My Flock (two little boys and five chickens)

I brought my camera outside to take some better pictures of the chickens, but I just had to take some of these cute little boys too. Nathan and I were talking yesterday about how glad we are to have more than one child so they can play together. It has been so fun watching them play lately! They're so funny. They also drive each other crazy, of course, but the fun times make up for it.

The hens! I think they're pretty. Orion thinks they're "cute." The one above has a huge comb and wattle compared to the others... I guess she's just a different breed. Definitely a girl since Nathan caught her sitting on an egg!

Number 1 chicken wrangler! Orion is a huge help rounding up the chickens! He loves holding them.

I think it's funny when they perch on the boys' playhouse.

They may not like being petted, but they tolerate it very well. Some of them even squat down on the ground when the boys pet them.

All is well! I'm very excited they've started laying eggs- it's a lot of fun to go out to the coop and be surprised at the number of eggs each time. Three yesterday and the day before! It's fun to eat "home grown" food :)

Farm Fresh

Well, backyard fresh.

Look what we found in our chicken coop this morning! Our first beautiful brown eggs! I wasn't expecting our hens to start laying until closer to fall, but obviously I was mistaken! Aren't they pretty?

They're smaller than the eggs you buy at the store (because they're young chickens) and have teeny little yolks.

And they taste... like eggs. Ha! I don't think they're super special or different than store-bought eggs, but they're as good as any other egg I've eaten! They are supposedly better for you, though, because of the extra vitamins and minerals the chickens eat when they forage. And I use un-medicated feed.

"The Ladies," as Nathan calls them. They're really big now! It would have made for better pictures to let them out, but I've already rounded them up once today and that's enough ;)

When I went outside to take pictures just now, I found another egg! Thanks, chickies!

Many little things

Well, I figure it's about time to update even though I don't have a whole lot to say! I haven't even taken many pictures lately, so here's a recent one from my phone that I haven't posted yet... haha.

I planted the garden a few days ago, so hopefully we'll start growing something other than weeds soon! I think the manure we put in came with a lot of weeds... there's a TON of those pokey ones in the middle of the garden. I should probably get out there and pull them... :/ **update: weeds pulled! I'm already doing better than last year. Ha!**

Orion WAS sleeping pretty well at night, but the last two nights have been kind of rough. I think I need to do some more research into ways to get him to sleep better/longer. You'd think he'd be consistent by now.

He has been happier longer hanging out by himself in his jumper or under his play gym which is nice! He's doing better sitting up too, so I want to keep working with him so he'll be able to do it alone before long. I can't believe he's coming up on 6 months already!!

Some of you may remember that the bedding I originally picked for Orion was rocket ships but it was too expensive so we chose something else. Well look what Target just came out with:
Ugh! Of course! As soon as I don't need it anymore they get exactly what I wanted for the same price as what I ended up getting! Sigh. Not that I don't like what I have- I do- I'm just bummed they came out with my ideal bedding JUST too late. They do have it for a toddler bed though, so I guess if anyone wants to buy way way ahead they could get it for when Orion moves out of his crib... haha!

I finally finished my thank you cards from my big church baby shower! I got carpal tunnel right after the shower so it hurt to write, then had a newborn, then was just overwhelmed about writing 75 LATE thank you cards! I'm pretty embarrassed to be sending them so late, but hey, better late than never (I hope!). I know there are a few gifts I got a long time after the shower that didn't get written down and there were a few more that didn't come with cards so I don't know who they were from so unfortunately those poor people won't get cards :( Now I have to go buy lots and lots of stamps...

Allie graduates college on Saturday so we're going to IWU Friday night with the family for the Baccalaureate and then going to graduation and moving the girls home Saturday.

In weight loss news...
Here are the stats:
Current weight: 126
Goal weight: 115
Weight lost this week: 1.2
Total weight lost: 13.8
Pounds left 'til goal: 11

Hey! I actually lost a good amount this week! I really didn't expect to lose anything since I haven't been doing great at eating right, but I guess I have been running more. I'm going to be excited when I only have 10 pounds left :)

I'm a little bit behind on my running schedule because I ran a different place the last couple times and it threw me off with using a pedometer instead of the marked track. Hopefully I'll be able to do at least 2 1/4 miles tomorrow... wish me luck!

Sounds like O's waking up from his nap, so gotta go!

Misc...

Here's a random post to catch up on a bunch of pictures I had sitting on the camera card! Above you will see proof that we have a garden, and that it is producing something! These are our first two zucchini (that were made into scrumptious zucchini bread). We also have tomatoes, onions, carrots, and yellow squash on the way, and an abundance of romaine lettuce ready and waiting to be used.

Next is Allie and me looking very patriotic on the 4th of July. We, along with Nathan and Andrew, went out to lunch, finished baby registering, had a cookout, and watched a movie that day. It was lots of fun!


See how big baby Charlie is?? He's huge. But he's still a growing boy! ...we need to get that "boy" issue taken care of soon...


Charles has a freakish obsession with water. He loves the shower, the toilet, the sink, his water bowl, condensation, and the turtle tank. Here he is trying to catch a turtle. He gets wet somehow several times a day.


Here are some of my garage sale deals! I recently washed the fabric portion of this car seat and became an expert at taking it apart and putting it back together. It looks brand new now! I got this seat and two bases for $30. Don't worry, I already checked for recalls and we're safe :)



Here's Charlie, along with a bouncer that Robin got for $5! I also washed it, and it also looks new!


Finally, Nathan's favorite, a Yoda costume for Orion's first Halloween. We're starting him off on the right track early. Nathan insists that Orion will wear it. Every day.

Picture Post!

We've had a busy couple weeks, and our work is finally picture-worthy! First of all I want to make you all jealous of the strawberries you see above. These grew in our garden. Oh. My. Gosh. Most delicious strawberries ever. It's a wonder we haven't eaten them all yet. If we let them get too ripe on the plants the ants eat them, so I guess we'll have to pick them a little early.

Next is our very exciting painting projects! We painted our bedroom and bathroom lovely bright colors. The bedroom was previously kind of a grayish tanish, and the bathroom was white. I'm really excited to freshen them up! The actual color of the bedroom is actually brighter than in these pictures.




Part of the bedroom makeover project was painting the bedframe, which took waaaaay longer than expected. Priming, spray painting, sanding, priming, spray painting, sanding, spray painting, spray painting... but it's done and it looks great!! It had a pretty finish before but it was SO beat up (plus a piece was detached, which Nathan fixed). I think it looks wonderful. Picture of "before" below.


And the bathroom! ...which we started a really long time ago. Haha! But we finally got it finished. I'm still thinking about painting the trim (I already have the paint) but not sure it looks bad enough to actually get me to do it ;) Love the color!


Can you spot Charlie? He loves licking that spot of the shower... I guess water must gather there. Weird-o.


I wanted to show you my new-ish counter storage. I found these metal planters on the dollar wall at Target and thought they'd be perfect to organize our cluttered counter top. They work great and are much nicer looking than scattered toiletries!


Charlie! He's getting huge. This picture isn't from the last few days either. He's also even more monsterous. I feel bad for the other cats... he attacks them non-stop. I hope he mellows out sooner rather than later... I hope...


I'm adding a new "bump" picture to my 17 Week pregnancy post below. 18 weeks tomorrow! Wow, how time flies.

"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things"

Hello! I'm sorry we haven't written a real update in so long! I could give you some excuses, but I won't ;) Here's a bunch of stuff for you to read. Some new news, some older stuff that I've been meaning to post about for a while.

Family:

Nathan's Uncle Wendell died on Saturday morning. I didn't know him well personally, but I do know he was a hard working, big hearted, big bearded man. He married his wife, Sue, while she was still in high school and they were a "great team." They cared for 65 foster children. He owned a farm on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, complete with chickens, log cabin, outhouse, suspension bridge, and rope swing. The family loved spending every Thanksgiving there. We'll be attending his funeral on Wednesday.

Allie is in Zambia right now! She had to take a trip for school, and got to go to Zambia on a trip especially for nursing students. They've gotten to help deliver babies, observe surgeries, play with kids, and lots of other great things. Sounds like an amazing trip.

Baby is doing fine as far as I can tell! I have an appointment on Friday morning and should get to hear its heartbeat again :)

Garden:

It's all planted! It looks like a lot of dirt right now, so no pictures yet. Although now that I think about it, I really should take a picture of the herb garden- it's downright lush! Our strawberries are flowering and making fruit, which is super exciting!

Many of the plants we started died, but we got to transplant peppers, marigolds, and 4 measly tomatoes. Nathan went out and bought a bunch of nice big tomato plants, which was disappointing to have to do. A few days after we planted them, we were out surveying the garden and were wondering over a big patch of what appeared to be weeds. After taking a closer look, Nathan just started laughing! Turns out we have dozens of tiny tomato plants all over the garden that just popped up on their own. God's a better gardener than we are...

Here's what we planted:
Zinnias (flowers), Onions, Romaine Lettuce, Carrots, Green Beans, Red Potatoes (3 rows!), Beefsteak Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Zucchini, Yellow Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Sweet Corn. I think that's all, but it's likely I forgot something.

Craftiness:

We made a quilt out of old t-shirts! It was really easy and it's super comfy and warm. I don't have a picture of the finished product, but here it is before it was sewn.


House:

We've decided to stop house hunting for now. We came to the realization that no, we can't really afford it, so we'd better get things straightened out before we dig ourselves a hole we can't get out of. We made some financial goals which include paying off my school loans and saving up money, so when those goals are met we will resume our search.

In the mean time, we're sprucing up our living quarters! We're hoping to build a nursery adjacent to our bedroom, hopefully soon. We painted the bathroom (and dug out our nice towels! Yay!), but I don't want to post pictures until I get the trim painted so you can see the finished product. We're also going to paint the bedroom.

Random fun:

We invented the Apple Burger.

Last year at Lebanon's Apple Festival, Nathan and Andrew decided that there wasn't enough apple themed food and resolved to change that. With the apple burger. Nearly a year later, we finally did it. We experimented with about six different methods, one of which was really bad, a few of which were OK, and one that was delicious. Fried apples + burger = so yummy.


Pets:

Our rat, Simon, died a couple weeks ago. He had a huge tumor, so that may have killed him, but we're not sure. We had a deal with Nate's dad that when the rat was gone we could get a kitten. So we did!

Nathan wrote about Charlie a day or two after we got him. We love him, and so does the rest of the family. He's pretty crazy, as most kittens are, and loves to stampede across the house and destroy things. But then he wears himself out and falls asleep on you, which is uber cute. It took a couple days, but we got him litter trained so well that he'll even use the other cats' box if he's upstairs! Good kitty.

A Plethora of Post-Worthy News

Well... It has been a rather interesting week, one in which many things happened that should probably have been reported upon with greater diligence. However, I am rather lazy and Rachel tends to procrastinate (Rachel's note: and we were really busy and wanted to tell a bunch of people individually before posting on here), so the blog which you are about to experience will probably be an epic undertaking in four fruity flavors.

Also, chronological order will probably be thrown to the wind, since the most important event occurred closer to the middle of the week. So, without further ado -

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Yes, there is a little Lambes on the way.

We have been fruitful and are multiplying (or, rather adding since four are not on the way (as far as we know)).

We found out on Tuesday night and proceeded to let the cat out of the bag rather quickly. By Wednesday most of our immediate family was informed, which took quite a few phone calls and one trip to Napoleon, OH.

Rachel's probably about six weeks along and the due date is tentatively early November.

Also, all charitable donations will be accepted.

End Nathan's contribution.

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Begin Rachel's.

House hunting news: Still no luck looking at houses with the realtor. We're really good at picking out crappy houses to look at. However, some friends from church are selling a house right in our price range that's really nice. It's not everything we're looking for (it only has two bedrooms, has a teeny tiny yard, and has super close neighbors), but we're considering it... seems like an awfully good deal for a sweet little house.


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Garden news: Almost all of the seeds have sprouted and are doing well! The watermelon sprouts are ridiculously tall, and the Roma tomatoes have grown their second leaves. The other sprouts are doing fine too :)


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Other news: Dust weekend was a success. Nathan played bass in the band and I ran Pro Presenter, manned a ministry booth for Blood:Water Mission, and was an assistant small group leader. The weekend was exhausting and so busy, but fun. The theme was missions and the fact that "missions exists because worship does not," and that the point of missions is to bring more worship to God.

Baby Plants

Here they are! One day old sprouts. These are marigolds, and they're definitely ahead of the growth curve. The tomatoes, peppers, etc. are just starting to show signs of life... some have popped up but haven't learned to stand up straight yet.


Here's what our setup looks like. I labeled them so I don't forget what's what.

Seriously, in a jiffy!

The first sprouts have appeared!! I'll take pictures later, but I wanted to let you know because I'm a dork and I'm excited. Most of the marigolds have sprouted and at least one of the watermelons. Yaaay!

I remember my dad starting seeds indoors when I was a kid, but I've never done it myself, so I hope I don't screw it up ;)

In a Jiffy!

Nathan surprised me on Friday with a couple spontaneous gifts! He gave me a beautiful orchid plant (which I'll have to take a picture of to show you) and a Jiffy seed starter kit with some seeds! He had noticed I was getting back on a gardening kick and wanted to give me the tools to get started :) I lucked out because a few plants are supposed to be started really early (tomatoes 8-10 weeks before last frost), so I get to start planting!

This image was swiped from Google images... mine looks just like this but that's not my kitchen ;)

Jiffy peat pellets are so cool- you add water and they grow from hard, flat little pellets to tall, soft columns of soil within a couple minutes! Fun stuff.

Last night I planted Beefsteak tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, bell peppers, watermelon, sweet basil, and marigolds. I keep reading that marigolds are great at keeping pests away, so I'm going to scatter a ton of them all over the garden this year.

We weren't sure what to do for light for our little seeds, so I did some research and found this, which is super sweet, but is toooo expensive!! We found a grow light at Wal Mart last night for ten bucks... that's more my speed :) Of course Nathan had to rig it to the desk hutch with fishing line for it to be usable, but hey, that's our speed too. He did a really good job and it doesn't even look that ghetto.

I was trying to come out with a layout for the garden today, and according to my sloppy calculations my garden needs to be much bigger to accomidate everything I want to plant. I asked for this book for my birthday though, so I think I'll wait til that comes and attempt to plant my garden more efficiently ;)

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to say that we found some onions growing in the garden today! How weird is that?? They're exactly where I planted them last year (and where they died) and are big and green. I wonder how big the bulbs are!

Saucy

Don't these tomatoes look delicious?? I don't even like raw tomatoes but I still think they look pretty mouth watering.

I thought I'd fill you all in on our garden since it's been a looong time since I have. It's mostly done producing except for small but very tasty cantaloupes, misshapen watermelons, peppers, some herbs, and tomatoes.

We've probably used the tomatoes more than anything else in the garden (except maybe potatoes). Robin has this marvelous machine called a "Juice-o-Strainer" which I LOVE because it separates the skin/seeds/stems from the juice/pulp reeeeally easily. It's wonderful. Ya just stick the tomatoes in the top and turn a crank, and out comes a usable tomato product. Some of it we just cooked for a little while and canned to use at tomato juice (we've already had some in chili and vegetable soup), but we've mostly been making tomato sauce.


...and it is soooo good. We haven't really used a recipe. We looked at a few online to get us pointed in the right direction, but didn't follow one in particular. I wish I could give you a recipe because it has been turning out so well... let me see if I can guestimate a bit ;) Please don't actually follow this "recipe" because it might be horrible!!

-A big pot of tomato pulp and juice
-1 onion and a couple sweet peppers diced and sauteed, plus a TBL minced garlic thrown in sautee pan for a few seconds
-1/4 cup olive oil
-1 or 2 TBL sugar
-1/2 TBL salt
-pepper
-fresh chopped sweet basil
-dried oregano
-chunks of peeled tomatoes (optional... we did this in a couple batches which was nice because it made the sauce extra chunky)
...simmer for hours and hours until it tastes done and is thick-ish.

I don't know if those estimates are anywhere close, but hey, it turned out great so who cares? As Nathan would say, "cooking is an art, not a science." :)

We also put up some pickled peppers a few days ago. We had a whole bunch of banana peppers sitting around and figured we should actually pickle them so people could eat them. I know Nathan likes them on pizza and such. They were very easy but stinky to make. I suggested putting some red peppers in just so they look pretty ;) This is pretty much peppers, garlic, salt, water, and vinnegar.


I hope everyone had a great week. I worked yesterday and today (girls didn't have school because of conferences), and will be working part time for about a week starting Wednesday (new nanny has a wedding to go to). It's the job that never ends!! Haha, I'm not complaining :)

If you haven't noticed, I've been posting a "Today's Awesome Scripture" thingy over there in the right-hand sidebar. I've been working harder on reading my Bible every day ('cause I want answers/wisdom/direction and scripture is one of God's big ways of giving us those things) and have been reading while I eat breakfast. I hope you're enjoying them (they're highlights from my reading)... hope I can keep up the good habit!! Pezmama is gonna keep me in line ;) I'm going to her place to watch Jane Austen (and Jane Austen-esque) movies tonight (and hang out with the kiddies!) while Nathan goes to King's Island with Andrew and company. I also have a bonfire to start for Robin's Sunday School class this evening, and hopefully hot dogs and s'mores to roast. Fun stuff!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Bountious Bounty

Check out some of the great produce we've gotten from our garden! I realized we hadn't posted garden pictures in a really long time, so you need a major update! We got a couple dozen ears of corn (what the squirrels left us after they had their dinner... grrr...), a ton of potatoes (YAY!), a big bag of carrots, a couple grocery bags of green beans, a lot of snap peas, a bunch of peppers we're not sure what to do with, we're starting to get cucumbers, and we're accumulating a whole lot of tomatoes. We're thinking of trying to make some kind of tomato sauce this weekend- I hope we don't screw it up and waste all those tomatoes ;)

We ended up giving our garden a major "haircut" this weekend (and before), pulling out the severely overgrown nastertums and weed-whacking the 5 foot tall lettuce, harvesting the potatoes, chopping down the spent corn stalks, and pulling out the yellowing snap pea plants. Our garden is looking a bit bare (below), but still producing. Still left are more tomatoes, herbs, flowers, peppers, and melons!


Here's one of our canteloupes. We have 4 plants and at least a dozen melons, and the biggest ones are softball sized and still growing. I hope they're actually good!!


And a tiny watermelon! This has doubled in size since I took the picture a couple days ago. I've never seen a home grown watermelon that's actually oblong like the ones at the grocery store, so I take that an an encouragement :)


Well, I hope you're having a great week! Don't forget to help name our blog!