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!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Why I DONT normally do "projects" while John's not around...

I was trying to get a lot of much needed stuff done around the house today... you know, sorting storage and switching clothing... that kind of stuff.

Here is a list of all the things that happened while I was trying to do that...
  • The dog got up ON TOP of the kitchen counter to get to the bag of cat food that I was trying to keep safe!
  • Maggie let two of the inside rabbits out of their cages! (luckily they were both males!)
  • Ammon (trying to help) thought he would clean the bathroom with BLEACH!!!!
  • Hannah (trying to help) tried to wash some dishes and soaked the floor!!!!!
  • Malachi brought an "old" wasps' nest in the house to show me... THAT STILL HAD WASPS IN IT!!!

At this point, the only child (or dog for that matter) that isn't grounded for the rest of their lives is Abbie... but the night's still young!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Our Bunnies @ 10 days old!

It's that time again...


Please ignore all the painful looks in this picture! All of my kids were actually thrilled when I was taking the picture but my neon green shirt was reflecting the sun. Poor Gabie had REAL tears coming from his eyes by the time we were done!!! They were all so excited to be helping me pick from the garden they could barely stand still for the picture! Abbie's zucchini weighed just about as much as she does! guess what's for dinner!!!
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Bunnies! 10 days old!

Here are our baby bunnies at 10 days old! They are so stinkin' cute I just wanna squish 'em!!!! All of them have their eyes open and they are hopping around like little pieces of pop corn! It's so cute to see their little heads pop up out of nowhere! Love them!


Ammon with Penguin!



Malachi With Oreo



Gabriel With Zorro
Hannah With Spot

Maggie helping me hold Ying-Yang

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

That's my boy!


I have often said that you will never here a sentence come out of Gabie's mouth that does not end in an exclamation point! He is a super fun ball of energy!

Today he walks up to me while I'm trying to assemble a wheelbarrow. This is how the conversation went:
Gabriel: "Mommy... Mommy...Mommy..."
Me: "Yes Gabie"
Gabriel: "I know we're NOT supposed to say fart buuut... I have something to tell you!"
Me: (assuming he was about to tell on someone, and QUITE annoyed with the stupid wheelbarrow) What Gabie John?
Gabriel: The farts that you can hear... They feel the best!

In truth, I've never thought about it before. Good to know...(sigh)
*Sorry bout the weird lay out but for whatever reason my computer decided that this is the way my post will look!*

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

So have you...

ever had one of those mornings when you're running late for a doctors appointment (that you KNEW you should have set the alarm for) and then you suddenly realize that you might be out of underwear because you're so behind in laundry. So you're running back and forth (in nothing but a towel, I might add) from the laundry area to the bedroom, praying that your darling husband might have mixed some of your unmentionables with some of his work clothes. Only to trip over the very basket you had just been searching through... falling flat on your face...sending your towel flying... all the while being sung a song (specially written by your two-yr -old) with the lyrics "Mommy haba nakey butt, Mommy haba nakey butt!"?

Ya... Me either!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Baby Bunnies...

As most of you know, Juliet had her babies last Sunday. She had 7 but only five survived. Today, they are one week old! They don't have their eyes open yet but that isn't due to happen for a few more days.

Their Ears were laying back on their head at first but just today they have started flopping around when you pick them up. Soooo CUTE!!!!



After the Rain...

Our ducks don't like the pool we have for them! They have recently commandeered the dogs' 3-gallon water dish. It's quite funny to watch them scare the 65+ pound dogs away and lay in their bowl! But that's not what these pictures are of obviously. It rained last night. I mean it POURED!!!! It caused a huge puddle near the barn and the ducks have been playing and quacking all morning long! It just cracks me up!



Friday, June 4, 2010

BUMMER!

So it would figure that Shannon and Brian would be gone with their girls and Rose and Sarah, and John would be away at work when I was woken up at 2 am with that cry that EVERY mom knows. The one that says "You're not gonna have time to get me to the bathroom! Grab the first thing you can and catch it or you're gonna have a big mess to clean up!"
Poor Abbie was the first to start two hours later it was Maggie! Maggie seems to be over it already but poor Abbie is like the energizer bunny of puking... she just keeps going and going and going! Now I'm sitting next to her ready to jump at any moment!

So... After I forced this out of them...


I let them do this...


and this...

and this...
oh, and this...

I'm so proud!

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Abbie and Maggie

Nothing makes me smile like this!

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!