The Chicks Are Here!

The fluffy bundles of baby chick goodness have arrived!  Due to some scheduling overload this summer, my parents decided to only go with 100 birds. The plan is to butcher the weekend after July 4th.

I know that they grow up to be really, really ugly.  And by then, I'll be ready to butcher them. But they sure are cute at this age!

Ellie and Jeffrey agree.

So did Sydney.  But she was a little to eager to squeeze the babies.  So she had to settle for just petting them carefully. 

Let the increased farm chores begin....it's chicken time!

Tips and Tricks for Painting With Kids

Today was a painting day.  We bought paint and primer for our chicken coop yesterday, and I decided that since we were going to be painting outside, we should do some painting for art first.

Painting with children can be a bit messy.  Especially when one of them tries to eat everything.  And you know it'll end up everywhere. 

He started off so well!

I found a few solutions for making painting easier on everyone.  Here they are:

1.  Newspaper is your friend!

Lay a thick layer out.  It'll get painted on.  But it protects the table. At least until your child with Pica rips and tries to eat the part protecting the table in front of him... But that's another story. 

2. Have a variety of brushes. 

I found a pack of twenty some paintbrushes at Wal-Mart for five bucks.  It was  good buy.  The kids can use a different one for each color. There isn't as much fighting over brushes.  Everyone can find one they like. 

Sydney painting.  But you can see our jar full of awesome brushes!

3. Paper muffin cups are useful.

I pour the paint colors into these.  The kids can each have one of each color.  I also gave them a few empty cups. They were able to experiment with mixing colors that way.  And no one could complain that someone else got blue into the yellow they needed.  They have to be responsible with their own colors.

4. Use a variety of paints based on skill level.

Jayme, Jeffrey, Sydney and Ellie used acrylic paint and had a blast.  They know how to paint without making a huge mess, and are pretty independent in their artwork.  I had to talk to Sydney about keeping it on the paper, but she really did well for only two. 

Owen, on the other hand, eats paint.  I mixed cornstarch and water to a thick, goopy consistency.  Then I added just a couple drops of acrylic paint to get the color.  I didn't give him a brush.  He just used his fingers. 

5.  Know that messes happen.

He didn't end up quite as neat as he did when we started....

We don't paint everyday.  When we do paint, I just expect a mess.  That way I'm mentally prepared to clean a mess.  I don't do it on a day when we're rushing around.

6.  Cornstarch paint cleans up really easily!

Seriously.  I was a bit worried about the mess Owen was making.  He dumped it on his head.  He trickled it through his fingers, enjoying the texture.  And dripped it onto the floor. 

Me (well my hand) becoming less worried about the mess when I realize that I can pick up the cornstarch paint!

But...it hardens almost instantly.  I was able to SWEEP the paint mess up! Then just a quick spot mop to get the cornstarch powder off took care of everything.  A damp rag cleaned up Owen's head. 

So I really recommend this mixture if you are painting with really young kids, or any with special needs. 


And our chicken coop?  Yeah---I realized once we got all ready that I didn't have a paint tray.  So I picked one up this afternoon after taking Owen to the doctor to get his eye laceration from 10 days ago checked.  It healed nicely.

So tomorrow?  It'll be another painting day!

Any other painting tricks?

Last Weekly Round Up of April!

Can you believe that it'll be May before next Saturday?  Crazy!

It's been a busy week.  We had special meetings at church each night from Monday-Friday. With Bryan driving out from Spokane, he made it home just in time to leave for church.  It was hectic, but worthwhile.

On Resurrection Sunday, I didn't take any pictures.  We ate with my mom, and I left my iPod at home.  She took some nice pictures of the kids though!  Maybe I'll have her send me one so I can update this post.  (Hi mom...hint....hint....).

Monday,  April 21

A snapshot of our new chicken coop and pig pen.  The coop now has a door on the hole that you see.  That's a storage area for me to keep bags of feed and scratch in. We are hoping to hear back on piglets this week, and get some growing. 

Tuesday, April 22

Jeffrey has really been into drawing lately.  He's showing off his picture.  Unfortunately he moved right as I snapped so his picture is blurry.  But he looks cute! 

Wednesday, April 23

My little girlies getting all spruced up for special meetings.  Of course Sydney only kept her rubber bands in as long as it took for me to take the picture.  We'll have to work on that! 

Thursday, April 24

As part of my focus verse for the year, I'm really trying to pay better attention to season changes and be prepared.   In that mindset, I ordered swimwear for the kids who needed it.  By ordering early, I made sure that it arrived in time for swimming and splashing in the creek all summer.  Owen looks handsome in his new swim shirt and shorts.  We're still waiting on Jayme's new suit.  We custom ordered one from Stitchin' Times, and it takes a bit longer than just generic ones of the shelf.  It should last a long time though! I ordered mine from them in 2008 and it still looks great!

Friday, April 25

Thanks to Jayme for taking this picture!  That's my hand you see.  Another new purchase for summer.  We ordered 12 silicone Popsicle molds. For their first use, I filled them up with yogurt based smoothies.  Simon approves!

Saturday, April 26

Ellie in the swing at the end of a long day.  It's been a busy day on the farm--fixing fence, moving cows, buying hardware for the chicken coop and working on the coop.  It was nice to relax this evening!

Hope your week was a good one!

Spring Weather

As the saying goes around here in the spring...

If you don't like the weather wait five minutes and it'll change.

That certainly held true today.

As I walked Bryan out this morning, it was snowing.

Later, we had rain.

For a while it was sunny.

And as a special surprise this afternoon, we got this...

Hail. With some beautiful blue skies in the  distance. 

Can you see the random large white things falling? Not the best pic, but gives you an idea.

Got to love spring weather! 

Is it this crazy where you are as well?

Our Daily Egg Hunt

With free range chickens, daily egg hunts happen here at the farm. Unlike the plastic or colored variety Grandma hid for the little ones this past weekend, our egg hiders aren't obvious.

Nope. The hens select secluded places to create their nests and lay their eggs. And once we find them, they are most likely going to move to a new spot before laying again.

Just to keep us hunting you know.

When we find a nest, we float test all of the eggs. Sinking is good. Floating is bad. Wash up the good ones. Toss the bad.  Jeffrey has it figured out and loves hunting for nests and checking for floaters.

But every time we find one, I can't help but feel estatic for the completion of our new coop with an enclosed run. We have 18 hens. I get 5 eggs or so a day in the current coop. By my calculations, there are dozens and dozens of eggs all over the farm just waiting to be found.

Thankfully my husband has been hard at work on the new coop. It's getting closer to being done. Then I think I'll be amazed at how many eggs we have! And we won't even have to search for them. 

Our chickens will no longer be free range, but I think they'll enjoy their new coop. Bryan designed it and did a marvelous job! It has a removable panel to make cleaning easier, nice elevated built in nest boxes and storage for food. 

The kids get to help us prime and paint soon. They will love it! When it's all done, I will have to give a photo tour of it. 

Until then, we will continue to enjoy our daily egg hunts. I don't think the kids will complain! 

Weekly Pic Round Up

Here we go...another week completed. 

Sunday, April 13

Our little Ellie turned 4.  Here she is blowing out candles on her birthday cake/cupcake castle.  What a sweetie!

Monday, April 14

Using the great directions and idea from this blog, we worked hard on creating a Resurrection Mountain and pipe cleaner people.   Owen enjoyed the pipe cleaners!  Unfortunately, our mountain caved in during the baking process, but we have been using it all week regardless.  We'll try again next year!

Tuesday, April 15

Sausage making.  I've never done this before, so was excited to try a new skill!  I used my parent's meat grinder, and some basic seasoning (salt, pepper, pepper flakes and a lot of sage) to flavor a ground up pork roast and pork steaks.  It tasted good!  But was too spicy for the kids.  Next time I'll cut the pepper flakes down even more.  1 Tablespoon was too much (the recipe called for 1.5, so I thought it'd be fine). 

Wednesday, April 16

Took pictures for my DVD purge blog post.  Yup--definitely time to do something about the clutter!

Thursday, April 17

Simon really enjoyed his egg yolk scramble. At least his lap did... Oh well.  The table, the baby and the floor all clean up.  The doggie likes helping with this  task!  

Friday, April 18

We took an adventure!  We packed up a small bag each full of essentials (books, paper, toys, snacks) and grabbed a blanket.  We headed out to the woods to find a clearing to set up our base camp.  Then I settled down there with Simon and Owen on the blanket, and everyone enjoyed a couple of hours in the woods.  We found rooms between trees, moved some fallen logs and ate some dirt.  Well...not everyone ate the dirt.  It was great--no distractions, no housework...just time with the kids.  I loved it!

Here, Jeffrey and Ellie were charging ahead to explore a new area.  

Saturday, April 19

Bryan just loves it when he arrives home from work to me saying that I think we would probably be heading to the hospital.  Well, no he actually doesn't love it.  But that was the scene he walked into on Friday night. 

Owen had a drop seizure onto the corner of our roll-top desk.  The desk IS stronger than Owen's eyelid, in case you were wondering. 

Thankfully there was no waiting at the ER, and they were able to glue it shut easily.  Now no bath for Owen for a few days.  That'll be the hardest part!

It looked pretty good when he woke up this morning.  He definitely has a black eye, and it's swollen, but the wound itself is staying closed.  We're praying that it heals well.  He has so many scars on his face from all of his falls, poor guy!

Dramatic ending to the week!  I'm looking forward to a wonderful Resurrection Sunday in the morning.  We start the day with a church brunch at 9.  Enjoy your day!

The Great DVD Purge

Kids are tough on DVDs.

Especially when they are super strong like Owen.  And can force open the movie cupboard and start trying to rip out the papers that tell about the DVD.

And in the process of getting the paper, he dumps the DVD out of the case.  And a DVD on the floor is super fun for Simon and Sydney. Thankfully those two aren't as stealthy about their fun.  And someone usually hears their giggles and gets the movie put away.  But, damage can happen quick.

Which means that we have a lot of scratched DVDs.  For some reason, I've been hanging onto them, hoping that one day they'll just magically play.  But I know they won't.  And my  repair attempts (polishing with banana, using Vaseline, just cleaning with window cleaner etc.) haven't worked on too many of them.

But now...Now I'm ready to let go.  It's time to get rid of DVDs. Except we decided we wanted even the good ones out of the living room...completely!

After doing some research, Bryan bought an Apple TV unit.  And we've been converting all of our DVDs to digital format using DVDFab.  Then we put them into our iTunes library, and can select them all to play on the TV. 

If they are too scratched to convert correctly, I am tossing them.  That's where the purging part comes in.  Getting rid of stuff is such a freeing feeling!  Makes me want to get rid of more stuff. 

We have the majority of our playable DVDs copied over.  Once they are on the network, we take the DVD and are storing it in the basement.  That way they won't continue to get destroyed.  Out of sight, out of mind.

As new DVDs come in, we'll convert them immediately and bring them downstairs.  No more scratches!

And we'll soon be getting the cupboard that held the DVDs out of the living room.  Which is good.  The top of it has been an easy place to put things, so it keeps being a clutter catcher.  So the living room will just look neater without that.  And it'll be even more Owen proof.  Which is good! 

Our current movie cupboard.  Note the flat surface on top that gathers stuff.

A bonus?  Owen is able to really easily pick movies on his iPad now.  Because in order to keep things neat on the Apple TV, we downloaded a picture of the movie case and assigned it to each movie.  So now on the iPad (and everything else connected), the movies show up as pictures of the movies.

See--his movie choices actually look like the cover of the movie.  Very nice!

Owen's favorites?  Wreck-It Ralph, Toy Story and Lady and the Tramp.  Never would have guessed that last one.  I don't think I ever selected it as a movie for him to watch before.  I guess it shouldn't surprise me--he loves dogs.  He's picked each of those for his bedtime movie several times now, so I know it's not just an accident.  He knows which ones he likes.  And works hard on scrolling through to find them.  

It's great when he is able to communicate just a bit, and we can get a glimpse into Owen.  I know the iPad holds great potential for opening up this door.  We just need to keep practicing in fun ways, so he gets better at finger isolation and selecting what he actually wants.

Now I just need a way to convert our VHS tapes to digital.  Any ideas?