Jungle Tunes!

Talmage had his first school program! The kindergarten did Jungle Music presentation last week. It was so cute! This is a shot of the whole group. Talmage is in the white shirt on the far right.


This is when they were doing the song for "Five Little Monkeys."


Here he is doing his "Two Talking Toucans" song. His little fingers are being a toucan :).

Talmage is not one to sing in front of people. He is finally starting to sing in primary after having been in it for over 3 years now! Out of all the programs they could have done I'm grateful it was about animals and that Talmage was willing to participate. He did a great job!
(on a side note... he the first in line in his class and his class came out first... so cute to see my little boy come out in front of everyone!

Egg-celent!!

We have acquired some chickens from some friends. They had too many and we were interested in having some hens (for the "free" eggs aspect). Jeff was a good sport and put together a hen house Saturday and Monday nights (instead of the homework he could have been doing). It was a good thing because we got the 6 hens Monday night. We weren't sure with the transition how long it would be to get eggs, but we got 3 today!!! Two of them are pretty big too. I'm excited to cook them and see how yummy they are.



The kids were very excited to let them out to explore the yard. The hens had been waiting all day to get out and I was impressed with how well they did (not flying away and all).
Here's Jeff letting them out and Grant loving watching them!


They loved eating the grass and finding the bugs. It was like a feast! All the kids loved them and the boys started naming them. I can't remember all of them but I'll share the ones I can - Goldy (she's yellow), Henny, Clawy, and Reddy.

Mhari had an especially fun time with them and I've added a video for you to enjoy if you keep scrolling down :)


Here is one drinking... too fun!


Talmage petting his favorite hen. This is a good photo to show that they really are quite fast. This one was really nice though and will let us pet it for the most part.

That's our new excitement. We are turning into a farm... if you want to feel country come on by! At least I feel like we are working on becoming more self reliant :). Hopefully the hens will be good pets for the kids as well as provide some great hormone free eggs!

Nightmare!!

This was our first nightmare. At least of any that the kids have said "I had a nightmare" and then told us what it was about. Talmage has not been feeling well lately (ear infection) and he was having a hard time sleeping last night. I thought he was in pain. I offered him pain reliever and then afterwards I asked him what was wrong... since he was finally coherent enough to answer me.
That's when he said he had a nightmare. Oh, poor guy. No fun to have nightmares!

Then I asked him what it was about. He said there were animals at the zoo and people were throwing trash into their cages. He started to cry at that point. Such a sweet boy! He truly loves animals!

He says he wants to be a zoo keeper when he grows up and I wonder if he really will :).
One Sunday after quiet time this is what Talmage had constructed upstairs.

The animals are arranged by families (mostly) with their babies (some are carrying them)! The Lincoln logs are trees, in case you didn't know.

I told him to try to dream about helping the animals and taking care of them instead. I'm not sure it worked since he still didn't sleep well after that. I guess out of all the nightmares to have at least it wasn't too scary!

I love the innocence of children!

I used to be TALL!!!

A friend of mine posted about how her aspirations had changed over the years and asked this question ... "Anything you see differently than when you were younger?" There are tons of things that I see differently, but I'll try to focus on just one today :).

I was seriously tall growing up. Well, I thought so anyway. I came across this old photo of me by the palm tree. I'm sure I was showing that this is how I felt most days, but in reality the comparison was not very real.

When I was younger I was one of the tallest in the class. I'm the third one from the left on the top row. I never liked being tall because I felt that the cute boys were always short. It never worked in my favor.

I don't know that I wanted to be short, just maybe a few inches shorter. I know that makes sense right. I figured that maybe I'd marry a boy who was my height or maybe even a little shorter so that my girls would have a chance to not be so tall.

The guys I was interested in never seemed to like me and I blamed it on my height. I'm sure there were lots of reasons the boys didn't like me though. I didn't get asked to dance much at the youth dances and again the height seemed the most logical reason. Looking back on all this attention I wished I had I am so glad I was tall and didn't get much attention from boys (at least the ones I wanted). I married an amazing man who is nice and tall! Our daughters will most likely be over 6' tall and I can't wait! It was difficult to be tall, but I was also able to avoid so much heart ache and bad situations! Over all my worries and upset years about height I'm so grateful to have had such a simple thing that seemed to keep me away from trouble.

Height really isn't everything (one of my sisters did marry a guy 2 inches shorter than her and her daughter is so petite and tiny. Unfortunately her daughter hates being short!) and guys really aren't all that important during our youth either. Such wonderful lessons that I was able to learn.

I am now a wonderful 5' 10 3/4'' tall and I wouldn't give up an inch. Heavenly Father blessed me with my wonderful body, height and all. This has been a tricky thing to understand, but I'm so blessed to be me and go through these experiences. Now I get to love my daughters through this same sort of trial, and yet, what a blessing!!!

Again this is just one of the many things that time has given me a wonderful new perspective of. I will now pose the question to anyone else who wants to answer...

Anything you see differently than when you were younger?

Bows for Bag!

This is the bag I just finished for my friend. I think it turned out cute :). I would like to start by saying that she provided the fusible fleece to make this bag possible so I wasn't doing it just out of the kindness of my heart.


Also, my friend makes girl hair bows and offered an exchange. Sounded like a deal to me! I took the week to work on the bag and it went much easier this time around. I finished today and figured if we swapped I could have new bows for church tomorrow!


Mhari had a fabulous time with all the bows! She had me keep putting them in her hair. I'm surprised her thin little hairs could hold that many bows! I think we had 10 in at one point. It also looked like a bow hawk (mo-hawk)! It turned into a game of take bows out and put them in, but it kept her entertained so I didn't complain.


Here is the top of her head view. This is just a sample of the bows that I took home. I think I totally scored with the trade! I love the bows! Thanks again Shannon. If anyone else wants to make a trade let me know :). I need to build up on more fusible fleece now though, bummer. I should probably buy my own pattern instead of just use my friends if I'm going to offer to make them for people too. (I will also sell them, if you don't want to trade a service.) I think it's been fun to create bags and may be investing in some different patterns as well.

Sewing projects... completed!

Here are some finished projects!!!

I made my girls matching skirts. I have had this material since Sandra was a baby and I just figured out what to do with it (after I found it again). This is the first time I've made them matching outfits. It was fun :). Sandra loves when I make things for her and Mhari was having a great time with her skirt too.


Here they are before church the other week. Trying to get a photo of the two girls was not easy. Let's just say that 1 year olds are not that cooperative and don't always want to be standing by their sister for a picture... at least that was Mhari's opinion.


I think the material worked as a skirt. It would be a little too much pink as a dress.


A few weeks back I got together with my friend who has some awesome bag patterns. I made this one at her house with her help (thanks again Amanda!). I just had some finishing touches to do when I left (because I had to get Grant from school). This is now my huge church bag! It fits the stuff for my lesson as well as all the kid's necessities. It's been a while since I've only had 1 bag at church! It works so great!

I also wanted to use her smaller bag pattern for a purse. I don't have a small tote purse, or at least, I wanted to make another one :). I went through my material the other week and found this cute blue plaid. Since I do love blue and there was coordinating gray I figured it would make a great bag. It was harder than I planned (since I tried to not do as instructed), but eventually worked out. There are cute ties on the side, inside pockets (not pictured), and then the outside pocket with button closure!

I must say that I felt very accomplished by the end of this bag. Here is the side with the button closure :). I plan on making another for a friend and expect it to go much easier (because I'll follow the instructions).

Those are some recent updates around here. I enjoy accomplishing things, but sometimes the struggle doesn't seem worth it at the time :). Good thing I think they turn out cute when it's all done.

In Memory...

of our beloved bunny Rosey.


Last Saturday she had some loose bowel movements so I cleaned out her cage and cleaned her up. She was very lethargic and calm. I put her back in with new bedding and some fresh hay and such to help her tummy. By that afternoon Rosey had passed on. I felt so bad and we all miss Rosey. She was a good bunny. The kids really loved her. It was strange that she passed away so suddenly. The only thing we can figure is that on her walk time the day before maybe she ate something in the yard that she shouldn't have. If we had taken her to a vet they would've been able to tell us why she died (maybe), but not save her. They would've also had a nice vet bill to go along with it.

We let the kids say goodbye to her then took care of the remains.
I don't know if we will venture forth with another pet anytime soon. We may be inheriting chickens though...
It is probably good she died sooner than later. There have been no tears shed and the kids randomly mention that they miss her. I'm sure it would've been harder if she had been with us for years.

Here are some photos of the kids with Rosey and taking care of her.


Sandra had a great time walking Rosey. Rosey got to where she just liked to sit in the grass so Sandra would camp out with her waiting for her to hop again.



Hopping!

The boys were really good helpers and were willing to clean out the cage and check on her everyday. I was impressed how well they helped!

This was a good chance to talk about where Rosey is now. They saw her body and we were able to explain that her spirit is no longer in the body and that's why she's dead. We also got to explain that they can see her again if they live right. I hope they learned something other than it's sad to lose a pet.

Ice Day!

We had some really cold icy weather last week. The kids had a "snow day" because of it too. When Talmage came in that morning he said "It snowed!" And, well, yes, it did look like snow; however, it was all ice. Sandra even found some ice from the slide that she could turn into slush and throw at Jeff and me. I loved watching them "ice skate" the best. That little brick pad was a good little rink. We don't get too many days like this and no it wasn't snow, but the kids still had a blast! Jeff was even home because of the ice and retrieved icicles from the roof for the kids. They really enjoyed collecting the icicles and then watching them melt in a cup inside! We have had 80 degree weather since that time and it seems to change every day. The fun Texas weather is never predictable!

It snowed?

The kids had such fun on our little brick pad turned ice rink. I was nervous that someone would break their head open, but there were no casualties! This was after I ran inside to get the camera. The first time they skated really well like it was a rink. It was a fun ice day!

Playtime!

Last week the kids were being cute and dancing to some music. Then they decided to be bunnies and jump. Grant was getting some good bunny jumps going on.  Man that kid has animal instincts :).
After being bunnies for a while they started doing running somersaults. That was tricky to take pictures of, but I tried. Mhari even got in on the action. Jeff was good and helped her somersault. Then the kids were wiggly worms. They were having a fun time playing! We ended by playing on Daddy. That's always a winner :). Mhari really likes that game too!
Kids are fun and they are such great entertainment! Out of all the craziness of kids these memories make it all worth it.