult to pick out apples based on a written description of their taste.  I went with a couple that we already eat, and a few that I've never heard of, like this Holstein above.

One last picture before I took the baby back in.  He was getting chilled.  You can see he is no longer wearing the sweater that he was in the above pictures.  He had already gone inside, gotten wet while trying to wash his hands, and re-dressed.  Here he is saying, "Cold, inside".  So in we went.

It was a great time working together on a project.  Many times Jeremiah or I are working on something independently.  But it is neat when we are able to work together to get things done here on the homestead! 

Finally, some pictures

Hey, I like pictures :-).  They make a post a lot more fun!  I've got some odds and ends ones.  After a busy few days I thought I would catch up with pictures. 

 Jedidiah was quite pleased with himself that he earned his reward for passing a long awaited milestone.  Potty training.  Yes, he's much older than most children who are potty trained at the tender age of 2 or 3.  I've shared here before that I was quite sure we would not be among the group of parents with an apraxic child who doesn't potty train until the age of 6.  Yes, six.  This is a very common thing among children with apraxia.  No one knows particularly why.  Sensory issues?  Miss wiring?  Not sure.  I'm happy that he beat the age six dealy, but not by much!  Not to mention he still has to tackle nights.  But, hey, I'm just glad he is day trained!  We had a much coveted reward waiting for him when he tackled the day time potty challenge.  Pet Shops.  Yes, the small, cooky looking animal thingies that are a craze?  Definitely not on my list of 'keepers'.  But hey, desperate times, call for desperate measures :-). 

He thinks the mailman gave them to him!  Ha, ha!  He was very excited to open up this box.

He takes them everywhere!  I try to limit where he can bring them, more for fear of him losing them, and a meltdown ensuing.

While the boys were on Plymouth Rock with the new Pet Shops, I was making a list, or lists as was the case.  Getting ready for our Boot Camp 2012.  Things are falling into place.  And lest anyone thinks this may be a bad thing, I can assure you I have a lot of FUN planned.  We have a hard time staying on target when we try to do some child training.  So I thought by adding some fun, good family time, and some fancy 'team' shirts, we would be on our way to a splendid Boot Camp.  I am looking forward to this challenge.  It won't be easy, but I think we will come out the victors, with some well behaved children, a renewed love for each other, and some fond memories to boot.

This is the pile of composted dirt we had dropped of the other day.  Not as impressive as I thought it would be.  It will still come in handy, we were just expecting there to be more of it!  Thankfully we found a free source of composted mulch.  We have plans to use the mulch pretty much all over our land.  No, really.  We considered renting a dump truck for the stuff.  No, I'm not joking.  Most certainly not after our fiasco tonight.  Currently, as I write this, Jeremiah's pick up truck is stuck.  Really, really stuck, right in our back yard.  It's under belly is in the mud!!  It's not going anywhere any time soon, especially when it's supposed to rain tomorrow.  We are seeing if we can get a hold of a chain to pull it out with our van.  Fun times people, fun times.

Speaking of fun times, we all had fun at a recent birthday party we went to over the weekend.  I still have not gotten Flannery's official birthday picture up (her birthday was on the 20th of this month)!!  But this wasn't Flannery's b-day party, her's is this coming weekend.  The party we attended was for a friend, who turned 5.  It was held at a local park.  This was good and bad.  Good, lots of room to run around, bad because there was lots of room to run around :-)  Trying to keep track of the boys was very hard to do.  Jed was obsessed about running around this fence.  Jonah...
 

 ...he was obsessed with finding all the balloons he could get a hold of.  Aubrey?

He was obsessed about trying to climb the stone stairs.  Stone.  Baby.  Not a good combination.

At one point as I was grabbing the baby away from said stone stairs I caught Jed chasing his balloon.  He was just running out of sight when I called out to him.  I really try not to think about what could have happened, but that can be hard to do.  After I called him back, we went together to get his balloon.  Had he ran after it himself he would have gone all the way out by the road.  And I can assure you he would not have found his way back!  Scary.  This is why these types of events stress me out big time.  It only takes a moment for a child to get lost, in a big, big park.  Thankfully all ended well.  We had fun, Jed got his balloon back, and I'm still sane....sort of.

Saoirse peeking out of one of the old buildings on the park's premises.

We seem to have a new problem here at my house.  A problem between Flannery and I.  You see Flannery has fallen in love....with bokeh.  Oh, yes!  Don't know what bokeh is?  It's the blurriness you get in the background, or sometimes foreground in photos.  Like the picture above, you can see the flowers, but the background is a blur of color.  I have to practically wrestle my camera away from Flannery to get a turn with it!  And this has gotten worse, *after* we just bought her her own camera!  When I brought up the fact that she has a camera of her own now, she responded with...yeah, but it doesn't do photography.  Ha, ha!  She's talking about the bokeh people!  Too funny.  But I will say that she's getting pretty darn good at this photography thing.
  

For the record, I love bokeh too :-)  I also like this picture I was able to capture as we were leaving the park...ya know, after I wrestled my camera away.  I like it in color and b&w.

A beautiful sight!  Our front herbal garden is complete.  Well, except for the actual herbs.  That will be the easy part!  See all that dark goodness on top?  That would be the free composted tree mulch.  Black gold!

A Flannery picture.  We went out in the back yard to start on the corner garden area.  It's filled with weeds, vines, brambles and such.  Flannery decided to take pictures.  That wasn't helping to get the weeds up.  But after all the work we did I was hoping she did have a picture of "before".  Unfortunately this is the only before picture she took of the area.  Trust me, it's a lot worse in real life.  This looks tame to what we had to deal with.  I may have to bring my camera out the next time we work on the area.  It was kind of discouraging to work, work, work and stand back to see that we didn't get too far!!  Some before pictures may help boost the moral of our crew :-)

Another Flannery picture.  Warning, bokeh not only in the background, but the foreground as well.  She loves when that happens.  I only have about 1500 pictures of her trying to get the best angle and bokeh from a shot.  And NO I am NOT kidding.  My memory card can only hold about 500 pictures at a time (I lost my bigger mem. card), and I've had to delete the card multiple time in the last two weeks.  Multiple times.  I have enough goat pictures to last me a life time!!  But hey, that's how we learn...by doing :-)

Because when you keep practicing, and keep 'doing', you end up with something cool like the above picture.  This is a picture that Flannery took today.  Maybe not amazing (although I think so), but for a ten year old?  Hello!  I was taking a picture of my sister making bunny ears over my brother's head at ten years old.  Wait...I don't think I used a camera till I was in my teens.  Keep up the good work Flannery!  (yes, she reads my blog :-))