Highs and Lows

This week has been full of highs and lows.

Monday it snowed, and Wednesday it was in the 70s and the kids and I spent the whole afternoon at the river walk riding bikes and roller blading and playing at the play ground. We all got sunburned. Wednesday seemed to be the perfect day. We had a picnic, and everyone played so well. We ended the fun with ice cream cones. Shanon and her kids met us there, and at the end of the day, Ian took all eight of our children home so we could have a girl night. It was fabulous! We shopped and window shopped and ate and came home at 10:30 to find Nathaniel broken out in some mysterious rash.

Highs and Lows.

I spent Thursday morning at the doctor with Nathaniel. His ankles swelled up with wide pink bands and had spots all over them. By morning his wrists had the pink bands and his whole body was spotted even on his palms and the soles of his feet. I had no clue about what was going on. The doctor checked his ears, nose and throat, looked at the spots, said "I have no clue" about the feet and ordered a strep test. It was positive, so she treated him for strep throat and told me that the rash should go away as the antibiotics fight the bacteria.

I came home to find Gabriel laying on the couch with a fever and a sore "neck." They would not give me a prescription over the phone, so we ate lunch and loaded everyone up to go back to the doctor. She had pity on me after she saw Asher and Elizabeth's bellies (already rashy). She gave me six prescriptions for strep throat medicine, and I filled four of them yesterday.

So, I'm at home now with 5 kids- 3 have Scarlet Fever, 1 has strep throat, Micaela seems fine. My throat is getting scratchy. Ian went to work. Since he won the awesome man award for Wednesday evening, I'm sending him alone to the church's men and boy's camp out tonight. He's excited to go play frisbee golf and have a little solitude.

The boys are sad to miss the camp out, but the doctor gave them the all clear to go tomorrow if they feel like it.

Highs and Lows.

I only paid for two kids to visit her yesterday (YEAH- it could have been five). I had to take Nathaniel for something else less than a week ago, and I bought five prescriptions. So between all of that and the gas driving my behemoth to and from her office, I've spent just under 450.00 on medical this week. OUCH- that hurts. But having healthy, happy kids is worth it :)

A Late Breaking Weather Report

Well, last week on Monday the online weather man (I don't have tv channels) claimed we'd have 1 day of sunny weather and 4 days of rain showers. We had rain on Sunday- lots of it, but that's it. We had 5 days of 'fair weather fun.' Friday and Saturday were in the 70's!!!! It was so nice we wore shorts for Lou's party on Saturday.

This week he says Monday and Friday will be foul. It's snowing this morning! Friday it should be raining. We'll be out having fun on Tuesday and Wednesday, but this is co-op week so we'll school on Thursday regardless of weather. So I'm prepping for three days of school- let's see what happens :) I may have to ditch my policy if the weather man cheats me again :)

Elizabeth's 2nd Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Elizabeth, we love you so much! You are such an important part of our life, and we're so glad you joined our family!Elizabeth really liked the present cake that Nana made for her. She loved the cake when she found the chocolate :)

Here she is with her first gift of the party. Two handmade purses from Memere. Loubie loves her "bags."Here she is with the stroller and baby doll from Grandma Carol and Grandaddy Charlie. After the stroller we almost couldn't convince her to open any other presents.Then she saw the helmet from Grandaddy David and she knew what was coming next. She ran back to our bedroom where she knew she would find her 'bicycle.' And you can see she loves her bicycle! Next week the kids and I plan to go to the river walk where everyone can ride, and I can push her new trike! I love the push bar.

Our little peeper cheepers

An Australorp, a Turken, a White-crested Black Polish, a Wellsummer, and a Buff Orpington.

A Buff Orpington

The White-crested Black Polish, a Delaware, an Australorp, a Wellsummer, another Delaware, the Buff or White Polish, and the other Wellsummer.

Not pictured are the two Brahmas who have feathered feet. If you look closely, you'll see Asher's Turken in the top photo has no feathers on his neck. Google turken and check them out. They're the ugliest bird I've ever seen and Asher loves it. His name is Bad Guy Super Hero.
The chicks are living in the house in Micaela's old bedroom- the only room left now with old yucky carpet. They currently are housed in a plastic kiddy pool with pine bark shavings. We discovered yesterday that they can get out by accident. They'll probably start trying to get out in a couple of days. We're going to circle it with chicken wire, I think.

Their brooder light is so bright my camera won't hardly focus. They are growing really fast. I'd say they're twice as big today as they were last Saturday. They're getting noisy. They're keeping Ian up at night and waking him up in the morning. I think we're sending them outside in three weeks. We can't wait to find out who are hens and who are roos.

In other farm news (hehe) we planted 50 asparagus and about 36 potatoes yesterday. Some of the potatoes are blue! I hope we can have blue mashed potatos this year :) We double dug and tilled up the spaces for them, as soon as they come up we'll mulch. We plan to interplant too- some mint, basil, tomatos, and parsley with the asparagus and I don't know yet what with the potatos.

It's still too wet to plow. We may never plow this year- just dig and till as we go through the garden. I'm such a nerd I actually drafted a garden plan on google sketchup. I used a tape measure all along the fence and between the permanent beds to figure out our square feet, and then I made an arrangement of beds for different crops and left 400 sq ft for watermelons, and a big bed for corn.

Corn has never worked for us, but we're going to try it differently this year. And we're also going to try some other new things: sunflowers, peanuts, runner beans, yard long beans, tomatillos, ground cherries, and I hope to find new zealand spinach.

Courtesy of my Loubie Lou

The itsa bitsa spida climbed up mommy's puta (computer in Loubie-ese) - HAHA that's funny, momma

Fair Weather Fun and Foul Weather School

Since we've done so well this year getting our school hours done in a timely and consistent fashion, I've adopted a new policy. It's called Foul Weather School. If it's rainy or cold or grey we'll do school. If it's (comparatively) nice outside we're going to do projects around the house. Twice so far we've ditched school for garden projects. I feel a little guilty ditching school, but it feels so good to get work done outside and let the kids play.

I was worried that if I adopted this policy we'd never do school; however, it's supposed to rain 4 out of every five school days this week and next. BIG SIGH. We're beginning to worry that the garden will never be dry enough to plow or even dig!

We have so many projects and plans going on outside that Nathaniel wants to know if we're "growing up to be farmers?" I would love to operate a small scale organic farm and CSA, but I'll probably have to wait till the kids are a LOT older.

We stopped at the Appomatox Courthouse on the way home.

Noisy being escorted by Smiley-1 and Smiley-2.

The boys got to pump the billows and twist some red hot iron hooks to take home.

The canoneers.

A visit to the gunsmith was awe inspiring.

While at Williamsburg we...

Got really tired.

Were put in the stocks for disorderly conduct.

Jumped on a real feather bed.

Learned a dance from the colonial time period.

Went to jail. Those aren't just steps they are sitting on.

Walked on seashell pathways.

Fought the British.

Joined the drum & fife corp.

Pretended to be : General Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Patience Whipple, Josiah Greenwood.

The pictures of our trip are on Ian's computer, so I feel excused from posting them today :) I'll make Ian post them later. We did have a good time, and the children enjoyed themselves very much. Nathaniel really enjoyed the guided tours- he was like a shadow behind the guides. He even asked them intelligent questions. We were very cold, and it was wet a few days, and the children were sick (stomach flu one at a time), and Ian and I learned a few lessons about family trips. Elizabeth was LOUD. Everywhere we went she vocally protested against being confined in any way, and of course she's to small to turn loose anywhere. She was slightly embarrassing to be out with. Ian bought her a stuffed skunk as a souvenier. She calls it Punk and Skunk. We're calling her Skunk Kitten and hoping she will not become a punk. Hehe

I want to remember that as a one year old (she still won't be two for a few weeks) she ordered her own meal at a restaurant. Without consulting us of course :) She grabbed the waitress and demanded a water and chicken.

In other news, since we were plagued with sickness we came home a day early and built a chicken coop over the weekend! Today as the sun rose, Nathaniel and I finished painting the first coat. Afterwards, Micaela, Nathaniel, Elizabeth and I (well Lou wasn't any help) planted peas, carrots, radishes, spinach, lettuce, beets, cabbage, collards, kale, bok choy and turnips by seed. We'll see if any of them germinate. We've had two warm days in a row after weeks of freezing weather! It's soo nice and we're planning to do school outside this morning.