Chicken Update

 As I too often do, this post has been sitting in my drafts folder for much too long.  So a Friday night with the kids in bed seems like a good night to finally finish this one.  A while ago I realized that my my post categories were heavy on the recipes and light on the other three categories.  So lately I've been trying to at least add to those other three categories.  Finally it is time to talk about the feathered friends at our house--technically our backyard.

If you didn't already know, our family happily cares for a backyard flock of eight egg laying hens.  We've been in the backyard chicken coop club for 18 months now and are entering our second winter with our feathered girls.  When we started this adventure, I never thought we'd enjoy it as much as we do.  And I never thought caring for chickens could be so easy until we started doing it ourselves.  Raising our hens has been an endeavor our whole family has enjoyed.  And yes, we have names for all 8 of them: Rosa, Elvira, Eleanor, Miss Scarlett, Irene, Pattie, Sam and Ella. 

I took the picture above a few months ago, but it tells a couple of stories.   For one, there's a chicken on our back step meaning our girls free range.  They sort of demanded it this spring and summer.  When the spring flowers started blooming and temperatures went up, we noticed the chickens were also "awakening" from their "winter survival mode".  We have two sets of 4 chickens--the older/original 4 (about 3 years old) and the younger 4 (about 18 months old).  So the younger 4 started laying eggs for the first time last fall.  That made them full grown hens.  During the winter, we figured they just all put up with each other and concentrated on the basics: eating, drinking, sleeping, laying eggs, and staying warm.  But when spring rolled around the younger 4 tried to improve their pecking order status.  Two of them were especially aggressive and were pecking one of the older girls (Eleanor) so much that they would sometimes draw blood.  They basically harassed her and bullied her so much she wouldn't leave the nest unless a more dominant chicken came into lay.  She was pretty miserable and it was dangerous for her to be with these aggressive ones.  So we started letting them roam around in the backyard.  That seemed to help them get along.  Eleanor had more room to spread out and get away from the aggressive ones.  And all the chickens have learned to stay fairly close to the house and seem to enjoy being out and about.

Halloween 2011

This year our little gang went trick-or-treating as the peanuts gang: Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus.  Unfortunately they weren't posing very well.  All three of them at least. 
I shared these photos on facebook the other day, but I know that not all the blog readers out there are FB friends with me.  So I thought I'd share them here as well.
The actual costumes were fairly basic and I like how easy they were for the kids to wear and move in them.  They were all tee shirt based.  The boys just needed simple embellishments: a black zig zag for Charlie and a scrap of blue fleece tacked on for Linus.  Even Lucy's dress was made out of a tee shirt--two actually.  The top of the dress is a small shirt and the skirt portion is the bottom of a large shirt.  I cut the large shirt just under the arm holes and attached it to the bottom of the small shirt--no hemming!  The scallop around the collar was cut out of the chest and sleeve part of the large shirt.  And since it's knit and a costume, I just left the scallop edges raw.  Four quick buttons and Lucy had her dress.  Throw in a black wig that we gave a haircut and her look was complete.

Sewing Project--Baby Bibs

A few weeks ago, I was able to celebrate the arrival of a sweet baby girl into our church family.  She is the first girl born from within our church family in two years.  Since that time we've had NINE baby boys born.  So as you can imagine a baby shower with pink and flowers was a welcome change from the marathon of blue and dump trucks that we had going for nearly two years.  Oh don't get me wrong, all our boys are wonderful and they will surely enjoy many fun father-son camping trips in the future, but a little sugar and spice is always nice.

Happy Birthday, Big Boy!

I recently noticed that of the four categories that I sometimes label my posts with, the recipes category has an overwhelming lead.  (Those four categories are listed in the right side barof my home page.)  So I guess that means I better get busy with posting in the other three categories.  I'm planning to add to the other categories a bit over the next few posts.  To start things off, I've got a post on a recent celebration to share with you.

Just a few weeks ago, our Little Man celebrated his 4th birthday.  We all had a great time hosting a party for his friends from Bible class.  I usually don't like to have party themes centered around tv characters, but sometimes it happens.  This time, however, we came up with something that we were confident we'd both be happy with.

Remember this photo from June?

Something I ran across on a  party planning website, made me think of this picture and our Little Man's love for camping.  A few weeks before his birthday he had started frequently asking me a series of questions.  This is usually how our nearly daily conversation went...

LM: Momma, when did we move to this house?

Me: Before you were born.

LM: Wow, our house is getting old. We need to move to a cabin, because the cabins are really nice.

 

Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

This blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder for four days now, so it's definitely time to get it submitted into blogland.  We have been so busy the past few days.  Over the weekend we sponsored, chaperoned, and led devotionals for our church's youth group on our annual fall retreat.  It was fun, but a lot of work.  I was pretty wiped out when it was all said and done. 

Then yesterday, was Alaska Day.  A day we Alaskans celebrate the transfer of ownership of our state from Russia to The United States back in 1867.  The actual transfer was done in Sitka and we visited the historical park this past June when we went to Sitka to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  Our little family celebrated Alaska Day with a hearty pot of Alaskan Beef Chili--also know as moose chili. :-)

Tots and Trucks

A few weeks ago now, Juneau had a city wide day of play.  There were tons of organized FREE activities for families to take part in at just about every facility operated by our city's parks and rec department.  We literally could have spent all day hoping from one event to another. 

But I try to keep our Saturday's as calm as possible.  In many ways it feels like the only day the kids can relax and play without worrying about a schedule.  It's generally a work day for my hubby so staying home as much as possible also means we get to maximize our family time.  And since everyone else in town seems to hit the big shopping stores on Saturday's, it doesn't seem crazy at all in my mind to run my errands on other days.  Of course, we don't always have a clear schedule on Saturday's.  In fact, aside from the usual soccer game on Saturday, we only have a free and clear day about half of the time.

So anyway, we had a day of play back in September and I didn't feel like fighting the crowds for the free hour of swimming at the new pool and some of the activities conflicted with either the little babe's nap or the afternoon college football game I didn't want to miss.  So I settled on the Tots and Trucks event.  It was scheduled for after the start of the little babe's nap but after Shawn would be up for the day, and would end just before kick off.  Plus it was happening close to our house.  Perfect!  So daddy stayed home to wipe the sleep out of his eyes while the little babe slept and I took the older two yahoos out for a surprise outing.  They were pretty excited when we pulled into the high school parking lot to find it filled with all kinds of city vehicles: buses, snow plows, dump trucks, fire trucks, and even a helicopter!

Legos in Your Jammies

The past few days have been challenging around here.  Momma's been sick so everyone has been fending for themselves.  Since yesterday afternoon I've been gradually feeling better and able to do a few more things between naps and breaks on the couch.  Today I'm trying to pretend things are back to normal without over extending myself. 

Shawn has done a great job holding down the fort, keeping the kids fed, changing diapers, getting the little miss off to school, and keeping the peace during playtime.  I'm glad my illness has coincided with his weekend, but feel bad too since I know he had hopes of accomplishing other things this weekend.

Front Row Seats

The other night we had a regular jam session at our home.  Here's a clip of my favorite father-daughter duo playing Boil Them Cabbage Down.  Enjoy your front row seat for this concert. 

And here's the first video I took of the performers.  This one has an impressive xylophone solo at the end courtesy of the Little Man. :-)

You may have also noticed the nice fire to the side.  This hearthstone woodstove is a fairly recent addition to our home.  It was another one of my husband's impressive craigslist finds.  Sometimes I tease him that he's addicted to craigslist, but then he'll find things like this and make me glad he keeps a watchful eye on that site.  We're looking forward to many wood fires in our future.

Reading

Sometime toward the end of kindergarten, reading started to make sense to the Little Miss.  She went from reading words, to groups of words, to whole sentences and then books in a matter of weeks.  It kind of surprised me how quickly it all clicked for her.  It's been a blessing to watch her learn this skill.

And her little brother is benefiting from her skills too.  She likes reading books to him and he equally enjoys listening to them.  It's an activity I can count on them doing together without squabbles--almost all the time. :-)
On this evening before bed, we all benefited from her reading skills as we read The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza.  It's a cute new spin on a classic story.

What books are being read at your house?

Blueberry Bagels

A few weeks ago now, I made bagels for the first time.  It was something I had looked forward to trying both for the baking challenge and for pleasing my bagel loving daughter.  Choosing the flavor for my first bagel making adventure was easy--blueberry bagels are the Little Miss' favorite kind.  So during her first week of first grade I made these as a welcome home from school treat.  They were a big hit with everyone and were devoured within two or three days.  (Which is why there's only two in this picture! Ha!)  As with many things, we've decided homemade bagels are definitely better than store bought.  And I thought they were more fun too.

I found the recipe on this blog, but it originally comes from Peter Reinhart's book The Breadmaker's Apprentice, which I coincidentally gave my sister-in-law for Christmas.  She and I share a love for baking yeast breads.

We Have a 1 Year Old

Well actually we have a 13 month old now but I still wanted to post pictures of our celebrations to mark the first year of our little babe.  The actual week of his birthday was CRAZY busy for us since his big day fell on the first day of our VBS (Vacation Bible School) and yours truly was the coordinator.  So since he really doesn't know any better, we kept things simple and had some homemade peach ice cream for a treat on the day of his birthday.  Then a few days later we celebrated with a barbeque at the beach with some friends.  It was a fun time.  The kids enjoyed playing and our little babe enjoyed eating--anything we'd give him.  The weather was cool, but not rainy so that classifies as a good day of weather.

This Boy

Naturally, I love this boy to pieces.  But I'll be the first to admit that this boy has always challenged me.  He's a few weeks away from turning 4.  At this age, he's doing some normal things like stretching his imagination in his play and testing limits.  It makes this both a fun and hair pulling age for me.   As far as his imagination goes, he's doing new things every day, but he's also got a few standards that we can count on.  For one, as in these pictures, if he finds a nail or stake protruding in any way, he must find a hammer (this time from daddy's workbench) and get it flush with the wall or ground.  This includes nails that he might find if he takes a picture off the wall.  Also, if he's got a rope or string in his hand and he's letting it hang to the ground in front of him, the chances are VERY high that in his little mind, he's fishing for the big one!  And if you hear a high pitched tweet come out of his mouth, that's because he's probably reffing a soccer game in his mind.  Add in his infectious laugh and it's hard not to enjoy spending time with this boy. 

But at the same time, this boy has always pushed my buttons.  Even as a baby, it's as if he could smell my weaknesses and decided to pounce on them just to see if I could handle it.  And now, in keeping with his 3 year old-ness, there are constant battles throughout the day between his siblings and himself.  "Be nice to your sister."  "Leave your brother alone."  "Do you want her to hit you?"  "Don't touch him.  "He doesn't like that."  "I don't want to hear you say that again."  "Go put that back."  "Get out of the fridge."  "Don't climb in the pantry."  "What are you doing?"  ....some of the things I find myself saying each day--a couple times each day usually.

Lately, he's also becoming a really good helper.  Momma likes that! :-)

I can't imagine not having this little boy in my life.  Sure he's full of challenges, but he's also been a huge blessing to me as well.  As with most challenges, the ones he gives me are not always pleasant at the time, but I can look back on them and see how I have grown from them--both spiritually and as a parent.  So I wouldn't change anything.  Although I probably could have done with a few less sleepless nights bouncing a baby than what he demanded of me. :-)

Only a few more days of being 3 little man, so live it up!  We love you to pieces!

In case you were wondering, in the first few photos he didn't know I was taking pictures of him.  Then he figured it out and did some spontaneous posing.  Yeah for zoom lenses!