About Me

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I am a 29-ish yr old married mother of 8. My family is my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. My darling husband is my very best friend and together we are raising 8 of the best kids in the world! They are Rose(12) Sarah(12) Ammon(10) Malachi(8) Gabriel(7) Hannah(5) Maggie(4) and Abbie(3) We currently own 2 dogs, 1 bird, 5 chinchillas, 1,000,000 rabbits, 1 cat, 4.5 horses, and one ferret. We just purchased a home that is definately a "fixer-upper", with land and room for the kids to roam. Our goal is to run a mostly self sustaining farm and live in peace as we grow as a strong family unit. We have seen our fair share of hardships, but we are thankful for the many blessings the Lord gives us on a regular basis!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Our Life!

Now that I've finally figured out how to get things loaded properly with this slow internet I feel like I can really continue with our blog!
So here's the run down as of late... I'll split in into categories...

Our Plan...
John is employed now with a stable long lasting company. Herff Jones in Indianapolis. He feels challenged but not overwhelmed in his new position and looks to stay there forever if he can!
Right now he is living in Indy with his brother durring the week and comming home on weekends. Our hope is to be free of a car payment before we move to Danville and find some acreage. At this point we still plan to adopt a sibling pair of boys when Abbie is 5-ish and if we keep on track finacially and as a family unit we believe we can make this happen. That is only 3 years away sometimes it's hard to think about the fact that our future sons are out there somewhere living what ever hardships their life might bring that will eventually lead them to our family.

THE KIDS...
Rose and Sarah are, of course doing great, and have enjoyed singing in the Terre Haute Children's Choir all this year! They both started out in lyric Choir but Rosie was moved up to the more advanced Treble Choir after the Christmas break! Their singing has improved so much! I just can't say enough good things about the program!
Sarah received two Chinchillas for Christmas this year. She is currently saving up Money to buy a male so that she can breed them.

Ammon also has been enjoying Choir this year! He is in a different, non-auditioned group called Sing Up! He has done fantastic and has he has enjoyed it and scouts this year. He has also joined the 4-h dog agility club with his dog Lyla. This year has been wonderful for his confidence!
He is always helping and trying to find someway to serve others!

Chi started out in public school this year but we quickly realized it didn't work for our schedule and that he wasn't happy there so he spent the rest of the year homeschooling with the rest of us. He is sucking in ANYTHING that he can about science! He loves Robotics, computers and Chemistry! For his reading today he chose a chemestry book!

Gabie had the opportunity to go to public kindergarten and loved it. It was only about 2 1/2 hours each day and for me it was a lot more of a social activity for him than any thing. He had his graduation last night and it was REALLY sweet. I hope to get some pics up soon!

Hannah Rachel is a sight to see. Right now she is all about being a princess, Her very favorite show is "Toddlers in Tiaras" and she wants more than any thing to be a pagent girl! She recenly got her first pet! A Flemish Giant Rabbit! She is so big that she can barely hold her. She'll max out at apx 22 lbs! I have discovered recently that she takes after her big brother Ammon and likes things neat and tidy!

Maggie is my little spit-fire. While she has toned down quite a bit since we moved here (meaning she hasn't flooded anything recently) she still likes to run the show. She is super funny and has really taken the role of big sister to new heights. She can climb a tree as well as ANY of her siblings...though it's often the ladder to her rescue when she can't get down!

Then there's Abbie. My sweet tubby Abbie! She loves anything that Maggie and Hannah love. Right now her favorite thing is food! But she doesn't like "bean beans" (green beans). She "lub uh duckies" and any other animal. I think she's taking after Sarah were that's concerned!


Animals:
We are the proud parents of 32-ish chickens. Our Buff Orpingtons are due to start laying some time in August and out Plymouth Rocks should start in October-ish.

We also Purchased a breeding pair of Flemish Giant Rabbits! These suckers are HUGE! And super sweet! I bought Crystal for Hannah and then Rosie bought Poppy for herself. We hope to have baby bunnies in the next couple of months.
On top of the Flemish Giants we have accuired mini-lops which we hope to breed eventually as well.

Along with our Buffs we accidentally received a white Turkey. She's super fun... and WAY smarter than we thought she turn out to be! Her name is dinner... She matures fully right around Thanksgiving.... but I don't think I'll have the heart to eat her she LOVES to be hand fed worms and is just so interesting!

I butchered 11 of our 22 chickens and they were YUMMY! I ended up putting the rest on Craig's list because of convenience sake. I plan to get about 50 next next spring an put them all in the freezer for the year.

We ended up keeping two of the puppies that Lady had on my birthday...oh the drama! Lyla is the one that Ammon got to name and Larry was my favorite of the bunch. Lyla is very quite and well behaved. Larry was what I believe to be the pick of the litter. He was the most handsome and I think the most trainable. But I believe he has a long way to go before we'll be the good dog he can be.

There are a LOT more aimals that I could write about but I'll save the chaos for another time!

Me...
I'm doin' ok. I still have to fight my natural tendency to whine and complain. I feel like at this point Heavenly Father has lead us here for some reason. Why? I'm not quite sure of yet. I feel much more confident in my Homeschooling abilities than I once did.
While living with my sister and her family can be challenging at times I love that I am rarely lonely. We've got a pretty good routine going. Though I wish I was able to keep up the house a bit better for hers and Brians sake.
I still get homesick for AZ and all my friends out there. I cry at times when I think about the beautiful home I had to leave. But I am slowly accepting the fact that it is time to look forward to loving a new home of my own. I still jokingly tell people that I live in AZ and I'm just on an extended visit. But everyone else knows I'm here to stay.
Well I don't really expect many people to actually read all of this. but I thought I'd put itout ther at least for my own records.
Love you all!

4 comments:

Cassi :) said...

I'm glad you guys are doing so well, you seem to be thriving in your new environment. "Forced" change can be the hardest but in the long-run the most rewarding. You'll come out on top, I'm sure :)

Lauren said...

Well, it's great to read that you're all doing well. Glad the kids are good. Please tell them hello from the Shumways! We have moved out of the ward to a new house, so we miss the friends there, too!

Ranee said...

I am SO glad you are blogging again! I have thought about you, lately and have been hoping things are going okay! Give me a call, sometime, or I can email my number to you if you need it! Hugs!

Stephanie H. said...

Thanks for the update! SO glad you're blogging again! :)