Preparing For Rain

Gone Fishin’

Christine — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 21:56:40 +0000

Since moving here over 9 years ago, we haven’t had a chance to fish in one of Michigan’s 11,000+ lakes or 36,000+ miles of rivers and streams. Today, we finally had that chance. We went to a nearby recreational lake area and within 30 minutes of hooking our poles, we started catching Bluegill fish!

Kaybear caught the first fish of the day. This little Bluegill was also her very first catch.

Little Tiger also caught a Bluegill. He was pretty excited!

Little Man got his Bluegill catch as well. This is his second fish, though. The first one, a much bigger fish, had gotten away before he could reel it in.

Strawberry had been playing on a nearby beach area, and ran to the dock just before it started raining. Right after casting her reel, she immediately caught this little Bluegill fish.

We were only able to go out for about 45 minutes before a storm rolled in, but for the kids’ first time fishing, this was a success! The kids are hooked (pun intended) and it won’t be long before we’ll be out on the dock again.

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Gone Fishin’

Chicks

Christine — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000

On March 9, we bought 12 chicks. We have finally ventured into the world of chicken keeping! We’ve talked about it for years but never was quite in the position to proceed with the idea. So we gathered up the kids and headed to Tractor Supply. Probably not the best place to purchase chicks, but that’s where we went. Each person picked out 2 chicks each.

Our baby chicks are all female:
1. Hubby’s Red Pullet – Henny Penny
2. Little Man’s Red Pullet – Hookfang
3. Little Tiger’s Ameraucauna – Zelda
4. Strawberry’s Leghorn – Pearl
5. Hubby’s Leghorn – Foghorn
6. My Black Sex Link – Emma Swan –> EDITED April 13th: Mine is actually a rooster!
7. My Ameraucauna – Liberty
8. Kaybear’s Black Sex Link – Regina
9. Little Man’s Ameraucauna – Lightning Strike
10. Strawberry’s Ameraucauna – Belle
11. Kaybear’s Ameraucauna – Mulan
12. Little Man’s Ameraucauna – Matthew (aka Mattie)

This little Red Pullet chick is Hookfang. Little Man picked and named her. He has a small obsession with “How to Train Your Dragon” movie, hence why his 2 chicks are named dragon names.

Next to her is Little Tiger’s Ameraucauna, Zelda.

Mulan, Kaybear’s Ameraucauna chick and Little Man’s Ameraucauna, Lightning Strike.

Hello there! I *think* this is Mattie. It is hard to tell the one yellow-ish Ameraucauna from the 2 Leghorn girls.

Zelda, Little Tiger’s Ameraucauna chick. Strawberry’s Pearl having a chat with Zelda.

Chicks huddling together.

The chicks are having an escape-planning huddle.

(L to R, CW): Henny Penny, Hookfang, Emma Swan, Regina, Zelda, and Liberty

We set them up in our dining room area. We bought a metal trough from Tractor Supply. We added a heat lamp, pine bedding, a feeder and a waterer, and covered it with chicken wire.

We added chicken wire and attached it with heavy duty clamps hubby bought from Home Depot. It was a necessary addition. Otherwise, Meeko might have had a tasty dinner that night!

Mulan is looking up and saying Good Bye!

What a DSLR Camera can NOT do…

Christine — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:16:24 +0000

I’ve picked up a DSLR camera (finally!) and my kids have been the guinea pigs while I’ve been learning this camera. While the DSLR may be a huge leap up from my little Fuji point-and-shoot in image quality, one thing it can’t do for me is get 3 children 7 years and under to cooperate and look at the camera at the same time.

Oh, and I want those serious yet sweet, innocent smiles like you see in the magazines.

I know it can happen.

Right?

Strawberry is trying her hardest to smile sweetly, look at the camera, and ignore those silly boys.

Almost got it…

Helllooooo…. Little Tiger…. the camera is over here!

OK. So this isn’t working too well.

The kids head to the tree stumps to sit. Little Tiger grabbed his tree stump. I encouraged Little Man to pose next to him.

“My tree stump! Get your own!”

“Sorry! I can’t hear you! I have my ear protection on!”

I try to get Strawberry over to the scene but apparently Little Tiger didn’t like that idea either.

I’m not sure what Little Man is up to… he looks a bit loopy there. lol

“A boy needs space! Move it, sista! You, too, brother!”

I love how Strawberry slips BEHIND Little Tiger and poses as if to say, “Forget these goobers! I’m ready!”

Out of 112 attempts, the vast majority had either Little Man sticking his tongue out or Little Tiger trying to push others out of his space.

(Thank goodness for digital! Whew!)

This is the closest I got to a somewhat normal shot of these 3 kids.

And it was one of the very first shots I took that afternoon! lol

Our Homeschool Room

Christine — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 05:06:13 +0000

It is that time of year when we start cleaning, organizing, and getting ready for the new school year. I thought I’d share what our homeschool room looked this past school year. These pictures were taken back in February using my iPod Touch. It still looks the same but much much more messy.

As you walk into the room, this is what you see. The shelves to the left of the table contain our religious and reference books. The table is where The Littles and I work together on seat work. Sitting on the shelves just beyond the table, I have a banker’s paper box for construction paper and the drawers hold coloring books, stencils, etc. No crayons, colored pencils, paints, etc. As much as I’d love to have art supplies out all the time for Strawberry and Little Man, the youngest would open and dump EVERYthing out. I haven’t figured a way around that yet.

To the immediate right of the door sits Kaybear’s desk with her Ikea Trofast workboxes next to her. Kody likes to visits her a lot.

Moving down the right wall, you’ll see our huge whiteboard, our calendar, and Explode the Code phonics chart. On or above the whiteboard, I’ll put up the letter of the week or Verita Press timeline cards or anything really. On top of the shelves is a puzzle rack, pencil holders, books we are currently reading, buckets of ABC blocks and magnetic letters, an abacus, and our Replogle Atlantis Globe. The shelves below hold literature.

In the far right corner is a bean bag and United States map. The bookshelves hold history, geography, and science books. Next to the bean bag is a lime green basket of library books. The hopscotch rug gets used a lot in the winter.

On the far west wall lies this window bench. Kody has claimed it as his personal space during lessons. I picked up those colorful pillows on clearance at the end of 2011 summer. You can’t see them, but matching the turquoise striped pillows are some orange and hot pink striped ones on the bench. There are 8 or 9 throw pillows for lounging. Unfortunately, the main window beach cushion doesn’t match the rest of the room and I’m not sure where I can (cheaply) buy something different. So we just ignore it. lol

If you sat on the window bench, you’d see this:

Little Tiger can reach his Plan Toy Geometric Board and our nature display can be viewed. More books we were currently reading were on display on the shelf as well. Too bad my poinsettia didn’t last much longer after this photo was taken.

Moving to the far left corner, you’ll find our loveseat for cuddling and reading aloud as well as our world map. There is a bulletin board for displaying the kids’ artwork. This area is much different in that I used browns to go with the nature-y theme. Some throw pillows and another bean bag on the floor allow for independent reading. These weren’t used all that much, though. The window bench or loveseat were the popular reading spots.

h look! On the loveseat are my orange/pink pillows from the window bench. Those pillows end up everywhere! lol

Backing up to the rear of the couch is my little desk area and shelf. This is clean. Something my desk currently is not. You can’t even see my laminator under piles of books and papers now.

Behind my desk (not pictured) is a storage closet and to the left of that, next to the door, are The Littles’ workboxes. Strawberry and Little Man share the tall Ikea Trofast and Little Tiger has the small Trofast to himself. I have some teaching posters on the Creation on the wall and we have a Panasonic CD player to listen to audio lessons and music.

The room is colorful with turquoise, lime green, hot pink, and crisp white as the color scheme despite the forest green walls. (We rent and are not allowed to repaint the walls.) The curtains, buckets in the Trofasts, bean bags, baskets, and ribbon memo boards are all in bright colors while the Ikea Expedit shelves and my desk provide that clean crispness to the room.

At the time, I wanted something cheerful, bright, and colorful. Lately, ever since reading The Thread on the WTM forum and emails from the spinoff Yahoo group, I’ve been contemplating bringing more of the Good, True, and Beautiful in our home. I have been considering making some changes to this room in particular. I’d like it to look less like a classroom and more Beautiful. I’m just unsure how… especially since so much time, effort, and money was put into the current design.

How would you rearrange the furniture and what would you put up on the walls? Would you soften the room up with earthy colors or do the bright colors work just fine? If this was your room, what would *you* do with it?

Hello out there…

Christine — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:47:43 +0000

Knock, knock.

— waits —

*crickets chirp*

Anyone there? A knock knock joke is no good without an audience.

It has been (too) long a time since the last blog post. Seriously… where has the time gone? We’ve been incredibly busy. As I noted on our photoblog, my camera is gone. I only have an iPod Touch camera, which stinks in quality. So any new posts will be quite plain.

What have we been up to?

Hubby has been working hard. He is on a project that really needs 3 full time engineers yet it is just him. We are blessed that he has a job but it has been extremely stressful on all of us. We’re praying for endurance for him to survive until the completion of this project. For good news, he has completed 2 classes towards his Master’s degree. 3.6 GPA so far! This last class was his hardest yet. The professor was lacking in teaching skills. He didn’t use a book. He strayed off to rabbit trails often. And knowing what was on the test or even what the professor was looking for was Hubby’s biggest challenge. The finals was a 2 question, 12 hour exam. He was sure he failed. He still doesn’t know what his final grade was but apparently, it was enough for his GPA to be a 3.6. Hubby was definitely happy with that!

Kaybear has been busy with math, math, and more math. Oh, we do other things but math is her challenge. She demonstrates the ability to grasp it… but she hates it all the same. She also has been working at the barn 2 days a week. Sometimes more. She mucks stalls, cleans the barn, trains horses, rides horses, and whatever else Ann-Marie tells her to do. She loves it. She is such a physical girl that barn duty is right up her alley!

Kaybear with Meeko

Strawberry has been practicing reading and dancing. She has taken an interest in bird watching as well. We bought a bird feeder and I am putting together a bird journal for her to record her observations. In 3 weeks, she has her dance recital for ballet and jazz. She wants to continue dancing but we are unsure where to go. We disagree with the music choice, dance moves, and the attire that the older girls wear. I have also noticed that she hasn’t really been learning classical ballet moves. Class has been sporadic in its teaching and more fun and games than learning. There is one place that we really like but it is over an hour away. Oh! And did I mention she got her ears pierced! :D

Little Man and Little Tiger have been busy being boys. Little Man has been learning to read and Little Tiger has perfected his demolition skills. He has earned the nicknames ToddlerZilla and Destructo Boy.

The Boys

Rhythm has spent the last 2 weeks at Ann-Marie’s. Kaybear wanted to practice her canter leads in an arena. As beautiful as the area is at our house, a flat area to practice core riding skills is lacking. We also wanted to give Rhythm an opportunity to graze on a pasture of grass… another thing lacking here. We actually have a nice big pasture of rolling hills. The problem is the resident horse, Cisco, is mean. He has been “wild” for probably 18 years or more. The landlords can’t even have his feet trimmed unless he is tranquilized. He bites, he charges after you, and has no respect for the boundaries of a fence or a human. So we have this unvaccinated, unwormed, ill-kept, mean spirited horse that we don’t even own to deal with. Gosh… and he seemed nice when we were looking at the house to rent.

Gina's babies

Kody has been in dog training at Blue Sky Retrievers. He is currently home for a week “vacation”. The trainer has commented that Kody is a “spoiled knucklehead” and the “2nd hardest dog” he’s ever trained. He said Kody was very smart, though. He is constantly thinking of ways to get out of doing what is commanded! He has the makings of a champion hunter… if he can get over his stubbornness. That stubbornness must be a family trait.

Bubbles and Gina… our 2 guinea pigs. For Strawberry’s birthday, we got her a guinea pig (Bubbles). Of course, being social creatures and the fact that Kaybear put on that “oh ppleeease momma” look, we ended up with 2 guinea pigs. 2 weeks ago, Strawberry comes into my bedroom and wakes me.

Momma! We have babies!

Groggy, I lifted an eyelid to peer at her. She must be playing a joke, I thought. Nope. Sure enough, Gina had given birth to 2 babies. What a Good Morning surprise! We counted the gestation period. We counted the amount of days we had owned them (54 days). Well… you do the math. Gina came home already pregnant! This week the babies are weaned and then we have another month before they can go to new homes. Of course, Kaybear is trying to convince me to let her keep one. And Strawberry wants Bubbles to have babies, too. Oi vey!

We brought Meeko home yesterday as well. What a sweet, adorable boy! A Ragdoll kitten from Fluffy Luv Cattery, he is a beautiful seal mink color. He endured the 3 hour ride home well. He spent the first 30 minutes fairly agitated but the smooth highway helped to calm down. He has acclimated quickly to our home. Kody is the only obstacle now. Meeko hisses and hides from him each time we try to introduce them. But we are taking it very slowly. Today he only hisses and walks away to hide. Baby steps… baby steps.

Meeko (photo taken by Fluffy Luv Cattery; post-processing by me)

Finally, it is spring cleaning time. The house is torn apart as I try to tackle clutter and mess. Of course, as soon as a room is cleaned, I have 4 kids who come behind me to destroy again. Ha!

It’s getting late and almost time for afternoon chores. I promise it won’t be so long before I post again.

Homemade Poptarts

Christine — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 22:24:35 +0000

After 2 tries I think I’ve figured out how to make these Homemade Poptarts. :D

The first time I tried I had very crumbly dough. It was tough to work, and even harder to roll out. I spent over an hour trying to get it flat and thin but it just wasn’t working out right. I cooked them up anyway and although the family liked them (or were being very polite about it), they just didn’t turn out that well. So I grumbled, muttered, whined, and couldn’t sleep. I had dreams of homemade poptarts that night. Dreams replaying what went wrong. I tend to over analyze and obsess about things, if you hadn’t noticed…

After posting a comment on the Heavenly Homemaker blog my woes, Laura replied with her suggestion of adding more yogurt (or adding a bit of water). The other thing I guessed that wasn’t working in my attempt is that no, Virginia, Country Crock is NOT butter. No matter how I may squint at the label, it just wouldn’t read “butter”. It kept reading “39% vegetable oil spread”.

Hmmm… alrighty then. Back into the kitchen I went.

This time I used REAL butter. Genuine real butter. Butter. Not Parkay. (Anyone remember those commercials from the 80’s? Or is it just me?) And I added about 1/4 cup more of yogurt to the recipe. Result? Pliable, workable dough! YAY!

For the middle I used 2 jellies (triple berry and strawberry) and an almond butter spread. The almond butter spread was NOT a hit with my picky kids. I liked it well enough. But not exactly a hit here.

This time instead of the dough only yielding 7 measly poptarts, I cooked up 20 poptarts! And these came out decent. I cooked them for the 25 minutes in the recipe but my oven seems to run really hot, so the edges were a bit harder than I’d like. Well, harder than the kids liked. So next time I’ll cook them for about 20-23 minutes. I’ll also use less filling. A whole HEAPING teaspoon resulted in a few leaking their yumminess:

What can I say? I am NOT a natural in the kitchen. But it has been a learning experience for me.

You probably noticed one poptart in the top photo had some white on it… I added cake frosting to a few of my poptarts to entice the kids to think that they are JUST LIKE these:

Not sure it quite worked but it sure added a bit of fun to their poptarts!

Now that I have the dough figured out, time to play around and make Hot Pockets, Pizza Pockets, and more! :D

Really?

Christine — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:06:26 +0000

Has it seriously been that long since I’ve lasted posted here? A lot has been going on here including surgery for me, a move for us, and keeping busy packing and unpacking! We’ve got an exciting year planned for us. Homeschooling, gardening, and learning homesteading and self-sufficiency skills.

I’ve remained somewhat faithful to our photo blog. That’s a good thing. lol But now… time to get back to blogging!

Going Vintage

Christine — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:40:13 +0000

Rhythm is such a photogenic horse. We must have a zillion photos of her. Something about the Saddlebred’s refined head, beautiful form, and expressive eyes just really speaks through photos.

This time I wanted to do something different to her. Here is the original taken by Kayla:

Pretty uninspiring, huh? My camera produces cool, dull photos. Blah. Just doesn’t do Rhythm’s beauty any justice.

Let me state right up front that I’m very much an actions girl.. saves so much time in editing large amounts of photos. Some Photoshop actions I use are free (like Pioneer Woman), others cost (like MCP and Lily Blue). So here is what I did and used to turn this dull photo to vintage wow!

First thing I did was warm up the photo and “defog” it. I used MCP Light Fog Fixer from the Quickie Collection. Then I warmed the photo by using Pioneer Woman’s Action Set 2 Warmer action. Could I do this by hand? Sure. By why? I have combined these 2 actions into one that I call Beginning Prep. Click play and it runs both just like that. Quick and easy!

With the basic prep out of the way, I heal some crusties from Rhythm’s eye using the Spot Healing Brush Tool on a duplicate layer.

Next, the bottom part of her next is so dark, I wanted to lighten it a bit. Using MCP’s Touch of Light action (which is free by the way), I painted over this area to bring it out of obscurity. I probably could have lightened it a bit more but I wasn’t overly concerned at this point.

I used Pioneer Woman’s Heartland action to turn her photo vintage.

I’m really liking this! Vintage suits her well. Like an old timey photo of one of her ancestors. Because I just can’t leave well enough alone, I continued messing with her photo.

It’s a problem I have…

I need help.

Is there a 12 step program for Photoshop addicts?

OK… so I’m thinking let’s try a little texture on this photo. Enter hours of experimenting. There are so many great possibilities. But in the end I went simpler rather than a complex texture by running Lily Blue’s Pecan Grain action from the Chocolate actions set.

I didn’t like how it looked on her face and body so using a mask, I painted the texture off those areas. The differences between grain on the face and no grain on the face are subtle.

I love masks… just not on people.

Clowns scare me.

Chuckie Cheese… **shudder**

Finally a little vignetting to draw your attention to her beautiful face.

And there you go… from blah to vintage wow!

Photo taken by Kaybear.
Post-processing by me.

October 31st isn’t Halloween for us…

Christine — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:47:17 +0000

We don’t participate in Halloween at our house. Most people look at us as if we are strange. But God has given us a more glorifying reason to celebrate on October 31st each year…

This is the day Bryon adopted Mikayla as his own. Four years ago, our family became whole.

In much the same way, God has adopted us as His own children when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1) Isn’t it amazing? Our Creator has chosen to adopt US and give US the inheritance of Heaven. All we have to do is believe in Jesus and we are adopted into His family.

Happy Adoption Day, Kayla and Bryon. This is one of the most important days of my life. I give thanks to my loving Father – the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth – who brought Bryon into our lives and blessed me with such a beautiful family. <3

Celebration of the Horse 2010 part 8

Christine — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:01:53 +0000

At the end of the day, Ann-Marie as notified that we won an award for our entry in the parade!

Congratulations!!

Well, this brings us to the end of our day. Hope you enjoyed the photos! I’ll showcase some more photos on our Photoblog, so be sure to check them out from time to time!

Until tomorrow, have a blessed Sunday,

Celebration of the Horse 2010 series:
Part 1 The Parade Staging Ground
Part 2 The Parade
Part 3 The Parade: Our Group
Part 4 Adult Horse Rides
Part 5 Never Too Old
Part 6 Breed Display
Part 7 Ylluster
Part 8 Award