Daddy's Little Helpers

Here's our girls helping daddy halve apricots and nectarines for the freezer. We put them in the blender each day with homemade yogurt and milk for a healthy, wholesome drink. I tell them it's ice-cream because it is very similar when I put the fruit in somewhat frozen. Just look at that smile though! Elisabeth loves to help! Hanni too of course!

Happy Mommy, Happy Baby

Well, here I am in my last week in the 20's (not my age mind you, I'm nearly 40!). I will be 30 weeks in just a week. I can't believe it! I'm just now starting to feel good since giving birth last November. Whew, it's hard but I know the time is short. Right now little Leah is 3+ lbs according to an ultrasound I had recently. Another big baby! We changed her middle name from Leah Hadassah to Leah Miriam. I've always seen Leah as very feminine and I think Miriam fits just fine. I've had worries about her from the beginning though. I had an abdominal CAT scan done before I knew I was pregnant with her. I've had a little bleeding a couple of times lately and have a bit of a low lying placenta. But, all is looking really good from my extra ultrasounds and appointments. And I can't tell you how good it feels to feel good again. Just a month ago I would be back in bed at 9:30 in the morning and would sleep a good hour. Then to fall asleep again at 1:30 in the afternoon. I was really worried that I may not ever have my energy or health back. Last night I wrote something in response to a woman going through struggles with continuing on having children. She feels the Lord leading her to continue on after six but is feeling tired and overwhelmed. Here's my view and experience on the situation as I go through these same feelings too. I need to put this on here as a reminder to myself when I am having doubts. The Lord was with me when I wrote this and I thank the LORD God Almighty. I love Him so.

"I go one day at a time, one pregnancy at a time and one baby at a time. I can't do it any other way. This reminds me of my courtship with my husband. We did not sleep together before marriage and both have promiscuous pasts. We took moment by moment and day by day. If we had known we would have had to wait 2 1/2 years before marriage, we would have "felt" defeated and would have just slept together for relief. We kissed on the day we married. Same with leaving fertility in God's hands... if we look at how long we may have to bear children still we just can't do it! But, if we look to the Lord moment by moment, situation by situation we will find a few more years have gone by and see the joys in it. We never know what God's plans are... I don't know your age but let's say you're 26 and thinking you have many, many more years of childbearing left. You may only have 1 or 2 more children... we've all seen it. I'm nearly 40 and having a child every year. It scares me sometimes but I know God may close the womb after this one. I don't know God's plans for my womb or life as He does.

So, if you really feel this is God's plan and don't want to look back with regret, take it pregnancy by pregnancy, day by day, baby by baby. Try not to make decisions during the really hard times or you'll find you won't have peace that's long lasting. For me if I make a decision when I am not emotional and things are really doing/looking good, and I've prayed about it, I have peace about it.

I know it's really, really hard. I and so many here do understand FULLY! Don't forget to look to the Lord, He will guide you and give you peace in this place all your days. Take care..."

Baby Chicks Going to Kansas

We are so happy to be able to send some of our baby chicks to a wonderful family in Kansas. They just bought a home with 40 acres and we were led by the Lord to send them some baby chicks. We have them incubating now and they will be heading to their new home in 20 days or so. So keep posted to find out how good the fertilization is in a week when my husband candles them to when they are boxed up to send away to Kansas.

Here are some of our laying hens. The white "stuff" you see on the ground are oyster shells. They provide calcium for the chickens for their eggs.

Some of the hens relaxing on the grassy side of the pen .

Here's our main performing rooster.

Here he is with one of the Easter Eggers that lays the green eggs.

Here's the eggs! Let's pray that they get an excellent hatch! This is our first hatch with this rooster as well as with some of the new roosters.

The incubator.
This is a $200 model (Hubavator), my husband is so pleased with.
It does everything for you including turns the eggs.

Our Smallest Egg

Here's our smallest egg yet next to a couple of jumbo eggs. The large eggs have beautiful speckles on them that you can see if you click to enlarge.

Latest Turkey Pictures

We are sad to say we're missing a turkey. We believe someone stole him because the poor turkeys are just scared to death now when my husband comes around to bring them in for the night or to feed them.
Here's our latest turkey pictures. You can see some of them are starting to fan out for the girls. When I make a funny noise, all the males (and we have a lot of toms), start strutting. Its' pretty to watch.

Turkey Feast

This is what it looks like every time my husband throws the turkey's food into their feed bucket!

New Water Heater = Fun for Kids

We had to replace our water heater last week. Though we were without hot water for a time, it did have its advantages though. The kids had lots of fun in the box and sliding down the box for about 2 days.

Sprouts

I love making sprouts each summer. They compliment a sandwich so well. My husband loves doing the big gardening, for now I just enjoy growing some sprouts in our window and smelling our fresh basil plant every time I water it.

Yum - sprouts on my sandwich. Of course I had to use cream cheese instead of mayonnaise.

Homemade Sour Cream

When I first read about making homemade sour cream, I had the same feelings I did before I made yogurt, "I don't want to eat anything with "spoiled" milk." Well, just like my delicious yogurt tastes like store bought yogurt, only better - so does this. And it only takes about 2 minutes to make and 24 hours or so to sit.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of heavy cream and 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Stir and let sit at room temperature for 24 hours or until desired consistency/taste. No need to stir. That's it! Now I wanted mine a bit "lighter" so I used whole milk and a little bit of cream. It did not come out real rich and thick - it was a bit like our yogurt but the smell was delightful... not a spoiled milk smell at all. In fact, it smells exactly like what you buy in the store but tastes even better.

We used some on our tacos with our garden lettuce the other day. It was the best! I am now making some THICK sour cream without the milk. I will take pictures in a few hours when I'm done and post later.

Jim the Bee Man

Here is Jim, our friend and local bee man showing my husband a little device of his. He came by to check our hive to see if the little critters are truly robbers. Robbers confirmed. Okay, onto his nifty little device.


Here Jim set up his little device in place of where the hive was. He has a sugar water solution in the bottom of the box. The bees started coming around and he was able to put a spot of paint on one of the bees to track how far the BIG hive is - to check their distance. He put a silver spot on a bee and then wrote down the time. Ten minutes later the bee returned back to this box. He is estimating by distance that the bees are most likely coming from one of his hive about a half a mile away. Pretty neat, huh???

Here's some bees. Click on the picture to see the bee on the left in mid flight!

One of Jim's trays from a hive in his truck. Just look at the pretty honeycomb and honey oozing out of the cells. My husband can't wait to get something like this himself one day. Jim has over 30 hives here in the area. The bees were all over his truck instead of the box as they could smell the honey in his truck.

Our Beehive is Alive!

Update: It turns out our bees are "robbers", meaning they rob the leftover honey from the hive. Jim shared with us last night that it's a bit late for bees to be looking for or starting a hive. So, I think I'll pass on the photos until next year when we may get a "real" active hive going.

Our friend Jim who has over 30 beehives in the area dropped off a hive for us to start. After some time, Matthew took a good look at it and it had a type of moth in it so it was no good. Matthew then brought it up to the house and had it sitting in our front yard. Well, I just got back home from getting a few groceries and lo and behold our beehive is ALIVE! Bees (scouting bees as my husband informed me) are scouting the hive right now. To me it looks like a swarm already but he shared that the swarm will come - I won't miss it. So, for now we will keep the kids inside (it's not nice out anyways) and when they take over the hive my husband will have to cover the hole and walk it down to the pasture again - away from our home. : ) I will take some pictures of the little scouters today (er, maybe I'll have my husband take pictures). I'll post in the next few days. Bzzzzzzzzz

Homemade Muesli

I was going through our blog when I realized that I had some from last month that I hadn't posted. Here is some homemade muesli I made a few weeks ago for the first time. It is WONDERFUL!

Click on the picture to see how healthy it really looks!

The ingredients: Mixed grain flakes (oat, rye, barley, wheat, oat and maybe a couple more whole grains), unsweetened flaked coconut, raisins, dates, walnuts,
raw sunflower seeds and almonds.

Two is a Piece of Cake

Matthew had to run some errands today to Home Depot, etc... He took Elisabeth and I was home with Hannah and little Matthew. I couldn't believe how easy it is with just two children now. I look back on just last year and it was so very hard in comparison with just two! Today felt like I a piece of cake. It's amazing how the Lord grows us - I love it!

In between updating my blog, I made chocolate chip cookies.
Here Hannah is eating some yummy cookie dough. She's really looking older to me and Matthew lately. And she's getting to be so pretty! Her 2nd birthday is this month on the 23rd.
I can't believe it already.

Matthew is snacking on half of a cookie and cheese. Real healthy diet you got kiddo! : )

Garage Sale Find

I was on my way home yesterday from grocery shopping when I saw a garage sale
I like to frequent each year. They had this whole box of old patterns for only $2.
I saw the first couple of patterns and knew I'd regret it if I didn't buy it.

The box of patterns


Look at this dress! Wouldn't this be fun to make one time?
Maybe for myself and the girls when I am not pregnant one day!

I love the little slips here. I think they are so simple and pretty.
Some soft, brushed cotton would be nice to use.

Our "Big" Garden

Here is our big garden down by the barn. Matthew planted corn, peas and green beans. I can't wait to see them all mature. We've never done this before so it makes it so very special!

Here are the rest of our peas ready to be transferred into the garden.

I thought this was a pretty picture.

Fresh Blueberries

Matthew ordered some blueberry plants 6+ months ago. Here you can see they are just ripening up! We will be purchasing a few more plants later this year so we can have plenty for blueberry pancakes.

Falling Asleep During Dinner

Oh, this is becoming a common practice of Matthew's. He eats, then falls asleep while the rest of us are eating dinner. I feel so sorry for him I can't help but wipe him quickly and put him up in his crib. There are no protests from him! I wish I could take a nap after dinner sometimes!

Falling asleep

Going down hard

He's out!

Turkeys on a Fence

Here is a picture Matthew took of our turkeys all perched up on our fence.

They are growing to a significant size now. We have all 14 accounted for by sale, keeping for ourselves and giving a couple away. We have people continually wanting to buy a turkey from us. They should be ready within a couple of months.

Salad from our Garden

Here's our "little" garden up by our home. The broccoli is still growing but our green lettuce is ready! I made this salad with lots of hard boiled eggs, goat cheese, turkey, peas and homemade salad dressing. It was simply scrumptious!

YUM!

Twins!!!

Ahh Ha! I bet you thought we were having twins! Well, not really. But, take a look at this picture of Hannah and Matthew. I can't believe how much they look alike here. I think they will pass for twins in a month or two as Matthew is nearly Hannah's size. He is in the 98 percentile for height!

Here's some more farm pictures I thought I would share.

One of our stalls with a few of our chickens

Here are some of the eggs from the 2:00 gathering.
I bought this basket at the Goodwill for 99 cents. It works great for gathering eggs.

Here's a closeup of our pretty eggs. I may use this as our desktop background next.

Blueberries from one of our blueberry plants.

Honey from our friend Jim. He owns 35+ beehives in this area. Sometimes my husband goes with him to the hives to learn a few things about bees. Matthew wants to buy a beehive next year with some starter bees. We are borrowing one of Jim's beehives but it ended up getting some type of moths in it so it is of no use. Anyways, this honey is fabulous. I love slathering it on peanut butter sandwiches for the kids and on homemade bread and butter for myself. I used some recently when I made a batch of granola.

Catch Up Time on Matthew's Pictures

Here's a bunch of pictures of Matthew. He's coming up on eight months old already. I can't believe it. I will miss him as a baby as I miss the girls being babies. He is so soft and precious to me as a boy. I hope to have many more sons one day like him. Every mother should have a son... it's good for her heart to raise a baby knowing he will be a man one day.


Isn't this an adorable picture? I think for a boy he is probably the best looking baby boy I have seen. Really! You have to double click on this picture to see his true eye color. They are green with a dark blue rim around the eyes. Truly a stunning color of eyes, not to mention how big they are!