Seth Is Growing Up!!

I remember when Seth was born and well I should I was there!  :D  Being there when a baby is born is something always amazes me.  The very fact that this is a living thing and that if God so wills it will grow up and can do many great things, from being the parent of a large family to the president of the United States of America.  All is in God's hands, from the baby being born, to what will happen to the child as it is grows, and then what it will be as an adult in this world of ours and finally when the person leaves this world, it's all in God's hand. It never ceases to amaze me!

Among those things that amaze me are the changes that the child goes through it it’s first two years of like.  It goes from an infant who cannot even support its own head, who can only cry when it is hungry or needs its diaper changed, to within weeks smiling, cooing, and recognizing people (even to the point of knowing who feeds him).  And those smiles and coos they give out when they see a person that they like are priceless and something that I wish I could bottle up and have forever.  (Thanks to cameras and video recorders I do have that an extent.  :D  ) 

By the time the infant has reached six months he can scoot, maybe even crawl, and is even learning to throw a fit!  Don't even try and tell me that infants are perfect!  At so young as a few months you can tell that they are sinners in their attitudes.  Even with the fit throwing that is starting you are also seeing many other things, such as the smiles when he sees something he likes or the look in their eye when they spot something they want and the 'struggle' they put up just to get to that one object.  It's a miracle that I am always amazed and blessed to see (at this point in my house 8 times already!)

Now Seth is growing up, he's come to and passed the baby coos and smiles, he's all ready hit the scoot stage.  In fact he had it a lot longer than any of my other siblings, he was scooting for so long that we thought he would never crawl, (much to my mom's concern), he even got the nickname "Scooter" since that's all he did for a few months to get to anything he wanted. He's got the eating solid foods down; in fact he's also got the hot chocolate and coffee drinking from a mug down as well.  He's got the walking down pat, he's now running with the best of them (Noah and Judah) and is climbing on EVERYTHING!!   

But the thing that gets me these days?  Is not his ability to climb, nor his running ways.  No it's not the fact that he prefers coffee to water most mornings, or that he knows where his milk comes from and has on more than one occasion been seen caring his cup to the diary.  The thing is amazing me about Seth is his talking!  When he wants water he says so, when he wants coffee he lets you know.  If he wants outside, on the computer, to watch TV, or even take a nap he will let you know and I here I am still think of him a as a little baby who cries when his diaper needs changing, for me it seems like he was born last month and 21 months ago!

Oh, how I love watching them grow up!!  But I sure miss those baby days! :D

"What Did He Die For?"

He was 21 in a.d 44,
He was hope, and he was courage on a lonely shore.
Simply remind his mother, with love beyond her tears,
just a young american who chose to rise above his fears,
and as I watch him struggle up that hill,
Without a thought of turning back.
I can not help but wonder,
what did he die for, when he died for you and me,
made the sacrafise so that we could all be free.
I belive that we will the awnser reach to heaven, for the way
to spend a priceless liberty.
Look inside and awnser,
What did he die for, when he died for me.

To the darkest day in a.d 33, king of mercy and passion of eternity,
simply remind his father with love beyond his tears,
kingless one the only son to bear the guit of all these years,
and as I watch him struggle up that hill,
without a thought of turing back,
I can not help but wonder,
what did he die for, when he died for you and me,
made the sacrafise so that we could all be free.
I belive that we will the awnser reach to heaven, for the way
to spend a priceless liberty.
Look inside and ask the question,
What did he die for, when he died for me.

He died for freedom,
he died for love,
Of all the things we do to pay him back can
never be enough.
I can not help but wonder,
what did he die for, when he died for you and me,
made the sacrafise so that we could all be free.
I belive that we will the awnser reach to heaven, for the way
to spend a priceless liberty.
Look inside and awnser,
What did he die for, when he died for me.

~Twila Paris~

This song means a lot to me.

Do You Like Country Life?

When people find out that I was 16 when we moved to the country I get a bunch more questions, and here they are with the answers. :D

How do I like living in the country? I love it! How do I like living in the country vs. living in the city? Country life is much more quite, a lot more work, and better family living!

Is there anything I don't like about living in the country that I liked about living in the city? Yes there are three things (and yes my parents do know about these three things)...We do less things at church, we only make it to one service, sometimes Sunday School, and parts of the missions and bible conferences, never Wednesday night prayer, or VBS.

The second thing is lack of baseball games. My dad told me when we moved out here that he didn't think the change in address would make a difference in the amount of games that we went to. Well, it has. I've gotten over the fact that I don't to near as many games, but I still go through my "I want to go to a game" push. Come on, when you used to going to 20-30 games a year and that drops to less than half a dozen games it takes some getting used to!

And the third thing? We don't have a fireplace in this house. Forget that my bedroom went from huge to tiny and tons of books sharing the space, forget the fact that my closet went from walk in to barely large enough for me to stand in, forget the fact that we went to enough rooms for no more than three people per room, forget all that! We don't have a fireplace!! Sure we can burn a fire outside but that's not the same as a fire place in the house. During the thanksgiving week with our friends we were doing a lot of "I remember you doing ___" for me the one thing that surprised me was when one of the kids from the other family said "I remember you always did you school sitting on the fire place.".

As I looked back I realized he was right when ever we had a get together or when I had to be in the living room (of either our house or theirs) I was always sitting on the fireplace or right in front of it, I loved curling up right in front of the fire place with a good book, hot chocolate, school, or sitting there with good friends. It was the hardest thing for me about moving out of that house, (not necessarily about moving out to the county) losing the fireplace.

So there you have it the three things that I didn't like about moving out into the country. In all honesty those were my three problems with moving out and my parents knew it before we moved out and I knew that my life would change with the move, what I wasn't expecting was how big the change besides less church things, less games, and no fire place would be. But I wouldn't change the past five years for all the games or fireplaces in the world!!

Did You Know?

That I was NOT born in the country? That I spent the first 16 years of my life living in the city, living a city life?

I realized Tuesday night after getting asked not once, but twice how I liked growing up in the country or if I ever remember living in the city, that there were people out there who do not know that I grew up in the city.

Before we moved out here I was a city girl! During the baseball season I went to 20-30 Astros games, and 2-6 Rice games. We went to the art museum weekly, the zoo once or twice a month, Library bi-weekly, Wal-Mart almost daily, and for church we did Sunday school, morning and evening service, Wednesday night prayer, VBS, we did dance, visited the pool daily during the summer, etc. Yes, I was a city girl!

Yes, I do know that some of y'all already knew that I lived in the city, I'm sure that those of you who have known us since pre-country life sometimes laugh at the things that come out of our mouths or that show up on our blogs. Hey, you not the only one!! I can't believe the things that we now talk about or do!

Now? Now, when it's my AOR I milk the goats twice a day, I make yogurt, flavored milk, cheese, and pasteurize milk weekly. I go to market at least once a week if not twice a week. I help deliver goats, feed them, trim hooves, pre for showing, I butcher the animals, care for them when they are sick, and love on them when they are babies or giving us milk, etc... Five and a half years later, I am a country girl and loving every minute of it.

Was it hard for me to move out?  No, not really.  For me moving to the country was a new adventure that I loved. I enjoyed being able to do school outside on the deck or the hammock. I enjoy being able to go out and run or nap outside whenever I wanted without having to have someone else out with me. It's so much fun to be able to run over next door to see how the neighbor's baby has grown and not worry about being gone for too long, I enjoy being able to shot guns whenever I want and not having to worry about the other people around (like I even shot when I lived in the city!), It's so much fun shooting fireworks for the 4th, Christmas, New Year's Eve and day, each family member's birthday, or any other time we wish to shot them.

Is there a change in me?  Yes, I do think there is a change in me. Could I move back to the city? Yes, if God would have me to I could move back to the city, thou it would take a bit getting used to (I have spent the night in the city more than once in the past five years and took a while falling asleep. lol) but, if that is where God had me I could do it. As for right now he has me in the country and I am loving every minute of it!

"Chicken Run"

Yesterday I borrowed "Chicken Run" from the Segers. Yes, we do own a copy of it but we don't own a functioning VHS player anymore, so I borrowed their DVD for the youngers in the family. (Olders were going to watch Gettysburg but that's another post.)

"The story revolves around an English egg farm designed a lot like a WWII-era prison camp, with overtones of the Nazi concentration camps as well, in that chickens that don't produce end up as dinner. While most of the chickens are resigned to their fate, one plucky hen named Ginger keeps leading escape attempts and keeps getting locked in "solitary" for her pains. Her task takes on new urgency when the Tweedys (the couple who run the farm) prepare to convert their operation into a chicken-pie factory. Hope arrives in the form of an American known (amusingly, in view of the recent "Rocky & Bullwinkle" film) as "Rocky the Flying Rooster", whom Ginger thinks can teach the chickens how to fly. Naturally, Rocky isn't really what he seems to be, and the revelation of his secret threatens to dash all hope of escape, because everyone knows chickens can't fly-or can they?"

Chicken Run has long been a favorite of mine; it's one of those that I will watch more than once. A friend invited me out to watch it the day it came out in the theaters. My dad and mom not knowing what it was about decided it would be best to wait until they had watched (nothing new, they are still doing it. :D ).  When it came out on VHS (yes VHS) my parents watched it and then allowed us to watch it. Mind you that was when we lived in the city, it was a funny movie and we all loved it, we were also known to use lines from the movie often (lose our heads?)

Once we moved to the country and had as our first country animals chickens the movie started making more sense and being a common joke in our family, when the chickens would try to run out the door or fly into the chicken wire one of us was bound to say ”They're *chickens*, you dolt...they're the most stupid creatures on this planet. They don't plot, they don't scheme, and they are *not* organized"


It's a great movie, one in which the entire family can enjoy together. Just be careful or you might start hearing lines like...

Rocky: Oh, just a little place I call the land of the free and the home of the brave...

Mac: Scotland!

Rocky: No! America.

______

Chickens go in; pies come out. Chicken pies. Not apple pies, chicken.

______

Babs: Morning, Ginger. Back from holiday?

Ginger: I wasn't on holiday, Babs. I was in solitary confinement.

Babs: Oh, it's nice to get a bit of time to yourself, isn't it?

_____

Mr. Tweedy: [being attacked by chickens] Mrs Tweedy! The chickens are revolting!
Mrs. Tweedy: [not paying attention] Finally something we agree on. 

Uggg!

Have I ever mentioned what it does to our family when the washer or dryer go out? Have I ever mentioned that my family almost always has at least one back-up if not two of each appliance?

Yes, we always have at least one back-up washer and a back-up dryer--The clothes line.  And when the washer or dryer go out, the back up is amazing.  It never ceases to amaze me how the laundry can pile up with in 24-48 hours of either appliances being broken!

Well it's the laundry comedy going on here! Last Saturday the front loader decided it was time for it not to work. Great the last thing we needed right then, but hey we have a back up washer so no biggie right? Well, the back-up washer is a top loader in which it uses at least double the water that our front loader uses and it drains a lot faster than our front loader, meaning there is not enough time for all the water to drain and we had the outlet pip overflowing. So what did we do? Well, I spent my days sitting on the washer waiting for it to drain and when it gets to the drain I stop it every few minutes to give it time for all the water to drain out. It works great, except I do nothing all day but sit on the washer, rotating laundry, folding laundry, and reading my bible. :D

Now for the dryer, Monday the dryer decided not only to not dry my clothes within three hours, but to eat the laundry as well. No I am not joking. Somehow, some way 95% of the laundry that goes into the dryer is coming out with holes in it. It took us an entire day to figure it out, there is a little catch at the top that the laundry was getting caught on and every time it came lose it would ripe a hole in it. Great, now I have clothes that resemble Swiss cheese!

To solve both problems of the dryer not drying and it eating our laundry we decided to go with the back up--The clothesline. In the weather that we were having it was great the clothes we drying faster than then those in the dryer and they were still intact, until today--It's raining!!

I guess it's time to go to back up number two or three. #2 No laundry for the day or option #3 hang it in the bathroom. Hmmm.....I think I will just pray it stops raining! lol

My Job...

At market we always get questions about our family and our farm. The questions that we get about our family are the same that we get no matter where we go or what we are doing. :D The farm questions range from "How many animals are on your farm?" to "Are you organic?" or "Do you live on the farm and milk the goats?”

Everyone gets those questions at every market. Then each person gets a few questions that are just for them. Mine seems to be "Do you help in the dairy?" and "Do you get you get paid?” I have already talked about the getting paid question. So today I am going to address if I help or not...

Last night I woke up and asked Seth (yes, the 18 month old) if he wanted his milk raw or pasteurized? Grace (who was just climbing into bed after watching a movie with the rest f the older girls) looked at me with a shocked look on her face and said "Did you really just now wake up and ask Seth if he wanted his milk Raw or pasteurized?"

Yup, I did. As I was planning the processing schedule for the rest of the week right before I went to fell asleep with the toddlers.

Yes, help a great deal in the dairy (not trying to brag here!). Other then mom I am really the only one who does the processing, Grace helps with the pasteurizing when I need her to (like yesterday when mom and dad were in Houston and I had to get feed in Bryan) or hanging the cheese when mom or I can't get to it and Sara will help bottle, while the rest of the family (all the way down to Noah) will help label.

But, most of the time it's me who does the planning on what we are going to do with that weeks milk and then does the pasteurizing. I spend more hours planning, processing, labeling, etc. then I do reading and that's saying something since I am always have a book I am reading.

So, there you have it. Yes I do help in the dairy, so much so that I have had dreams about working in the dairy, milk, cheese, and yogurt. It's almost kind of pitiful!