Busy weekend

Our New Kid

Our biggest excitement of the weekend was the birth of our first baby goat of the year. Our goat (the one I said was NOT pregnant) had a single boy. I'm not sure where she was hiding it, but it's hers. Caleb went in to feed and water the goats in the morning and found a little baby. What a great surprise! He is soooo cute. He is full Nubian so he has adorable long ears (like a cross between a puppy and a lop-earred bunny). Last year's babies were half Nubian and half Lamancha so they had very short ears (Lamanchas are known for having no ears).

When asked if it's a boy or a girl, the Ellie and Grace will announce that "It's a boy and it's going to get butchered, but not when it's a baby." Such farm girls.... My kids are enjoying the new kid.

Livin' it up

The boys have been having a blast riding the go-cart around the cornfield, so daddy found another go-cart and mini-bike on Craig's list. The owner couldn't get either to start after the winter, so we got a good deal on them. After an hour or two, Daddy was riding around the yard on the mini-bike.

Seth was learning how to ride in the front yard (the steering of the front wheel takes a bit of getting used to), and after about 5 minutes, he forgot to let go of the accelerator when he used the brake to stop and he wiped out. Thank goodness there was no major damage, but when he fell, he jammed the handlebar into his cheek and formed a nasty looking welt.

He got back on his "horse", but if you look at the picture below, you'll notice that they took it upon themselves to use their catcher's helmet (complete with face mask) instead of the red helmet when riding.

The girl's can't drive yet and are imploring me to buy them a pony, OR a little pink 4-wheeler that "takes gas and not batteries". They have a rechargable "Gator" with an old battery that takes about 5 minutes or less to run out of juice. For now, though, they'll have to be content having their big brothers chauffeur them around.

They're Back!

We finally have both sets of Grandparents back! My parents came home last week from Cancun, and on Saturday, Grandpa and Grandma Larson got home from their month-long stay in the Mexican paradise...

Grandma Connie got to relive her farm-girl days and Grandpa Les gave the boys some baseball pitching pointers.

Reality Discipline

Reality Discipline has to do with learning from our mistakes by their natural consequences. It happens all the time... show up late for work consistently and you'll get fired... don't study for a test and you'll fail... don't weed your garden and it'll get overgrown with weeds... play with fire and you'll get burned... don't take care of the animals that feed you and you'll go hungry...

About a week ago, I had gone out to the chicken coop collect eggs and get some more chicken feed for the baby chicks in our garage. I noticed that the chicken feed was within a day of being empty (there's more in the big barn). Since it's currently Seth's job to take care of the chickens and collect the eggs, I didn't think much about it. He's old enough to know where to get more feed, and he's strong enough to carry the 40 lb bags (I'm actually amazed at how strong my older boys are getting!!).

Well, as the number of collected eggs kept dropping throughout the week, we just assumed they were making nests in other places that they shouldn't, so the kids would search a bit harder to find the eggs (to no avail). The chickens were also out wandering throughout the yard (which is very annoying when they make a mess of our flower garden and wood shavings). Well, as I found out on a trip to collect eggs in the coop, they were completely out of food (and have been out for a while).

Where does reality discipline come in? If my dear son doesn't mind if our animals go hungry, he should be able to tolerate a bit of hunger himself. That night, Seth didn't get to eat dinner. Now, granted, it didn't hurt him a bit to skip a meal, but it did get the point across... especially when we had the apple pie pizza that Caleb made for dessert. Only time will tell if he's learned his lesson...

4-wheelin'

Shortly after we got back from our vacation, we got a new toy. Well, new to us, anyhow. We bought an ATV off of a friend of ours and we've been having a blast riding it and our go-cart through the empty fields next door. It's a fun workhorse kind of a toy.

Along with our fun, we've had our share of trouble. Our well is acting up again. It seems to be going dry quicker since we've gotten back. We are checking into getting a new well dug this week... And the laundry is piling up... Ugh.

We made it!!

Yes, we made it back. We had fun camping on our last night on the road, although it was a really chilly night. I think Mark was hoping for a really cool road trip, but by that time, I think we were all ready to get home (I know I was).

We didn't let the kids write on our horribly dirty van until we got home, but after 5,500 miles, the mud was caked on so well, you could hardly tell it's color. The kids we able to create quite a masterpiece.

The kids were so anxious to get out of the car they practically hopped out the windows (if only those van windows rolled down...they wouldn't have banged their heads so many times!...OK, people, I'm just kidding...). After taking a few minutes to get our "sea" legs working, they were off and running. It is nice to be home. Dorothy had it right...

It didn't take long to get the farm into full swing. With the great spring weather, out came the go-cart and lawn mower. I'm not sure what's with kids and their need to drive powered things, but I remember loving to drive the lawn mower around my brother's yard when I was their age (ok, maybe a little older...oh, alright, I still like it and have to fight the kids for it).

We are still awaiting our baby goats. I'm pretty sure that the one doe that was due now is NOT due. It's a shame you have to wait 5 months to find out. Too bad there isn't a home pregnancy test for those animals. I'm hoping that at least one of the other two is pregnant, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'm wondering if our stud was a dud...

In spite of no goat additions this month, we did add 50 baby chicks to our brood. We got them the new fangled way... through the mail. I mean, really, who has time to let their hens sit on eggs anyhow. Actually, most of the birds who are bred to be good egg layers are also bred NOT to be broody (that means: to want to sit on a nest and hatch eggs), thus the Post Office route.

The fuzzy little things are just soooo stinkin' cute. The kids love holding them... all except Grace. She's freaked out at their "scratchy" toenails. You'd think they were fatally wounding her with the fuss she put up.... so she wrapped them in her papoose and then everything was fine.

Nathan's first experience with the chicks went well. No major damage, although I think he got their eyes confused with little balls, and concerned himself with trying to pluck them out. No worries though, they all still have their eyes (and other body parts).

Along with our chicks, we added about 5 mice to our collection of animals (they are only temporary, of course). Daddy found a momma mouse and 4 nursing babies nesting in our grill. He thought it was cool, so he invited all the kids over to look. After everyone was done gawking and saying how sweet baby mice looked, the momma mouse made a bee-line for the exit. She worked her way into the bottom of the grill with some of her babies. We tried to shoo her into a tupperware container, but we couldn't find her... that is, until Paul lit the grill. She ran down the leg of the grill and under the porch. Paul couldn't exactly smash her with a shovel with all of the kids watching. That would be gross! And, what do you do when you have helpless baby mice trapped in your grill? Well, we turned it off, of course, and waited. She ran back up to her babies and to our surprise, started carrying them down the grill and under the porch one by one. We got the nest into the tupperware thingy when it still had a couple babies in it, and we had the bright idea to put the lid on when she tried to get the last ones out of it. I guess we underestimated the speed and agility of a mother mouse on her quest to save her babies. We missed her...both times. Oh, believe me, we WILL meet again... probably in my pantry mousetrap. I only hope it's before this one eats a gaping hole in my new "warehouse-sized" bag of brown sugar! Grrrrrrrrr.

Hey, it's actually spring!

We had a fun stay with the Anderson's. The kids played great together the whole week, and we left with a van full of Colorado rocks (thanks Brennen). Noah is sure he can sell one of them for $100. I'm not so sure...

Ema made us a bunch of schnitzels (I can't spell it, but I think it's a German food) for the road, and off we went. We headed 5 hours through the mountains to Colorado Springs for the night. Steve's mom has a house that many of their friends stop at for the night on their way east.

I was looking forward to the adventure of driving home with six kids, if for no other reason than to say that "I did it", but realize it is a long drive... My big brother surprised me by flying into Colorado Springs last night to drive home with me! He has a flexible job and flyer miles (and was worried about me). After waking up several times last night because of kids sneaking off their roll-away bed onto my bed (Noah was already sleeping with me), I finally got up for good around 4:45, and we were on our way by 5:15 or so.

It has been nice having Mark come along for the trip. I had planned on staying at a hotel for the night because I didn't want to have to set up camp, and unhook and hook the camper back up, but now we can camp (which the kids would much rather do)... and they've enjoyed chasing Uncle Mark around the rest areas.

After a stop around Omaha, we'll have ONE MORE DAY... Oh, and it's nice to NOT see snow anymore!