Daddy Playground

The Jonases have a special name for nylon pants - the kind that you use for jogging suits. We call them "bubble proof pants".

"Why bubble proof pants?" you ask.

I'll tell you.

The children were playing with bubbles one day. Every time the bubbles would touch something - a shirt, a counter, a hand - they would pop. But when they touched Greyden's nylon pants, they stuck! So Greyden started calling them his "bubble proof pants".

And the name stuck.

Jim wears lots of bubble proof pants on the route in the winter. They help keep him warm when the weather is windy and cold.

One morning before Jim left for work, Jade climbed up onto Jim's lap. They were both wearing bubble proof pants and as soon as she was up - whoa! she slid back down.

You see, bubble proof pants on top of bubble proof pants are rather slippery.



Thus began a game of slide down Daddy that lasted almost half an hour, had everyone laughing hysterically, and made Daddy late for work.











But it was really worth it. :)

How Many Kids Can a Bath Tub Hold?

Here's a photo of the kids before they were moved out to the barn.



The 3 black and white are Malone, Darcy, and Valient. Veanna is standing watch over them.

Veanna reminds me of a child who feels like she doesn't belong because she's different. She looks like she's sad in this photo because she's "left out". But she doesn't need to worry, because she's Indigo's "favorite doat". :)

I've got my last goat due to kid in 3 days, so I'm on "goat watch" again. She looks like she's getting close, but she's a first freshener, so she could really drag this out...

Oh well, sleep is really over-rated anyway, right?

Breakfast Dinners

I've posted before about my family's love of having pancakes for dinner. Well, Brett tried a new twist:

Yes, those are chocolate pancakes with smiley faces in them. Isn't she a creative cook?

They were REALLY popular. :)

My Emery

Today is Emery's 9th Birthday, so - Happy Birthday, Spud!

I'm going to take this time to brag on Emery a little bit. I can do that, because I'm his Mom.

Emery is one of the "lovingest" (I know that's not a real word) kids I know. He delights in taking care of his little sisters, and they adore him.

Emery is also very creative. He is showing a lot of artistic talent, especially when it comes to drawing.

But Emery's biggest love is flowers. He's adored them since he was little. Our neighbors have wonderful flower gardens, and Emery is forever begging cut flowers from them.

This past February, Jim took the oldest three children to sell soap at the Dayton Home and Garden Show. Emery took a break and was gone for almost two hours. When he returned, he was grinning from ear to ear.

This is how the story was told to me - apparently they had some sort of class where they showed people how to arrange cut flowers. At the end of the class they announced, "Tomorrow we're going to pick some people from the audience to come up here and arrange flowers in front of everybody."

There was lots of audible groaning amongst the listeners until a very loud, "YEEEESSSSSSSS!" was heard ringing through the crowd.

With that, the guy in charge decided to bring Emery up on the stage right then and there and had him do his own flower arrangement. Needless to say, Emery was thrilled.

He came home from that trip with lots of supplies and even bulbs to plant in his flower garden (oh yeah, we gave Emery his own flower garden last year).

Last month, Emery was selling soap at a different show. One of the ladies near our booth had a booth selling floral monument arrangements.

Once again, Emery took a very long break. Only this time he was doing this:



Yep, Emery made that all by himself. I was told that the lady helped him determine the pattern, but he did it.

But do you want to know the best part? Apparently while he was in the middle of making it, a customer approached the booth and bought another arrangement and that one - yep, the very one Emery was making. And the very kind monument flower lady (I wish I knew her name) gave Emery half the money! How sweet was that?

Needless to say, Emery was thrilled.

It is so awesome to watch him using and developing his talents.

I can't wait to see what Emery's tenth year brings! :)

A Crazy Start to the Day

I've had a few people ask if I was feeling better, so I thought I'd give a short update. I think the last thing I wrote about my health was that I was diagnosed with pleurisy and given steroids, antibiotics, and codeine.

Well, a few days later, I woke up at about 5:00 am. No children were awake, no goats were due to kid, everything was fine. I thought it odd that I woke up (which I never do unprovoked), so I rolled over to go back to sleep.

Within a few minutes, pain started to build in my chest. I started having difficulty breathing. I got instantaneously nauseaus and clammy. At this point I woke Jim up and told him something was wrong and I thought we maybe needed to go to the ER.

Jim called friends of ours, and when the pain continued to intensify and I almost passed out while getting my shoes, Jim called an ambulance.

Fortunately they came without sirens on, so the children slept through the whole ordeal.

I was taken via ambulance to the ER, where an EKG showed that nothing was wrong with my heart (praise God!). Many tests later, I was sent home.

The Doctor at the ER thought I was having a kidney stone. My Doctor thinks it was a panic attack.

Me - I think it was all the drugs in my system, since my body is completely unused to pharmaceuticals.

Either way, after a couple of weeks, I can breathe normally, no more coughing, and no more chest pains. So I think I'm healed!

And just for the record - Jim was way more scared than I was. ;-)

Purple Power

Indigo's favorite color is purple (kind of fitting for a child named Indigo, don't you think?).

Anyway, Daddy had a huge score from the garbage route for her:


You gotta love purple sunglasses. (Ok, if your favorite color is purple, you gotta love purple sunglasses).

And Indigo adores her purple sunglasses!

Louisville Bats

I was at home last week when a friend called. Someone had given them 8 tickets to a Louisville Bats' (minor league) baseball game that night, but they couldn't use the tickets. She wondered if we would like to use them?

I had TONS of stuff to do that day, so I told her I would check with Jim and get right back to her.

I called Jim, ready to list all the reasons why we couldn't go. But he didn't even let me get a single one out of my mouth. His immediate, "Absolutely, we'll take the tickets and go!" made me press my lips together and smile.

But I really am glad we went. It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun. The most fun was watching the children interact with the team mascot, "Buddy". Hewitt, Indigo, and Jade thought he was the greatest thing ever. Even Jade managed to yell out, "Buuuuuuuuuuud E".

We were sitting just to the right of behind home plate, so we got lots of attention from Buddy. But even with all of Buddy's antics, Hewitt, Indigo and Jade got a little antsy. So I took them (and Greyden) and headed to the little playground they have at the park. We were on the way, when guess who was right there and held the door for us!

I couldn't believe it - and I actually had my camera in my pocket so here's the proof:

After the game, we met up with Jim and the older kids. We proudly showed them our picture of Buddy and they proudly showed us the foul ball that Daddy chased down caught:

It was a really fun time. Sometimes it's better to just ignore my "to do" list and enjoy my family! :)

Lunch Time

I had lunch with Indigo and Jade at the airport. There weren't a lot of options to choose from. Indigo said she wanted pizza so I ordered two slices at Sbarro. When they came I thought to myself, "Hmmmm... probably should have just gotten one." But you know what? They both ate them except for tiny parts of the crust.



I just thought it was so funny to see pieces of pizza bigger than their heads. ;)

Child Training

One of the ways we get our house to run is for everyone to pitch in and help with the work - even the youngest children. Sometimes that works really well. Sometimes it just makes more work.

One of the easiest jobs for Hewitt, Indigo, and Jade to do is cleaning off the table and loading the dishwasher. They cleaned off the table the other day. Later on, I found this:


Yes, those are paper plates.

I just laughed and called Jim to look. He laughed and got the camera and took the picture. A couple of days later, Jim found this:


He just laughed and called me to look. I laughed and got the camera and took a picture.

The funniest part of the second picture was that the dishwasher was actually run with the dishes loaded like that. And no, the bottom dishes did not get cleaned. They were gross. But at least it is better than the time that we found a set of 10 dinner dishes put away in the cabinet.

What's wrong with that, you ask? They hadn't been cleaned! They were put away in the cabinet as is - dried and caked on dinner and all!

Unfortunately that time Jim didn't laugh - but I still did. ;-)

Sometimes the children need a little extra child training!

Date Night

Well, it has been an exhausting week.

Thursday morning the last of the April goat kids were finally born (I'll get photos up later). Twins - 1 buckling and 1 doeling, both adorable and healthy. But the best part about Thursday morning kids is that Jim and I got to enjoy our Thursday evening date night.

Of course, we were still interrupted by human kids. ;-)

Jim and I were sitting on the bed watching our show when Jade, and then Indigo, and then Hewitt decided to join us. We let them sit with us for a few minutes and then told them they had to go back to bed because it was Daddy and Mommy's date night.

Hewitt just looked up at Jim with this sad look on his face and said, "How come I never get date night?"

Indigo of course then chimed in, "And I never get date night too."

Jade just sat there happily.

Jim looked down at them and promised that someday they would get a date night. That appeased them and off they went to bed.

A little later Emery, and then Colter, and then Brett decided to join us. They were all giddy about something. They wanted us to come out and close our eyes. We complied and were led into a spotless dining room and kitchen. (Two rooms which had seen a lot of neglect lately due to pregnant goats).

We were very impressed - it was a very nice date night. :)

Finally!

I finally went to bed last night just after midnight. I set the alarm for 2:00 am. At 2:00 I wobbled my way out to the barn. Nothing.

Set the alarm for 4:00 am. At 4:00 Jim wobbled his way out to the barn. Nothing.

Jim set the alarm for 5:00 am (he didn't realize I was going for every other hour and thought it was every hour). At 5:00 Jim wobbled his way out to the barn again (isn't he a good husband?) Nothing.

Set the alarm for 6:00 am. At 6:00 Jim wobbled his way out to the bar again (isn't he a REALLY good husband?) Nothing.

Jim, Brett, Cole, and Emery left to go sell soap at 10:00 (ok, it was more like 10:15).

I went out to the barn faithfully every hour. At about 1:30 I was exhausted and laid down on the couch. Jade was taking a nap and the other four children were quietly playing upstairs. I thought to myself, "Aaahh, just a short rest."

And then I thought, "Time to make the donuts." (Remember that commercial?)

I knew I couldn't rest if I didn't go and check. So I trudged out to the barn and thought to myself, "Hmmm... why is she doing that?" So I watched for a while and thought, "Hmmmm... I think this might be it." So I went back inside and took an excedrin, got myself a chair and sat in the goat stall. It took me about half an hour to become convinced this was labor (it's very difficult to tell with a goat).

Half an hour after that I helped to deliver this:

It's a girl!!! Yeah! I was very surprised that there was only one, so I "went in" and checked - but she was all alone.

Molly delivered her placenta about an hour later and is doing well.

As I type this, Malone is sleeping peacefully in the bathtub. I'll get one more bottle into her before I go to sleep, then wake up and feed her again around 6 am.

She's a real sweetie. She was jumping around the kitchen and playing with everybody. We're planning to keep her, so we're just so excited. A great start to our kidding season!

Kid Watch

Well, it is going to be a long night. I'm on kid watch.

I have three goats that are all due this weekend. I've been out checking goat bellies and goat butts for several days now.

Gestation on a goat is 150 days, but they can deliver plus or minus five days from their due date.

Molly is due either today or Sunday. Victoria is due either today or Sunday (the owner of the buck didn't distinguish between Victoria and Molly). Dayton is due on Monday. But since they're all so close, it's a toss up as to which one will go first.

But I'm guessing it is going to be Molly.

Here is a photo of Molly. She is standing with her front feet on something, so it is really accentuating her pregnant belly.


Molly has had twins two years in a row, so I'm guessing she's going to repeat that. I want to keep a doeling out of Molly, so I've been praying hard for at least one girl.

Since we bottle raise all our kids on CAE prevention, we need to be present at every birth to catch the kids and assist if the doe needs help with delivery. That usually means a trip out to the barn every hour when I think they are close to delivery.

And that means it is going to be a LONG night.

Ready or Not

My living room is usually in pretty good shape. No toys. Not much clutter. Quick and easy to clean up in case somebody drops by to pick up soap.

But then stuff like this happens:

That is what my living room looks like after Jim and the oldest 3 children returned from a weekend selling soap.

So, what's a good homemaker to do?

Ummm....

OK - I never said I was a good homemaker.

I imagine most "good" homemakers would clean it up.

Me? I took pictures of it for my blog and then went to bed.

The next day I took another picture of it:


But after a while (ummm - about 8 hours), I figured it wasn't going anywhere and we all pitched in and got it cleaned up. Good thing nobody showed up during that time. Although don't worry, I had plenty of excuses ready.

Usually I'm pretty prepared for guests (both expected and unexpected).

But I admit to being caught by surprise yesterday.

During dinner, Hewitt spilled his water all over himself. He immediately stripped down til he was buck naked. I told him to go put his clothes in the hamper and then forgot about it. Apparently he decided that instead of getting dressed, he'd rather stand on the back of the couch (still buck naked) and stare out the window.

The rest of us were still eating dinner when he announced, "Mom, somebody is here."

Sure enough somebody was driving up the driveway. Fortunately Brett was mortified that Hewitt was naked and ran him into the other room before the doorbell rang.

I immediately went onto the front porch (in case Brett couldn't get some clothes onto Hewitt). It was a friend of a friend wondering if we would take and raise a baby chick for them.

We happily took the chick (who is enjoying living with our silkie chickens) and invited the people into the house to pick up soap while they were here. I opened the front door and was pleasantly surprised to find that all members of my family were fully clothed.

Ahhh... the trials and tribulations of my life. :D

And to Shannon's friend (sorry I forgot your name) - we're glad you stopped by!

Now THAT is Talent

As homeschooling parents, we try very hard to teach our children things that will be useful for their future. Things that show how talented they are. Things that when other people see them, they say, "Wow, you are such amazing parents and your children are incredible!"

In order to be successful teachers, it is very important that you model what it is you are trying to teach. Jim takes his position as role model and teacher very seriously. Here he is demonstrating a particular talent for the children to practice and master:

And here is Emery studying to be just like his Father:

Never one to be outdone, Brett practices hard:

Wow - what perseverence. What muscle control. They make me so proud! ;-)

Climbing Mount Everest

Ok - so it isn't quite Mt. Everest. But it was the closest thing the boys could find.

This tree was one of the victims of Hurricane Ike - and the boys just couldn't resist conquering it.

My boys will climb anything they can. Most of the time I let them without too much concern. Sometimes I remember to grab the camera.

And sometimes I just close my eyes and pray. :)