Today the kids and I were discussing our last name, Burns. Aidan was a little distressed about the fact that he doesn't have an "A" in his last name, he likes the letter "A" and when you are five it's a big deal. He was also even more discouraged when I explained further that Guenna and Caitriona would be changing their last name to something else (although I think he was thinking that they would be able to change it to whatever they wanted to, which would probably include a letter "A"!) No fair. I began to explain to him what an honor it was to bear the name Burns, that there were some amazing men in our family with that name, Papa Burns (Chris' dad) and Grandpa Ralph Burns. I told him how the men in the family carry on the name for the men we've descended from and that it was an honor for me to change my name to Burns to help daddy carry on Grandpa Ralph's legacy. I told him that it was especially an honor because Grandpa Ralph was such a good man, he was a good and faithful husband, a hard worker and a good example as a father. Aidan looked at me and said with almost a confused look on his face, "I thought he was a good man because he was a soldier." It's funny to me that of all the things that he thinks of when he thinks of Grandpa is that he was a soldier, but it shows what is impacting on his five-year-old heart. He's loves to hear the few stories that we have about Grandpa when he was in the war. A little piece to his world right now.
The good thing is that after our little talk, he seemed to be okay with his last name, even if there will never be an "A" in it. One day he will look back on these times and laugh at the things that were so important to him, like the color blue. He's obessed with the color blue and notices everything that is blue. I know that one day blue wont matter to him so much, but right now it does. Sometimes my adult view is so narrowed to be annoyed with all the little things that seem so important to the little people in my life. I want to tell them, "stop fighting over who get's what color bracelet! If only you knew how challenging life can really be at times!" But then again, there is an innocence that is so precious and a carefree attitude that we adults find very hard to obtain with all the cares of finances, future and daily life. I have to remind myself to not lose heart over the things that turn their lives upside down. All too soon, they will be dreaming of the future, dreaming of future mates, dreaming of jobs and finances and all the adult things that consume our minds. So mommy, let your babies be babies. And let them fuss over the spelling of their name and the color blue, one day their woes will be ever so much greater, so be thankful.
We had another good, productive day today. Aidan has been learning some good lessons these past couple of days. I ended up having him work with me for most of the day again today. Mostly over fighting with his sister. Aidan is very particular, I think that is a first born trait. Guenna seems to know how to push his buttons, and while we are training Guenna to not push his buttons, she is 2 and he is 5 1/2. So start at the top down, right? After several extremely irritated situations I decided that he was going to work with me again today. While he was working with me Guenna started bugging him again, so I decided that they would work together :) He unloaded the washer onto the door of the dryer and Guenna put the clothes into the dryer. Then after they finished that I had them work together to pick up the dining room floor. I found it delightful to hear them cheerfully trying to work together, Aidan loves being in charge and Guenna is a wild sort of girl with too many ideas of her own. But they did it together, it took them a long time but with very minimal fighting. I kept a close eye on them to continue to encourage Guenna to follow Aidan, he was picking things up and then asking her to put them away and then making sure she did it. I think I'm going to have them to this every day. While they were working on the dining room Eamon was drying dishes for me and Cait was sleeping. It was a fun, slow morning of cleaning. But I think this exercise will be good for Aidan in learning how to lead without being forceful or bossy.
Well, I'm off to prepare some more
Batter Fried Fish for my family. I made it on Saturday and Chris loved it so much that I have to make it again, I think I'm addicted to the praises of my husband. How about you? Don't you love to hear it when your husband adores your cooking? Makes all the hard work worth it!
Also, if you are looking for something a little healthier, you might try my
Scrambled Egg and Veggie Breakfast.
I also posted a great tip for
Keeping Cilantro Fresh, from my brilliant mother-in-law, Joan. Thanks mom!
That's it for today, my knight in shining armor is going to be home in a few minutes so I better get that fish started! So what about you? What are you having for dinner, or what did you have last night? We can all use a little inspiration from time to time!
We are nesting around here, I know it might be a little early but better to be done and ready for the baby now then waiting until he's here! So Chris and I are building two shelving units for our bedroom to replace the two dressers in our room that hold all of the children's clothing. Well, almost all of them, and that is the problem! We need more space and those two dressers are just not cutting it! So we have built one of them and Chris will finish the other one probably this weekend. The shelves are each seven shelves high and two rows wide, which give us a total of 28 drawers! Each of the kids will have their own row of four tubs and mom and dad will have some extra space as well. I LOVE ORGANIZING!
So today I was able to get the first unit up and started organizing, but was stopped several times by unmonitored boys, fighting over toys. So I decided that was it! I told them that they could each go and pick out one small toy and that was it for the rest of the day, and I informed them that they would be working with me for the rest of the day, not to leave my side without permission. And if they fought over the one toy they did have, they would lose that privilege as well. So we went to work, it was about 10:00 am. We completely cleaned and organized my room, then onto the hallway, the bathroom, and kitchen. Stopped for a granola bar at 11:30, then onto their bedroom, and the living room. Stopped for lunch at 1:00 and they got a longer break (partly because I needed one too!) At around 2:30 the girls went to bed and I finished up some more cleaning while the boys each sat on the couch and read their story book Bibles until about 3:00. And it wasn't until then that I gave them their toys, they don't get toys while they are working, but had forgotten to ask for them during their break. Did I mention that there was hardly any arguing during the working hours? They were too distracted with their jobs and I gave them each specific jobs so they wouldn't fight over those as well. It takes more energy to keep them busy but we really get so much more done when we are all working, and I don't have to bend over so much (that's getting really difficult to do these days and the boys love knowing that they are helping me with something that's really hard for me to do. I think they get that from their dad :)
Aidan asked me, about two hours into cleaning, "are we going to work all day?" I thought he was complaining and I responded, "we'll just have to see but probably." He seemed pretty cheerful about my response. "Just like daddy works really hard all day and he stops for breaks sometimes. This must be how a little boy learns to work like a grown up man." Wow! Okay, I'm definitely going to do this more often! It's not that I don't have them work with me a lot, I do. But I think the mentality was different, they knew that they were not to do any playing until I said they could play, that was that! I guess that's how it should be all the time :) Boys need to work, that's how God wired them. If they don't learn to work at an early age, they wont be very hard workers when they are grown men.
I love the picture of Eamon studying his two Bibles in his sleep. He must be cross-referencing his two different translations ;) Well, more pictures of our progress soon. It's time for me to hit the sack!
Have you all checked out my
Homemaking Blog this week? We've been on a roll!
I started out the week by finally posting the yummy
Jambalaya Recipe that I tried several weeks ago!
Then I posted a fun pictorial of a
Pirate Ship Cake that I made for Eamon a couple years ago.
My wonderful husband did a post about
How to Chill a Bottle of Wine in Six Minutes! It was quite interesting :)
I also posted a recipe for
Alfredo Sauce which I like to consider more of a "Poor Man's Alfredo Sauce"
And once again, my husband pulled me through. He made the batter for this
Oat Waffle recipe we've been making lately, you have to try it, it's wonderful!
Don't forget, if you haven't already entered your name in the
drawing for a free 12 oz bag of coffee, do it today! I will be drawing the winner tonight at midnight, that's right, I will be up until midnight tonight but then again, it's FRIDAY! Not that that means
anything at all to the kids, they will wake just as early tomorrow morning :) Have a great weekend!
Lady is doing really well with her new babies, she seems to be a natural. I took all the babies and sat them on the ground and put Lady down there with them, with some food and water and a nice little nest area. They all seem to be very happy. Her little chicks seem to appreciate having a mama chicken, and I appreciate all her work at keeping the babies safe and warm without all the extra work of caring for them myself!
Here they all are, four cute happy babies! The kids are in love!
And this morning we were greeted with a lovely surprise, more new babies! Mama Chicken's three babies hatched as well! This picture was taken before I had brought them down below. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you will notice some long feathers sticking out of Mama Chicken's neck, those aren't hers, they belong to Gladys (one of our banties) She had decided that she should be in on the action as well and was setting underneath the mama, and on top of one of the chicks! Mama Chicken was much more patient with Gladys than I think I would have been!
Here's a close-up of Mama Chicken's little babies, aren't they so cute?! I'm so proud of my little mamas! They are doing really well. I think Mama's only problem now is her older chick that you see in the picture above, she's not really careful with the chicks and they seem to want to hang out with her. Oh well, I'm sure it will all work out. I will get some pictures up later of them all down on the ground. It's so fun watching a mother hen with her chicks!
I have a hen (Lady) who has been sitting on two unfertilized eggs for a couple months now. Of course she has no idea that they wont ever hatch, so she keeps setting, hoping that one day those little rotten eggs will produce something that she can raise!
Tonight we made her dreams come true. We went and picked up four little auracana chicks, aren't they cute?! Two of them are light colored and two are dark. We are hoping for hens but there may be some roosters in the group.
After we brought the chicks home, we put the kids to bed and then went to work to see if Lady would take these cute little babies. They are very new so that is a plus, only hatched today or yesterday. Chris took Lady outside of the coop while I got the chicks settled into her nest box. At first she didn't hear them so I picked her up and set her in the box right next to hers. Without hesitation she jumped into her box with "her" new babies as if she was saying, "they finally hatched!" They squawked for a few seconds until she got settled on top of them and then they settled right down. Chris and I are so proud of her!
Here they are, I decided I better get a close up since it's going to be much more difficult to get good pictures from here on out. Those mama's don't like us to get too close to their babies. Tomorrow our Mama Chicken should be hatching some new babies. So we will have a full house! Hopefully we will get several new hens out of our new batch. Well, I think it's time for me to get going now :) Good night!
Oh wait, I have to add that my aunt Patti's chicken, "Big Bird" is who inspired me to try this with Lady. My mom told me that my aunt Patti's Big Bird did the same thing and accepted a clutch of new babies that weren't hers, I was so proud that Lady did too. Thanks for the inspiration Big Bird :)
Today I had a great idea, I thought it was at least! I am always looking for a craft idea, that is educational and different for my kids, and ideas that are quick and easy to prepare. So I'm going to push myself to come up with a craft idea for the kids, at least once a week. Blog about them to share them with you all, and hope that it inspires someone. And in return, please share your ideas with the rest of us, either on your own blog or in the comments. I will keep a category of "Toddler Crafts" under my Homeschooling category so if you are ever drawing a blank you can look here for some ideas, please email me a link to your blog entry if you do one and I would love to include a link in my next Toddler Craft post. Anyway, that's my idea, my goal is every week but you know how that goes sometimes, even if I just do them here and there it will be lots of fun!
Today's craft was inspired by a magazine called
Above Rubies that I like to read about mothering. It's so simple and yet the boys absolutely loved it! Aidan is always trying to find things he can cut up and Eamon is just getting into wanting to do craft stuff so this was perfect. I just wrote out the alphabet for each of the boys and had them cut out the letters and paste them onto a piece of construction paper, in order. Boys especially, need purpose. This was a great way to give me a little time to prepare dinner on my own and know that they were doing something constructive.
As you can see, Eamon needed a little more guidance than he was receiving. I had planned to let them do this while I was finishing up dinner. I didn't know how Eamon would do but thought he would enjoy it anyway. I heard Eamon exclaim to me, "I'm having lots of fun mommy!" And as I listened I realized that his scissors were cutting really fast, which had to mean that he was not as "on track" as I had thought he might be. He was having a blast cutting the letters he had tediously cut into squares, into tiny little pieces. So the letters you see cut out, most of them I helped him with :) And the whole "in order" thing, is just a little boring when you are three! Oh well, like he said, he was having lots of fun. And that is what mattered most. Although I did tease the boys, and told them that if they did it wrong we would make them do it over again until they got it right. Thankfully my boys know when I'm just joking, they usually say, "you're funny mom." :)
So how about you? Have you been inspired to do any projects lately? We have been working on flags too, maybe I will do that one next. Please share your ideas, my brain could definitely use some fresh ideas! Like I said, especially ones that you can prepare on the fly, with little effort and basic supplies. Thanks for stopping by!
UPDATE:
We finished our craft today, and I let Eamon have another shot at it and Guenna got to do it too. I must say though that Guenna was much easier to help than Eamon! She was very focused and got it done quickly with very little help. Eamon on the other hand, suggested that I put all the alphabet in a row so he didn't have to search for the letters. I did this and even still he was very distracted and kept wanting to be a little more "creative." It's fun to see the differences in the kids, especially since they are all so close together. Homeschooling will be (already is) fun!
It is sooo hot today, and humid, and I'm pretty sure I don't have a fever anymore! For those of you who might be reading from say Missouri, you might think I'm a complainer! I can usually keep the house cool but today it's just plain hot out! But I'm not complaining, my plants, especially my tomatoes and peppers love the heat. So I will stop complaining and go find some water to stick my feet in to cool myself down. I managed to get the pool set up so at least my kids would be oblivious to the heat. Then they laid their towels out and "sunbathed" in the shade :) No pictures though, I wasn't feeling that good! I am thankful that I'm feeling much better today, not nearly as sick feeling just a little weak. Tomorrow I should be back to mowing the lawn for the chickens :) And which, by the way, we should be hatching some new chicks next week! We'll see how she did!
Are you a coffee drinker? Then you wont want to miss your opportunity to win a 12 oz. bag of the best coffee in the world! At my
Homemaking Blog this week I will be giving away two 12 oz. bags of coffee, generously sponsored by Fidalgo Bay Coffee. All you have to do to enter the drawing is to head over to
Fidalgo Bay's website, check out their blends and leave a comment on
THIS POST with your choice of blend! So head over today,
the giveaway starts today, August 15 and I will draw the two winners on Friday August 22, midnight PST.
This morning I woke up to a delightfully back to normal knee, no tears or breaks I'm sure! Thank you Lord! But when I stood up I realized that I was feeling awfully queazy, it was only 5:00, maybe I was just still really tired? But then when Chris woke me around 7:15, I usually make his lunch and fry up a couple eggs for him, it's been a nice routine since his job changed to delivery a couple months ago. I told him that I was feeling really sick and asked him to make his own lunch. By the time he had finished, about 7:30, all the kids were awake so he changed the girls and made a bunch of toast for the kids and that is all they got to eat until lunch, besides the water they got for themselves out of the bathroom. I laid on the couch for awhile but the kids seemed to want to cling to me on the couch, so I moved the production to our king size bed, much more room and I could get away from them a little better. I have had a fever all day, the aches, and have just felt pukey all day long.
Chris got off a little early and now he is at Fred Meyer's trying to find something for the kids to eat, we got paid today so we are out of everything, not good timing! One nice thing about being sick is that I have been laying around all day, and because I've been off my feet all day my old friends, my ankles have returned to me. I was so glad to see them today, I had thought that maybe I had lost them permanantly due to the weight gain I had found during these past 29 weeks of pregnancy during the summer. But alas, they are still there just hiding beneath a bunch of fluid, so glad to see you again! But I'm sure I wont see you again until say mid-November!
And I just have to share a funny conversation that took place on the couch this morning. Guenna was holding a little "computer" as we call it, it's actually an old pager with a little screen and buttons, looks like a tiny laptop. Guenna was trying to say computer, "com-peter, com-peter." I thought that she was doing pretty good and didn't correct her but said, "that's good Guenna." Eamon was not so easily satisfied. He said, "NO Guenna, it's not com-PETE-r, it's com-PUTE-r...like puke." You can imagine that the conversation went south after that explanation, and Guenna never did get to try to perfect her new word. What a bunch of goofy kids! I'm glad they can find joy in my sufferings :)
I have added some new recipes to my
Homemaking Blog, as well as an update on our
flourishing garden. I sure hope we can garden every year, it has been so much fun! I think that next year we would like twice the garden space so my next project will be to add another four foot section to each of my boxes, I think that will just about do it for us!
I posted a recipe for
Raspberry Scones with a Maple Glaze and a yummy recipe for
Blackberry Cobbler. The baby is really kicking right now, maybe he's craving one of those yummy desserts as much as I am! ;)
Posted in Video
|
Tagged cait, Chickens, kids, Video
|
UPDATE: I'm doing much better today. I got a knee wrap at the store last night and used that while I cleaned, then came home and iced it. This morning I woke up and it was feeling MUCH better, so I will take the next couple days to take it easy but I think I'm on the mend. Thanks for all your comments :)
My headaches have started to subside and I was starting to feel much better. After having had headaches and a very painful back for two weeks, not sure what the deal is! Yesterday I had a good day, I was in the middle of making dinner and I had sat down for a minute. When I went to stand up my left leg was slightly bent sideways and my ankle turned in a little, and when I stood I heard and felt a big "POP" sound. At first I didn't think anything of it until I started to walk and it felt like it needed to pop back into place. I figured it would just work itself out, but it didn't as the night went on it got worse and worse and by the end of the night I had decided that I better not go clean the office I clean on a weekly basis. I iced it and took some Ibuprofen and went to bed early, hoping that in the morning it would be normal again, but it still hurt pretty bad :( So, I'm sure I've strained something in there! So I've been trying to keep it up as much as possible, because I have to clean tonight for sure. I'm sure it will be fine in time but in the mean time I have to stay off my feet, again! Oh well, I guess I need it :)
We had a blast on Thursday, I took the kids to the fair! I paid for it the next couple days but it was worth it :) The kids had so much fun, and they loved tasting cotton candy for the first time! You can check out the rest of the pictures
here.
