Goat Milk Soapers

Guess What?!?!?

2012-02-09T21:57:00.000-05:00

We were on the Today Show this summer! You know, the NBC show that airs every morning? (That is the something big that I hinted about in this post.)

Yeah!

Mike Leonard came out to film on the 3rd of May, on a nice a hot day. :D

Mike was supposed to get here at around 8:30. So, we set the alarm for 7, thinking that would give us plenty of time to get the kids ready, have everybody eat, etc.

But, when Dad woke up and opened the curtains, guess what he saw?

Yep! He saw Mike filming something in the driveway.

So, we ate breakfast as fast as we could, got everybody ready, and then went out to meet him.

Mike was awesome! :D

He got about 10 hours of film. He got here around 7ish, (from what we know) and left right before 7 at night. He let us watch some of his videos that he had done, on his IPad:

He interviewed Mom:

And he interviewed Dad:

And this is all the gear he brought! He got approx 10 hours of film, with this much equipment. (Well, and a tripod, but you cant really see that in the picture).

See, he has the "NBC News" address tag on his stuff:

Here is the final video:

We had a great time, Mike! Thanks for doing such a great job!

Brett

Playing in the Rain

2012-02-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

We've had an amazingly mild winter so far. It has only gotten below freezing a few times. The problem of course has been that it has also been an amazingly wet winter.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because we had a fairly wet fall as well. It's a good thing that wet weather doesn't stop the children from playing outside:

Don't you love Indigo whining at the end because, "[She] got too dirty!"

What did she expect from running in the rain and jumping in puddles? LOL Silly girl.

I actually didn't see the girls playing in the rain at all. Colter saw them playing outside and got the video camera and video'd the whole thing.

Then he edited the video and uploaded it. Isn't that awesome?!?

I'm so proud of him! Not just because he was capable of doing it. But because he knew it would make me happy, and that is why he did it!

What a good kid!

Stress Reliever

2012-02-08T14:57:00.000-05:00

Right now the Jonas Family is even busier than usual. We're entering kidding season (which means less sleep for everyone), we're building at the new property (which means more traveling to check on progress), and we're losing our employee (which means more work for all).

This can cause everyone to be more stressed and less patient than normal. When I don't get enough sleep, I can get pretty cranky. I have to be very careful not to take my fatigue out on the rest of the family. When I pass my personal tipping point, I stop speaking kindly and start yelling.

Fortunately, I know when my personal tipping point is coming and I've found a pretty effective way of avoiding it.

Want to know my secret?

It's very simple actually. It's dancing.

We love music at the Jonas household. All kinds of music. We love our show tunes and our country songs and our gospel hymns and our Christian contemporary and our classic rock and even some pop songs.

Jim recently downloaded a bunch of Frank Sinatra songs for me (love Frank - grew up listening to him with my Dad). But you know what? Frank isn't very good dancing music. At least not "get down in the living room" music.

For that, we put on much more upbeat songs. Some of our favorites are "Life is a Highway" and "I'm a Believer". Recently we've been listening to "Dynamite" - the acapella version that Mike Tompkins performs.

So, if we're all melting down (but especially if I'm the one melting down), I put on a song and we start to dance. Really dance. I make everybody get involved. The grumpy ones usually resist, but we all have to dance anyway. And we go for it.

If the song ends and we're still grumpy and out of sorts...

We put the song on again!

It's really difficult to dance to a fun upbeat song and stay grumpy. I'm sure some people out there could do it, but not me. I always end in a much better frame of mind. Plus it's a really great cardio workout.

Double bonus!!

I started dancing with my children when they were really little and have continued it. It's lots of fun and a great stress reliever.

Here is a video. The older boys were out milking (which is why they're not in the video), and Jim came inside half way during the song, which is why I joined. So yes, you get to see me dancing (don't expect much LOL).

So the next time you're not having a very good day - put on a song and rock out to it!! Trust me it really works!

Anybody have any songs they'd like to recommend?

PJ

Where's the Hot Air?

2012-01-22T17:57:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-11T12:04:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

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

I know the goats enjoyed it!

PJ

Homeschooling at its Best

2012-01-03T21:33:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-03T07:45:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-01T21:05:00.000-05:00

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

A Helping Machine

2012-01-01T11:57:00.000-05:00

December was a pretty hectic month for Goat Milk Stuff. We were shipping lots and lots of orders while keeping up with bagging soap and making 'Other Stuff'.

My sister-in-law, Heather, kindly offered to come down one weekend to help.

It was great.

That was actually the weekend that we were selling soap at the Stewart Christmas Show at the Louisville Fairgrounds. So having an extra adult was huge!

Heather helped cook. She helped clean (I saw a mop out at one point). She helped bag soap. She helped label lip balms and lotion sticks. She helped pour candles. She helped make sugar scrubs. She helped bathe little children.

She was a machine.

With all the work she did over the entire weekend, we only got one photo of her:

Yep, she worked hard and she deserved her rest! (And Indigo is such a great snuggler)!

Thanks, Heather!!

PJ

Don't Underestimate Them!

2011-12-31T11:18:00.000-05:00

People are often really surprised at how much we accomplish. I'm always getting asked how I manage to do it all. My standard reply is...

"I don't do it all."

Sometimes, I'm tempted to reply...

"My kids do it all."

But that's not exactly true either. Jim does a lot. And I do a lot. And there's a lot I would like to do that doesn't get done.

But the truth is that one of my main jobs is to train my children. I want each of my children (whether they are a boy or a girl) to be able to manage a household and their life. So they each need to be taught everything.

I start them really early. Because, when they're young, working with (and for) Mommy is great fun. Most of the time they don't realize they're working.

Although sometimes they do LOL.

You need to remember that your children are not going to do things as well as you could. And they're definitely not going to do them as fast as you could. While you're training them, you may get frustrated and want to do the job yourself.

But don't do it!

Spend the time training them (despite the delays and frustrations) and you will reap the rewards later.

The other night, Fletcher made sweet potatoes for dinner. (Yes, my children cook too!) He made one too many sweet potatoes and there were left-overs.

So Jade was called in to put the sweet potatoes into tupperware.

Notice the sweet potoatoes on the table. Notice the extra sweet potatoes in the bowl. Notice the fact that she chose a tupperware that was bigger than it needed to be.

Now, notice the fact that the sweet potatoes are in a tupperware and I didn't have to do it!

Fletcher will wipe the extra sweet potatoes off the table (and not onto the floor).

Greyden will wash out the bowl.

And if there isn't much room in the fridge, Jim will manage to fit it in somehow.

So no worries! As she gets older, she'll do a better job.

Perhaps when people ask me how they can get more accomplished, I should answer...

"Don't underestimate your children!"

PJ

Magic Elephant Ride

2011-12-30T19:59:00.000-05:00

Emery really enjoys playing with the girls. I'd like to say it's completely because of them, and mostly it is. But there is a small piece of him that just enjoys avoiding work. And since he's so good at keeping the girls entertained and occupied, well... he tends to get away with it.

The other day, I went looking for him because I needed his help with something.

When I found him he was like this:

Yes, that is a laundry basket strapped to his back.

Why did he have a laundry basket strapped to his back?

So he could give Magic Elephant Rides, of course!

Emery is homeschooled (and a good big brother)!

PJ

A Little Levitation

2011-12-27T18:10:00.001-05:00

Jim and I ran errands right before Christmas (including getting the boys' Christmas present).

When we came home, I wanted to know where everyone was so we could get the present inside. I called out, "Where is everyone?"

I heard Emery's voice yell from the boys' room, "We're levitating!"

To which I replied, "You're what????"

The response (more clearly this time): "We're MEDITATING!"

Me: "Oh."

I went into the boys' room to see this:

I later got the story of why my boys were meditating.

Apparently, they were told that there is electricity that runs through your body. When your body is tense, it keeps your thumb and point finger from closing. But if you relax completely through meditating, the electricity running in your body will pull your thumb and pointer finger together. So the boys were trying to meditate to see if their fingers would close.

So far it hasn't happened.

But they're still trying.

The whole meditating thing definitely works for me. It keeps them nice and quiet, and is definitely better than levitating.

PJ

Small Biz Dream

2011-12-19T17:31:00.000-05:00

There are lots of contests out there on the web that we could enter. Some of them are silly. Some of them are fun. Some I'd like to enter. Some I don't.

Regardless of the desire, we don't usually have the time to enter contests. I still like to keep my eye open to see what is available, however. The other day I saw a small business contest and forwarded it Jim.

Why forward it to Jim? Because the entry requested creativity.

And Jim is definitely the creative one in the family.

To enter, we needed to submit a photo that had the words "My Dream in 2012" in it. The contest winner gets a bunch of small biz stuff including free consulting with marketing expert John Jantsch.

Since Jantsch wrote a book called, "Duct Tape Marketing", Jim decided that duct tape was definitely called for in our photo.

Taking a photo may seem like a simple thing to some of you.

But not for us.

Ten people needed to be bathed and the girls needed their hair done.

For this photo, eleven shirts needed to be duct taped. Why eleven? Because Thalia needed one too!

The tripod had to be set up (it was on one side of the fence and we were on the other).

22 goats needed to be moved out of the pasture:

We didn't actually get all of them out, you can see several standing behind us if you look carefully.

Then 9 people needed to climb the fence and pose into the sunlight while they waited with a smile on their faces for Jim to set the camera timer, hop over the fence and get into position for the first photo:

Wait while Jim climbs back over the fence, repositions Emery so he's not in shadow, PJ drags Ivy the goat out of the picture, Jim presses the timer, climbs back over the fence and poses for this photo:

Reject that photo because Pegasus walked into Jim's behind and made him jump toward Colter.

Repeat that performance a few more times until we got the final photo we submitted for the contest:

I wanted to crop it like this (with Ivy checking us all out from the left):

But Jim vetoed that and since he did all the hard work I let him have his way. ;)

So, we are entered into the contest and we'd love for you to vote for us! Just click to Vote for Goat Milk Stuff!! (The vote now button is right below the photo).

Thanks for your help and support!

PJ

Making Use of the Space Update

2011-12-18T21:14:00.000-05:00

I want to update everyone on a post that I wrote several months ago. I'm reposting it here for you to read it first:

I've been re-reading a book that I haven't read in a decade. It's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen Covey. I read something that struck me this time that I don't remember striking me the last time I read the book.

Maybe it's because I'm older and wiser?? Either that or it's because I have so much more time to think now than I did a decade ago. ;)

Stephen Covey didn't write the quote either. He stumbled upon it in a book and it meant a lot to him. So he shared it:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our happiness.

Here is my paraphrase:

When something irritates/worries/angers/frustrates me, I have a certain amount of time before I yell/cry/worry/argue. In that amount of time I have a chance to choose my reaction. The decision that I make in that amount of time will influence my relationships if I replace my natural negative response with a positive, loving response.

As I've been thinking about this quote, the thing that struck me most forcefully is that I make the space way too small. That is, I often respond too quickly. The times when I pause to take a deep breath before reacting, are the times when I usually choose the right response. But if I ignore the space, that is the time that I let my fatigue speak.

I loved the phrase "freedom and power". What a great phrase. We have the freedom to react the way we want to. Nobody can force me to react a certain way. And it is definitely a power to choose my reaction. What a great word. I have the power to respond in a positive way if I will grasp it.

I then turned my attention to the children and how this quote applied to them. What an amazing thing for me to teach them. To be able to take a space, a pause, a rest, before choosing their response. We have one child in particular that would see his life change if he could grasp that. If he would react in a godly way to the stimulus all around him, he would see his joy increase by leaps and bounds.

What about you? Are you making use of the space you've been given? Do you take hold of the power to respond in a positive way?

I hope that you do. Your growth and happiness will benefit from it

So, that was the post. What I wanted to share with you was a way I found to help the child I was referring to deal with this issue of not making use of the space. This child's gut reaction was to instantly respond to stimuli, often in a negative way that caused him much grief. No matter how often we talked with him and tried to help him, he couldn't take the time to take that deep breath and react (or not react) more positively.

So, what did I do?

After much prayer and thought, I did what any sane Mother would do...

I bribed him.

I came up with a point system that this child was completely in control of. Anytime that he was going to react and he managed to stop himself and not get upset, he got 1 point. If he did get upset about something, he had 5 minutes to get happy again. If he got happy, he got 1 point. If he was still mad and upset after 5 minutes, he lost 1 point. When he reached 100 points, I would buy him a $30 something that he had been wanting for a very long time.

I have to tell you, it was brilliant and worked perfectly. The change in him was miraculous. Seriously, miraculous. He has since earned (and received) the object of his desire and more than a week later, he is still mastering his emotions and reactions even without the points. I'll probably have a point thing periodically, to reinforce the positive behavior, but I have been so impressed with the changes in him, I had to share.

I will point out one stumbling block we had to deal with. Apparently, this child was so excited about gathering points, that one evening he was purposely angering his other siblings so they would get angry with him. Then he could react positively and earn a point.

Diabolical, I know.

Normally I hate point systems - too much for me to keep track of. But this child took full responsibility. He really stepped up to the plate and is a much happier person now. I'm so proud of him!

PJ

Homeschooled

2011-12-14T20:03:00.000-05:00

The children wanted to do something special a while ago. I told them the only way we'd be able to go was if we got all the soap unmolded and cut before we had to leave.

They were so motivated, they decided to get up early and get it done.

Children: "Mom, do we have any extra alarm clocks?"

Me: "Nope."

Children: "Can we use your alarm clock?"

Me: "Nope."

I thought that was the end of it. But the next morning, before our alarm went off, I heard the back door slam. Apparently the children had woken up without an alarm clock and headed out to unmold the soap.

I was partly right.

And I was partly wrong.

The children had woken up. But they did not wake up without an alarm clock.

It turns out they made their own alarm clock.

How did they do that? I'll tell you.

First, they used a computer to record 5 minutes of silence. After that they recorded 3 minutes of them screaming and hollering.

Then Brett repeated the 5 minutes of silence 12 times to make an hour of silence. She created a playlist that would play that hour of silence 9 times before it played the 3 minutes of screaming.

They set one of the computers to a mode where it would not hibernate, then at 9:00 at night they set the playlist to begin.

And at exactly 6:00 am they heard lots and lots of screaming and they all woke up!

Brett (the mastermind) is homeschooled!

PJ

Stirring the Soup (I Mean Sauce)

2011-12-13T16:23:00.000-05:00

I've talked many times about my Youngest Person Rule. It basically says that the youngest person capable of doing a job does it. The corollary is that when you've taught one of your younger siblings how to do your job, they can take it over and you can get a new job.

One of the follow-up questions I'm often asked is, "What are age appropriate jobs for my children?"

There is no right or wrong answer to that. It varies from child to child and depends upon their aptitudes and temperaments. One thing it does not depend upon is their desire. It doesn't matter if they want to do a job, if the job needs to be done and they are capable of doing it, they do it. That's just a part of life. If that makes me a mean mom, I'm ok with that.

One of the things that is really important around here is food. The Jonas family may not be very tall, but we eat a LOT of food. People are often amazed at the quantities we consume. So around here, children learn very early to cook.

The older 5 children each have a day that they are responsible for making dinner. (I'm hoping that in a couple of more years, I'll have all the days of the week covered and I won't have to cook dinner for a few years!)

I teach the children to make individual meals that they particularly enjoy. So each child has at least 3 meals that they can completely prepare by themselves. Hewitt is starting to be taught with lessons on making scrambled eggs and omelettes.

On a side note, Jim (who gets bored by too much repetition) recently instituted a policy that each child has to make one new meal a month. This has produced some really good (and really bad) results. The children have learned that just because something sounds good in a magazine does not mean that people will actually eat it. LOL

Anyway, back to the youngest person rule.

Here is a video about Emery and one of his recent dinner nights. Emery's special meal is chicken alfredo and he decided to do some training of his own:

As I was filming him, I was really pleased to discover that he actually listened and retained what I've been teaching. He taught his younger sisters how to help with cooking. For now I'll ignore the fact that his motivation was so that he could escape and read his book.

PJ

What a Charmer

2011-12-10T21:33:00.001-05:00

We've spent the weekend selling soap at the Stewart Christmas Show here in Louisville. The children all take shifts working at the booth selling soap.

If you've never seen my children in action, I have to admit that they are natural born salesmen.

People tell us all the time that we've done a great job training the children to sell, but the truth is that we did very little, and they picked most of it up on their own.

Here's the perfect example.

Today an older woman walked up to Emery and was talking to him about the soap. After a few minutes, the conversation went like this:

Customer: "Do you have anything for old lady skin?"

Emery: "Why do you ask?"

The customer was ecstatic about Emery's response and laughingly called Jim and I over to share Emery's comment. She told us that we were going to have to keep our eye on this one.

We agreed. He's a charmer, that one.

PJ

The Importance of Free Wi-Fi

2011-12-06T19:39:00.001-05:00

We love living in the country. There is only one problem...

... the lack of high speed internet.

Right now we have satellite internet, which is better than dial-up.

Most of the time.

The biggest problem is when we have several days of stormy weather, like we've had.

So what's an entrepreneurial family with a thriving business that requires printing postage to do?...

...Find the nearest wi-fi hotspot of course!

Normally, I pack up my home office (two laptops and the postage printer) and head to McDonalds. It's about 6 miles from the house, so it's pretty convenient.

But two nights ago, we decided to take the whole family and head into town to get our Christmas tree and dinner.

After picking out the tree and loading it into the Hulk, Jim made an announcement.

Jim: "We're going to have a poetry contest. I'm going to say the first line, and someone has to come up with a second line that rhymes."

Jim: "Next stop..."

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Colter: "I know!!! IHOP!"

(To which there was much cheering).

So we arrived at IHOP and took over four tables. We set up the home office on one and proceeded to order dinner. What does a family of ten order?

Jim: eggnog pancake special
PJ: omelette with cheese, spinach, peppers, & onions, with a stack of pancakes
Colter: 3 eggs, 3 pancakes, 4 pieces of bacon, hashbrowns
Brett: cinna-stack
Emery: 3 eggs, 3 pancakes, 4 pieces of bacon, hashbrowns
Fletcher: omelette with cheese, bacon, and green peppers, side of pancakes
Greyden: blueberry pancake stack with sausage and bacon
Hewitt: smiley face chocolate pancakes
Indigo: stack of pancakes and macaroni and cheese (I know, she's strange)
Jade: eggs, pancakes, bacon

Since that wasn't enough food, I ordered 3 cinna-stacks to split for "dessert".

Even then, Colter and Greyden were still hungry and Hewitt wanted an order of broccoli. (Yes, my children are bottomless pits when it comes to food - but they work hard, so I figure they've earned it).

After we finished eating, the children all headed to the Hulk. Brett has been reading "The Red Pyramid" out loud to them, and they wanted to do that while Jim and I finished printing postage for the next day's orders.

While we were working on our computers, our waitress, Misty (who was so helpful and wonderful) shyly asked us a question.

Misty: "So, ummm..., this may sound a little strange, but we can all smell you... in a GOOD way... and we were wondering what scent we were smelling?"

Jim and I started laughing. The children had shared with Misty about Goat Milk Stuff, so she knew we made soap.

Apparently some of the IHOP workers were having an animated discussion trying to figure out what scent we smelled like.

We told Misty that we had all been working in the soap room, so it was probably a mix of scents. Someone thought that they were smelling spearmint, and we confirmed that was likely because the boys had unmolded a batch of rosemary spearmint before we headed to IHOP.

So, not only did we get to answer customer emails, print postage for orders, and eat lots of super pancakes, we also got to enhance the fragrance of IHOP.

A definite win-win!

PJ

Now I Understand!

2011-12-01T11:48:00.001-05:00

Warning: Santa spoiler alert! Not for all young eyes!!

Not only is it the holiday season, which is our busiest time of year. But we recently got news that we are going to be in the January edition of Oprah magazine. So we're trying not to get too low on any of our inventory. But after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we were really low on lotion sticks and lip balms.

So we made... a... LOT!

Last night, we sat around the fireplace to label everything we made. It was a major job. It took Brett, Colter, Emery, Fletcher, Greyden, Indigo, and I about four hours to get it all done.

While we were working we sat around talking and listening to Christmas songs.

During this labeling marathon, the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" came on.

I don't want to get into a debate with anyone, but at our house, Santa Claus isn't real. He's a Christmas figure. We allow the children to interact with "Santa" if we come across him, but the children know that any Santa Claus they see is just a man playing dress up.

A few minutes after the song, Emery asked me a question.

Emery: "Mom, what does the Bible call that? You know, it's a bad thing?"

Me: "Adultery?"

(Don't ask me how I knew what he was talking about)

Emery: "Yeah, that's it."

Silence.

Me: "Emery, is Santa Claus real?"

Emery: "No."

Me: "Then who was Mommy kissing?"

Emery: "Some guy?"

Me: "No... who would have been dressed like Santa Claus that Mommy would have been kissing?"

Emery: "Ummmm....."

Me: "Daddy perhaps?"

Blank stare...

Emery: "OH!!"

At which point he started giggling uncontrollably at the realization of what the song was actually about. It was really a funny moment.

PJ

Dayton Television Interview

2011-11-30T17:21:00.001-05:00

My brother, Adam, is in the Air Force. A few years ago we were so excited when he finally got stationed in the midwest, about four hours from us. We took the opportunity to start spending Thanksgiving together. Two years ago, it was at his house. Last year it was at my house. Which meant this year was at...

his house!! (not that I was excited to not have to cook or clean or anything).

Several months ago, he moved his family to Dayton, Ohio (only 3 hours from us) because he is now stationed at Wright-Patterson.

We had a television station (NBC - WDTN) in Dayton that was interested in doing an interview with us. Since we knew we'd be spending the weekend at Adam's house in Dayton, we scheduled the interview for the day before Thanksgiving. We thought this would be super convenient.

In many ways it was. The one thing that we didn't take into consideration was that the children would be up waaaaaaaayyyy past their bedtimes because they were so excited to be with their cousins.

But they behaved beautifully. (OK, Jade was a bit antsy). Here they are before the interview started:

Unfortunately, the late night caught up with Indigo:

Isn't that so funny? I had no idea that she was yawning or that the camera was filming her yawning. When we got home, we asked my brother how the interview was and they all started laughing. They had taped it so they showed it to us and paused it with Indi's mouth wide open.

Fortunately, Indigo thinks it is funny and isn't embarrassed that we keep playing it. LOL

Here is the video of the whole interview:

Emery and I do most of the talking. Indigo definitely steals the show though. Oh, and Brett, my responsible daughter decided to knit during the interview. If you watch her, that's why her arms are moving. LOL

Afterwards, Stefani (the producer) gave us a tour of the studio. It was really neat. The camera was remote controlled and we got to see how they did that from the control room. Oh, and if you were ever curious how the weather person knows when to stop talking, they have a timer that they set for him/her. (At least that's how they did it there).

All in all, a fun interview! It can be a little uncertain taking eight children on live television, even if it is only three minutes. I'm just glad that nobody picked their nose. Well... at least not while the camera was on them!

PJ

Our First 5K

2011-11-28T09:47:00.000-05:00

Our home church decided to run a "Race for Grace" 5K to help support a new local Christian school.

It was the Jonas family's first ever 5K. I'd like to say that we trained, but...

We didn't.

The three youngest Jonases (Hewitt, Indigo, and Jade), ran a 1/4 mile. They all did amazing. They ran the entire time and didn't walk at all.

But the funniest part was that Jade ran the entire thing crying the whole way.

The problem is, Jade HATES to lose. Really, really hates it. She was the youngest one running the 1/4 mile, which put her at the back. Which she did NOT like.

So she ran it ...

crying...

... the whole way.

When she got to the finish line she and Jim had a conversation.

Jim: "Good job, Jadey-Bug! You did great!"

Jade: "I'm the loser."

Jim: "You're not the loser, you were the fastest four year old there!"

Jade: "I'm the four year old loser."

Oh well, he tried.

Then it was time for us to run the 5K. The wind was really strong, which made some of it really, really difficult.

The boys all ran it, Jim & I alternated walking and jogging, and Brett walked it with a friend.

Here are our times:

Colter 21:49
Emery 27:30
Fletcher 29:37
Greyden 36:53
Jim 40:41
PJ 40:41
Brett 50:38

It was a great experience and Colter is already planning for his next one!

PJ

Flag Football

2011-11-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

My camera keeps disappearing. And then I find all sorts of photos on the disk that I did not take. Recently I discovered this group of flag football photos. Brett is actually taking some really good shots. Unfortunately she takes hundreds of them to get those good shots. And guess who gets to sort through them?

Yep - me. :)

But that's good, because I love the intensity and joy on the boys' faces. They have so much fun together!

This one is my favorite:

Do you like the plastic bags? Those are their "flags". It works well for them.

PJ

Hiking

2011-11-26T10:44:00.001-05:00

The day after Thanksgiving, we had a choice to make.

Go shopping for Black Friday sales.

or...

Go hiking in Sugar Creek Metro Park in Dayton, Ohio with my brother and his family.

It was a very easy decision.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day spent with family. It was a day that we were very, very Thankful for!

PJ

Garlic Herbed Roasted Squash

2011-11-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

This is Emery's special recipe that he discovered. We all devour and fight over it til it's gone.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl place
4 teaspoons olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
5 pounds winter squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 1-inch cubes
(we prefer butternut, but can use any kind)
Toss til squash is covered.

Spread evenly on a large baking sheet.
Roast, stirring occasionally, until tender throughout and browned on bottom, 30 to 45 minutes (depending on the variety of squash).

Heat in a small skillet over medium heat
2 tsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
Cook, stirring, until fragrant but not brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Place in serving bowl,
roasted squash
garlic
2 Tbsp chopped italian parsley
Toss to mix well.

Serve immediately.

Note: If need it faster, you can cook it at 400.

PJ

Spanakopita Casserole

2011-11-15T18:42:00.001-05:00

A lot of people were asking for our spanakopita casserole recipe, so here it is.

Preheat oven to 375.

Cook Filling:
In a large skillet, heat
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced (I use red, but can use any kind)
4 cloves garlic, minced
Stir frequently, for about 2 minutes, until onion begins to soften.

Start adding to skillet a bit at a time,
1 large head of rainbow Swiss chard (roughly chopped, stems removed)
6 cups packed spinach (roughly chopped)
Stir frequently, and cook about 10 minutes total.

Add
4 Tbsp chopped fresh mint leaves (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tsp dried oregano
Stir until heated through

Remove from heat
Drain if needed (I don't usually need to)
Put it a bowl and set aside to cool thoroughly

Prep Casserole:
Take 8 sheets of phyllo and cut each of them with a butter knife into 4 long strips (total of 32 strips).
Spray bottom of a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Lay out strips of phyllo to cover the bottom. (ok if phyllo extends up the sides of the pan)
Spray first layer lightly with cooking spray.
Lay out second layer at 90 degree angles to first layer.
Spray lightly with cooking spray.
Continue until all phyllo is used up.

Once filling is cool, add
2 egg whites and mix thoroughly
Gently fold in
1 cup feta cheese
And mix together

Gently spoon filling into 9x13 pan and spread out evenly.
Fold over any strips onto the top of the filling.

Take another four sheets of phyllo and place them on the top of the casserole just like you did with the bottom. Don't forget to spray between layers.

Cook 30-35 minutes until top is light brown and crispy.
Let rest 10-15 minutes before slicing.

Note: I find the phyllo sheets at our local Meijer in the freezer section where the pie crusts and cool whip are.

PJ

Second Choice

2011-10-28T10:41:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, the family went apple picking. When we got there, I took the little girls to the bathroom and Jim sent Colter to find out what kinds of apples were available for picking (fuji apples are our favorite ones to pick).

Colter returned with the news that there were no more apples available for picking. They were only available in the gift shop.

Indigo and Jade burst into tears.

Colter said there were still pumpkins available for picking, but we didn't want to do that.

As I desperately looked around trying to figure out what to do, inspiration struck.

With a loud, "Follow me!" I started walking...

...right into the ice cream shop!

Not quite as healthy as apples, but it was a family memory (which is what I was really after!)

PJ

Eight of Them

2011-10-20T08:54:00.000-04:00

The three girls were snuggling in bed with us this morning. Indigo was with me and Brett and Jade snuggled with Jim.

Jade: "Dad, you have one child."

Dad: "What about Brett?"

Jade: "ok, you have two kids, but that's all."

Dad: "Their names are Brettcoleemeryfletcher and Greyhewittindigojade."

Jade: "No! Just Jade and Brett."

Indigo: "What about me?"

Jade: "ok, three kids. Indigo, Brett, and me."

Dad: "Their names are Indigo, Brett, and me?"

Jade: "No! Indigo, Brett and Jade. And that's it. No more kids!"

Dad: "Well, go get dressed and milk the goats then."

Jade: "ok, you also have Colter and Emery."

Dad: "Then go wash all the dishes."

Jade: "ok, you also have Greyden."

Dad: "Then go start the laundry."

Jade: "ok, you also have Hewitt."

Dad: "Then go shred some laundry soap."

Jade: "ok, you also have Fletcher."

Dad: "Oh good. I have eight children."

Jade: "Aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh!"

Who Taught You That?

2011-10-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

We were snuggling in bed this morning and Indigo was wearing these pajamas:

She sat up, looked at Jim, and pointed at her backside.

Indigo: "Dad, what is the fancy name for this?"

Jim (perplexed): "A frog?"

Indigo (shaking her head): "No, the fancy name for this?" (more pointing)

Jim: "What's the fancy name for your butt crack????"

Sensing her father's confusion, Jade decided to be helpful.

Jade: "I think it's called your coccyx." (Of course, she pronounced it coc-sis and didn't know how to spell it)

Hmmm... apparently somebody in the house is learning about skeletal bones.

PJ

Watermelon Football

2011-09-20T08:10:00.000-04:00

We have a great garden in Indiana. One of the things that grow very well for us each year is watermelon.

As much as we love our watermelons, I admit I was a little surprised when Jim decided to bring one of our homegrown watermelons with us on vacation to North Carolina.

But I didn't say anything since he was the one who had to pack the Hulk.

I also didn't say anything when Jim asked Colter to cook him some bacon today (not one of Jim's normal foods). Nor did I say anything when Jim told Colter to save the bacon grease.

But when he carried the watermelon onto the beach, I admit, I almost questioned him then.

You see, Jim had a brilliant idea. He wanted to play football in the ocean with a greased watermelon. Apparently when he was a little boy he had played watermelon football in a lake once. It works well because the watermelon floats just below the surface of the water.

And he remembered it all this time...

He used the bacon grease to grease the watermelon (he later said that butter or crisco probably would have worked better if you're going to attempt a game yourself).

Rather than narrating - I think I'll let the photos speak for themselves:

As you can tell by their faces, they had a blast! Here is what they each had to say:

Colter: "It was crazy when you were trying to hold onto the greased watermelon and all of a sudden a wave came and knocked you over. Then you were floundering in the water and got up trying to locate the watermelon."

Emery: "It's so fun trying to get through the water. Whoever is fastest or closest gets to the watermelon first. And then you trip them and they throw, or drop, the greased watermelon."

Fletcher: "It was totally awesome."

Greyden: "It was very slippery."

Hewitt: "It was super fun."

Jim: "Need more grease."

I have a feeling this is going to become a new tradition for the Jonas Family.

PJ

Singing Sisters

2011-09-14T07:30:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, we're taking a much anticipated (and much needed) vacation at the ocean in North Carolina. All ten Jonases love the ocean. We spend hours and hours in the water and on the sand. We do come into the house periodically to eat and sleep, but that's about it.

Due to Hurricane Katia, we had a few days of very rough surf and riptide advisories. Because there was very little beach to play on, we spent many more hours indoors on those days.

One of the things Jim suggested we pack and bring to North Carolina was our karaoke machine. During the rough surf, Indigo and Jade got their hands on it and entertained their grandmother (and themselves).

As you watch the video, enjoy Jade's dancing skills at the beginning of the video. I'd like to say that she got those moves from her own imagination, but Brett (and Jim) insist that she's copying my dance moves. I told them that she may be modeling me, but the twists are all her own.

I admit it, I spend a lot of time dancing with the children. Actually, I spend a lot of time dancing and the children choose to dance with me. I find not only is dancing a great stress reliever, but it is also a great form of exercise. I hate doing sit-ups and stomach crunches, so I work out my abs a lot dancing.

But that is the subject of a different blog post.

Back to the video. It's not the whole song, but bits and pieces of Indigo singing "Love Shack". After the children heard this song a time or two, Emery asked Jim, "Why do they bring their juice box money?"

After Jim stopped laughing, he explained to Emery what a "juke box" is and why you need money for it.

Hope you enjoy the video, my girls are pretty funny:

PJ

Bringing in the Hay

2011-09-13T11:09:00.000-04:00

Many of you remember Farmer Frazier, our 80+ year old neighbor who supplies us with our hay from his hay field.

Normally, he just brings us one or two bales at a time, but this year, he decided to bring them all down at once. This took quite a lot of time and required the boys' assistance with keeping the goats out of the way.

I thought you'd enjoy this video of pieces of the endeavor:

PJ

The Kids Today

2011-09-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

When I was Jade's age, there were no personal computers. There were no cell phones or iPods or iPads. There weren't even any VCR's, let alone Blu-Ray players.

The children are all very adept with modern technology, but I guess I didn't realize how much until this week on vacation.

I brought my iPad with me to keep up to date with the business, and Jade kept asking me if she could use it. (Actually, she calls it the iPod, but I know what she means).

The other day I caught her in bed with my iPad like this:

Me: "Jade, what are you doing?"

Jade: "Playing with your iPod."

Me: "What are you playing?" (There isn't a single game on there, b/c I don't like computer games.)

Jade: "You know, this:"

Fortunately, I'm her mother and knew right away that she meant she was taking photos that twisted her face like this:

Or squashed her face like this:

Or spread out her face like this:

After showing me what she had done, she pronounced, "I love your iPod!"

I knew she enjoyed playing with it, but now I know that she really does love it.

How do I know? Because of the sea turtles, of course.

What do sea turtles have to do with Jade and my iPad? Well...

The other day we took the children to a sea turtle rescue hospital here on Topsail Island in North Carolina. (I can't show you any pictures because cameras weren't allowed). I wanted to support some of the work they were doing, so we bought the three youngest children stuffed sea turtles. I admit it, I also bought myself a zipped sweatshirt.

When we got home, Jade decided to name her sea turtle. Any guesses what she named it?

Yep. iPod. And she says regularly that she loves iPod.

Oh, and by the way, Hewitt named his sea turtle Crush (after Disney's Nemo) and Indigo - she's almost as bad as Jade. She named her turtle "Blackberry" (after my phone, not the berries).

PJ

Snuggle Time

2011-09-01T12:21:00.000-04:00

Early tomorrow morning we leave for a two week vacation. We are all very excited.

Really.

Really.

Excited!

But I think Jade is just a little bit sad that Ginger won't be coming with us. If you don't know, Ginger is Jade's cat that thinks she's a dog. She's very patient and loving with Jade. I've got a few YouTube videos of Jade and Ginger here, here, and here.

The two of them had some good snuggle time today:

I'm not sure which one of them will miss the other more!

PJ

Outside Exercise

2011-08-29T22:25:00.001-04:00

The weather here has been gorgeous lately. (Nope, hurricane Irene didn't reach us here in Indiana.) We've had hot days, cooler nights, and low humidity.

We took advantage of the lovely weather to exercise outside. I thought you'd enjoy watching part of our "sprint 8" session. We basically sprint for 30 seconds then walk for 90 seconds. We do this eight times. It's very intense.

You won't see me on this first one because I was taking the video. But I did the last seven of them. Normally I run them on the treadmill. I'll be honest, it's a LOT harder doing it outside. And it was a little humiliating getting passed by my children. At least I was faster than Jade and Indigo. LOL

Brett wants everyone to know that she strained her hip doing yoga a few days before this, so she couldn't run very well. Normally she's a lot faster.

So, are you inspired? Or do you just think we're crazy?

PJ

Why Can't I Go Outside?

2011-08-27T09:00:00.001-04:00

Everybody on the Jonas homestead has a job to do, from the adults, to the children, to the animals.

It's pretty obvious what the goats are responsible for, but we also have cats that are responsible for mouse control.

We have indoor cats and we have outdoor cats and they patrol their respective domains. The other morning, Brett took this photo:

Apparently the indoor cats were quite intrigued watching the outdoor cats capture a mouse. LOL

PJ

A Swirling Masterpiece

2011-08-24T17:43:00.001-04:00

Indigo wanted me to show everybody the amazing job she did swirling the patchouli soap that her Daddy made:

Doesn't it look beautiful?

I don't have a photo of her swirling it, because she was finished and gone by the time I got the camera out to the soap room.

But, she's really getting very talented at swirling soap.

You see, swirling soap is definitely an art form that some people are good at and some people... let's just say they need more practice.

Most of the time, we can actually tell who swirled the soap just by looking at it.

One day a few months ago, Erica for the first time helped Jim to swirl the soap. She was proud of her effort and the job she had done.

A short time later, Indigo walked into the soap room.

Indigo: "Erica, did you swirl that soap?"

Erica (squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin, and smiling): "Yes, I did it all."

Indigo: "I could tell, it looks like Jade did it."

And after unkowingly delivering that crushing blow, she calmly walked out of the room, oblivious to Erica's slumping shoulders.

I'd like to say Jim and I were careful of Erica's feelings, but we both just burst out laughing.

PJ

Goat Care

2011-08-23T14:49:00.000-04:00

I was headed out to the soap room today, but when I spotted Jade, I had to run back inside and grab my camera.

Apparently she was concerned about the goats being thirsty. They have an automatic waterer, but we keep this bucket for when it is extra hot. Jade filled it up with fresh, cold water for the girls. I didn't realize she was strong enough to lift the outside water hydrant, but apparently she is.

Actually, Jade did discover that while she was strong enough to turn the hydrant on, she was not strong enough to turn it off. She needed Indigo's help to do that.

The goats are watching the two of them at they hydrant:

Once the water was taken care of, it was time for some loving:

Don't ask me what happened to Jade's shirt. I know she had one at the beginning of the day.

Aren't Indigo and Jade such good little goat farmers?!

PJ

Lake Fun

2011-08-22T19:54:00.003-04:00

The other day I got an email inviting the family to come swim at a local lake with some friends. The invite was last minute (the way I like them), so I told her we would try.

I gathered the children together and made a big announcement that we could go swimming at the lake if they got their chores done.

So you know what my children did?

They worked hard and got their chores done.

Right?...

Wrong.

They dilly dallied and bickered and putzed around, to the point that I threatened them that we would not be going if they didn't get their acts together.

So of course they straightened up and got right to work.

Right?...

Wrong.

But I had an ace up my sleeve. I had a radio interview from 4:00 to 4:25, and if they wanted to go, they all needed to be dressed, with a cooler full of food packed, and the house clean by 3:55.

So they got it all done.

Right?...

Right!!

Now, my children haven't been to a lake to swim in probably 6 or 7 years, so the older ones didn't remember lake swimming and the younger ones were completely clueless. But, they were excited and so they all climbed into the Hulk and we headed out.

None of us had never been to this lake, so we didn't know if it was clean or yucky or what to expect.

You can imagine our shock when we saw this:

Yes, that water world playground was the lake. I thought the boys were going to jump out of their skins they were so excited.

There was a trapeze and a zip line and a trampoline and a blob thing (that launched people into the air) and a huge inflatable slide and kayaks and canoes and peddle boats.

It was amazing. And the water was even warm!

Now, I'd like to say that I captured the whole thing on film, but I can't. Because I was too busy playing in the water:

But fortunately, another mom took some photos for me.

Brett had so much fun. At one point she had to peddle the peddle boat all by herself while carrying four little girls with her (that she says weighed over 120 pounds). Despite the fatigue in her legs, she still enjoyed it:

I think this is Fletcher on the trapeze (or it's Greyden, or maybe even Emery):

Brett and Hewitt getting ready to attack the zip line:

And Brett is off!:

Indigo was very independent in the water:

Jade preferred to stay close to me, Jim or Brett:

Jim and Hewitt are so blurry in this photo because Jim is paddling the kayak so fast...

I'm getting ready to attack the zip line:

We had an absolutely amazing time. We were so impressed with the lake. It was clean and the people were super. I'm not sure I want to share it, but I suppose I should. ;) It is the Country Lake Christian Retreat and the children can't wait to go back again!

PJ

Camouflage

2011-08-19T12:48:00.000-04:00

Indigo and Jade have been having difficulty keeping their room clean lately. It's been causing Brett a lot of despair because she cleans it and they wreck it.

So she cleans it.

And then they wreck it.

Yesterday, Jim told the girls they had to stay in their room and clean it. He was very clear that they could not leave their room until it was clean.

Unfortunately, Jade was having a bit of trouble with her attention span and completing the task. She'd do a little bit of work and then go into the boys room and play with the toys that were in there.

So Jim would send her back to her room. This happened repeatedly.

Jim and I were sitting in the dining room during all of this. I had my back to the bedrooms, but Jim was facing the bedrooms.

I was having a discussion with Colter and Emery about a video project that I had for them.

Me: "I need you to take separate videos of each of the individual goats in different locations. I want you to concentrate on two things. Number 1: Keep the camera still. Don't jiggle it around and walk all over. Number 2: Be aware of the background. Don't have the goats in the front and one of your brothers in the background making silly faces or anything like..."

Jim: (interrupts me and laughingly says) "You mean things in the background like camouflaged girls sneaking into their brothers; room when they're supposed to be cleaning their own?"

Me (confused): "What?"

Jim (grabbing the video camera from the boys): "Turn around."

So I did, and watched this:

and then I watched this:

Needless to say, we laughed at the time, and then Jim had a discipline session for their disobedience and sneakiness.

But I admit, we laughed a long time first. :D

PJ

To The Ship!

2011-08-18T18:25:00.000-04:00

On our recent trip to St. Louis, we had to stop at a rest stop.

Whenever we stop, the children always run around and stretch their legs. If we're in a parking lot, without a safe place to run, we just do 50 jumping jacks as a family. It's usually quite a spectacle, and yes, people stop and stare at us. (But we're used to it. LOL)

When it's time to head out, Jim whistles and I yell, "To the Ship!"

This time the children made a game out of loading up the Sprinter. Unfortunately, they didn't give Indigo a large enough head start, so she got a bit upset:

We do even the simple things with style, don't you think? LOL

PJ

Sorry, You Can't Come

2011-08-17T20:23:00.000-04:00

As you can imagine, packing up a family of ten for a trip is never an easy exercise. Remember when we had to pack to visit both sets of grandparents in Florida and New Hampshire? That one was definitely the most difficult.

Fortunately, packing for our recent St. Louis trip with our Fox2 Interview was a lot easier. We just needed swimming stuff, pajamas, television clothes, travel clothes, personal toiletries, toys, computer equipment, and blankets.

The children had their stuff packed and ready to go in record time (after all, the sooner we got there, the more time they had in the pool).

Jim was tossing the stuff he needed to pack onto the bed when Ginger decided she wanted to be packed up and come along with us too:

Unfortunately, we had to tell her no she couldn't come.

PJ

Modern Technology

2011-08-16T22:22:00.001-04:00

I enjoy modern technology in moderation. Actually, I really enjoy modern technology for myself and the business, but I'm pretty picky about it when it comes to the children.

As a general rule, they're not allowed to watch television. Movies are ok, just not tv shows. Although as with everything, I always reserve the right to make exceptions.

They're not allowed to have video games at the house or play electronic games at the house.

They're not allowed to have their own cell phones pre-driving.

They do have their own computers for their schoolwork, and they're allowed limited use of the internet (mostly school related).

The oldest three just got their own emails and we're working through the rules of having an email account.

But mostly, if they aren't working hard or doing school work, then they're reading or playing or using their imaginations or building something or running around.

But I do have to show you a piece of technology that belongs to the business, and is mostly used by me (there are certain perks that comes with creating the business). When I'm not working on it, we've come up with a great application for using it to entertain the children on long car trips.

Today we had to drive back from St. Louis (about 4.5 hours). For some of it, the children got to watch this:

Yep, that's my iPad hanging from the visors of the Sprinter, streaming a Veggie Tales movie from NetFlix. The cord is connected to speakers so everyone can hear it.

On some of the "middle of nowhere" stretches of I-64, the movie would pause while it was streaming, but the children didn't really mind. Overall it was a lot of fun.

We haven't watched a lot of Veggie Tales movies since moving to Indiana. So it was really fun to see what Jim & I (and Brett & Cole) remembered. We actually remembered almost all of the songs and quite a few of the lines.

We've decided that when we go on vacation, if it rains, we're going to have a Veggie Tales marathon, pop a ton of popcorn, and stream all the old Veggie Tales movies we love and all the new ones we haven't seen. Jim got an adaptor to plug my iPad into a regular television, so we won't have to huddle around the small iPad screen.

I wouldn't say the children are actually praying for rain, but I don't think they're praying against it either. LOL

PJ

Swimming

2011-08-15T21:19:00.000-04:00

My children adore swimming, but for some reason, we haven't had a chance to swim once this summer.

So we packed the children up...

... and we rectified that today!

Jade kept coming up to me every 2 minutes and giving me the little hopeful look and saying, "Mom will you come swim?"

I finally gave in and said, "Yes".

And then I put my foot on the first step and yelped!

And since Jade was shivering, I asked her, "Jade, would you like to go take a hot bath with Mommy?"

And she said, "Yes!"

So off we went. It was much warmer. LOL

PJ

King of the Bath Bombs

2011-08-14T11:12:00.002-04:00

Many of you watched Indigo's video about her promotion to printing the postage for internet orders. Hewitt wanted to know why I never posted the video about his job wrapping the bath bombs.

I had taken this video not long before we decided to discontinue the bath bombs in favor of the bath fizzies, so I never posted it. But Hewitt still wants everyone to watch his video (and see what a great job he does), so here it is:

Good job, Hewitt! You're the Bath Bomb King!

PJ

Happy Birthday, Hewitt!

2011-08-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

Hewitt turned seven today!

After over 10 years of use, our birthday crown died (and Mom hasn't made another one yet), so the boys made Hewitt a birthday crown from his "I Can't Walk" tracks.

I thought it looked goofy, but he seemed to really like it.

Greyden and Emery made him a lemon poppy seed cake last night with home made crumb toppings. Only they forgot to bake the crumbs on last night so we had to bake it this morning. That meant that the cake was still hot and if we tried to put the candles in the cake, the candles would melt. (We know that from experience).

So Dad made the number 7 out of a banana and put the candles in the banana:

Mom said that was something only Dad would ever think of doing and that she would have dealt with melted candles. (Mom likes it when Dad comes up with smart solutions to her dilemmas).

Hewitt got a birthday hug from everyone and he was really excited about being big enough to pick up the girls:

But he was even more excited about his new playmobil toys:

And so were Fletcher and Greyden (just look at their covetous faces):

I love you, Hewitt!!! You've gotten so much bigger (and grown more hair):

Happy Birthday!!!

Brett

Amazing Purple Berries

2011-08-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

We grow a lot of berries, but one of our favorites that we grow is elderberries. Elderberries are really good for you and great for your immune system. They aren't very sweet, so Mom puts them in smoothies and they taste really good in pancakes. (Especially if you pick out all the stems! :D)

We like to keep tabs on our bushes, so we can pick them before they get over-ripe on us. So earlier this summer I went out to check on them regularly. This was what I saw:

The buds before they are ready to bloom:

The buds then turn white, as the petals start to come out:

And then, you have a bunch where a few are starting to bloom, but most of them have not:

The bunch gets whiter and whiter as the buds blossom:

The bees start to come and pollinate your bushes:

Look at the huge bunches that this bush produces! One of the things that we wish that we had done better with this property is write down what variety we planted where.

So, we dont know which variety to order when we get more elderberries. We want this kind, because this bush is huge and gives us TONS of berries!

See how big it is compared to the bush next to it? And see how many blossoms you can already see? (The bush next to the fence).

Fortunately, it produces lots of shoots each year, so we'll be able to dig them up to take with us. Gotta have lots of elderberries!

Look - the berries are almost ready to pick:

Finally ready:

We just cut the whole cluster off, bring them into the house, and pull off the berries inside. What we don't eat fresh, we freeze whole.

We love elderberries!

Brett

PJ adds: Elderberries are very hardy plants that are easy to grow and a great bush to add to your landscaping.

Helping Out

2011-08-09T17:50:00.001-04:00

A couple months ago, Mom gave us a special treat and took us to Taco Bell for lunch. As we were leaving and loading up the Hulk, we heard a huge crashing sound. We turned around to see a beat-up car at the curb, debris littering the road, and a bunch of cars stopped. Mom told me to get all the kids in the car, and then she ran over to help the lady in the car at the curb. Dad and another man started directing traffic.

I got the kids in the car, and shut the door. Then I ran back over to the accident. By then a police officer was there to help direct traffic. Dad went over to be near the kids, but stood where he could see me and Mom if we needed him.

The car we were helping had a woman, her son, and their puppy. The Mom was injured, but the boy (although shaken up) was unharmed. Mom told me to take the boy and the puppy away from the road, while she helped the Mom at the curb. He was crying and trying to be brave and stop crying. So I tried to help and distract him by asking questions.

I asked him what his name was. He told me, but I forget it. Then I asked him what the puppy's name was. He said that it was Sally. I was just trying to keep his mind busy with things other than the accident. He put Sally down, but kept her on a tight leash.

Then a police officer came over and asked if he was the little boy who had been in the accident. He shook his head yes, and it looked like he was about to start crying again. So I picked Sally up, and handed her to him. He gripped her tight, and started answering the officer's questions. When the officer had all the information that he needed, he told the boy that everything was going to be OK, they were going to take his Mom to the hospital to make sure that everything was ok, and that he would be ok.

He just nodded.

By then they had the Mom strapped to the back board. The boy asked me to hold Sally, because the ambulance guy wanted to look at the scratch on his chest where the seat belt got him. They told him that they were going to have to strap him down as well, since they were going to take him to make sure that the scratch was ok.

I was still holding Sally. While they worked on the boy, my Mom pulled him over to his Mom so that they could hold hands. She later told me that the hardest part for the mom was being separated from her son, and that the small physical contact of holding hands made a huge difference for them both.

My Mom asked his Mom if they had someone to take Sally, since they could not take her to the hospital. She said that her brother was coming.

When the Mom's brother (the boy's uncle) get there, he rushed over to see them. They were being lifted into the back of the ambulance. He seemed annoyed that he had to take care of Sally. So Mom told him that we could take her home with us, and he could come and get her later. That made him a bit happier. :) He said that he was fine with that, and he would come by our house later to pick her up. Mom gave him a business card.

I picked Sally back up, (I had let her down again, since she had her leash on.) We walked over to the car, and announced that we would be watching Sally for the rest of the afternoon.

That led to a bunch of cheering, and a bunch of "Can I hold her's?!?!?!!?!?"

I held Sally on the ride home (being the oldest comes with certain privileges). When we got out of the car, we brought Sally to the front yard.

The boys ran across the street to ask our neighbor if he had some puppy food that he would give us, since we were watching a little puppy that had been in a accident. I'm not sure what they said, but they came back with enough food for three puppies. :D

Then we played with Sally for the rest of the afternoon til she had to go home:

We had a lot of fun with Sally! And when she had to leave we were glad to hear that both Mom and son were doing well.

Brett

PJ adds: Brett has always been amazing with people, and I'm so proud of her for making a difficult experience just a little bit easier for somebody.

Will We Make It?

2011-08-07T08:41:00.000-04:00

Remember when I surprised everyone with a trip to the Red River Gorge?

During that trip, we drove the Hulk:

The Hulk is 8 feet wide by 9.5 feet high by 22 feet long. In other words, it's huge.

While we explored the Red River Gorge, we discovered the Nada Tunnel. The tunnel was cut out of a mountain by hand in the early 1900's. It is 12 feet wide by 13 feet high by 900 feet long. It was completed in 1911 after a year digging it out with dynamite, steam drills, and hand tools. One worker died when he tried to thaw frozen dynamite by placing it near a fire (there's a good homeschool lesson there).

There is room for only one vehicle at a time to drive through, and I was a little nervous about the Hulk getting stuck inside it.

But being intrepid explorers, Jim drove through the tunnel.

It was so creepy that Jim decided we needed to do it again, but this time he wanted me to take a video of it. He had the perfect music in mind for it. Just watch and see:

Creepy, right?!?

PJ

Puppies, Puppies, Everywhere!

2011-08-06T16:39:00.001-04:00

Did you know that we once got to "babysit" dogs for a few months?

Yep! We took care of two Great Pyrenees dogs - Alex and Shelby. Great Pyrs are livestock guardian dogs for the goats. But we just liked to play with them. Unfortunately, they also like to roam, and our 3 acres weren't enough to keep them happy. But while their owner was looking for a farm for them to live on, the best thing ever happened...

Shelby had puppies! So now we were taking care of seven dogs!

We loved those puppies!! We named them Molly, Annie, Gunner, Balto, and... I can't remember the other one. I think it might have been Nancy.

Well, after one or two months, it was time for the puppies to go to their new homes.

Annie went to live with friends of ours who still call her Annie.
Molly is with our FedEx guy. Her new name is Nala.
Gunner lives with other friends now, and they call him Jocco.

We get to see pictures, hear about them, and know that they are being taken care of and well loved. I'm so glad that Shelby chose the short time she was with us to have her puppies. It was really special!

Brett

Massage Therapy Gone Wrong

2011-08-05T06:00:00.001-04:00

Jim has been making lots and lots of soap lately. In fact, he recently broke two records. First, he made the most soap ever in a single day on July 30th. Second, he made the most soap he's ever made in a single month during July.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that it's made his back rather sore.

Soap is very dense for it's size and the molds we use are also pretty heavy. So pouring and lifting all that soap has made his back a bit achy.

But no worries. We have lots of children who just love to rub his back.

In fact the other day, he called Indigo and asked her to walk on his back and do a little "massage therapy".

Unfortunately, it got a little bit out of control:

Surprisingly enough, he's still capable of walking. And don't ask me what a "humpy back" is - I have no clue. LOL

PJ

Indigo's Promotion

2011-08-04T21:25:00.001-04:00

Many of you who have been following my blog for a while, will probably remember our "youngest person rule". Well, in keeping with the spirit of this rule, Indigo just received a promotion. She is now in charge of printing the postage for all the outgoing orders.

The way it works, is that I put together all the postage information and get it queued up in the system. Each individual postage has to be given permission to print. Because our internet is very slow, printing the postage takes a lot of time because you have to wait for each piece of postage to get the delivery confirmation number from USPS.

Indigo is now in charge of printing the postage. Her job involves sitting at the computer, waiting for the confirmation email to pop up. She then hits "send" on each of them, prompting the postage label to be printed.

She loves her job and is very proud of being allowed to use the computer. She's learned how to trouble shoot if she "loses" the mouse arrow. She's really adorable at it. I "interviewed" her and took a video of her performing her new job.

Hope you enjoy it!

Chocolate!

2011-07-13T13:51:00.000-04:00

Ms. Gretchen showed up the Monday after Easter with a bag in her hand. She opened the bag, and pulled out first one chocolate bunny and then another! She explained that the smaller one was for the girls, and the larger one was for the boys. (The egg was for Mom and Dad).

Boys: (After studying the packages) "Hey! They get almost five ounces each! and we don't even get four! No Fair!!"

Girls: "Is too fair!"

Boys: "No, it's not! We work harder, why should you get more chocolate?"

Girls: "Nuh uh! We work just as hard as you, maybe even harder some times!"

At this point Mom stepped in and told us to thank Ms. Gretchen, and then get to our chores. She said we could eat the bunnies later.

(A week later...)

Boys: "Mom? When are we going to eat the chocolate bunnies?"

Mom: "When Grandma gets here." (Grandma was flying in for Emery's birthday)

(A few days later...)

Girls: "Mom, Grandma has been here for 2 days! When are we going to eat the chocolate bunnies!?!?!"

Mom: (reluctantly) "I guess you can eat them when the work is done..."

The work was done super fast that day. :D

I did not take many pictures. I was too busy cutting up the girls' bunny. But here are a few.

Abigail, (Ms. Gretchen's daughter) Indigo, and Jade:

Cutting up the boys' bunny. They actually weighed their portions. Had to make sure that it was fair, right?:

The girls' bunny:

The boys' bunny with it's feet being chopped off:

And Indigo with her plate of chocolate:

Thank you for the bunnies, Ms. Gretchen!

Everybody loved theirs!! :D

(Oh, and Mom and Dad's egg is still sitting on Mom's dresser. Mom says they're in the middle of doing P90X and maybe the egg would be their celebration when they're finished. I think she'll probably just give it to us to eat. :D)

Brett

My Brother Hewitt

2011-07-11T10:40:00.003-04:00

Mom just discovered this video on the video camera. Apparently Hewitt found the video camera at some point and decided to make a video. He shares a little bit about his life. Then he talks about how many brothers and sisters he has (and our ages). Then he walks you into his room. It's pretty funny. Hope you enjoy it!

Brett

Happy (Late) Birthday, Emery!

2011-07-08T14:02:00.001-04:00

I can't believe Emery is 11. I (sorta) remember when he was born!

Normally we wear a birthday crown on our birthday, but we couldn't find it, so Emery wore this instead:

Emery tried to pick Colter up instead of hugging him:

He gave up:

Not everyone gets to hold a rainbow on their birthday!

Happy Birthday, Emery!!

Brett

What Happened To Your Hair?!?

2011-07-07T08:02:00.000-04:00

We were going to go out one evening, so I got the girls ready in pretty dresses (that they picked out) and did their hair. I came in a little while later to discover this:

Me: "WHAT happened to your hair?!?!?"

Indigo: "We fixed it!"

Brett

Wet or Dry?

2011-07-06T17:36:00.000-04:00

Fletcher and Greyden really enjoy cooking eggs for everyone for breakfast. The only problem is that some of us like our scrambled eggs "dry". And some of us like them "wet". So they make them twice.

First Fletcher makes the "dry" eggs:

Then Greyden makes the "wet" eggs:

In the end, we go through about 3 dozen eggs to feed everyone breakfast, but we're all happy. :D

Brett

Dyed Eggs

2011-07-05T10:08:00.001-04:00

We haven't dyed Easter eggs in a long time.

But this year, Mom surprised us and bought eggs for us to dye. Now, that might not sound like a big deal to some of you, but she didn't buy just a couple of eggs. She bought 8 dozen eggs!! That was a dozen for each of us!

(It takes a really big pot to boil that many eggs).

This was the first time that Jade got to color eggs. At first she wasn't sure what was going on, then she really got excited about it. She needed my help getting the eggs into and out of the cups. But she decided which egg went into which color and how long they should stay in the dye. She was even able to put the stickers on the eggs herself. She had a blast! :D

On a side note, did you know that when you have 8 children placing 8 dozen eggs into 14 different cups of dye (all at the same time) it can get rather confusing? Especially when somebody puts one of their eggs on top of one of yours?

Mom says it builds organization skills.

We kept our eggs distinct by either marking them with our initial (using a white crayon) or by marking them with a special sticker combination. Nobody wanted to take the chance that their egg would be confused with somebody else's egg.

After all the eggs were dyed, we took a picture with our egg cartons:

Then Mom and Dad hid the eggs in the house and it was time for the hunt. We all did really well. You could only find your eggs, so if you saw one that wasn't yours, you had to pretend not to see it.

Mom says with every egg hunt, there is always one egg that doesn't want to be found. (Unless you're using plastic eggs, then they're all easily found.)

Dad had hid the last egg we couldn't find. Fortunately, he remembered where he had hidden it:

Can you see it hiding in with the garlic? Mom had to help us find it by saying if we were getting cold or warm (which is not easy when there are 8 children running in 8 different directions).

When we were done with the hunt, I had a photo shoot with the eggs. Everybody wanted me to blog about all of their eggs, and they hoped that everybody would get to see theirs.

For some reason I liked these three together.

More then half of the pictures I took have those three right in the front. :D

Here they all are!

I think Indigo and Jade had fun, don't you?

Brett

The Circus Came to Town

2011-06-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

The circus came to Charlestown this spring. The newspaper said you could watch the elephants put up the Big Tent, so we went to watch. You can imagine how disappointed the boys were to watch a bunch of guys running around setting up the poles and canvas.

While we waited for the elephants to do their job, we played on the playground. There was a 12 swing swingset that the boys found very impressive.

Colter: "Man! We need one of these!"

Fletcher: "Yeah - we can all swing on it without it shaking!"

Emery: "We can't even have three people on ours without it shaking!"

And then the boys wanted all of the kids to be on this thing:

(Have you ever tried holding a three yr old and a five yr old on one of those things? Trust me, you don't want to!)

And then Colter had to show off... on the tallest thing he could climb. Why?!?

When we were done on the playground, they were finally ready to raise the big top posts by elephant power. The elephant had on a harness that was hooked to the bottom of the tall posts. The elephant pulled each of the four posts into place and it was up! The boys were much happier now.

Then we went and had Dad take a picture of us with the elephants. But they moved, and so we did not get any really good ones.

Then it was time to leave - we had Dustin coming to film the Mother's Day Song (which actually came out really good!).

The actual circus show was really awesome. Mom said it was much better than she expected it to be. We got to sit right up close, so we could see (and smell) all of the animals. Fletcher loved the tiger show.

We even got to ride one of the elephants!

It was really cool and a lot of fun. I hope they come back again next year!

Brett

Creativity

2011-06-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

The boys built their own see-saw.

Pretty impressive, don't you think?

Brett

While The Humans...

2011-06-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

sit in front of the air conditioners when it's 90+ degrees outside,

what do our goats do,

to beat the heat?

Right now, they seem to like the tree line on the side of the property.

There, they can sit in the shade, and the wind can get to them.

Except when they prefer eating alfalfa in the shelter,

or coming up to get pet by us humans

who left the air conditioner for a minute to take their pictures. :D

Brett

A Cup Of Fruit

2011-06-25T06:00:00.000-04:00

Mom and Dad have granola with cut up fruit and goat milk for breakfast. Mom likes strawberries and blueberries best. But they'll also have bananas or peaches too.

A few days ago, Dad asked Greyden and Hewitt to get his and Mom's breakfast ready. He told them that they each needed a cup of cut up fruit - whichever fruit the boys could find.

Then he and mom went to exercise (they're doing P90X).

When Mom and Dad came down, this is what they found:

Yes, that is two half cups of blueberries that had been cut in half.

The boys spent over 20 minutes cutting each and every blueberry in half for Mom and Dad.

Mom just laughed and laughed and said, "Now that's love!" :D

Brett

PJ adds: And I was glad that it's not just me who doesn't always clarify my directions sufficiently.

Yo Ho!

2011-06-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me."

At least, that is what my brothers want... a pirate's life. I dont think they are going to get it though. :D

Recently the boys have been on a pirate kick. It all started when they got Mom's permission to watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Since they watched it, they have not stopped spouting pirate nonsense.

Greyden remembered we had pirate hats and bottles in the dress up trunk, so he dug them out:

The boys also decided to make pirate flags:

They made extra ones in case any broke:

I wonder how many kids have taken clear trash bags and used a permanent marker to draw a skull and crossbones on it? Actually, they kinda missed out on the "crossbones" thing. Instead they drew a "skull and swords" flag. Maybe they thought that looked cooler?

Hewitt wanted to make sure the flags worked well in a breeze and wouldn't come off their sticks. Since there was no breeze, he decided to make his own by running as fast as he could:

Until he reached the playground:

Apparently he lost the flag somewhere, and picked up a sword...

After he decided that I and my camera were no threat, he decided to go up into the look-out nest and make sure there were no enemy ships on the horizon:

But all he saw were his own flags, fluttering in the breeze that appeared out of no-where...

So, lookout duty done, he was free to go and terrorize the next person who came along.

Which was me! Yo ho!

Brett

I Don't Like Yogurt!!

2011-06-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago, Hewitt was putting the yogurt away from breakfast. I looked over, and saw the yogurt go off the table (it looked like it jumped, not like it was pushed) and send a fountain of yogurt up into Hewitt's face:

Then it landed upright on the floor, with all the yogurt that had fountained out splattered around it:

Hewitt went and got a towel, wiped off his face and the floor, and said, "I DON'T like yogurt!!!!"

And then he had it for breakfast the next day. :D

Brett

Homeschooled

2011-06-22T20:06:00.001-04:00

For Jim's 40th birthday, I took everyone on a surprise vacation to the Red River Gorge area in Kentucky. We rented a house and spent our days hiking, studying nature, playing, and enjoying the family.

On our very first hike, Jim pointed out some moss to Indigo. Indi quickly became fascinated with moss and noticed it everywhere we hiked. She would touch it, feel it, play with it, and ask questions about it.

Indigo noticed there were different types of moss and we discussed those differences. She studied what grew around the moss and where she tended to find the moss. We looked at what bugs were crawling around in it. We talked about the expression, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," and discussed what it meant.

Here is what five year old Indigo has to say about moss:

"Moss digs into wood. It feels really good and it's very soft. It's green. There is a short kind and there is a thick kind. There is ones that look like trees but they're a little bit tall, they're like the ones that are babies. I like the short kind the best because it's the lightest and is very good. There are snails on some of the moss. We don't have any moss at our house because God didn't put it there."

Indigo is homeschooled.

PJ

Just Goats and Cats

2011-06-22T06:00:00.000-04:00

We have lived in our current home for seven years. That's the longest I've ever lived in one place, and it's half my life time. I really like Indiana and all of the stuff we've been able to do out here.

In seven years we have built a lot of stuff here:

1. Built friendships that (I hope) will last a lifetime.
2. Built a huge barn.
3. Built a business.
4. Built snowmen
5. Built swing sets
6. Built several dams
7. Built lots of fences
8. Built a toy shed
9. Built goat shelters
10. Built a chicken coop and pig hut

There's a lot more, but those are the first ten things I could think of.

We have also had a lot of animals on this property:

1. We had a cow. And her calf. We called the calf Hamburger.
2. We had pigs. We had 6 mini pigs (and a whole bunch of piglets). They are not half as pretty as they look in all the movies.
3. We had turkeys. I hated those things... and we had a bunch. Actually, some of the turkeys hatched their own eggs and raised their babies. That was pretty awesome.
4. We had sheep. Sheep are a pain.
5. We had rabbits. Rabbits are yummy. Sorry if you don't like that thought - they're also very cute.
6. We had chickens. I liked the eggs, but not the birds. Actually, I was ok with the hens. But roosters and I had a horrible relationship. It got to where I would refuse to go into the pasture if a certain leghorn rooster was out there. You know why? Because he jumped up into my face, and flapped his wings and tried to peck at me. My brothers went out there with a bunch of wiffle balls to protect me. I really loved my brothers right then. :D
7. We had dogs. Alex, Shelby, and their puppies. Oh and Foley.
8. We have cats.
9. We have goats.
10. We have more goats.

The goats and cats are definitely our favorites. Actually baby goats and kittens are our favorites, but we still like them when they're grown up.

Yep, we've done a lot on this property and other than the fact that Indiana doesn't have the ocean, it's a pretty great place to live.

Brett

Friends In The Soaproom...

2011-06-21T06:00:00.008-04:00

We've been getting ready for something big for a while now (Mom says I'm not allowed to tell you yet, but soon). That means that Dad has been making as much soap as possible.

And do you know what that means?

That means bagging all that soap.

Mom always tells us that work can be fun if you have the right attitude. We play a lot of music in the soap room that we kids like to listen to and sing along with. But the best thing we do to have fun in the soap room is...

Work with friends!

Friends help us get our work done quickly so that we can go play.

It's a win/win situation. We stay happy because we are playing with our friends. Mom and Dad stay happy because a lot of soap is getting bagged.

Having all these friends here means that I can usually find some pretty interesting pictures that are just waiting for me to take them.

Or, it just gives me an excuse to take photos and direct people while not doing any of the work myself. ;)

Indigo, Moirah, and Jade bagging:

Garrett, Colter, and Emery also bagging:

Sam glaring at me because I had the camera aimed at him, and Colter and Emery laughing because I actually got a picture of Sam. Notice that Garrett is still working. (Mom and Dad like to point out that our friends often work harder than we do. I respond that we work more often.)

This? This is Colter trying to use Garrett as a shield against the camera. (Don't you love Garrett's shirt?)

When I took a picture of Sam, Colter was laughing. I'll betcha Sam was laughing when I got this photo of Colter:

And then I was called to take a picture of this:

Apparently Jade had not noticed what she was doing and stuffed this bag chock full of cards. Distraction? or brilliant marketing??

And then it was free time. The younger kids went to go do whatever the younger kids do. We older kids went to have our Bible Study. We have so much fun at our bible study... and it usually has nothing to do with our fun games! It is usually Eli saying something that makes the rest of us roll around on the mat because we are laughing so hard... But that is another post.

Yeah, we have so much fun when our freinds come over, even when we have to work instead of playing! Thanks so much for all your help Sam, Garrett, Eli, Moirah, Mirial, Elissa, and Eliza!

Brett

How Often...

2011-06-20T06:00:00.001-04:00

do you see...

little girls...

wearing tutus...

working as hard as they can...

with their friends...

to clean off...

soapy floor mats...

Brett

Hula!

2011-06-19T06:00:00.000-04:00

Do you like Indigo's grass skirt?

Emery made it for Indigo to wear in a circus dance we are planning. He's pretty creative and Indigo loves it!

Brett

Girls Will Be Girls

2011-06-18T06:00:00.003-04:00

Girls will be girls - they will love flowers:

Girls will be girls - they will love dressing up:

Girls will be girls - they will love taking pictures with princesses:

Girls will be girls - they will love baby goats (even if the babies don't love them):

Girls will be girls - they will love horses and be in high heaven if they can ride one:

Girls will be girls - they will love their sisters:

Girls will be girls - they will love having pictures taken of them:

Girls will be girls - they will love their Mom and Dad

Girls will be girls - they will love their little cousins:

Girls will be girls - they will love their big cousins:

Girls will be girls - they will love their Grandma and Grammy:

Girls will be girls - they will love any soft cuddly thing that will sit still for even one second:

Girls will be girls - they will love anyone who will let them.

Brett

Boys Will Be Boys

2011-06-17T06:00:00.001-04:00

Boys will be boys - they will turn straws into fangs:

Boys will be boys - they will play in the mud:

Boys will be boys - they will wrestle anyone that will let them:

Boys will be boys - they will play football as much as they can:

Boys will be boys - they will do dangerous things, like shoot arrows:

Boys will be boys - they will climb the tallest things they can find:

Boys will be boys - they will play with castles and knights as often as they can:

Boys will be boys - they will love everyone that comes their way.

Brett

Our Cats

2011-05-21T13:15:00.002-04:00

As a large family with lots of young children, we tend to leave crumbs everywhere. We also have farm animals that leave feed everywhere. Unfortunately, this tends to encourage the mice. And even more unfortunately, Mom and I hate being surprised by mice.

Soooo... We have cats.

We have had LOTS of cats over the years. We decided that outside cats would be J's, and the inside cats would be G's. Outside cats stay outside and inside cats stay inside.

One of the first cats we have ever had here in Indiana is Georgie. I tried to get a picture of Georgie, but he is our shyest cat.

Actually, he is our only shy cat. He loves Fletcher the most, but he's getting a little friendly with me now.

This is John-Boy the first:

He was an awesome cat, but he left us while we were on vacation. We came back, and he was gone. :(

These kittens are John-Boy the Second (grey) and Jason (black):

Unfortunately, John-Boy the second also disappeared one day.

This is John-Boy the third:

Can you guess what happened?

Yep, he also disappeared.

Are you sensing a pattern? By now, I am convinced that it is just the name and do not want to name any more outdoor cats John Boy. (But Daddy says it's not the name).

Then we noticed that Georgie was having a tough time keeping up with all the mice in our house. So we got two more kittens for inside.

Gypsy:

And Ginger:

Both of them are really snuggly.

We were eating dinner one night, when Dad said, "There is a cat on my legs!" I jumped up, and saw this:

It took awhile for all of us to stop laughing. :D

Now all of our cats are grown. Jason is an amazing mouser, loves cars, and will do almost anything to get you to scratch him.

Gypsy has turned into a sweet cat with a tendency to hide from people. But if she is in a good mood to snuggle, then she will snuggle all you want.

And this is Ginger. Ginger will streeeeeech herself out (like in this picture) so that you can rub/scratch her belly. She will follow you around nonstop. And at night, when everyone goes to bed, for a minute all you can hear is people clicking and snapping their fingers trying to get her attention. She will snuggle with you, (especially if you are sick) and she just loves people.

Mom says that Ginger thinks she is a dog.

Ginger also adores Jade and will seek her out despite Jade tossing her around til she's comfortable:

I don't have any pictures of Jim-Bob, but he is every bit as sweet as Jason. Except he has long white hair that sheds like crazy. So, pet him at your peril. :D

I love all of our cats. I hope that, when we get another John-Boy (Dad says we will just re-use the name), he will last a little longer!

Brett

Magic House

2011-05-16T12:13:00.001-04:00

I have amazing cousins. And I love visiting them.

Do you know what I like even more? Going to their birthday parties.

Do you know why? Because my Aunt Heather and Uncle Adam pick the coolest places for birthday parties.

Last year for the boys' party, (they do one birthday party for all of the boys) we went to a gym, where they had lots of cool things that you could do like the rings and balance beams and such.

This year's party destination was the Magic House.

When we got there, our party room was not quite ready yet. So we went to play in the Kids' Construction Zone.

We all dug around for a little while:

Fletcher and Ben started working the pulley system:

Fletcher hauled building supplies:

Michaela and I designed our future houses:

Jade drove the CAT:

Then we got the call that our party room was ready. So we went to it, and ate our pizza. Aunt Heather had ordered 6 pizzas.

We were the only guests to have arrived, and there was only one pizza left (yep, we were hungry).

So Aunt Heather called for more pizza. :D

After other guests had arrived and eaten their pizza, two of the Magic House employees put on a "magic" show.

They made a "bomb" (vinegar and baking soda).

There were a couple of other tricks, and then they asked us a question.

"How can I put this skewer through this balloon, using nothing but Vaseline, without popping the balloon?"

We messed around with it for a while, popping a few balloons, but we finally got it.

Then we decorated our own cupcakes, ate them, and then the party split up. Everyone went and explored the Magic House.

There was a mystery solving room, (that was really fun):

There was a electricity machine that made your hair stand up:

There was a... I'm not even sure what to call this. It blew air out and kept the balls afloat:

There was this:

You would make an impression on the one side, and then come and admire your work of art. Can you figure out which one is Daddy?

Then, (this was really cool) it had a courtroom:

And a room where the words of popular patriotic songs were displayed on a projector...

...and you could sit down and sing along:

And there was a copy of the Oval Office from the White House (where the president does all of his stuff) with a bunch of really cool stuff in the drawers:

Then it was time to go home. But I was happy. It had been a good evening, quality time with my cousins, (especially Kala), and I got to ride with Kala in her car. :D

On the way home, we listened to the Tangled soundtrack like 5 times (we had watched it together at Thanksgiving). When we got to her house, (we were spending the night there), Kala and I got a snack and decided where we were going to sleep.

Her brothers would be sleeping in their beds, so that was out. Mom and Dad were getting Kala's room, Grandma was getting the couch, my brothers were getting the toy room floor, Indi and Jade were getting Kala's room floor...

I know! Let's sleep in Aiden's (the baby) room! We'll get the whole floor...

It was pretty good. Usually we (by our own choice) get one of the toddler beds in her brothers' room. It is pretty snug, and we keep falling off the bed, but it is awesome for sharing secrets! When we get a twin bed it seems so big! LOL

So the floor, yeah, that will work. As long as we get enough blankets, Kala and I are the easy ones. As long as you make it so we can tell secrets. :D

I love my family!

Brett

Suspension Bridge

2011-05-15T12:47:00.001-04:00

During our entire visit, Colter had been begging for us to hike to the Suspension Bridge, on the Sheltowee Trace Trail.

Sheltowee Trace is a 282 mile trail.

And Colter wanted us to hike to the suspension bridge on it.

282 miles.

I was not that thrilled. :D

But Dad did a little research, and found out that the bridge was only about a half a mile from one of the places you can get on the trail. So on our last full day, we drove there to hike it.

It was an OK trail, as trails go. Unfortunately, there was poison ivy everywhere. And because of all the wind/rain there were a bunch of trees down blocking the trail. But the boys actually liked scrambling over the trees.

It was quite an adventure trying to get Jade (my hiking buddy) through all of that. Thankfully we were walking with Mom, Dad, and Indigo.

On most of the trails we hike, the older four boys run ahead (mom says it's a guy thing). This time, they all ran ahead, but they waited for us to show us this:

Yes, that is a pile of swallowtail butterflies. There were some black swallowtails, yellow swallowtails, and some zebra-tails. At least, that is what Emery told me. It was really cool. Butterflies kept coming, and going. We are not exactly sure what they were doing, we just know that it was really pretty.

This is what we look like on most of our hikes. Dad goes ahead, checking for more poison ivy. I hold Jade's hand, trying to prevent her from going off the trail. (On one side was massive amounts of poison ivy, on the other side was a very swollen Red River. I keep Jade's blanket over my arm (so it doesn't drag in the poison ivy) while Indi and Mom bring up the rear.

And most of the time, we can't even see the boys. Every once in a while we will see the flash of a red shirt, or the back of a head. But that is about it. Until we reach our destination.

Then the boys decide they want to do something stupid. I'm not sure why. Probably because they are boys.

They decided that they all wanted to hang, by their feet and hands, on the suspension bridge.

I will never understand boys. Here Colter decided that he was going to stand up on the railing. I just don't get why he thought that would be awesome?

On our way back to the Hulk, we saw Chimney Top Rock. Indi and Jade thought that it was really cool that we hiked all the way up there!

When we got back to the house, Mom told us all to strip, leave our clothes, shoes, and hats by the washing machine, and go wash every square inch of ourselves to make sure nobody got poison ivy. Mom was really mad at herself because she forgot to pack the jewelweed soap that we make for poison ivy.

I got to take the little girls in the shower with me. Guess what?

Colter took all of the hot water.

I'm not kidding. We had lukewarm water for the first thirty seconds. Then it went to chilled, then freezing. Have you ever had two little girls in the shower with you, you have to get them completely clean, and somebody else took all the hot water?

Trust me, not fun. I ended up wetting them, and then soaping them, rinsing them, shampooing their hair, not putting in the conditioner, rinsing them completely off, and then giving them a towel and telling them to go get dressed while I washed myself.

They were smart.

They put on their bathing suits.

I got dressed.

They went and sat in the hot tub.

I sat, shivering on the couch, hoping that my sweater would get out of the dryer soon.

I think that Colter was the only one who was really happy.

He got to go to the suspension bridge.

He got to have a hot shower.

He got to go in the hot tub.

Oh well, at least I got to get some exercise and enjoy the pretty trail! LOL

Brett

Chimney Top Rock

2011-05-09T15:00:00.000-04:00

After we did Princess Arch, we went across the parking lot to do Chimney Top Rock.

It was a very pretty trail, with a good view. When we got to the rock, this is what we did:

After we left, we drove by Chimney Top from the road, down on the bottom.

And this is what we saw:

You can kind of see the fence, which is the area we were in, at the very top.

Mom said, "It is a good thing we did that before I saw it from this angle, because if we had not, there is no way that I was going to let you do that. I would have said, Yep Honey, I know this is your vacation, but we are not going up there!!!"

LOL

Chimney Top is one of my favorites!

Brett

2011-04-23T05:00:00.000-04:00

On the second day of our vacation, we went to Princess arch. We went around on top, and then we tried to find a path to the bottom, so we could go underneath it.

When we got to the bottom, this is what we saw.

Yes, that is my brothers.

Did you know that Colter was capable of making such an ugly face? And that he does it all the time? I think that he thinks it is fun to scare his little sisters as often as possible. Don't ask me why. I don't think it is fun! But, he is a boy. And as almost everybody knows, boys are very different.

And then we found a cave. A big cave. Big enough to hold the whole family.

Then we found this little "bear-cave". The little girls wanted to see all of the boys fit in there. They did, but just barely.

Look at Colter's, "I am so squished just take the picture and let me out of here" look. LOL

And then, Indigo wanted to show how she could fit in no problem!

When we were done exploring the cave and taking pictures, Dad stayed down there, and the rest of us climbed up to the top. We wanted to take pictures on top of Princess Arch.

OK, the girls wanted to take pictures on top of Princess Arch.

After that, we went to go visit Chimney Top Rock.

Princess Arch was so pretty! (And it was a really short trail! :D) I'm so glad that we visited it!

Brett

Surprise Vacation, Day Two

2011-04-21T21:58:00.002-04:00

After our exciting day, most of us slept well. Actually, everyone except me. LOL

So when we all woke up, we ate breakfast and unpacked. The night before Mom had promised the boys that she would teach them to play pool, since there was a pool table in the cabin. So Mom and the boys did that, and the girls and I unpacked more stuff, and cleaned the kitchen from breakfast.

When we were done with all that, we headed out to go see the Natural Bridge. When we got there, we saw that the chair lift did not open till 10:00, and it was only 9:00.

Since we had an hour on our hands, we decided that we were just going to play in the parking lot (Mom even thought to ask Ms. Gretchen to get balls and outside play stuff). But as we were parking, Mom saw a sign about black bears. When we drove over to read it (we didn't walk b/c it was still chilly out), we noticed that there was a trailhead right there.

Mom decided that we were going to do the trail instead of playing in the parking lot, because the sign said it was only a 3/4 mile trail.

Along the way there were a lot of "step-rocks" as Jade calls them. Indigo especially liked the ones that had "pixie dust" on them (they were sparkling). The little girls loved the step-rocks!

There were lots of opportunities to have photo shoots. Actually, there were a lot of good places for photos, but finding the boys, who always ran ahead, was not so easy.

Then we came to the crossroads. We could turn around and go back to the chair lift, or we could walk another mile to the natural bridge.

We walked.

All of the boys had run ahead, and were exploring several nooks and crannies. You know, ~~carefully checking for poison ivy,~~ barging in to "make sure there were no bears around". The one problem was, that after climbing up off the trail, they had to get down.

Emery slipped.

He ended up sliding down on his butt, through the mud, getting his pants very muddy, giving himself a wedgie, and making all of us laugh our heads off.

Then Indi and Jade wanted to take a picture with Mom and Dad in the "cave". So I took one for them.

And then Jade saw this really cool looking swirly rock. She wanted a picture with that too!

And then we saw the natural bridge. It was huge!! If you look closely, up at the top, you can see Colter and Emery's heads.

We let Dad have a moment to just soak up the beauty that was all around him. Then we took the opportunity to get a couple of good shots of Mom and Dad.

Dad wanted to get in a back shot. Good advertising he said. :D (He is wearing a Goat Milk Stuff t-shirt)

Then Indi and Jade wanted portrait shots too! Indigo gave me a nice sweet face.

And then Jade came with typical Jade face.

I think it is pretty cute! LOL

All of the boys decided to pass the time while Mom and Dad were still on the bridge by having a huge Numbers Game tournament. (Thanks a lot, Trevor and Emily! :D)

Jade got bored, and decided to play in the dirt.

After we were all ready, we took a few more pictures, and headed for the sky lift.

When we got off the chair lift, we went to the gift shop and bought some fudge. It was really yummy (but not as yummy as our goat milk fudge)!!

I am so glad that we were able to visit Natural Bridge. It was so beautiful!

Brett

Another Surprise!

2011-04-21T09:00:00.001-04:00

My Mom is an amazing Mom. She loves us, takes care of us, and even manages to find the energy to cook up, not only one surprise, but two! (Here is the first surprise)

On Dad's birthday, we all woke up at about 8:30. Mom called Ms. Gretchen and she picked up donuts for us (we had been too busy to make breakfast birthday cake). We had a meeting at 7:00 that night, so we got our work done and left at about 3:00 to go and play before the meeting.

First we went to Pizza Hut - yummmm!!! Then we headed to our possible new property. We explored some, marked the dogwoods and red-buds (Dad's favorites), and planned where things would go. When we were done, it was almost 6:00. So we all put on our white "Goat Milk Stuff" t-shirts and headed to our meeting.

After the meeting, we all got in the car and got buckled while Mom and Dad talked to Lincoln (our Realtor). Hewitt went to the back of the Hulk to get, and eat, the leftover donuts.

As we were driving home, I heard Mom tell Dad to drive past our exit. He said OK. I was keeping an eye out, and as soon as we passed our exit I asked Mom, "Hey Mom, where are we going?" She said, "south".

I tried several more times, but I could not get anything out of her.

We got down to Clarksville, and Colter looked up from whatever he was doing, and said, "Dad, did you know you passed the exit?"

Mom said yes.

He asked where we were going. Mom said, "South".

Then all of the other boys tried.

Emery: "Mom, where are we going?"

Mom: "South."

Fletcher: "Mom, where are we going?"

Mom: "South."

That happened several times. Then we started asking questions. She replied, "Not telling." (or other things like that.) It was driving the boys nuts.

(OK, it was driving me nuts. :D)

We were almost into Louisville when she said, "Now I will answer some questions".

She was shot with a volley of questions, the most frequent one being "Where are we going??"

She answered a few questions, and then said that she would answer more later.

By now it was dark. Mom answered some more questions, including "How long till we get there?" The answer was about 2 hours.

Then Emery asked if he was going to have to milk the goats. I can see why he was worried! It was 9:00, and Mom said two more hours... Then getting back... We had already been driving a half an hour... Yeah, I can definitely see why he was worried! LOL

Mom said no, Bekah was milking. Emery heaved a HUGE sigh.

Then he asked when we were going back home.

Mom: "Not answering that yet".

After about a half an hour Mom said she would answer more questions. We all asked, "Where are we going!?!?!". I think we wanted to know. :D

Mom (finally!) told us that she had rented a cabin in KY for Dad's birthday.

Then we all asked how long we were going to be there.

Mom: "A week."

"Ummmm... Mom?!? We have no clothes, toys... We don't have what we need, Mom!!!"

OK, none of us said it, but we were all thinking it! LOL

So I said, "Hey Mom? We did not pack."

Mom: "Ms. Gretchen and Mrs. Hedges packed for you."

Me: "Where is it all?"

Mom: "In the back."

Me: "It was not there when we left for Scottsburg."

Mom: "Ms. Gretchen drove up and put it in the back while we were in the meeting. "

Me: "Oh! That is why you would not let me go get my book!"

Mom: "Yep!"

A little later...

Mom: "You did not see it when you got the donuts?"

Me: "I did not get the donuts, Hewitt did."

Me (in my mind): "Which is why none of us heard about it... "

We ended up getting to the "Cedar Palace" a little after 11. We would have gotten there sooner, but Mom and I had to go to Kroger to get groceries. It was 5 minutes to 11, and they close at 11.

When we got there, the doors were already locked. Mom caught the attention of a cashier, and asked him if she could get milk. He let her in, and said hurry!

Mom had me running around the store fetching things. Go get this, and go get that. Back and forth. This way and that way. We heaped a shopping cart in 4 and a 1/2 minutes! It was pretty cool. We got to the checkout, and I could not stop panting. I was just trying to catch my breath. And find my legs. See, after two and a half hours in the car, and then running just about as fast as you can for 4 and a 1/2 minutes... It makes your legs feel like rubber.

So we got to "the cabin" (Jade asked that we call it "the cabin" after we kept making her think that we were going home home when we said we were going home) and started running around laying claim to the bedrooms. I was pretty lucky. I got a king bed. Of course, I had to share it with the girls, but still! I quickly unpacked all of our stuff, (with all of the shows we do I have gotten pretty fast at that!) and crawled into bed.

Jade woke me up like 7 times that night. How?

With her feet, head, and arms. Oh, and the back of her hand. You know, if the back of her hand was a fly swatter, and there was a fly on my nose, she would have killed 3 or 4 flies that night! LOL

Next morning I woke up and ate. After everyone was awake and had eaten, we all got ready to go hiking. We were going to do Natural Bridge. It was AWESOME! Pictures coming soon...

It was a great Birthday Surprise!!

Brett