Happy 10th Birthday, Hannah!

Happy Birthday, Hannah! Wow, today you are 10! In the double digits! We are so proud of you and want you to know how special you are to us, our only girl. Daddy's little girl would be a good way to describe you. You have such a soft heart, and we are so thankful you have the desire to serve God at such a young age. I know it isn't easy for you at school, being different than the other children, but always remember God sees and knows the trials and temptations. If you ask for His help, He will give it.

I remember when I was pregnant for you and anxiously awaited your arrival, our first. Your due date was July 18th, which was your Great-Grandpa's birthday, and our cousin, Becky's too. However, Mommy was under a lot of stress at work, and went into pre-term labor at 30 wks. The doctors were able to hold you off for 6 more weeks by putting Mommy on complete bed rest. Grandma took care of me while Daddy worked. You came into this world 6 lbs, 12oz. and was 19.25" long. Impressive for being 4 wks early.You just qualified being called premature, as 36 wks or earlier is considered premature. You stayed in the special care nursery for 6 days, with breathing problems and jaundice. In fact you ended up on a wallabe light at home for 2 wks. We called you our glow worm. At your first convention, I carried you around in my sweatshirt, and no one even knew you were there. You weighed a mere 11 lbs then, at 8 wks of age. Oh how scrawny you were for quite some time. Still are, except much taller now. Please don't feel bad how tall you are, God made you this way and we love you for you! Even if you grow up taller than me! Thank you for all the help you give me, and for watching after your little brothers when Mommy or Daddy has to do a quick chore with the animals or yard or laundry. You are so special and we love you so much!

Picnic Fun

On Saturday we went to Rick and Tabi's home for a picnic/get together with 4 families, 6 adults and 12 children. The boys far outnumbered the girls, 10 boys ages 8 and under, and 2 girls, ages 9 and 8. We had a wonderful time visiting and the children had lots of fun playing in the yard. Great food, too! I love going to these get togethers for Shawn and I to have fellowship with other professing people, but also for the children to play with other children of the same upbringing. My boys rarely get the chance to play with other boys, and Hannah had fun with Lauren .

We also took the kids to the Lake for the first time this year. Noah had a blast, and is quite the brave little fellow.

Zach found a fawn!

Yesterday afternoon, while I was cleaning out the barn, the children were playing in the yard with the baby goats and on their swing set. I ran in the house to grab something and Hannah comes tearing in the house completely breathless saying, "Come quick there's a deer in our swing set!!" I fly out the house collecting the 5 children not sure what I'd find(one attacked our house dog,Maggie, last fall). Between the mini slide and big play gym, there I found the baby fawn! Zachariah found it while doing the monkey bars. He thought he was seeing things due to the medication he received earlier from the dentist(pulled a tooth that he cracked on a slide accident on Mothers Day that had a bad case of infection and the dentist put in a spacer) and called for Emily to see if it was really a fawn. I was able to get some pictures.Can you see him?We put up more hay last night, 277 bales. That brings the total to close to 1375. Not bad for a first cutting, small operation farm! Dad said last night he has 4 more fields to cut and then we'll have a break till 2nd cutting. Both baby goats are finally nursing from their bottles really well. Hannah, Zach and Josh help feed them their bottles. I am so thankful they have the privelage of farm life, even though we don't live on a farm(we have 3 1/2 acres). Just enough for our animals and the kids to have freedom to run and play. Getting ready for meeting here this evening, so I'll get back to work. :)

Hannah's idea of a wedding ceremony

I have to post this one for Hannah for future references. She is playing Barbie with her cousin, Emily. They are playing with the fancy Barbie dresses that a lady from our convention kindly made and gave(she tries to give all the girls 8-10 yrs old in our state a box of homemade Barbie clothes!) to Hannah. She had the wedding dress on the Barbie and her and Emily were performing a ceremony for "Nick" and "Jen". She asked Nick, "Do you promise to love Jen forever and serve her?" HAHAHA! I laughed so hard at her misunderstanding of the vows. Can't wait to tell Shawn he must have missed out on that part of our vows! I imagine he will say I take care of your animals don't I? Anyway, oh the innocence of a child.

Babies are here!

We now have our newest animal babies! We picked them up on Friday evening, they rode home on Hannah's and my lap! They just turned 2 wks old today, and they are 2 baby boy goats. We got them from our vet, Erica, for free to help settle Tinkerbell down. (Beauty doesn't want her around because of her colt and Tinkerbell is rather upset about that.) Ryan & Vanessa are getting 2 older ones this week also.

We are bottle feeding to help tame them and get them use to us. The brown one, CoCo, had a hard time getting the hang of the bottle, the white one, Snow, got the hang of it after 2 days. Tonight before we headed to the barn to stack hay, I tried once more to see if CoCo would take the bottle so Erica didn't have to come over, and he downed it, and half of another! The children are having a blast with so many babies here, kittens, colt, goats, human baby!

It is also hay season. Dad square baled on Saturday and after the graduation party (for a fellow my mother started babysitting when he was 11 mos old until she passed away), Shawn, Dad, Tad, and Spanky(Aaron) stacked while I mowed grass. Kids played at barn, and Noah helped me. Around 250 bales on Saturday.

Then on Sunday, Dad and Tad baled again. We don't like to do that on Sundays, but the weather was great and the hay was ready. Shawn and I, plus Dad, Tad, and Spanky(Aaron) put up Sundays hay, 480 bales. Tonight, Shawn, myself, and Spanky put up 341 bales. Tad and Dad helped in between baling and bringing wagon loads to the barn. Dad has a neat hay wagon that puts the hay in while baling, so no more picking bales up off the field and that saves a ton of work! They plan on more tomorrow and probably Thursday too, if the weather is nice.

I also had a yard sale on Saturday at my sister Angie's house. We had a great turn out, and I made $83. That's a lot of kid clothes. I had a quarter up to $2 on most of the clothes, also sold a baby walker($5), ride on toy($4), travel cradle($4), etc.

I tilled the garden today, and got a large rock stuck in the tines. Good ole Dad to the rescue! Took the tiller up to him and he removed the rock after a lot of pounding and finally removing the tines. Tomorrow Zach goes to the dentist to have his tooth taken out.

Here are a few pictures, please excuse my farmers tan! We are outside with the animals so much, that we all have good farmers tans going on!CoCo and Snow. Dora's turn with the stubborn one. Like the bib?Shawn's has the hang of it!Swinging with Snow.
Kittens in a small food dish.Don't want to forget this baby, he's the best out of all 9 babies living here now!

Peanut in action!

Here is a short video of Peanut. He is growing quickly, he is still smaller than our cocker spaniel, but getting stronger daily. So cute to watch the little fellow running. We are hoping Beauty continues to do well, if not we will have to take her to an Equine Specialty Dr. for an ultrasound. Hope we don't have to! Josh learned tonight what happens when you startle a new mother horse, she bites you on the shoulder. Oww!
Planning on getting 2 more babies some time this week from our vet, stay posted to see what kind!! :)

Welcome, Lil Peanut!

Our colt has arrived! Beauty surprised us on Saturday night, June 6, 2009 with her baby boy. I checked her over around 4 p.m. and she wasn't showing any signs it would be soon. So Shawn and I took the children to a hot air balloon festival, a little over an hour away. We enjoyed watching 23 balloons take off, and return later in the evening for a night glow. We got back around 11 p.m., and Shawn, Noah and I went out for the night feeding and check-ups. To our surprize, we found Tinkerbell (goat), in the dog pen with our border collie and cocker spaniel! It was quite the shock to greet the dogs that were jumping up the side of the pen, and be greeted with a third nose jumping up baaing at us. Shawn went into the horse and goat pen, and Beauty greeted us like normal. Shawn's light shined enough that I saw a tiny object laying on the concrete behind Beauty. I said,"There's a baby!" and Shawn said, "A baby what?" I wondered what kind of baby he thought we were expecting, but told him a horse. I quess I kinda wondered if it was a goat too, as our goat is getting plump, but she was only 9 mos old when we got her. Anyway, the baby was already cleaned off and pretty much dry. Momma had problems though. She didn't clean like she should have. Dad came up and helped the little guy nurse. We decided to call the lady we got Beauty from, and she said Beauty should have passed the placenta by now. So I put in an emergency vet call at 12:15 a.m. Shawn and I waited up till 2. I put in another call, in the mean while I kept checking to see if she cleaned. She was up and down, rubbing, rolling, trying to pull out the placenta. At this point, we wondered if she prolapsed her uterus. Finally went to bed at 3, I got up and went out at 4:30 and 6. At 8, I called one of the vets at home. Turns out this vet was on call, and didn't hear her pager. She came out around 10. We didn't make it to union meeting. :-(

Beauty did pass the placenta right before the vet arrived, however, she did need 2 shots, and medicine for infection of the womb. The colt checked out fine. Beauty did bleed every few minutes all afternoon. Called the vet a few more times, she decided to come and check. Again, right before she arrived, Beauty passed a large volume of blood, then that was it. Both doing great today. So cute to watch the little fellow run around.

We couldn't decide on a name for him. He is extremely tiny. When he is laying down, he is only 7" from belly to back! He almost gets lost in the hay. He stands at 17". Weighs between 20 and 25lbs. Sorry, didn't get a length. He goes under his mama's belly with no trouble, (she is around 38" high.) Josh wanted to name him Peanut, and we all agreed it fit him.I will try to include a video of him running and playing later.

Busy weeks!

Hi! What a busy 2 weeks we have had. Lots of things to post, and will probably forget some of it, but the most important one, Noah is now a walker!!! He took a couple of steps on his own last Wed. (5-27-09), and by Fri. (5-29-09) he was walking across the room on his own. If possible, he is now into more than he was before. His favorite game to play is put things in the trash and see if Mommy notices!

A few posts back I mentioned one of the kittens were missing. Momma Cat, Minnie, kept wanting in and out of the garage. I finally went to the area she keeps coming from, listening, and I heard a faint meow coming from a very large brush pile. Minnie hoped in and crawled to the bottom. I climbed to the top and looked down, and there was the missing kitten! She had been going back and forth almost a week. Poor little kitten outside by itself, while other 4 were in the dry garage. I couldn't leave it, so Zach and I climbed on top and after almost 1 hour, many cuts, bruises, and several days of a banged up shoulder and back, I rescued the lone kitten. Just as I had hold of it, Minnie brings another kitten in the pile. I quickly grabbed that one and promptly deposited both back into their box. Minnie must have the urge to move them, the next day while I was volunteering at school, we came home to an empty box. I knew they were somewhere in the garage since she was shut in. Finally found them in a different box under a desk!


Kids are now officially done with school, although this summer, I am working with them to keep what they learned fresh in their minds. As soon as school starts up in the fall, they have achievement tests they both have to take. They really enjoyed the end of year carnival, and field day. The little boys and I went for both events, so fun watching my children having fun!

My niece also graduated on Sat. the 23rd. Her party was on Sunday. I can't believe the little 3 year old that I loved bringing to the farm when I first started dating Shawn has graduated!

A family friend came to spend the week, hoping to help Dad make hay. Weather didn't cooperate, but we were able to use his help for our barn! He installed 2 cross windows in our barn, for lighting, and for the breeze. What a difference it made!


Beauty hasn't had her foal yet, which most likely means she will be having a boy. She is showing signs it will be soon, she was due on the 1st.


Last night, Shawn helped stack the first cutting of square bales. Dad cut and round baled about 3 wks ago, now he is working on square bales. He has a field down that he was hoping to get baled last night, but a storm came up and it has been drizzling on and off all day.


The electric fence is up and running! We finished on Memorial Day, and turned the horse and goat out. They enjoyed exploring their new area. We also gave Beauty her first bath since we bought her. It was so hot (94 degrees with about 70 percent humidity) that I think she enjoyed it.


Let me see, found kitten, rescued 2 kittens, carnival day, field day, graduation,electric fence, new barn window, Beauty bath, and oh yeah, Zach is having more problems with his mouth. He had a slide accident on Mothers Day, and hit his jaw hard enough the dentist said if it was an adult, it would have shattered their jaw. It has caused the roots of a tooth to die, so he is scheduled to have it removed and a spacer inserted. Wow, what a long post, sorry!! Here is a picture of the kittens today. Their eyes are starting to open!