Over

Christmas is over. I don't know about you, but I'm tired. I feel like I have been shopping and wrapping and cooking for a long time and I'm tired. I need to figure out a way to make this season just as fun and yummy without the stress and exhaustion. Rest would be great; "be still and know that I am God" kind of rest.

I am starting to help with the outside chores. I will be feeding calves and am helping feed the milking cows hay for a couple days while Marlys is gone. I am scared milking might be in my future. I know I said I would never do it and it has taken five years for me to even want to be this minutely involved, but it is a slippery slope and I have started on the downhill slide. I'll try to stay strong. :)

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that you are starting to think about your goals for 2009. We heard a speaker at National Milk who said that people who have goals and write them down are more successful than those who don't. Something to think about.

Today

I was in Walmart today to pick up a few of the items that I can get cheaper there than other places when yet again they aren't carrying the item that I wanted and started getting from there. What is up with that? I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. I finally find a product that I really like and then just when I am hooked I can't find it anymore. This is getting to be one of my main irritations in life.

On a brighter note, I can't believe it is almost Christmas. It seems like just yesterday I was looking forward to Kaleb's birthday. The kids love Christmas. They want to watch Christmas movies all the time, of which we only have one that I think is appropriate for them, loved helping me put up the decorations around the house, and run and yell everytime there is a Christmas tree or decorations in a store. What fun to be a child at Christmas time. Third Day has a great Christmas song about such things. Check it out if you can. The album is Christmas Offerings.

I finally got pictures developed, so here are a few.

At our 4th Annual Labor Day Bash--a costume party

Kaleb's birthday cake

Shopping

Today I took my kids shopping. My sister-in-law went with us, which was helpful. What's the big deal about that you ask? Well, while the preschool and toddler stage is fun and there is nothing better than hearing "I wuf you" and "You are the best Mommy I never had" grocery shopping is not one of those activities that is enriched with young children. Kaleb is old enough now that he does NOT want to sit in the cart. He must walk beside it, or rather run about ten feet ahead of it. Lots of "this way Kaleb" can be heard as we make our way through the aisles. Laina also doesn't want to stay in the cart. She is just as big as Kaleb, or so she thinks, and wants to walk too; only she doesn't obey very well and tends to wander off--intentionally and not--and I am searching for her all over. This is why I try everything I can to leave them home on shopping days. It often takes twice if not three times as long to get what I need when they are "helping." This puts me in a predicament though: how will they ever learn how to behave in public if I never take them into it? Perseverance is key I guess. They did a really good job at the library, which we have been going to almost as long as the grocery store.

Four

Today is Kaleb's fourth birthday. He is just slightly excited...he went over to Great Grandma & Grandpa's house at about 6:30 this morning after getting milk with Ryan to tell them it was his birthday. He has also told numerous strangers that we encountered on our errands this morning. One of the first things he did this morning is get rid of his bib. As he said, he is four now and doesn't need a bib anymore. He can just eat with his shirt. He has opened two presents so far, one after breakfast and one after lunch, but the rest will be after supper at his party. I made him a cake shaped like a car. It is red of course because that is Kaleb's favorite color. I'll try to get a picture posted of it in the near future as I'm sure you are all dying to see it.

We have been infested with flies lately. I bet I have caught over 200 little rascals in the last couple weeks. That is something people don't mention about living in the country, infestations. I'm hoping we don't have an Asian Beetle infestation this year. So far so good. Maybe the weather was too wet for them to multiply like they normally do. I sure hope so. They are worse than flies.

Questions

They never stop in life...questions that is. I always seem to have them and often times they don't really matter much. Why does a cow have six stomachs? What is the function of six stomachs? Why must the leaves of trees be green and not say red or purple? Why do spiders seem to love the space in my windows between the screen and the glass pane? What exactly is it about the Pledge duster that cuts my dusting time in half? I agree, all pretty useless but there none the same.

Then there are those questions that matter. How do I instill a sense of self in my children that will not often be hijacked? How can people actually trust our government again? What positive difference can I make in the life of someone today? How can the educational system be changed from the liberal thought factory it is today? How many "but God" passages are there in the Bible? (Okay this last one might fall into the previous paragraph, but then again when a phrase from Scripture jumps out a person there is usually a reason for it.) And just today I looked up a question I had after a commentator said they didn't think a governor had enough experience to become President of the United States. Did you know that 16 state governors have gone on to become President; including Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, FDR, Calvin Coolridge, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, the not-so-illustrous Bill Clinton, and President GW Bush. That is about 37% of our Presidents that have been governors first. Exactly what kind of experience is considered "good enough" to be President? Having been one before?

Almost August

Summer? What happened to summer? We have had a wet one and now it is "tropical," at least that is what the meterologist calls our current state of humidity. Don't really need to go somewhere exotic to experience the weather. You can find it right in your backyard.

I thought I would post a couple pictures of Laina's birthday even though it was close to two months ago. She hasn't changed that much. The first is a picture with her cake and her new baby she got from her brother. We named her Lily. She is also wearing one each of the bracelets and hats she got. The second picture is of opening presents. Kaleb was quite interested in one of her presents--a doll. Her clothes snap on and you can brush her hair. She is pretty neat. It was fun to watch Laina open gifts because every time she got something that could be worn, she put it on. Her outfit by the end of the evening was quite something.



Here is a picture of Kaleb and Laina dressed as prince and princess, respectively. Laina asks to have a blanket tied on her head and Kaleb turns his bib backwards. Sometimes they even dance together when they are in this royal world.

Not much is going on other than day-to-day living here. The sky is threatening rain yet again so we will see if Ryan and his mom ever get the hay up.

Living Life

So, last week was the finale of Farmer Wants a Wife on the CW. We are not normally into reality shows like this, where people have their hearts broken in front of thousands of people, but our interest was piqued by the title. Who wouldn't want to watch a reality show about a farmer, just a couple years younger than us I might mention, who gets to choose a wife from 10 city girls. And not city girls like I am a city girl, huge cities...Dallas, LA, Chicago, New York. My pick for him is the one he chose, so I don't have to write him nasty letters about his choice. Just kidding. You can catch some of the episodes online at www.cwtv.com, as well as see the interviews with the women. You really should check out Josie's interview. I never saw her on the show as we didn't watch all of them nor from the beginning, but she cracked me up. Definately funny.

Laina's birthday was close to a month ago and I know you might want to see pictures of that, but it takes me a little while to use a roll of film. No digital yet, but I'm confident those prices are going to come down soon. I will post some as soon as I get the film back.

I made some strawberry rhubarb jam the other day. It is really good. Both the rhubarb and the strawberries were from our garden. Our strawberry plants mass-produced this year. We had big bowlfuls everyday. They have slowed a little now, but that is okay. They will bloom again soon and we will start the process all over. If you are in the market for strawberry plants, I highly recommend going with the ever-bearing over the June-bearing. You get strawberries all summer long that way.

I recently changed my workout routine after reading the booklet The Truth About Six Pack Abs by a certified nutritionist and personal trainer. I don't desire six pack abs, but toned ones would be nice. Dude, your body is just never the same after having kids. Anyway, I'm incorporating more strength training as that burns more calories for one to two days afterwards versus the one to two hours of cardio. I have to admit that it was a little hard to walk after my first sets of squats last week, but I did them yesterday and I feel fine today. Pretty pleased with that adjustment curve.

The Bridges of Madison County

This last Saturday we went on a day trip to the bridges of Madison county. Mom was visiting and we thought it would be a fun trip. The bridges are kind of a seen one seen them all kind of thing, but a fun weekend activity anyway. Here is a picture of us in front of Hogback Bridge.

Dusting

This morning at breakfast my son, ever honest, told me that our house was dusty and I needed to clean it. I promptly replied with "Maybe you should dust it," as is my reply to anyone who tries to give me more work. He thought that was a great idea. So after he finished his breakfast and got dressed I got him a dry rag to dust with. He started at the bookshelf, dusting only the shelf at his eye level. Remarking that he was giving us a "nice clean house." His sister quickly came over to investigate what her brother was doing with a "Kaleb, what are you doing?" in Laina. He told her how he was dusting and she then wanted to dust too. I said she was too little, that dusting is for big kids. I figure I'll try the same logic as toothbrushing, make them beg to do it and then when I agree make them think it is a special treat. Pretty soon I figure I won't have to desire someone to come in and clean for me, as I will have two children chomping at the bit to do housework. Although, I will have to do a little teaching about dusting more than just those things at your eye level.

The Klompen Classic

We finished! Well, I did anyway. My running boy did a very good job. I think he was probably the youngest one running and he ran for about a block short of two miles. After the first mile and a half he said he needed to walk, but then as soon as someone ran past us--two seconds later--he would start running again because he needed to be the fastest. Here is a picture taken by Daddy from the spot where running boy left the race. I continued on to the finish, making it in about 38 minutes. Not bad, but not my best either. Next year I'll try harder to be faster.

I have found a cleaning product that has cut my dusting time in half or more. The Pledge duster works great. It has the speed of a feather duster, but the cleaning power of the spray and rag I used to use. It comes with multi-surface cleaner, but I just sprayed a little of my Pledge on the duster and went to work. So fast, so easy. A recommended product.

Yesterday I took advantage of the sunshine to plant the garden. I planted two red pepper plants, one beefsteak tomato plant, and one yellow tomato plant. Never had yellow tomatoes before, so I thought I'd try them. I'll let you know how they are. I also planted peaches and cream sweet corn and some zucchini. I wondered to myself as I was doing all this, "why do I like gardening? It is so much work." As an illustration of this, I went out to check on things today and some weeds I hoed up yesterday are already back. Good thing I really like to watch my vegetables grow. Our strawberry plants are doing excellently as well. I think we could have a good crop of those this year.

I also picked some rhubarb. Some is a little bit of an understatement as I got more than 26 cups from the amount that I picked and I could still pick some from those two plants. We still have two or three more out there that I haven't touched, but I needed a break after chopping for an hour and half on what I picked. Needless to say, if anyone wants some rhubarb let me know.

Sparked, Lost, Klompen

SPARKED through sparkpeople.com, which is a diet/healthy living website wherein I track my exercise, calories and water intake. I decided I needed to get to the bottom of my lack of weight loss even though I exercise 6 days a week, so I joined...for free. I found the problem...I eat too much. I guess that's not really all that surprising. What was surprising is just how much I eat.

LOST the Hoard's dairyman cow judging contest for the third year in a row, although this time I came in not only behind the dairyman himself, but behind the kids as well. This is all the more humiliating as my son chose the same line-up for every single class--dcba. Still higher than me. My daughter played it a little more random, but come on, she's not even two. She didn't know what she was doing. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that next year I'm not even going to look at the cows--except for the Brown Swiss because I got a 100% on those the last 2 years--next year. I just going to choose some random letter configuration and see if I can do better. Anyway, now I have to make pizza twice a week this week and for two more weeks as that was Ryan's wager. Not as bad as the last couple years of three pies, as I don't like to make pie. I think it is a mental thing because it's not like it's hard to make a pie, especially the kind Ryan likes--peach, made with a large can of peaches in heavy syrup and then you dissolve yet another cup of sugar into that. Still I just think they are too much work.

KLOMPEN. The kick-off for Tulip Time is tomorrow night with the Klompen Classic. I will be running it--well jogging really--with Kaleb. It is 3.1 miles, so we'll see if he can go for that long. I have a feeling he'll do just fine as he is really excited and he loves to run. Today he ran probably 1/2 mile to and from the library. No problem. He wasn't even breathing hard. He just may beat me. His dad and his sister are going to position themselves about half way through though just in case he can't make it any more. I'll post pictures when I get them.

Changes

Well, that is what has been happening here lately. Monday Ryan met the Smit grandparents and got the rest of the parts for the futon couch that is a hand-me-down from my sister. So, Tuesday I put that together and we hauled the dilapidated, possibly previous mouse-infested couch out. As part of our parting with the old one, Ryan tore the bottom fabric cover off to see if we lost anything in it that we couldn't live without. Guess what he found. My dad's wallet! I think it had been in there a while as the driver's license expired in 2004. Got that sent back to him yesterday. Anyway, now we have a new couch; one which Ryan thinks is great because he can stretch out almost fully to take his morning naps instead of being in the fetal position.

Yesterday we picked up a new bed for Laina. She is getting so big that her toddler bed seemed small in comparison, so we got her a twin captain's bed (one with the drawers underneath) since her room is fairly small and already is as full as I like them. She says she likes it. Currently she is taking her nap on it, so it must be bearably comfortable at least.

The final change lately is that all of a sudden last week Laina went from being understandable 5% of the time to being understandable 80% of the time seemingly in a day. Something must have clicked. It sure is fun when you can get some idea about what is going on in their head.

Trips

Ryan and I got to go to Kansas City in the middle of March for the DFA annual meeting. What a fun, and tiring, experience. Very long days. It is great to get to meet such nice people, not only in the YC program but in the coop as a whole. We are greatly looking forward to National Milk in October in Nashville.

I was home from the annual meeting for one day then the kids and I headed to Wyoming, the equality state, for one of our twice yearly long visits with family. We dyed Easter eggs, which was a first for the kids. They seemed to enjoy it. I thought it would be interesting to see how the kids have changed from one year to the next, so the 2007 Easter picture is on the left and 2008 is on the right. The picture of egg-dying with cousins, minus 3, is below. I don't know where two of them were and the other is only a couple months old.

During our visit Kaleb finally decided to be potty trained, after 6 long months. I have tried to think back on what we changed in our handling of the situation that could have made him finally get it, but I don't think there was anything. Something finally just clicked for him. We are VERY thankful for that to be over. I think it was a little like being a teenager. He wanted to be a big boy, but then again he didn't.

Funny story, we are getting my sister's old futon for a couch because our current couch has had mice in it, love living in the country, and I just can't stand that to be in the house. Anyway, my parents brought the frame to my grandparents' house in December with the intention that I would go up there to pick it up. It never worked out for me to do so, and because we weren't going home from Wyoming through there (we took a southern route) we picked up what we could fit on our way back to Wyoming. The poor thing made a useless trip, which my Grandpa and Dad were quick to point out. :)

It's Been a While

I can't really say I have been overly busy, although I never lack for something to do and quite often lately find myself back in college mode where there was always something looming ahead that needed to get done. The real reason it's been a while is that I didn't have any pictures developed to post. I know when I read other's blogs I enjoy the pictures the most, so after quite a few postings without pictures I just stopped altogether. I have developed pictures, so here some are. The first is from Decemberish when the kids built a snowman. They were really into that this year. I think a little boy is going to be getting a snowman kit for his birthday this year.

Next we have a picture from one of our ice storms this winter. It has been a true winter this year. Lots of cold, lots of snow, and lots of hot chocolate have amplified the snuggliness winter usually brings anyway. I can hardly believe it is almost Spring already.

Finally we have a couple pictures

of the kids. Grandma Gayla was kind enough to teach Kaleb how to stand on his head on the couch and here he is showing his ability to do so. Laina is sporting a onesie hat while sitting on a little chair in her room reading a book. The girl has a thing for hats. I don't know that a onesie is the most flattering choice, but whatever she can find she'll use.

Hiding

So today I put the kids down for their naps, late so that hopefully there would be no fussing. Unfortunately, Laina took a cat nap before lunch and was not in the mood to take another. After numerous times of putting her back in her bed, I yet again made my way up the stairs. Only she was no where to be seen, but I could hear her move and breathe (she has a bit of a cold still). So I go into her room and look around nonchalantly, trying to throw the little girl under her bed off her game by acting like I didn't know where she was. After a few seconds of this, I quick bend over expecting to see her little self laying on the floor. Instead no one was there. Now like most parents a quick fear ran through my heart because I didn't know where she was. I say quick because as I glance up a little, I see her hiding behind the door. What a stinker!

New word, new song

Our little girl has learned a new word in the last couple days, "choc". Guess what that means. :) She had her shots and her check up last week. She weathered the shots well, all three of them. Her brother was concerned about this shot business as he didn't want her "to be killed." Too many John Wayne movies for him. However, she was nervous at the doctor's office as the last time we undressed her in public, three days before, pain was involved. She is in the 95th percentile in height and head size and the 80th for weight. She is a tall one.

Our little boy learned a new song last week, "I'm in the Lord's Army." He sings right along with Mommy and even does some of the hand gestures. He has a little difficulty with the salute, but with a little more practice I'm sure he'll get it down. Last night he even sang it for Grandpa on the phone. He was very impressed.

I have been studying the Holy Spirit for a class we will be leading next month. It is so exciting how much God reveals to us in His Word and how the same passage can be given greater meaning when you really dig into it. I am going to be working more intently upon the difference between being indwelt and filled with/come upon shortly and expect God to reveal more truths about Himself through that.

Caucusing

Last night was the caucus. What a different scene than the primaries, where you vote just like in the November elections. The caucus for the Republicans here in town brought out around 1,000 people (about 1/10 of the population). I don't know how the Democrat's caucus went, but assume theirs was also well attended. Anyway, they switched venues because of anticipated crowds and there was still standing room only in the gym. We arrived on time but didn't get into the caucus site until about an hour and a half later, so we missed some of the speakers. I had a list of the 20 things I like about Fred Thompson ready to go just in case I would have to speak on his behalf, but thankfully they had someone ready to go. I guess this was the largest turn-out remembered, due in part I'm sure to the number of good candidates vying for office. I was struck with the beauty of the whole thing, as I had just earlier in the day been reading Voice of the Martyrs' stories of people who aren't even allowed to practice their own religious convictions without threat of persecution; forget the opportunity to voice their opinions about who should run their country next. We truly are blessed. Hope you have a great day!