Snipits of things

Maddi and her new diapers!
Bevan, Caleb and Ben at Camp:)

Colton, Natalie and Ashley getting acquainted with Angel.

Angel loving the attention.

Cute picture of Madalyn finding paper on the floor.

We had a good 17 days in Houston. Lots of things to do. I especially like the visit to the Ranch in Francois Lake. Seeing great "family" friends. I really need more time there to get really caught up, but I'll take what I can get.

It was nice seeing my sister and her friend for a day and a half. I'm hoping she comes to visit me so we can have a longer time together.

Madalyn did her ever so famous eating every 2hrs through the night the whole 17 days. I'm so tired I can't do anything.

It was so nice to hang out with my Mom and just relax and visit.

I will be back in August! While Josh goes to the races:)

We're still Here!

Just to let you know we're still in the H-town. I was going home yesterday, but my Sis is coming on Sunday and well I decided to stay and say hi to her. So here I am. It's hot here, which is cool, I love the Summer weather. I think I like it better at my house though, we have a pool. But the sprinkler does the trick at Gramma's or we follow Papa and the Brandi dog down a weedy trail to the river. That part I don't particularly like since there was evidence of bears. But was sooo funny walking home with my Sister's little guy, who had filled his pockets with "treasure" =rocks, and couldn't keep his pants up.
I don't have any pictures of the river, because I was to busy thinking about bears!

Contradiction

This picture doesn't have anything to do with the post but it's cute:) She's in that "I can get up but I can't get down" stage. Ok I just read over my last 2 posts and realized I totally contradicted myself. In one post I say it's hard to keep this place clean like Grandma. Then in the next post I'm bored because it's too easy to keep it clean! Hahahaha, "Make up your mind would ya!" So I can't really say it's too hard, because at the moment I can't remember why I thought it was hard.

Right now I'm sipping my morning coffee, a little drowsy from having to get up at 7:30. Madalyn decided to having a morning party instead of a night one. Which was nice for last night, I took the opportunity to watch a movie, with no distractions. Had I known we'd be parting this morning I probably would have passed on the late night movie time. Oh well.

Today Grandma comes home. She's coming with my 2 nephews. Caleb and Bevan will go to camp together when Natalie gets back(day 4 and I'm surviving). Colty will stay here and play with Ash. The 2 of them have a pretty good time. They are only a year apart and now that Colton doesn't mind playing with girls they get along great! (He went through a 2 year phase where he didn't want anything to do with girls)

Today we're going to vacuum, sweep and do some dishes.

Why is it that all these things seem so much harder at my house, and there is endless things to catch up on (at my house).

TV square head

Wow, I don't think I've watched so much t.v. in my life! Well maybe when I was a teen. House sitting for my Mom has proven very laid back. It's easy to keep her house clean, cause it was clean to start with. So I putter around a little, hand out a couple chores to the kids, water the flowers, do the dishes sweep the floor. We can go for a walk, doesn't take long, Houston is small. Then there's not much else to do, so we watch tv. Well the kids get bored of that easy so they take turns playing outside and playing game cube, so it's mostly me sitting on my butt glued to the boob tube.

I've learned a lot though, since Josh took our tv out the garage 4 years ago. There are a lot of news channels, and a lot of reality shows. Don't misunderstand we do download some shows and watch them, which is another thing, there are a ton of commercials. Most of this stuff is crap! I sit here, especially after the kids are in bed, flipping channels. There is so much on and nothing to watch! I mostly like TLC, mostly cause we are living in a constant state of renovation at my house. But that soon makes me wish they'd just come to my house and finish it for me and I have to stop watching. So I flip the channel, now dissatisfied with my home and it's state.

There's neat reality show Road Trip America I think it's called. A bunch of families RVing across the US. I'd love to pack up the fam. in a motor home and trek across Canada. Yay, Josh thinks that's crazy too. But the notion is fun.

Well I better get back to that movie, something about a mother getting married and the daughter doesn't like it....blahblahblah:)

Oh ya you'll notice one child missing from our picture. Hopefully she's having a good time at camp:)

Trying to be occupied

Well Ashley and I finished painting our toenails. We're running out of things to do while Natalie is at camp and it's only day 2! Later today when the baby is awake we're going to walk down town. I know there is somewhere that sells frozen yogurt, we'll find it.

We're house sitting for Grandma and Papa right now. My Mom will be home on Tuesday. Trying to keep this place as clean as Grandma does is hard! So far my allergies are stay down so that is nice, but I haven't let the poor kitty in at all.

We have to keep our puppy Sara outside, poor thing is in heat, so there is no way I'm letting her in! At night though we put her in her kennel inside. It's good that it's so nice out, otherwise I'd feel really bad that she has to stay out there.

Oh there's the baby. Maybe I'll have time to write more tomorrow or tonight. He's a picture of Natalie going to camp, she's sitting in the back of the van with Madalyn:)

Amazed at what can get done!

Wow! What a busy 2 days.

We did tons of weeding in Oma's big Veggie garden yesterday. I think about 4 1/2 hrs, broken up into 2 sessions. I really like wedding there is something gratifying about it. Or maybe it's just being in dirt, which is funny cause I'm so girlie I hate getting mucky, but I love getting in the dirt and planting or weeding or any type of gardening. Funny.

Then today we did about 8 loads of laundry, not counting the 3 we did yesterday. So now all the laundry is done and all the clothes are packed!

Then my wonderful Mother in Law(Love) came over and occupied the baby while I packed my stuff. She went above and beyond, taking all 3 girls to her house! That's when the real 'magic' happened. The boys cleaned the bathrooms, I cleaned my room and the kitchen. Oh ya and living room! No interruptions! It was a beautiful thing:)

Then my MIL went above the call again and made us a yummy chicken, potatoes and veggie dinner. Was I ever spoiled. Thank you MOM you are amazing! And your food is always so delicious!

And just when you think that was all, hang on.... I put the 3 girls to bed, and the boys and I cleaned the van!

Wow!! What a day!
All set and ready to go to Camp and Grandma's house:)

Feelin' the pressure!

Well this is the last week before camp starts. Natalie first, then Bevan. We'll be in Houston for 2 weeks. I'm feeling a little apprehensive about Natalie's first year at camp. I always do when it's their first year. Plus sending 3 kids to camp this year makes us pretty broke! Right now I'm trying to convince them not to cash Bevan's check till a couple days before his camp starts. So I have gas money to get to Houston!

There is cleaning to be done, and packing for the 2 campers, plus packing for those of us staying at Grandma's.

I'm also thinking about our little hatching chicks, will we be back before they hatch? (I'm not hatching them) :)

Lots of laundry to do! I have to remember to ask Mom if she will feed my cat, and water Natalie's flowers.

Nat's become quite the little gardener. When you drive into my yard and see all the beautiful flowers that all her doing. I've been too busy with baby to do anything out there. She got money from her Oma and bought $12 in bedding flowers. She planted them in buckets (from Oma) and Oma helped her set them up in the yard. She faithfully waters them everyday. And now they are gorgeous!

I'll post a picture of them. It'll be at the top because I forgot to add them in before I started, and moving pictures around on here is a pain.

I'll try and keep blogging while I'm in Houston and post pics for you to see what we're up too. I was hoping to send a camera with the kids so they could take pictures, but I'm too broke! Oh well last year for the boys I just went on the day to pick them up and took lots of pictures. That works too.

I don't have to get Bradon ready until August 8. 2 days after he turns 13. Maybe we'll get him a little camera for his birthday. He'll like that I think...:)

The chickies, the eglu and the coop

This is the Chicken Coop we will build. I think it will keep them warm in the winter. Well I hope so anyway.

This is the one I really, really want. But for some reason Josh doesn't want to spend $450 on a chicken coop. I don't know why;)

These are the cute little "Easter Egger" Bantams. They are so cute. Yes I know they get bigger, but they are bantams so they don't get too big. They lay blue, green and sometimes pinkish eggs.

Cloth Diapers and Chickens

These are Prefolds. You fold them and pin them.


These are pocket diapers, All in One meaning they do not require a cover. They work like a disposable.



These are fitted. They require a cover.

So I've been thinking about doing cloth diaper thing again. I really like the bumGenius 3.0 the pocket diaper you see above. They are a little pricey. I like the fact they are all in one and I don't have to use covers. I'm only going to buy a few to see if I even like cloth diapers.

I'm really not into the prefolds! The fitted maybe. There are so many different brands of cloth diapers, and then there is bamboo or hemp, organic or not. It's crazy! There are also wash clothes, hemp, bamboo, 100% Egyptian cotton! It like wipes for a kings butt! It is just poop after all, and yes they are precious little bottoms, but I think flannel is soft enough. Isn't it?

Josh is letting me do the cloth this time. I really wanted to with our first 13yrs ago(WOW). He was convinced that the amount of money you save in buying disposable would be pretty close to what it cost you for all the extra washes. I never did the Math (cause that's not my forte) so I don't know. This time though he didn't say that, so maybe adding a few washes to the already 3 loads a day (not really, but almost) isn't going to hike our bills up much more then they are already.

Ok now to the chickens!
I would post a picture of the chickens I want but I'm finding the Blogger is the most annoying thing I've ever dealt with when it comes to adding pictures and moving them around. I have to add all the photos first then write in between the pictures. And I forgot the chicken ones. I'll do another post right after this one so you can see the chickies. Oh ya and a picture of the chicken coop I really wanted and the one I'll probably end up with:)

So it was the chicken Eglu that got me started on wanting chickens in my yard. Such a cute, compact way to keep them. Just 3 or 4 chickens laying an egg each a day. And when they are done laying (cause they only lay for a couple years), they can be dinner!

I was recently informed that my urban chicken idea is not nearly as romantic as I thought it would be. They're poop will actually kill the grass not fertilize it. Layers do not make good Meat birds. Who knew! I still don't know what the big deal is a chicken is a chicken...isn't it? Also the cost of chicken feed (and other animal feed) is rising.

I have a remedy for the food issue though. Chickens like worms and maggots, so we'll make a compost pile and feed the maggots to the chickens! I read that on someone guys blog. Hmmm, now all I need is a Bear-proof compost! Cause who knew there'd be Bears down-town Terrace!!

Cake, Kids and Rain!

Well I did it! I made my first wedding cake. Not that I really want to make more...but at least I know it's possible;) I baked the cake and froze it here. Then carefully packed it into a cooler full of froze meat and ice packs and drove it to Houston. It was still frozen when we got there. Yay! After visiting Grandma and Papa and saying hi to Daddy who arrived later that evening, all the kiddies went to bed. Except Madalyn, babies have their own bedtime, when ever they feel like it:)

Oh, yay actually we got the cake iced and put in the fridge before the kids went to bed, I forgot that!

After all the kids were in bed I got out the fondant and began to guesstimate how much I needed for each layer. Then is was kneading it until it was soft enough to roll out. It's surprisingly stiffer then you'd think. I still think I didn't get it as soft as it should have been, but it worked, so oh well.

After all the layers were fondanted, (and by the way fondant is not as easy as I thought, it's very finicky and cracks easy if you pull or push to hard!) we all went to bed.

The next day I spent almost 2hrs getting the beads on straight. I really didn't like the way that icing looked to hold the beads on. So I used pins! Yep, hehe, little silk pins. They were perfect you couldn't see them. But making sure the beads all looked symmetrical was craziness!

After the ceremony the flowers and piping went on and then off to the Hall it went! Oh and I never did find out how you are suppose to properly attach flowers to a cake, so they were pinned on too. Hey! It's my first time! What else was I gonna do!

Keep in mind all the while there are 7 children running around (except those 2hrs at night) needing to be fed, fights needing to be referred. Thank you Honey for holding down the fort and playing interference with all the kids!! I love you! :)

Just so you all know I have the greatest Husband in the world. He took a Lu day at work and spent the day taking care of the baby and the kids. He's awesome!

And I'd like to thank my design team.. Mom and JoJo! Mom made the icing (since I botched the first batch). And Joanne helped with the flower arranging (thanks sis).

Oh ya the Rain part. Well the kids did get a little time outside, it rained each day so they had to be inside most of the time. Which makes Josh that much more of a Hero:)