Missing

I would like my family to know that just because you read my blog and feel you have connected with me because you know a little of what we have been doing - - you haven't.

I don't know that you have read anything. I know only silence. It sounds very loud to me and sends me the message that you don't want or enjoy or require having a real conversation(relationship) with me.

The fact that I have tried to express this before (and once upon a time even made attempts to reach out), but still have not heard much from you, confirms my self-evaluation that I am unimportant to you. It has created trust issues within nearly all of my relationships. (If your own family doesn't care, who really will?)

No emails, no texts, no visits and 3-minute phone conversations tell me a lot of things. What would they tell you? Yes, you can find examples contrary to my complaint, but how many of them can you find?

I am missing you and missing from your lives and I can see that you don't care. I am trying not to care. I am not doing it very well. But eventually, I think I will master it. Just don't assume reading my blog is doing for me what it is doing for you.

Misery

THIS is what I got out of my laundry room as I prepared to mop.   I mopped in there last week so don't start thinking I'm just a lazy housekeeper (which I am). 

Why does the door to outside and all the animals have to be through the same space I wash my clothes?  WHY?  There are so many things I would change about this house...including the fact that we live in it.

Crazy Week!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here is a little piece of our decorations this year. I saw this idea on Pinterest.com and thought I'd try it myself. It would have been nearly impossible without my Silhouette, so I must give the credit where it is due!

Of course, these last two weeks have found us deep in the throws of sharing Valentines with each other. Chad came up with some great Valentines this year! Sunday night, Chad filled the tub with really hot water, bubbles and this:

(That is a little Fisher Price lamb in a boat.)

I got a pretty good laugh over it and then climbed in. When I turned around, saw this:

The joke is funnier when you know the tub looked like this a few days before:


It all started on Tuesday, 7 Feb when Chad went out to feed the animals and found 2 little lambs! By the time Chad got home that evening, Leah and I had brought this little ewe lamb inside because she wasn't standing on her own anymore.


She lived in this box, sitting in front of the heater in the bathroom, for the night while we bottle fed her through the night. Daniel named her - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. We called her Super instead.

Here is Super's mother and twin sister. They are still doing quite well. But they no longer recognize each other as family.

She's pretty darn cute, though!

The next day, we had more babies. Chad found them in the morning again. There had been triplets, but sadly, one was already gone. The other two were doing quite well for a while, but we eventually brought the littler one in and put her in front of the heater. We caught her earlier and she's still a better eater than Super. We named her Ali as in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Those two little gals were so SKINNY!

During the night, while we were feeding the lambs, Chad went out to check on Ali's brother. He was fine. Less than 4 hours later, he was moments from death. Those lambs will die for no reason! We bought a second heat lamp that evening and got it up in the shed.

Meanwhile, I was getting my fill of lambs in my bathroom. Their poop was really stinky. I tried to keep them in the tub to make the clean up easier, but Chad was worried that the cast iron tub was too cold. So then the poop built up in the box we were keeping them in. Gross! On the other hand, I am quite impressed with my washer and laundry detergent!

I would put them in the tub to hopefully catch the poop and pee that inevitably came after a feeding. When Ali started getting OUT of the tub, I knew we were at our limit. Chad moved them outside to the warm heat lamps. And then he cleaned the bathroom. What a man!

Two quiet days passed and then we ended up with triplets again on Saturday. We watched them so closely. OK...Chad did the watching. He got up every 90 minutes to make sure everyone was well and occasionally to feed Super and Ali. He was pretty tired on Sunday!

The lambs were growing well and seemed fine. Here is a shot of them from yesterday.


And then I went out today and found the smallest one (a ram) cold, on the ground. Shoot. He was doing so well! So we are currently at 5 lambs. There are two ewes that have not had babies yet. We just wait and watch and pray over our little flock. Even the kids mention the lambs in their prayers.

We are not very skilled shepherds, but we are trying. Hopefully, we are learning and will have a better year next year (provided next year is as we plan).

Nathan had a birthday!

Nathan waited all year for this day (or so it seemed)! He was so looking forward to taking treats to school and then a scout activity (his first one as a Webelos) after school. The day dawned and he was sick! So he had to stay home. :(

But as you should already know, we are used to such birthday illnesses and made some adaptations. We postponed going out to dinner, but we carried on with presents and cake! (We are quite stalwart, I know.)

Here is the newly turned ten-year-old, surrounded by eager siblings. What was Nathan going to get?!?

Among his presents were his scout book and Webelos colors. He also got a real CTR ring (meaning it won't turn his finger green and cost a few pennies) and socks. I spared you the pictures of that!

Chad and I were excited to give him this present. It's a series of pieces that snap together to form electrical circuits and includes things like magnets, motors, light bulbs, etc. It's call Snaptricity. Learn more about it here.


But even that gift was upstaged by the pocket knife/key chain that Daniel passed on to him. Boys!


Don't forget the cake! I wanted to make a cake that would be something interesting to Nathan. I decided to make him a Hexbug cake, but was dismayed to not find any examples on the internet. What? I can't have that original of an idea. My first thought was to cut out the hexes and tracks from the cake but decided that would be too difficult and resorted to "drawing" everything on. The actual Hexbugs still vexed me and I took another easy road...I used real ones!


It's not to scale, but it still tasted good.

Nathan blew out the candles and served up the cake.

The girls liked it. (Sarah is always climbing on the table...it drives me nuts!)
The boys liked it, too. I did learn an interesting lesson about serving sizes. This was just one cake mix, baked in a 1/2 sheet pan. We got skinny, but wide pieces of cake and tricked ourselves into eating only half the cake. In past experiences, we have polished of the entire thing! It's a small stroke of genius...that I'll probably not do again just for the sake of eating less.


After cake, the kids "helped" Nathan assemble some circuits. The kit comes with a booklet that gives a diagram and instructions and explains what is happening. The kids were really just intrigued by the fan that they could make fly straight up into the air. Boys!

Happy Birthday, Nathan! We hope you know how much we love you!

Sarah has been practicing her smile. It's getting better (less "bull dog")!

Ribbon Rack

I bought this wood-like lazy susan at DI back in May. I had grand designs for it, but then had second thoughts and just kept it in my room for months on end. I eventually had another idea, but it took me a while to get my rear in gear!


But with a little measuring, drilling, cutting, gluing and painting, I ended up with this. (My thanks to Chad who got the drill and sand paper out of the garage for me and cut my dowels.) I painted it this morning with some paint I had on hand.

Ta Da! Now I can see all my ribbon in a simple spin and can access all of it without creating an avalanche. And I can also see that I need to get more ribbon!

Quote of the Morning

This gem of four-year-old reasoning comes from Joseph.

"Mommy, I know what rich people are. Mean people."

At this point I gave him a strange look and he asked, "Are they're?" (Are they?)

I know what my conscience is telling me to say to him, but I really only know one rich person, and he IS mean!

Heavy Headed

Joseph was leaning over the side of the arm chair I was sitting in and leaned his head into my hip. I exclaimed my discomfort about the pressure put onto my bone and told him his head was heavy.

To this he replied, "That's because my head has so much bones in it!"

I couldn't dispute it. And incidentally, my hip still smarts.

Sleep walking

We have two children that sleep walk: Daniel and Leah.

Leah is our more active of the two. She doesn't talk too much and we can't really understand what she does say.

Daniel can carry on a conversation when he is up, but it's a slow one. He usually has to make a trip to the bathroom and then can go back to bed. He may even wake up after he's taken care of business, but he usually doesn't remember his nighttime walks.

It's now 10 PM and Leah just headed down the hall toward me at a pretty brisk walk. I thought she would stop when she got to me, but she snubbed me and head past me to the laundry room. She walked right up to the washer and shut the door. (I keep it open as much as possible to keep it from stinking.) Then she turned around and came back into the hallway.

At this point, Chad intercepted her and escorted her back to bed. I don't think she uttered a single syllable.

That's a first for me! Who knew Leah had such strong feelings about the washing machine?