Summertime!!!!

What have you been up to this summer??  We have been creating memories!!!!  What a great summer it's been so far!  We have worked in the garden, taken care of animals (all sorts and sizes), spent a ton of time outside enjoying the amazing weather, eaten way too many popsicles and watermelons, stayed up late (it's light until after 10pm), hung out with friends and family, had picnic lunch at the park almost every day, gone to the movies, gone bowling, done way too many art projects and basically just enjoyed the lack of schedules!

This week, Levi is at basketball camp at BYU in Utah.  Papa and Grandma drove him down and in return they brought home cousins to play with for the week!! They are having so much fun!!! 

Sunday, Sabrina and I will head out on her Senior trip!  We originally planned to go to Hawaii but that really didn't fit Sabrina's personality.  She was looking for a little more adventure.  We checked a few dude ranches but those things are spendy!!!!!!  We settled on going to Vegas, where we will spend a day going exteme ATV-ing, another day riding horses, a day walking the strip ( ya gotta do that once in your life!)  :)  And hopefully a little bit of time laying by the pool! 

When we get back, Scott will take the 14-18 year old young men from church on a Boy Scout High Adventure trip!  They are heading to Oregon to go rafting down the Deschutes!  There will be about 20 of them going and they are soooo excited!!

School starts back up the middle of August, but we still have plenty of time for more memory making before then.  At the end of August, Sabrina will leave to teach English in the Ukraine!  She has all her paperwork in, money has been paid, interviews are done, she's just waiting to go!  She will be there for 4 months, teaching children English through song, dance, art, sports, etc.!!!  What an amazing opportunity for her!  She will get back right before Christmas!  She is beyond excited, it's all she can do to watch the days tick by.  To keep her busy, she has been doing an "ABC Camp" for the youngest 4 kiddos!  They love it and it gives her something to do. 

Ok, I'm going to post a bunch of pics that show a little of what we have been up to this summer!!

 Done a lot of replanting flowers!  Thank you Copper!

 His sweet brother, Chief!  He's much bigger now!

 Savannah and the biggest 'wishelblossum' ever!!

 My baby heifer.....hasn't grown a stitch since we got her! Well, not in height anyway! I have no idea if she ever will!  She's a dwarf after all.....

 Cutest lil' cowgirls ever!!  Heading out to feed baby calves!!

 Guess who's 10!

Happy Kindergarten Graduation Day!!!

 Happy Preschool Graduation Day!

 And yet another graduation!!!!

 Yippeeeee!

 Best surprise ever....having your sister show up when you didn't know she was coming!!!!  Oh yeah!!!!

 Way to go, Sabrina!!!

 Yay for having grandparents here to join in the celebration!!

Summertime Sisters!!!!!

Just realized there are hardly any pics of the boys.....that's because after getting all their chores done in the mornings, they head over to the Rec center where they swim and play basketball all afternoon!!!! 

Hope your summer is fabulous so far!!!!

Life Around The Farm!

Haha, I just love saying that....."farm".....sigh.  Levi calls us 'wannabe's'!  I asked him how many of his friends have horses, cows, chickens, ducks, goats, dogs and cats???   None.  Now granted we don't have fields to plow and combines to drive but still....I figure anyone who has that variety of farm animals can call themselves a 'farmer'!  We're missing pigs and sheep but whose to say they won't make their way here eventually!  :)

We have been doing a ton of landscaping around this place!  Seems never ending!  Last week, we had gutters installed!  Yippee!!!!  We also had our front yard hydro-seeded!  We had 5000 sf of dirt that is now neon green (from the dye they use with the seeds) in our front yard!  Haha, I'm sure our neighbors are thinking, "Oh great!  Now what are they doing over there?"  In 3 weeks we will have grass tall enough to mow!  That will be a huge improvement over the dirt!

We are getting ready to install new 3 rail white fencing in our front pasture in the next few weeks!  I will be sure to post before and after pics of that project!  It will change the whole look of our property and I'm so excited to see the results!  Our neighbors on either side of us both have white vinyl fencing so I'm sure they will love the fact that we are replacing our old, broken down, rickety barbwire/field fencing with something a little lot nicer looking!

The animals are all growing and doing well!  My adorable dwarf heifer still looks tiny!  She barely comes up to my knee!  We have been trying to find another mini horse/donkey/mule as a companion for Spring.  We almost had a mini mule but the lady decided she wanted them (she had two) to go to a new house together and I only was interested in buying one.  Bummer.  They were wild little things!  But totally adorable!

Hmm, let's see...kiddos!  Everyone is excited to only have 17 days of school left this school year!!  Sabrina will graduate on the 18th!!!!  She is soooo excited to be done!  I remember that feeling!  Levi is still playing on his private league football team.  He is on the Varsity team but was also asked to play on the Open Team (which is the 17/18 yr. olds)!  He loves it and usually plays the entire game on both Offense and Defense!  He is one tired puppy after the game!  Tanner and Thomas are wrapping up their online school classes.  They have really become quite the buddies, spending their days together!  It has been a blessing to have them work together.  Vanessa is excited for summer break!  She loves going to work with Sabrina on her days off of school to feed calves!  She is a worker!!!!  Sabrina's boss often times throws cash her way and thanks her for all her hard work!  He is always very impressed with her work ethic!  Talisha is anxious to be a 2nd grader!  She is quite the little reader!  She often comes home with awards for her helpful attitude, good behavior or excellent work.  Savannah is excited to have her kindergarten graduation!  She reminds me so much of Sam at her age!  She is outside all the time, climbing trees, playing with puppies, creating adventure, swinging, helping a grandparent, etc.!  Isaiah and Jazz each attend 2 different preschools during the week and there are lots of end of the year festivities coming up!  They have preschool graduation at both of their preschools so we will be attending 4 different ceremonies!  Wowza!

Whew!  There ya have it!  Life is constantly busy and moving forward!  We love it that way!  Can't imagine it any other way!

Bloodhounds!

I had no idea what amazing dogs Bloodhounds are!!!  About 3 weeks ago someone posted an ad on Craigslist for puppies.  We started doing some research and were pleasantly surprised!   We love the look of a Bloodhound!  Coolest looking dog ever!!!  So we patiently waited for 3 weeks for them to be old enough to leave their Mama and finally last Monday we went to pick one out!

We went with the intentions of bringing home a little girl but ended up with a little boy, we named him Copper!  Does anyone remember the movie "The Fox and the Hound"?  Copper and Todd were buddies!  He is the best puppy ever!!  He is not a very vocal puppy, which is refreshing!  And I have never seen a dog keep his nose to the ground as much as he does!  It's hilarious to watch him scoot around the floor, sniffing everything in front of him!  He is living up to his breed, that's for sure!!  That pup can smell Kenya's food bowl a mile away and makes a beeline for it every chance he gets!!  Here are a few pics of that little cutie!

Goats!!

I realized I haven't written about our goats!  We have the cutest goats ever!!!!!  Here are a few pics!

 Girls checking out Pippy while Daddy holds her!

 Check out those ears!  Pippy was easy to name!  She reminded us of Pippy Longstocking!

 Peter!

 Aren't they the cutest??  They are Nubian's!

  Sadly, little Peter never got over being taken from his Mama and he only survived for 3 days before he died of a broken heart in my arms.  It was the saddest thing ever!  He refused to eat, we had to bottle feed him but even then, he wouldn't drink. 

 Mr. Tumnus (from the Chronicles Of Narnia)!  He is not very social....yet!  :)

 Fannie Mae lasted a few days before I found an ad on Craigslist of someone looking for a young pygmy goat.  She was the rudest thing ever!!  I have no patience for rude animals!  She would butt the others out of the way every time the food came in and any other time she felt like it!  See ya!

 This is little Frankie!  He is a Nigerian goat with beautiful blue eyes!  He is very sweet and shy!  We named him after ol' blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra!  :)

 Another shot of Mr. Tumnus!  I have never seen a carmel colored pygmy and I think he is just adorable!

Blue eyes!!



So there ya have it!  The Goats!!

Crazy, Crazy Life!!

Not being able to post from my laptop is driving me crazy!  So much to write about and so little time to do it!

We have been working like crazy around this place, trying to landscape, etc.  This past weekend we had a party to celebrate my grandmother's 92 birthday!  Knowing that we would have guests here, we wanted things to look a little better than they did.  Scott and my dad worked long hours, moving rock, creating walkways/paths, putting up fences, mixing up concrete for various projects while we women spruced up the insides! 

We had aunts, cousins, 2nd cousins, plus some of Grammy's friends from Oregon come for the party!  The weather was perfect, the kids ran and played outside with the animals, adults stayed inside where it was cool and plenty of food was eaten! 
Early Saturday morning, before the festivities had started, I was on Craigslist.....looking for any animals that might be 'calling my name' and I found one that I just had to have!!!  It was a 3 week old little black Angus heifer!!!  But here's the catch: she was a dwarf! I woke up Sabrina at 7:30 (her one day to sleep in!) and said, "I found a dwarf heifer!!!!  You have to go get her for me!!!!!"  Of course, she agreed and within minutes, she was dressed and ready to head out with Thomas and Vanessa in tow!  Here's the crazy part: she had to drive the 15 passenger van to pick her up (which she had never done AND she had to drive an hour and a half each way!  As she was driving home, she called and told me how beautiful she was.....I could hardly wait to see her!!  Sure enough, it was love at first sight!!!  I can't even believe how adorable she is!!!

She is 3/4 Angus and 1/4 Baldy Face!  She is only 3 weeks but yet she is pushing 100lbs!!  She is built like a tank!  She is the sweetest thing ever!!!  She is pretty shy right now but that's understandable.  She came from a ranch where they run 1400 head of cattle, so going out to socialize with the new babies is not high on their priority list!  They had planned on using her as a roping calf but after they saw her size, they figured they better sell her!  Never in my life have I heard of or seen  a 'dwarf' animal!!  We're not sure how much she will grow and she will probably have joint issues but we will love her and take care of her regardless!  Isn't she sweet???

Later that day, Levi had his first football game!  He plays on a private league.  After a few weeks of practice on the JV team, they asked him to play on the Varsity team!  He's a starter on Offense and Defense!  He played the entire game on Saturday, except 5 plays!  He was one tired puppy!!  But his team won!  They played a team from Oregon!  Wa-Hoooo!  Way to go Levi!!!

We finished up the day with a party that lasted 8+ hours!!!  It was so fun to see everyone!  There were lots of sunburns and tired kiddos that night!

Sabrina got asked to go to one of the local high school's prom that same night by a boy from church.  She had never actually spoken to him but he decided she was the girl he wanted to take to prom so he asked her.  She went and had a good time.  It was kind of hard to go to a formal dance with someone you don't really know, with a group of people you have never met, at a school you don't go to but she was a good sport and it worked out!

 All dressed and ready to go!!

 Normally, he's much taller than her....but she is wearing 5 inch heels!!!  Sorry Levi!!

 Ok, keep in mind the 5 inch heel thing....I'm not really that short!!

 Almost looking her daddy eye to eye!!

And off they go!!!

Well, that's all I have time for now!  More later!!  Tonight we are planting our garden.....and since Scott is the one laying it out, it's huge!!!!  Might have to open up our own Farmer's Market!!  :)

Spring Break 2012

We have been soooo busy lately!!  Can you tell?  Lack of posts would be your first clue!  Part of that is also due to the fact that my laptop no longer supports blogger......not sure what that is about, but that means I have to use one of the kid's school laptops!  And since they are usually doing schoolwork on them, I don't have many opportunities to blog.  But since it's Spring Break, look who's posting!!!  Yippee!!

A few changes in our animal world.  We got a new baby shorthorn bull.  He's soooo adorable and since he's not a jersey, he doesn't have those annoying jersey habits, like licking you to death or eating your clothing!  In fact, he only has one annoying habit: kicking.  He doesn't really mean to but if he's startled, his little leg shoots and and wa-bam!  He's as fast as lightning!!!

L

 We bought him from Sabrina's boss.  She is a ranch hand for a local cattle rancher and he buys and sells calves.  More about that later!

Isaiah was welcoming our new bull to the family, just having a few words with him!

We also had to make a hard decision to sell our Belgian.  Turns out she was a learning experience.  Sigh, those are not my favorite kinds of experiences sometimes but, yes we all learned many valuable lessons.  Mostly, honest people are hard to come by sometimes....especially in the horse world!

Turns out, our Big Mama was not going to foal in the next month or two.....because she wasn't pregnant!  First lie by the previous owner.  And, she was not a friendly horse or "super sweet"!  In fact, she hated us and only tolerated any humans if they brought her food.....and lots of it!  We took her in the round pen a few times and she actually broke out and rearranged our round pen into a rectangle pen......we had a vet come out to see if he could give us some info on her health, etc.  Because many times if a horse is in pain, etc. they can be very crabby.  She just about mowed him over twice.  He was good and very patient but his recommendation to us was to sell her as quickly as we could.  She needed a lot of training and a lot of food, which = expensive!!!

We couldn't sell her fast enough!  And we were completely honest with the new owner.  He was a big, tough cowboy that had plenty of experience. He was going to train her and sell her for a nice profit!  Good riddance!!!!

When you have a pasture full of animals, you have to deal with all the different personalities out there!  Amazing how those can affect the other animals.  Take for example our little mini, Peaches.  She had Cherokee wrapped around her finger, er um, hoof.  They stuck together and it created kind of a hazard for our other little mini, Spring.  Cherokee was not very nice to her if Peaches was nearby. She also was a little stubborn.  She was coming around slowly but we decided that if she wasn't here, the other horses would all behave differently.  We decided that we would find her a new home.  Turns out it was a great idea!  We miss her but she went to a home where she will be worked and the dynamics in the field have improved! 

Well, I was going to type more but it's lunch time and when there are this many kiddos home, I have no choice but to listen to their pleas!  :)  More later!!

Soooo Funny!!

I got a little chuckle out of this!  These are all over Facebook but not usually about something I can relate to.....this one comes close.....not totally but still funny!