@ The Animal House

working on a new blog

2011-04-06T17:40:00.001-07:00

yesterday we finally went to the county office and got an assumed name, and with that assumed name I have begun a new blog strictly for business related matters. I will still use this blog but more on a personal basis

anyhow, in case anyone is interested the new blog is http://thefamfarm.blogspot.com/ I still have no entries on it as of right now but am working on adding pics and such so hopefully it will be up and fully running by the time the babies get here next week.

as for now, going to add a few new photos to it and then going to go to bed early, tomorrow we are having a huge yard sale and I want to be well rested for it

the tortoise twin's spotlight

2011-04-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

now, I know, I heave definitely waited till the last possible minute to spotlight these 2 and I feel bad but luckily I did because yesterday I thought I noticed it and today it was in fact confirmed, check out the pics to see what I am so excited about

look at those adorable ears--all flopping side to side
I do believe the boys ears flop a bit more than the girls, but aren't they just precious.
in this shot you can notice just how fuzzy they are...again, the boy seems a pinch more fuzzy than the girl, but then again as I was checking again to see which one was boy and which one was girl I realized up till today we thought the girl was in fact the boy and the boy to be a girl, so I will definitely be re-checking before they go to their new homes to make sure we get it right
they were really enjoying sitting there, so much they didn't even notice that they could have fun off had they wanted to
and there is the little girl popping up to say 'thanks for the delicious treats'--look at thos beautiful eyes!!!!!

Guess what we got....

2011-04-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

after spending an entire day on the phone and googling like mad, checking out and e-mailing breeder after breeder I almost gave up hope, but then came my flicker of light, and luckily I was able to find a ride out to Canton early the next morning cause as we frantically ran through the dog alley we found them....

now I know, these bunnies look like normal bunnies so I am sure ya'll are wondering 'so what is the big deal?' someone else might pull ask 'Don't you already have 2 red eyed whites?' and if your anything like my friend Jen you might just be thinking 'she has officially lost it, why in the world would she want anymore bunnies?!?!? she already has 6 adults with 7 babies....'

now sadly we haven't decided on any official names, we have been so busy trying to get their new houses built and providing them with a permanent place to live we haven't had much time to talk about it. I was thinking of calling little miss Fawn above Bambi (since a fawn is a baby dear) but nothing is official yet and bamb is kind of a boys name, so who knows.
there little one here is 15 days pregnant, so we figured we better hurry up and get them settled in before she has a chance to deliver. I did forget to ask how old she is but after making 3 trips from the car and around dog alley I wasn't about to run back to find out, luckily I got the number of the guy who sold her to me and hopefully he will know.
so what is so incredibly special about these 2 new bunnies, with Even looking around trying to figure out what all the fuss is you would only imagine that these little girls are something to make such a big fuss about, but guess what...
they aren't that little, in fact, they are Flemish Giants--yes, GIANTS!!!! That is a laundry bucket that we purchased from Sam's club
some of you might recognize the brand and know how big it is, compared to our little miss momma you it's size can be deceiving--so in case you still don't believe me I took a few more pictures...
I don't know what I keep calling them little, that piece of paper is 9 inches long--and yes, she is not at all 'stretched out'
I know this isn't exactly the best photo but I wanted to give you an idea of how 'wide' they are--yes, that is the same 9 inch paper
oh and there is the picture of her 'somewhat' stretched out, she started to unstretch when I took it, and yes, that pice of paper has a 9 inch ruler on it...now do you believe me? and now do you understand why I am so excited? I am sure there is a place somewhere out there where these bunnies are so common that me being able to find 3 seems like no big deal, but thanks to their size (they can get as big as 25 lbs) they don't tolerate the heat very well and since Texas gets so hot it is hard to find not only a breeder but someone selling them during this time of the year, so yes, I am beyond excited and I truly can't wait to see the babies our lovely Red Eye White is about to have--wish us luck!!!!! (and no, this isn't an April fools joke)

Skiddish

2011-03-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

the other day a friend asked me 'how do you tell them all apart' I told her I definitely had to design a flow chart cause as we get more bunnies keeping track of who is related to who might become harder than it currently is, but I guess coming from a LARGE family makes it a little bit easier for me to remember who is related to who--heaven knows I have had lots of practice when it came to real humans so bunnies should be a breeze--unfortunately tonight I realized as I was downloading these pictures that maybe I should get on that flow chart stat

Granted, pictures are a bit harder to tell differences in then when I am out playing with and feeding the bunnies. Like when I saw this black bunny in the picture I thought 'this must be Black Beauty' unfortunately it wasn't until I notice the 2 water feeders in the pen that I realized I was truly mistaken and this is in fact Skiddish.
We have owned Skiddish for 2 years now, we got her from Atwoods to be a friend to our first bunny rabbit (whom we no longer have, she got out of the garden and was chased off by the kids in the neighborhood who didn't know she belonged to us) Skiddish was one of the bunnies that lived in our Bathroom, and as much as I thought that would be an OK place for them to chill till daddy built the hutch boy was I mistake, Dominic would go in every morning and chase those bunnies till they were scared to death, I always got on him for it but he definitely didn't make their lives easy--and for that point Skiddish tends to be a bit stand offish. She loves daddy though and he was always able to calm that poor little heart of hers down, but that is how she got her name Skiddish--cause she is so skittish

now, when we bought skiddish we were told she was a he and we thought that forever, then we finally flippered her over and compared her to our other female, they looked a like, so we assumed she was a she, then about 9 months later some one else flipped her over and told us she was a boy, so we went looking for another female to breed and luckily we found one with a male cause to my suprise the other day I finally flipped her over (now that I know a bit more about figuring out if they are girls or boys) and sure enough she is a she....
a she that has never had babies, ofcourse we discovered she was a she after we stuck her in the cage with a boy so we figured why not see if she can have babies (she has never had babies before but she is still at an acceptable breeding age) and so in 3 more weeks I guess we will see.

The Girls a

2011-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Eve delivered a surprise litter the day after we bought her, which just happened to be Thanksgiving Day--I remember it so well, I was walking out to give the bunnies scraps from the dinner I was preparing when I noticed she had pulled a bunch of her hair out, concerned cause I thought she was freaking out from the move I did some more investigating and notice the babies, I was so shocked I screamed--yes, truly screamed--for joy.

because it was so cold and a cold went through our house we ended up losing all the babies but 3, we did sell their brother but decided to keep the girls. We named them Black Beauty and snow white, bet you can't guess which one is which.
in case you couldn't figure it out I thought I would just tell you. This is snow white, we actually puchased Mr Prince to be her mate, and thought we could breed Black Beauty to skiddish, until we discovered skiddish was a girl--good thing we had already purchased prince, but I will tell you about him in another post.
see that lovely little patch of hair Snow white has got, black beauty have a little extra hair as well, they have a lot back by the hind legs as well, I did brush it out once but they seem to do a pretty decent job keeping it clean now
and this is black beauty, she is a little camera shy, but oh so pretty
Luckily Snow white has no problems posing for a decent shot, showing off all her lovely locks, unfortunately you don't get to see her lovely Red eyes--and yes, she is a Red Eyed White, also known as an Albino (when it comes to other species) and we love both our girls oh so much.

Prince

2011-03-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

Now I have to admit, on new years day when we ventured on over to Canton as a family I was so excited to see the flea market I had been hearing about for so long, but I didn't plan on actually buying anything--luckily I was carrying my check book that day (only cause I had been using it for other things that week and hadn't taken it out of my purse, I promise, I truly didn't plan on buying anything)

but how could I pass this little guy up. Now the lady I brought him from was very helpful, she tole me he was a mini-Rex and that he was born in October, I am sure she gave me an exact date but I don't remember it right this minute, I was just so excited to find a Red Eyed White that was about the same age and sweet Snow White, so I excitedly wrote her a check and carried him off--litterally, I shoved him in my sweetshirt to keep him warm and off we went, Luckily my loving husband was wise enough to pick up a box to put him in for the ride home, but I did carry him through all the booths and even into the bathrooms (but don't worry I didn't put him fown or use the bathroom myself with him, I was in their with little K so she could go)
we actually named him Prince because we purchase him for the sole purpose of breeding him with Snow White, and so after drastically searching for the name of snow Whites Prince I was very disappointed to know that he never had a name, they just called him prince, and so from that point on Prince was called Prince. now that we have discovered that skiddish (who we intended to breed black Beauty to) is infact a girl though we have decided that unless we find a black mini-rex we will be breeding Black Beauty to Prince as well--and I am almost excited to see what color patterns they produce

She may be the newest critter, but....

2011-03-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

Even though I have been very good at changing Tulips litter and cleaning out her cage and doing my best to take on all the responsibilities she came with I was shocked to find out tonight that she still can be extra weight on John's shoulders

but then again with a face that cute--he didn't mind one bit (he was just happy he didn't get poked)
tonight Tulip was the most active we have ever seen her, she spent about 30 or more minutes climbing all over us, it was so fun to finally be able to see her roam and investigate, since the move she has been a bit moody and today has made it all worth while
but then again she is an extra weight on my shoulders as well
now if only she would get off my back--I know I hadn't cleaned out her cage yet but it seriously hasn't been 'that long' but she has a point so I guess I better get on that

Adam=father of many

2011-03-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

First off, one should note, Adam wasn't named Adam because we liked the name (don't get me wrong, we do love that name) but because we purchased him as a breeding pair with Eve--and we figured since they would be the first parents to actually conceive and deliver babies that Adam and Eve fit, little did we realize Eve not just pregnant when we bought her but would deliver the babies the next day--which only confirmed that we had picked the right names for them

unfortunately this is the first time we have actually tried to take 'real' pictures of Adam--turns out, he is camera shy
don't get him wrong, he is actually a cuddly teddy bear, he just isn't happy that I am taking his picture so he seems to be giving me the stink eye as to tell me 'get that Camera out of my face'
luckily he warmed up a bit. Adam is definitely a wonderful father. with our first litter we hadn't planned on it's sudden arrival and so space was definitely limited and we didn't have much choice as to who would be where we were just happy to have a cage for each rabbit, but since we were able to plan out the 2nd batch a little bit better I made it a point to keep Even in a Cage next to Adam to see how they would do after the babies were born, many a times I would go out to find the two nuzzling each others noses through the cage wires. Often Adam would lay down with his back against eve's cage and she would lay up next to him--I could definitely tell he was concerned about her welfare and wanted to as much emotional support as possible which just tore my heart apart that I couldn't put them together in the cage (out of fear he might get too excited and impregnate her before she was ready for another set of babies).

like I said before, Adam might act all big and bad and tough, but when it comes down to it, he is just a sappy bunny who wants to make sure his mate is taken care of. I have to admit, it astonished me when I caught him nuzzling the nose of one of his 2 week old babies through the cage wire--yep, definitely glad we got such a great daddy

snowball, our little Red Eyed White

2011-03-26T19:01:00.000-07:00

this little one is not only curious--she was hungry, trust me, she isn't being shy, she is trying to eat a clover

I moved her a bit and she is now looking at me like 'why did you do that, I was enjoying that clover' oddly she never noticed the 6 others I stuck her right in front of her.
Red eyed whites are most often referred to as Albinos, and isn't she just lovely
I don't know why I find her so mesmerizing--she is truly a doll though, look at her all nestled up just sitting and looking and taking in her surroundings, I could sit and stare at this picture all day, unfortunately my schedule does not allow for that, so off I shall go now, but if you want to sit and look a bit longer feel free to.......if you like her that much you might want to reserve her now before someone else gets her first, just saying, as rare as Red Eyed Whites are, chances are she is going to go fast

I think we will call her JR

2011-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

Cause part of me truly think when she grows up she is going to look a lot like her father
luckily I had my husband to help me take these photos--she is so curious had he not been there to help carol her she might have actually gotten away, luckily she didn't mind us not letting her run free to see her suroundings
she did sit rather still for this picture--I just wish I had a better camera so we didn't have to wait till it was dark cause as beautiful as she is in this picture she is so much cuter in real life!!!!

Mr. Charcoal

2011-03-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

I think the hardest part about these babies is knowing that we just don't have the room or means to keep them all, but we know with easter just around the corner we will be able to find loving homes for each and every one of them.
Now this guy doesn't want to be shoved in an easter basket to surprise a kid on easter day and then shoved into a cage in the backyard never to be though of again--he wants to be loved on and cuddled, he wants a home where he can sit in your lap while you feed him some celery (oddly our bunnies prefer celery over carrots), and he wants to know that he is not forgotten.
I have to say, this guy is special. With 2 spotted patterned parents and most his siblings patterned I find it impressive that he is all one color, and such a studly color such as charcoal--yes, this is your prince in shining armor, and he will sweep you off with not only his stunning good looks but also his precious little eyes.
I believe, of all our animals, bunnies are definitely the easiest. If I was going to compare them to a 'regular' household pet I would think cat, but without the dander, although they are way more impressive than cats (in my honest opinion). This little guy is working on his litter box skills so that he can continue his training in his new home with his new parents. Unlike cats litter boxes when using the right kind of litter you can empty a bunnies litter box into the compost bin or even directly into your garden--bunny poop is one of the few that won't burn your plants. they are easy to please, and very entertaining (just give him a toilet paper roll and I am sure he can entertain you for hours--or until the roll is destroyed ) oddly enough bunnies are not that expensive, you can get large bags of their feed for less than $10 at pretty much any feed store. Yes, i would say bunnies are pretty easy pets, but don't take my word for it--google it and see what others have to say.......

Sexing the baby bunnies (3/23/2011)

2011-03-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

incase you don't know what I am talking about, don't worry, this does not contain adult content--I am talking about the process in which we try and determine whether the bunnies are girls or boys. Now the bunnies are a day off from being 3 weeks old so the tally may change in the next week or so but so far we believe we have: (drum roll please)

this pic was taken when they were 10 days old, but it is sadly the most recent pic of I have our little red eyed white baby, also known as an albino, we refer to her as snow call--and yes, we think she is a girl
this pic is to show the grey and white bunny who is at the bottom of the doggy pile so you can't really see her--but she is a believed to be a girl as well--yippee, she will probably have similar colors as her father (adam) I will definitely be posting a better picture when I spotlight her later.

now if you want a lovely jellybean but only wanted a boy or a girl--you are in luck, we have 1 of each, unfortunately, that means only one is a boy and one is a girl and so if they go as a pair they would either need to be fixed or kept in separate cages so they don't have inbred babies--but they are still so precious and I know whoever gets them will love them (whether they get them as a set or an individual bunny)

and yes, the twins are also 1 boy and 1 girl so the same goes for them--I just love to sit and stare at their color patterns, I can't tell the 2 of them apart for the life of me (so I made sure to mark which one was the boy in his ear so I could remember)--I will be spotlighting them in the next couple of days as well cause they are just so cuddly.
and Mr Charcoal, last but definitely not least, appeared to be all male tonight. look at that handsome face he has, I just want to kiss him all over, that curious little guy he is.

My Jelly beans!!! (boy and girl)

2011-03-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

first off I have to say all bunnies are beautiful, but, I love this 'color pattern' cause it makes me think of a bag full of jellybeans which makes me believe these 2 little darlings are going to be a perfect easter surprise. reserve them now, they are going to go quick!!!

Born on Thursday March 3rd of 2011, we originally thought we had 8 babies but later discovered I counted wrong and there was only 7--all beautiful of course. We haven't had any of them sexed yet, I keep trying but still don't have that skill down cause as far as I can tell they are all either boys or girls--hence why I want them to be determined by someone else (they were sexed today and we think they are boy and girl, but we will recheck them as they continue to get older)

these 2 are definitely curious, and brave, they would make the perfect indoor litter box trained bunnies that you could just cuddle up to and watch a movie. I just can't get over their color pattern!!!!

(these are of course only 2 of the 7 so I will be posting more pics later)

new wards....new responsibilites

2011-03-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

so, a few weeks ago 1/2 our stake got together in our new stake center and it was announced our ward boundaries were being redone....which resulted in us not only having a new ward to meet with but we would be meeting them in a new building....(wish I had a pic to put here, but alas, i don't)....and boy is the chapel tiny....but nice.....anyhow, we definitely don't mind the new ward and a lot of people from our old ward are still with us so that is nice...meeting new faces in new places can be scary but also nice.....we were surprised that with all the callings that needed to be filled we hadn't yet got one.....until Tuesday night when I got the 'dreaded call' from our new bishop....unfortunately John works evenings so we couldn't meet with him on Wednesday night like he wanted, we had to wait till Sunday after church

AFTER CHURCH? I thought I was going to die from anticipation waiting that long.....well, now it is your turn....you shall wait till next Sunday after church to find out just what he wanted to talk to us about....hope you enjoy suspense...oh and it is good

human or animal?

2011-03-19T21:55:00.000-07:00

I know it is always best to help your child learn by asking them easy questions about things, like is the stove hot or cold? is the clouds up or down? is the car a person or an object? is the dog a person or an object? and this is probably why little D might get that question wrong....
cause obvoiusly our dogs are still in denial that they are canine and not human....
and yes, red is giving me the stink eye because I asked him for my pillow....MY PILLOW!!!!!

Never fear.....

2011-03-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

Red is here!!! He can fetch. He can chase. He can even lick your face. He can dig. He can scurry. He is not at all too furry (mainly cause he is so good at shedding). Yes, the amazing Red can do it.

Most think his most amazing Talent is being able to give me up to a 30 minute warning before I have a seizure.

I must though point out that in addition to that he makes an awesome watch dog....

so awesome....

he won't let me near enough dear miss Tulip to get a decent picture.

and yes, he is giving me the stink eye.

Big Old Blue=BOB

2011-03-16T20:18:00.000-07:00

when I think of BOB I get all warm and fuzzy inside and not just cause I am a hormonal female with nothing better to do than cry, but because Bob is more than just a truck to me, Bob is a member of my family.

sounds kind of silly doesn't it, but the cold hard truth is, Bob has probably been around since before I got married. I can't remember when my dad got bob exactly but I remember switching out car seats in the credit unions parking lot when Dominic was just a baby so my dad could take him for the evening while I went to class. I remember all the times bob helped us haul things. I remember Bob towing all our possessions to the DI just days before we moved to Texas--yes, Bob and I definitely go back a ways, which is why I am so sad to be selling him to the highest bidder, but alas, every good love must come to an end at some point--or so I have been told.

he haven't even had that Texas licence plate for a year now, I don't think he liked it much, to be truthfully honest, I think he longed to return to Utah. I use to tease that the true reason my daddy gave us this wonderful truck was so we could hook a good size U-haul to it when we finally called it good and moved back to Utah, Bob just never ran the same once we officially made him a Texan.

the camper's back window is only missing because one day while we were running some scap metal to the scrap yard I closed it on a door and it shattered into a billion little pieces--we got maybe a $1 for that door--yep, definitely worth it. Luckily I am married to the handiest man in the universe--he put plexi glass in the frame but never re-attached it, we do though have it and can re-attach it upon sale.

0ddly enough I have never driven Bob--I backed him out of our carport once or twice I think but never further than that--so when I first saw this pic I had to ask 'what is that of' only to realize it is the cammand center of the truck on the driver's side--look at all those buttons, Midge definitely didn't have anything like that in her--she had the hand crank windows.

Bob was really handy to have around, not only did he have 6 seatbelts, but his back seat was big enough to fit 3 full size alpha omega type car seats in it--I think that was when I truly fell in love with him. he also have 2 shoulder belts in the back which came in handy for the booster seats. the middle seat in the front folds down to be cup holders and a 'storage compartment' but also folds back up to be a lap belt in the middle--yes, he cam in handy to haul all the youngins

this truck has definitely seen some living--don't know where he got his start but he spent many a years with my dad as a company vehicle when he worked for the credit union in SLC and was taken care of there, we took care of him too, we just parked him for a bit too long when his registration went out, we tried to apologize by getting him some new tires and a lot of other things to pamper him but he never really forgave us.

I know this is old school, but since midge only had radio we so thought this tape player made us high class society...oh and boy does his A/C work!!!!!

big wheels for hauling his big heart--and he is a 4X4 so he can haul a lot more than just a big heart

BOB WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Goodbye my marvelous Midge

2011-03-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

first off--we bought Midge for $9,000 back around the

end of May 2006, right before we moved to Texas. We bought her with less than 30,000 miles on her still under the original warranty and even though she had no 'extra's' I had always wanted a YELLOW Saturn VUE so I thought she rocked!!!! Granted, she wasn't given her name Midge till a few years later when BOB (and of course our dog Red) came into the picture--I have never been a fan of 'that 70's show' but my husband use to watch it and there just seemed so many similarities that we figured, why not.

2003 YELLOW Saturn VUE--why oh why did you have to have such a lousy transmission, had it not been for those Stinking VTI transmission we would have kept you for many more years, but alas, after we had the 5th one put in you we knew we had to part ways.

you were so stylish and thanks to your 4 cylinder engine instead of a V6 you got awesome gas mileage

I took the pic of the back seat because years ago Dominic left a sippy cup full of milk on it's side, we didn't notice and because of the heat the milk leaked out of the 'non-leak' sippy cup and was soaked into our back seat, middle of summer and we couldn't go anywhere without the windows down for weeks because of the retched smell of sour milk--I tried everything, we carpet cleaned, we covered the seat in baking soda till it looked like Utah in December--nothing worked to get rid of the smell and we we never made that mistake again--you can still see the stain even after all these years

the seat covers came with the car--I don't know if we were ever able to figure out how to take them off and wash them--I don't think we have ever seen the seats beneath them...

all these pictures were taken at the car dealership after we traded her in, so sorry about the quality, I forgot to take them before hand.

I could go on and on about how that engine guard protected us when John 'ran us into a cement wall' but since he denies it ever happened I guess I won't mention it.....

here is the side step that survived!!!! (read on and you will see why that is important)

see, no 'extras'--not even a CD player, yes it was rough, but somehow we made it (note, both the vehicles we traded in were chuck full of extras, we of course only owned them a couple of years)

I took this pic to point out the missing side step--yep, I took it off when I hit a curb--a rather high curb, while taking our babysitter home one day, the next time I took her home I was rear ended, she never let me drive her home after that. Another funny story about the missing side step is that I took it to the shop before it was removed to ask them how much buying a single side step would cost (turns out they only sell them in pairs--who knew) but shortly after pointing to the tech the damage I did I then asked about the luggage rack ontop, the tech was short and so he stepped up on the broken side step to see the top of our car, when it shifted under his weight he was so scared he jumped off it we all almost died of laughter (probably a 'had to be there moment' but trust me, it was hilarious--the other techs gave him such a hard time about stepping up on the obviously broken sidestep)

yes, I know I shouldn't be taking pics of my liscense plate, but since we already gave her to the dealership I felt like it didn't really matter at that point. notice the broken reflector? I did that backing up into a pole at my insurance agents office--when I hit the pull instantly I realized my son wasn't in his car seat and freaked out thinking I hit him---yeah, he was safely at the babysitters, I on the other hand was lucky no one saw me do it. needless to say this bumper was hit by a a lot of things--but look, the only think that actually broke was the reflector--boy how I love Saturns

well, now not only have I officially said goodbye to the vehicle who helped us move not just once but 3 times (outlasted 4 houses) but also showed everyone why I had no problems giving up driving (I only listed a few 'incidences' that occured in Midge--and that was before the movement disorder)--so goodbye midge, you will be missed!!!!

Adam and Eves 2nd batch of babies @ 10 days old

2011-03-13T10:01:00.000-07:00

it is always a special treat when we get to meet the baby bunnies--this was special special cause we discovered 7 healthy babies all 10 days old with their eyes open!!!! Can we say SUCCESS!!!!!

I love finally being able to play with them for a few minutes each, we definitely made sure to take the Camera out so we could get plenty of pictures to share with you....

one of the 2 Jellybeans
this one definitely takes after the parents
look at them all running to cover up....we took the house out so we could better look at them all....
they didn't like that very much--but luckily there was plenty of hay to cuddle in

here is one of the 'twins'--or so I call them

Gardening time

2011-03-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting all year for it to warm up and now that the boys have spring break off together we decided instead of leaving town for a trip we would have a staycation which would give us a chance to get needed stuff done around the house as well as let us explore the amazing town we live in.

today we were able to finish building our raised garden, the dirt was delivered Friday. $100 for 8 yrds (which included the cost of delivery) was not bad at all, and I was certain that I we would have to get more but after mixing it with the bunny poop compost (which we have plenty of) we were able to fill 2 of the 3 beds (we were lacking wood for the 3rd) and still have so much left (dirt and compost) (we later filled all 3 and still had lots of dirt left over)

I am so excited to get the plants and plant them. We also got bird feeders and humming bird feeders to encourage the hummingbirds who will hopefully help pollinate the plants so we get more than 3 tomatoes this year.

on that note--we are so exhausted we are definitely calling it a night early, watching 'The Wild' with my boys with an ice pack on my back (hauling dirt and moving our greenhouse was a bit harder on me than I would have thought).

wants to thank Patrick, John, and Dominic for making me one happy momma--you guys ROCK!!!!

will post pics once everything is ready

8 new babies for Adam and Eve

2011-03-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

was very surprised to find that Eve delivered 8 babies Thursday evening, we haven't tried to take pictures yet but when we finally uncovered them to see how many she had they were hopping around like mexican jumping beans. We are praying hard that they all survive this time around and would appreciate prayers for the little beans.

a new addition--Tulip

2011-03-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

I have to admit--if we didn't have fertility issues I think we would be in a world of hurt. I could definitely see myself as being one of those woman who has a bunch of children all 10 months or so apart from each other--I love kids (even if they do get on my nerves sometimes, but I still think they are angels sent from God). But due to the point that we can't have kids I do the next best thing--I get pets, our newest of which is a baby girl hedge hog named Tulip.

now, don't get me wrong, by no means am I a pet hoarder. Since I have been disabled the last 2 years unable to work and little D is in school full time I find myself with a lot of free time and so I fill it with new responsibilities (seriously, if I could have kids, I would have a billion by now.)

now, to be truly honest, Tulip is little D's. Since we had to get rid of the chickens in January we promised D we would get him a new pet to replace the Red chicken Santa gave him--we already have 2 dogs, a cat and 6 bunnies and due to city ordinances couldn't get any other kind of 'big' animal, so we decided on a small pet, and since we were afraid a guinea pig or hamspter would get mean in our house (little D has a tendency to be too rough and make animals mean) we decided we needed it to be a pet that even he couldn't be mean to and sure enough he loves his little Tulip but isn't about to aggravate he.

the lady we bought her from says she was born around January 20th and we purchased her on March 1st I think, we have definitely grown to love her! Even John enjoys petting her while she sits on his tummy at night.

February 2011

2011-02-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

on February 15, 2011 we purchased

50 lb bag of Purina Rabbit chow complete for $14.85 from the Noonday feed store

no income was made and no other receipts were located

cat on quarentine....

2011-02-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

ok, so I don't remember when this happened, I know I have it marked on my calendar and maybe one day I will correct this post but since I am in a hurry I just thought I would post these pics to show ya'll why I am so adamant about getting your animals spayed or neutered...yes, our loving affection always wanting to cuddle male cat did this to our bathroom late one night while we were sleeping....and why you ask? because he was being quarentined till his ear healed up and he wanted to get outside to his girlfriend who was patiently waiting for him...

I guess I could take a positive spin on this and say 'ya, I been looking for a good reason to get new blinds' but then again, the curtains were purchased in October--so I am still ticked about needing to replace them.
needless to say, I didn't feel one bit bad about taking him to the vet to get his little boy parts snipped--would you?

(by the way, we put the curtains back up and he did it again the next night and completely ruined the vallance, so for 2 weeks while his ear healed and then another week as he heeled from the snip snip procedure we only had a sheet I made for Dominic's toddler bed hanging up--it looks so stylish, I think it was spider man)

Bluebell

2011-02-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

On valentines Day John and I were at petsmart getting Oreo a collar to keep him from scratching his infected ear when I was able to talk John into letting me get a betta (we had plenty of fish bowls, figured it was time we got a fish) and to my surprise she has survived.

BlueBell is a beautiful color blue and fits in rather nicely on our china hutch in the blue dinning room. I never quite thought I would enjoy being a fish owner but must say seeing her swimming in her fish bowl brightens my days.

now, I feel the need to point out that on the 2nd day of having her I finally had to point her out to D because he was completely clueless to her presence in our dinning room--the day before I sat something in front of her for him to move and see her and he totally didn't, I did it again the 2nd day and he didn't see her then either--John says he gets that from me, I don't know what he means by that.

I also feel like I need to point out that the day we bought her was the day I realized that John has come far in telling the truth but still tries to slip a fib in every once in a while, like when he told me 'if you want to put the fish in a bowl with the plant you have to buy the plant first or the fish won't adapt well'--I almost believed him till I realized that the fish we were buying wasn't living with a plant at the store so it wasn't going to matter if I didn't have a plant waiting for her at home--better luck next time John