Vacation Hangover

We had an incredible vacation. We played very hard.

I think Jade came home and experienced a vacation hangover:

Then the children got ahold of the kittens and ran them all over the place, so that Ginger experienced a post vacation hangover too:

If Brett had thought to take the camera and take photos of Jim and I, I'm sure we would have looked just as oblivious to the world. Of course, Brett was passed out herself. :)

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Confidence

During our vacation, we visited good friends of ours who are living on a 300+ acre Christmas tree farm outside of Blacksburg, Virginia. Cole and I were walking down one of their hills together. This was our view:

Off to the right, there was this big sloping part, with lots of trees on the bottom. I said to Cole, "I wonder if you sled down this hill, could you could jump off your sled and stop yourself before you hit the trees?"

Cole confidently replied, "I could sled down this hill and not hit the trees."

I responded, "Cole, every year people die because their sleds run into trees."

He just looked back over his shoulder at me and said, "Do you know what I think?"

Me: "No, what?"

Cole: "I think you worry too much."

Wow - he's growing up. 



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The Goldfish Saga

I just had to share this Jade story from our vacation.

We were sitting on the beach one day. My Aunt Gina had just finished sharing her box of goldfish with Brett. Jade saw this and told (not asked) Gina that she wanted some of Brett's goldfish. Gina told her that they weren't Brett's goldfish and the conversation went like this:

Jade: Yes

Gina: No

Jade: Yes

Gina: No

Jade: Yes

Gina: No

(There were actually a bunch more, but I think you've got the picture).

Gina apparently realized she wasn't getting anywhere so she announced that the goldfish were her's. The conversation then went like this:

Jade: No

Gina: Yes

Jade: No

Gina: Yes

Jade: No

Gina: Yes

Simply classic.

At this point, Gina gave in and put a small handful of goldfish in the cupholder of Jade's chair. She then put the goldfish box down.

Jade (staring hard at Gina the whole time) gently walked around Gina's chair, grabbed the box of goldfish and set them down a few chairs away, out of Gina's reach. To this, Gina responded by snatching all of the goldfish that she had put in Jade's cupholder.

Jade's reaction was pretty instantaneous. No screaming, no fit throwing.  She simply stared super hard at Gina and announced, "THEY'RE POISON!" She then gave a dramatic pause, dropped her voiced and stated with absolute authority, "They're SNAKES."

To this, Gina burst into laughter, gave in, and put the goldfish back in Jade's cupholder. Jade, triumphant, sat down in the chair and happily munched on her poisonous snakes.

I would have paid a large amount of money to have had the whole incident on videotape. But alas, you'll have to settle for my retelling.


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Number One

I don't know how long this will last, so I had to document it:

Can you see what that is? That's Goat Milk Stuff in FIRST place when you do a google search on "goat milk soap". Isn't that exciting?

OK, you may not think that's exciting, but I've put in hundreds of hours on this website, and I'm thrilled!

So thank you to all of our awesome friends, fans, and customers. We wouldn't be here without you! :D

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The Youngest Person Rule

One question I'm asked ALL the time is, "How do you do it all?"

The answer is simple - I don't.

But I do get quite a bit accomplished.

One of the secrets to our success are our house rules. There are 6 that the children follow and then there are a couple that I follow. One of my most effective ones is:

The youngest person capable of doing the job does it.

All the children are encouraged to teach their younger siblings how to do things so that the older children can pass their jobs to the younger children, thereby freeing up their time so that Jim and I can pass our jobs to the older children. :)

Here's an example of this principle in action. I haven't regularly folded laundry in years.

And if you do it right, it's something they enjoy:



Of course, you do have to get over things being perfectly creased and folded.  I am a firm believer in the fact that a few wrinkles never killed anybody.  And you do have to inspect periodically. The way I handle that with laundry is to have Greyden (who is responsible for washing all the laundry) put the clean clothes in my bedroom.  Then it is really easy to tell when they're falling behind on the laundry.  LOL

Plus, this is homeschooling at it's best.  The young ones early on learn:
 - colors
 - teamwork
 - sorting
 - organization
 - how to tackle a large project one step at a time and not get overwhelmed

And the older ones learn how to teach.

Yep, I'd be getting a lot less sleep if I didn't have the youngest person rule. I definitely recommend it. :D



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Substitute Blanket

We've been having trouble lately with Indigo and Jade losing their blankets around the house/soap room/yard. It's not a pretty picture when it's bed time and the blankets are nowhere to be found.

So Jim told them they had to leave their blankets in their room. Today I discovered Jade curled up on the couch. Normally she'd be sucking her fingers on her right hand and running her left hand through the fringe on her blanket. But today she had to come up with a substitute:

It worked for her, but I'm not sure she can drag Ginger around like she drags her blanket. :D

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Charlestown State Park Balloon Glow

Yesterday, Jim was pushing us to finish our work early so we could have a family surprise.

What was our surprise? The Charlestown Hot Air Balloon Glow.

It was a hot, muggy evening with no breeze. (On a side note, we used our bug off lotion stick b/c the bugs were awful and they worked great. I wasn't bothered by any bugs at all!)

Anyway, since it was so hot, we had to get some ice cream:

And then we got to have fun with the fire truck and hats:

Then we got to watch the balloon glow (beware, Brett was taking the video and she moves pretty quickly to try to get all the balloons):



We got to see friends and hang out and relax. It was a very fun evening - and all Jim's idea. :)

Of course, after we left, the stopping at McDonalds and getting milkshakes and french fries, well... that was all mom's idea. :D

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Sugar and Spice

We had a craft show a couple of weekends ago. It was a pretty day and we had a family date after the show, so we brought everyone.

After a while, Indigo got bored of coloring and asked if she could give out samples. Emery set her up:

She was really sweet and talked to the customers and gave them their samples and business cards:



After about ten minutes, she got bored and decided to stop.

Jade then decided that SHE wanted to hand out samples too. Since she's too little to sit on the stool by herself, Brett stood with her:

She wasn't quite as sweet as Indigo:



In fact, this was the face she gave most of the people:

It was hysterical. Jim calls Indigo and Jade "Sugar and Spice". Indigo being Sugar and Jade being Spice. This is just a perfect example of Sugar and Spice in action. :D


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Crazy Inventions

All of the children are supposed to be sleeping because we have to get up wicked early tomorrow. We have a soap show (Madison Old Court Days) that is an hour away and we have to be completely set up by 9:00 am.

Instead of sleeping, Colter just came into the living room so we could have the following conversation.

Cole: I've been thinking of some crazy inventions.

Me: You should be thinking about sleeping.

Cole: Do you want to know what some of them are?

Me: (Sighing inwardly) Of course - although I'd prefer to hear about them in the morning.

Cole: (undaunted) Well one of them is a parachute that opens upon impact.

Me: Nice. Good night, Colter.

Cole: (still undaunted) Another one is an upward ejection seat on a helicopter.

Me: Gross. Good night, Colter.

Cole: And...

Me (quickly interjecting) Good NIGHT, Colter.

Cole: 'Night Mom.

What do you think - is he sleeping or coming up with more crazy inventions. I know which one I'm betting on.

Gotta love that kid.

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Having Dinner with the Gang

Our last night at Disney, we had dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern. They normally don't have character dining, but since the Crystal Palace is being renovated, they moved the characters to the Liberty Tree. So we got to share our dinner with some good friends:

Mom and Dad's favorite part was that the children all got one big round table where they got to eat together, and the adults got their own separate table in the corner. Jim thought the evening a great success:

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The Sweet Smell of Success

People always think that because we have a soap business, we must smell good all the time. The truth is - sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. There is a lot of hard work involved with running a family of ten and a business. And when that business involves goats, well there's quite a bit of stinky stuff involved. Especially for the boys - they tend to lean their heads against the goats' sides while they milk, so they constantly stink like the goats. And then, of course, there's the odor that comes with cleaning out the stalls.

The rest of us may not smell like goats, but we do work hard and get really sweaty sometimes. Especially since we haven't gotten the air conditioner units up in the soap room yet. Friday I was doing a lot of work in the hot soap room and quite honestly, I was sweaty and stinky. This was the day after we put up our new website, and we were running late putting together the internet orders, so we missed the mail lady. I had told everybody that their packages were going out that day, so I had to make a trip into town to the post office. Since I was going to the post office, I also needed to stop at the bank and make a deposit.

It was already after 4:00, so I didn't have time to shower. I asked Jim as I kissed him good-bye if I was stinky. He cheerfully responded, "Yep!" Oh well...

Fast forward to the teller line at my bank. I hand my teller my deposit and she responds, "I always love it when you make a deposit. Your money always smells so good! It makes my whole drawer smell amazing."

I couldn't help it, I started laughing. Here I was worrying about being stinky in public, and my bank teller is telling me that my money smells good!

Way too funny. :)

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Attack!

Jim and the older children were away selling soap at a Bar-B-Q Festival this weekend. I never sleep well when Jim is away, so last night I went to bed early and fell sound asleep.

I woke up to being attacked!! I was kinda disoriented so I just yelled for Jim to help (he was in the living room working on his computer). When he came into the bedroom, what do you think my Knight in Shining Armor did? Rescue me, right?

Wrong.

He went for the video camera.

Here is a still photo of what he captured:

And here is the video:



Don't you love my squealing? Those little sharp claws in your scalp really hurt!

The kittens got my "revenge" for me. Guess where they slept last night? Gypsy slept by Jim's right ear and Ginger slept under his left armpit. He was very effectively pinned, and too sleepy to do anything about it.

Paybacks... :D


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