It's Been Beautiful Here

I have been busily taking pictures of everything I set my eyes on (for those of you that know me this is no surprise to you lol)  I am still so happy with my camera and take it everywhere with me.  So here are some new picture updates :)  I hope you enjoy them.

Mr. A and Monkey love their swing set.  The hose on the ground goes down to the horses so no one has to lug the buckets up and down.  We need to relocate it out from under the swing though so no one trips.  You love Monkey's mop?  He needs another hair cut it's starting to go curly again.

Pumpkin learned how to make the glider go all by himself he was so excited.

This is a bunny my sister saved from the cat.  It didn't make it :( can you see how small he was?  He was so cute we really hoped he would live he didn't seem to have to many injuries sometimes I hate cats.

Aren't these birds beautiful?  I caught them feeding something in the little holes in our roof.  I can't wait to see the babies :)  I love the zoom on my lens :)

This is out our front window.  You can only see the mountain on really clear days.

Some more mountains out our front window that are only visible on clear days

A pretty sunset.

My handsome Monkey while we waited for Mr. A at opening day for Little League.

He found himself a pine cone he said he'd keep it forever but forgot it in the back of our friends van when we snacked with them lol he was very upset when he remembered.

A close up of Monkey.  He really needs a haircut lol.

Monkey loves bugs.  He even kissed a millipede.  Here is his worm friend that started to not look so well so told him to go put him back.  Monkey cried for awhile he wanted to keep him forever.  I found him a Roley poly instead.

Here is his Roley poly.  He was so excited that it rolled into a ball he wanted to see if it would roll on the table.

It does not roll on the table lol.  It crawls.  He picked it up and it rolled right down his hand and onto the ground never to be seen again although he made us search for a long time.  I'd post more pictures of Little League but I realized all of the ones of Mr. A have another persons child in them so I can't post them.  This one below is as close as I could get.  I have no idea what he's doing with his neck lol.

On the ride home from Little League we saw this beautiful waterfall.

Isn't this beautiful another sunset here.

Same sunset

This is a sunrise here. Yes can you believe it I actually got up before the sun!  hehe

Same sunrise.

Same sunrise zoomed out

Pumpkin riding Bailee this morning

Pumpkin you got Big Al?  Hehe how well do you think he's got him?  He is still so thin since we got him but he is looking so much better and his wounds have healed so they are now starting to saddle and ride him.  He is so happy as an ex-racehorse to be running again and he doesn't spook at all.

Mr A has Bailee.  That's my sister brushing her down.  Bailee looks so much better since we got her too.

It's a man's job someone has to do it.  Good going Mr A put it in the compost like we learned.

Pumpkins got Pneumonia he got tired out quick so we brought him in for a nap.

I just thought this old barn looking interesting

This is our drive into town pretty isn't it?

Some more pictures of our drive.

I love this wall

Isn't it neat looking.

Nice sign next to the crumbly wall lol.

More pictures from the drive it was a beautiful day.

Can you believe how green this grass is?  It looked like a coloring picture.

I just thought this one was interesting.

Well that's what has been going on here.  I really hope Pumpkin gets better soon he hasn't eaten much of anything in six days now.  I did get him to eat half a bagel this morning with cream cheese yeay.  I have been measuring how much he's drinking and he's only had about six ounces of water today so I hope to get some more in him.  He's a stubborn one.  I hope you are all doing well out there.  Have a great day :)

Put him in a straight jacket and Then Give him an Enema

So as I have mentioned before our horse has been having problems.  He was rolling around and acting strange also so we called in a vet and he came last night around 6 or 7 to give our horse an enema of sorts.  He gave him a tranquilizer and then put his hand up Big Al's butt (yes he had gloves on lol) and confirmed his hard poop.  So he need to have a tube up his nose and then the horse equivalent to puke came out of the tube and then he pumped water into his stomach along with the horse equivalent to Gatorade and something to help get him going again.  He then gave him a shot to help with pain and voila it was over.  So some other problems we need to have checked out is he needs his teeth filed down and he needs to have his hay increased and his grains decreased apparently it's better if they are just on grass hay.  He told us to not give a horse alfalfa here in CA I'm not sure why but that's fine by us and luckily we haven't been.  He also checked out a wound that he came with it's right on his back on his bone where the horn of a saddle rests and said that it's looking OK but if it doesn't heal up in four weeks to bring him in for x-rays  Apparently if it isn't closing up he could have an infection in his bones yikes so keep him in your prayers!   So now today our horse is doing alright and he is returning to normal....bowel movements so yeay.  I could have shown you lovely pictures if I had a camera lol I'm sure your all very happy about it right now lol.

After the horse hubby went with his brother to stay up there for the night and he took the older two boys with him so it's just us girls, Bren, and Nate...poor Nate hehe.  My time has been spent trying to read all the blog posts I've been slacking on.  I am following a ton of  blogs but for awhile I was busy and didn't read them so I got gulp....517 blog posts behind!!!  I'm now below 500 but now by much.  I would stop reading them but it's all so much fun.  It's like sitting with my friends and a cup of tea (I don't drink coffee) and chatting I love it.  However if it doesn't start going faster I'm going to just have google reader start the count down over!

I had a great time at my friends house on Friday we stayed there all day!  I love to watch our children play together it's very refreshing since they all get along. 

I hope your having a great day :)

Roses and Horses

A rose from our garden

Ahhh the sunshine was so nice yesterday.  I began with a sweater on as my mother and I began hacking into the roses, we want them to be shorter and less bushy so we have been trimming them a lot, and a little into it the sun warmed me up so well I was down to my t-shirt.  Note to self-do not wear t-shirts to trim rose bushes ouch.  We found some interesting things in the rose bushes.  Mixed with two of them was an old dead tree.  We trimmed the bushes back and then worked the rotting tree out and staked the bushes up they look so much better now!  I checked on my sis's compost and found lots of worms gross and yet yeay!  This however is where I  got upset.  I broke my camera!  I was stirring up the compost to see what was in there and the stick barely tapped my camera sceen and it cracked!  I am so upset.  I am so careful with my camera it is really small yet I keep it in a big cushioned hard carrying case and I only take it out for a few pictures and put it right back but yesterday I was thinking that I really should take more pictures to put on my blog so that I can show you more than tell you what is going on and what I am seeing.  So here I am in big time regret at my thinking.  I have decided that my next camera is going to have to have a back that can close.  my mothers has a screen but you can twist the back and it closes.  That is what I am going to have to go with as this is my second ruined camera.  Wait what?  You might be asking.  Well this is why I was so careful with my camera you see I was at a parade and set my purse next to and kind of under my chair and yet somehow someone managed to step on the screen.  I was very upset and yet had no one to blame but myself for putting my purse on the ground (that was probably disgusting to boot!) so I pouted and got this camera that is now broken too.  So no more pictures for a little while this is where I yet again insert my plea for tax time to come soon as everything is breaking around me lol.               

                                                   A nasty critter by a rose bush

                                                                                                       This is a picture of Baylee

Big Al our new horse was lying down a lot yesterday which I hear is not normal for them so we have been asking around.  We have gotten a list of possible things that could be wrong with him and no assurance that its probablu nothing so we will have to have him checked out.  So the list is that he could be grinding his teeth so much that they are no longer able to chew his food properly so he needs to have them filed down, he could have worms, he could have a blockage of some sort, and he could be stiff.  So lots of fun stuff right?  Our other horse, Bailee, is doing fine her winter coat is nice and thick she looks so fluffy.  Big Al is looking better on that end he finally has a winter coat coming in.  He is still really thin though so my mother got him some horse thickener.  They are telling us that quarter horses are really hard to keep the weight on especially in the winter.  So he now gets three flakes of hay a day, grains with vegetable oil and the thickener.  Hopefully that helps him gain weight and we will be trying the wormer on him also.  The goats are doing fine also.  The baby goat got in Bailee's way (he was trying to eat her hay) and she rolled him with her head and kicked at him he limped for a minute but then seemed fine after that.  She has been getting an attitude since we got Big Al but I think that it's getting better now that he has been here for a little bit.  The chickens are loving the bugs that have been creeping out the past few days with the sunshine.  They are put away at night and then during the day they freely roam about the yard which is usually fine unless they get on the porch and poop all over it then we shoo them away and have to deal with a mess.  I wonder if there is a way to keep them off of it with out hurting them or leaving them locked up I might have to google that one later.

                                                               Momma Goat

Some of our Chickens

I think I have found a spot for my garden I just need to get all the supplies now and get it going soon.

Today hubby and I had a mandatory appointment to go to and we had to pick my sister up at the airport as she just got home from Seattle so we did not get to go into the doctors we are hoping that my mother will let us use her car to go tomorrow.  Bri needs to go in and get his medicines changed around and Bren needs his eyes checked.  We need to make the all the boys an appointment of some sort within the next few days.  Aidan needs to see a dentist for his new teeth that are coming in (his adult teeth) and he also needs to be seen by an eye doctor.  Bren needs to see someone for his eye and get shots (oh joy right).  Oen actually doesn't need anything that I can remember suddenly although I would like to get the boys all tested for food allergies since they seem to have reactions to different things.  I hear that they don't like to test them all that much unless it's severe but I don't know what constituets severe for them.  Oen breaks out in body hives, Aidan vomits, and Bren breaks out in rashes here and there.  So to me they are enough that I would like to keep them away from the foods as much as possible.  I know that for Aidan it's barley he gets sick within a very short time, Oen I'm not so sure he had a mixed fruit and he really broke out but I can't figure out which one he was allergic to, Bren is more like everything seems to give him a rash mostly on his face so we will see.

And thats all for today we didn't do that much yesterday was really the best day since we also cleaned up the yard had a sword fight with the foam swords and my brothers used their sticks and homemade wooden sheilds against each other.  They also got out their bows and arrows for a little target practice.  Bri shot some B-ball and Bren tried it was quite comical.  Such a nice day.  Well I hope your doing well have a good night and a great day tomorrow :)

Working at it

Recent things have not been very exciting whats new right lol.  So the camper we are living in is apparently leaking up by our bed oh joy some things got ruined but at least we realized it quickly and not when we were covered up to our eyeballs in mold.  The little bit of mold that we did find we kills with a steam cleaner, lysol and bleach. 

I have been going for walks almost everyday since the 31st of December.  I have missed only three days and decided that Saturdays and Sundays are going to be my days off.  They say that you need to take some off so that your muscles have time to repair themselves so I now have an excuse lol.  I began wearing a pedometer this week.  My first day I logged a little over 5000 steps, second day was 4897 steps, and now today I have no clue...why?  Because my pedometer reset itself twice.  I know that it was almost 5000 steps then it reset then I had another 500 something steps and it reset then I walked another 25 steps realized it and took the darn thing off.  So Tomorrow I will retry it and hopefully it will be in a better spot so that it will not reset or I will be throwing the thing across the room.  If it goes back to working I will be recording the steps I take everyday in order to see how much moving I am actually doing.  Did you know that you are suppose to walk 10000 steps a day?  I am a little behind even though I have been going for my walk.  I am begining to think that I would need a job outside of the home to gain that many steps seeing as how normal household stuff and parenting are not getting me enough steps.  Or there is the other possibily that I still need to do more around the house and maybe go outside with the kids once in awhile...yes I do not like to go outside...it's cold and dirty lol. 

Today I did go out and feed the horses some peppermint horse treats which they loved the goats did not like them so more for the horses lol.  Big Al is a little mad at us right now we haven't had him long at all so he is still building trust with us.  The reason he is mad is because he had a sore from his blanket rubbing on his backbone where the horn of a saddle would sit and so Jolene put some iodine on it.  He did not like it at all.  Its going to be a while before anyone gets to ride him so he can let that heal and gain some more trust with us.  As for the blanket it won't be going back on him for a while.  It's interesting how he does not have a winter coat where as Bailee has a huge coat and looks really shaggy and warm.  We are hoping that with out the blanket he will develop a coat but I'm not sure if it's the type of horse he is or the fact of where he was living and having a blanket on all the time while there.  Either way we will see.

Brian is going to school he is begining his second week and just received one of his programs from the school today so hopefully tomorrow he can play around with it a bit.  I am happy for him he is working toward his dream job.  The schooling is stressful so far and with him being ill so I hope he can keep it up.

As a last note we all have a cold here in some state of entry or recovery so we have been going through tissues like mad I wonder if we should do a study of where all that mucous comes from Aidan might find it interesting as I gag yuck.  Homeschooling is going well we are not good about doing math as we are really bored with our Saxon curriculum but have been encouraged to keep at it because it gets better...the year however is half over and we are barely into the book because it is so boring.  I know that it works for some families but for us it's not moving fast enough and has a lot of extras that we don't need so I have to read through the teachers book subtracts a lot of dialogue since it is scripted and then finally we can begin and then we are only using a little bit of the lesson.  So I will not be using it next year if anyone has any ideas of what would be a good math subtitute for first grade or knows of some great curriculum let me know please!
I am also looking for a new Character building lesson book.  I really want to build good character into my sons so that they can be men of real worth.  He is reading now woot!  woot!  It's about time.  He still has a long way to go but I am so pleased with the progress we tried reading last year at it was like pulling teeth.  We are liking the new books we have.

Thats about it for now :)

Hope you are having a great week!!