A New Adventure

As I mentioned in a previous post, we inherited two roosters and a small bantam hen when we moved into our new home. A neighbor is going to take at least one of the roosters off of our hands (hopefully two!). Chris has designed a great hen house and we hope to start building it in the next week. In the mean time, we needed to get something to fill the hen house with - chicks!

This morning, we headed into town and picked up twelve cute little balls of fluff.

We brought them home and placed them under the heat lamp. 

Before we left, I remember thinking that tub was pretty big, but I can see now that we are definitely going to need something much bigger to contain these little critters soon. :)

We got three each of the following breeds: Welsummer, Rhode Island Red, Black Australorp and Buff Orpington. They are all toted to be friendly hens and good layers. We are so excited to watch them grow up and collect their eggs!

"Gingerbread" Houses...or something

In December, I promised the girls they could make gingerbread houses. Then they asked to make graham cracker houses instead...whoohoo! However....we got busy...packing, paperwork, Christmas, advent, church.

January rolled around and I assured the girls that they could make the houses as soon as we were moved in. February blew in and I bought a big box of graham crackers and made sure we had all the things we needed to make yummy houses. Then we ate all the graham crackers.

March 4th, a friend came over, I bought a new box of graham crackers, and the girls finally got to make their houses!

Materials

Glueing it all together.

Let the decorating begin!

 Final products :)

The every day...

Here are some things we've been up to:

Found this old favorite at our local (much beloved) second hand book store...

then found this. Ack!! What is our world coming to?! ;-)

The girls love having friends over. Here they are playing "hair salon."

It warmed up for a few days and we were able to get some yard work done.

David helped!

We ended up with a very large box secret club house!

We've gotten some snow a couple of times recently, but nothing that stuck around for long.

David is loving bath time!

 Daddy and mommy love how tired David is after playing hard outside.

Co-op Fun

Our kids usually participate in our local homeschool co-op at least one term a year, if not two. This winter, the kids are taking Pioneer Life, Arts & Crafts, Outdoor Survival, Intro to Book Reports and Early Reading. They all love seeing their friends and learning new things together!

I teach the Intro to Book Reports class, along with an Advanced Book Reports class and organizing a craft hour for the preschoolers.

This week the girls made log cabins in their Pioneer Life class!

The preschoolers love craft time...and so do I! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

The girls wanted to make valentines for all the kids in their homeschool co-op, which is about 60. I found this idea online and the kids had a lot of fun making them. :)

Winter

In January, the kids and Chris all came down with the flu. I, miraculously, managed to stay pretty healthy and was able to keep a fire going in the wood stove! As soon as Chris started feeling better (a week later!), I pretty much lost all success at getting a fire going.

After all sharing a room and a very small living space for four and a half months, the kids are really enjoying the extra room! The friends we were living with had no bathtubs.

Whoohoo for baths!!

After a looong break, we're finally back to schoolwork again and...loving it! Allison is studying ancient Rome, while Abby has started the first grade and is learning to read.

I promised the girls that they could do some beginning sewing projects this year, so we did our first one today.

They both did really well!

My birthday is in January and Chris' birthday was last week so we generally combine the two. This year, we celebrated with our favorite pie (blueberry banana cream), presents, family and a day with just the two of us, complete with a massage at a spa - so fun!

We Moved!

December 31st we closed on our new house and started plowing snow (there was a blizzard...of course!). We started moving in on January 1st and now that it's February, I think I can officially say we're all moved in! There are still pictures and things to hang on the walls, but most things are unpacked or put away in storage. (I'm sure it will take me the rest of the year to sort through those things - hah!)

We have 5 acres now, which the kids love to run and play in. There are somewhere around 40 pear trees with four different varieties. Two roosters and a hen stuck around...soon to be one rooster and a hen, I hope! We're going to build a new chicken house in the next month and get us some chicks. I'm hoping to have about 10 good layers so that we can have enough eggs for our family and a few extra to sell.