Where's the Hot Air?

Every year, we need to "dry off" our goats two months before they are due to kid.  This allows them to put their energy into growing their kids rather than making milk.  While it is a very sad time for most of us because we don't have any fresh milk to drink, the boys really enjoy taking a break from their milking duties.

We use this dry time to take a vacation and visit my Mom in Florida.  Grandma and Poppy, moved to Florida several years ago and promptly got jobs at Disney World.  As you might expect, we take full advantage of the great discounts that they are able to get.

I'll be sharing more of our vacation with you, but what I really wanted to share was what happened to us when we returned home.

As you can imagine, we generate a LOT of laundry around here.  And even though Jim did the laundry twice during our vacation, we still returned home with many suitcases full of nothing but dirty clothes.

It is Hewitt's job to do the laundry and he tackled it like a champ.

But I noticed he wasn't getting very far.  When I asked him why, he told me that the clothes in the dryer were always wet when he checked on them.

Uh oh.

Sure enough, when I checked on it, the dryer was not generating any heat at all.

Now, I have to tell you that we've had the same dryer for 7.5 years.  And it was clearly not going to last much longer.

So about a month ago, we got a new one.

And it only lasted for 2 weeks!

Fortunately, it is under warranty.

Unfortunately, the repair man can't come out until Wednesday.

So this is what are we doing until then...

... hanging our clothes to dry.  Fortunately, we heat the house with wood, and the living room is always toasty warm and perfect for drying clothes.

But it is a pain, and I'll be happy when the dryer is back!

Growing Up

I know that it's my job as a parent to help my children grow up and reach their full potential.

But sometimes it makes me so sad to see it!

Don't get me wrong.

I don't miss 3 am feedings.

And I don't miss changing diapers.

And I definitely don't miss potty training.

But I can't believe that my little boy is already driving.

Ok, he's not exactly driving cars yet.

But on our vacation, he is old enough (and tall enough) to rent and drive this:



And he sure is loving the new things he can do because he is growing up!

PJ

Babe

Many of you know that the Jonas Family likes to sing. I mean we really, really like to sing.

Jim has a pretty good voice.

Me - I'm terrible.

But it doesn't stop me from singing. And singing loudly. LOL

Indigo really likes to sing too. Now that she is reading, she's been asking me to print out the lyrics to some of her favorite songs.

She recently asked for the Sonny and Cher classic, "I've Got You, Babe" (I don't know if that's the actual title or not, it's just what I call it).

Indigo first heard the song when we were singing karaoke last year. She fell in love with it.

She's pretty funny singing it and Jade really enjoys dancing and punctuating her favorite parts.

So enjoy the show:



PJ

Rapid Deforestation

I thought everyone would get a kick out of this video:



I know the goats enjoyed it!

PJ

Homeschooling at its Best

I think that one of the biggest strengths to homeschooling is that my children get to learn the things that interest them. Because it is self-directed, they often learn faster and retain the information longer. They make connections and learn how to think for themselves instead of just memorizing facts that they will later forget.

Brett has taken an interest lately in my camera. She's been taking the same photo on all different settings and then seeing how that affects the photograph.

Which is a great learning tool, but really annoying when I'm looking for photos on my camera disc and there are 356 pictures of a pumpkin sitting on our front porch.

Her latest experiment involves taking photos with no flash. These were some of the recent series of photos I found on my disc:

They're in black and white because she discovered that if you take a photo without the flash in a room with florescent lighting, the pictures come out very yellow.

BUT... if you turn them black and white, then you can't tell!

I've been encouraging her experimentation. I'm so thankful that we have digital cameras and can't imagine if it were still film! One of the reasons she's practicing is because she wants to start creating her own line of greeting cards based on her photographs. She's very excited about it, so we're supporting her as much as we can.

As I was going through her photos, most of them were plants with frost on them:

Then in the middle I found this one isolated photo:

I asked her why she took that. She said, "I did my hair and I wanted to see what it looked like."

What a creative solution! I was very impressed.

Just another example of homeschooling at its best!

PJ

Christmas Cookies

One thing that I have discovered is that there is never enough time to get done everything that I want to get done. So if something "non-essential" is going to happen, I have to stop what I'm doing to make it happen.

Christmas cookies are definitely a "non-essential" thing that is essential to our family's Christmas memories.

So one night, we had a super quick dinner and I gathered everyone in the kitchen and told them to go upstairs and raid the play-doh bucket for all of our cookie cutters. They quickly found them and dumped them on the floor. They were each given the assignment to choose just one special cookie cutter. It took Jade a while to decide:

While the great cookie cutter hunt was on, I mixed together and rolled out some dough. Everyone got to cut out 2 (just two) cookies:

And then it was a free for all:

Jim and Jade worked on mixing together some icing:

Once the baking was complete, it was a decorating frenzy:

(do you like Greyden's flour lip):

And when they came up for air, we had dozens and dozens of the most over-decorated Christmas cookies you ever did see:

And they were so yummy!

PJ

A Winter Walk

I am very thankful that we have been having an extremely mild winter here in SE Indiana.

It was so pretty out the other day, that the older children all asked if they could go running. The boys headed toward friends of ours. Brett didn't want to run with them, so she drafted Hewitt to run with her toward Farmer Frazier's house. (She took Hewitt because she can keep up with him - the other boys are pretty fast).

Indigo and Jade did NOT want to be left behind, so Jim and I finished some things and then headed out for a walk with them.

They were a bit excited to get started:

Jim and I caught up at the end of the driveway just as Brett and Hewitt returned:

Which was good, because Jade had her shoes on the wrong feet, so Brett helped switch them:

And then the girls ran ahead, again:

Once they got to the corner, they were apparently very excited (either that or they had too much Christmas candy) because they started dancing and singing:

There was a short stop to watch the twigs in the water...

... and to smile at the camera...

... and then they were off running again:

Time to take a break to dance some more:

And stare at the creek...

... before returning home.  But apparently Indigo used up all her energy dancing:

We managed to get her back up on her feet to walk the rest of the way.  We had a great time but it made me really antsy for Spring!

PJ