A free side-of-the-road find

I was driving home one day from picking up Talon from swim team practice and saw this dresser on the side of the road with some other furniture with a sign in front of it all saying "FREE." So I hooked up my trailer and went and loaded it up with Candy's help. The drawers are well built, but I could see that it just needed refinished. So Matt graciously refinished it for me. Now it is in my room!

Show Your Support | Nursing Freedom

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Teething

This week has had it's challenges. Elody has had a bad cough and throwing up a little. I finally looked in her mouth and she has her two top molars trying to cut through. Teething seems to be really hard on her.

Also, Angelique has been sick since Sunday with a fever and lethargic. I finally looked down her throat and it was red with white spots. So I swiped her throat with tea tree oil. Later in the evening I looked at it again to put some more on it and it was normal looking. I still put some more on, but was impressed with the tea tree oil. Angelique is also teething her molars.

Update on the chicks

One of the kids favorite chicks is Afro. She is the free rare bird that we got. She is called a pollock. She isn't the brightest of the bunch, but the kids like her. The chicks are two months old now. Come to find out, we have 27 of them. I ordered 25 and got one free and then 2 died. I don't know how we ended up with 27. They go through a lot of food. We seem to be buying a 50 pound bag of feed ($15) every two weeks. We like to let them out everyday to scavenge for bugs especially in the evenings.

Scrapbooking

My girls have been asking me for a while it we could scrapbook the pictures. I finally found a good day when the house was clean and we didn't have any plans to go anywhere.
We made quite the mess, but we got a lot of pages put together and had fun doing. The girls have quite the talent in making creative pages.

Beau's creation

Apparently, Beau has learned from the best. Fortunately, they were washable markers. He was so proud of himself and said that his drawings were, "Cool!" It was hard to get mad at him. We gave him and Safia some magic erasers and they cleaned up the walls.

Father's day

Yesterday was Father's day. We invited Matt's dad over and his brother and his boys over for dinner. (They are both divorced.) We made marinaded and grilled chicken breasts, oven roasted diced potatoes, a big green salad, steamed and sauteed green beans, and boiled beets from our garden. It was all very tasty! Then for dessert, Matt made apple boysenberry oatmeal cookie bars with homemade custard-style ice cream. It was too good!!! I had seconds and then ate was Beau didn't eat. Needless to say that when I stepped on the scale this morning, I had gained a pound. So well worth it! Then we just hung out in the back yard and watched the kids play together on the swingset. It was so nice to see the kids interact and get along so well and build relationships! Even Matt and Ben had a really good long talk. They didn't even leave until 10pm. I had already gone inside to put the baby to bed and call home to talk to my mom. I wanted to make sure she knew she was loved!

Talon's first swim meet

Saturday was Talon's first swim meet. I took him there at 8 am and the meet started at 9 am. I left him there, went and picked up my bountiful basket, picked up Jileigh from her young women's leaders house since she just got back from girls camp, then went and bought some eggs from my friend, came back and made my breakfast and then went back to the meet. I walked up just after Talon had his first race. I was sick that I missed it. He was second place of his heat in the back stroke and today we found out that he got 4th place for the event. Good Job Talon on your first race. Later he did the breast stroke and got 7th place and then later he did the freestyle and he didn't place. But... he did a great job for his very first race swimming!

Baking mania!

Friday Matt was home in the morning, so we (the family) got the house cleaned up and started baking. Matt and I made 2 dozen each of apple cinnamon crisp muffins, blueberry muffins, and pumpkin muffins. Then he left to work. Then I got started on the bread dough. I made a pizza, 3 regular loaves of wheat bread and a cinnamon bread loaf. By the end of the day, my house was a mess. The kitchen from baking all day and the house because I wasn't keeping on top of it. Oh well. At least we won't be hungry for a while! :)

Sisters sweet moment

Elody is finally starting to let us at least comb her hair. I caught her letting Safia comb her hair and play with her. It was really sweet, so I got a picture of it!

Elody and Sariah's birthday party at our house

We hosted Elody and Sariah's birthday party at our house. Candy made a cake and Matt made Fig/dried cherry granola bars. That was our healthy alternative to cake. Elody really enjoyed it and so did we. Elody received a few cute outfits and a dress.

Freak hail storm in June

I just so happened to take a picture of our garden on Elody's birthday a week ago. So here is a before picture of it.








We were expecting an isolated rain shower, but not this. I hailed and it hailed hard. The hail were bigger than peas but not as big as marbles. It started coming down a little and small and then it came down hard and larger. It literally shredded my garden. The hail covered the lawns. And while this is all going on, we couldn't find our camera. Finally 1/2 hour after it was over, we finally found it and took some pictures of what was left. We were so sickened by the damage. We were supposed to go to the park to celebrate Elody and Sariah's birthdays, but we decided to do it at our house instead.

Dinner failure

Thursday night I wanted to make egg rolls. We all love them, but it takes a long time to make. I prefer to have help and cut the process time at least by half, but Matt was working on setting up the pool. So I started at 5pm. I got the chicken boiled and then the veggies prepared and cooked. This time, the store was out of the regular egg roll wraps, so I decided to try rice paper. So I got almost all of them rolled up and started cooking them. Well, I didn't get the whole roll double wrapped. Where I didn't, the roll burst in the oil. I had to stop. I sent Matt back to another store to get the real egg roll wraps and unwrapped all the half cooked and uncooked egg rolls and dumped the stuffing back into the bowl. I dumped that oil into a can and started over with new oil. Then Matt got back with the wraps and we started all over. Matt and the girls we helping by then and the baby was tired and crying. I turned it over them and nursed the baby to sleep and put her to bed. I said the blessing on the food at 9pm. Ugh! I was so frustrated I could hardly eat. I learned my lesson, don't try to fix/change a recipe that isn't broken.

Cherries cherries and more cherries!

Thursday and Friday I went out to a local farm/orchard/nursery and pick 25 pounds of cherries. We ate a bunch, probably more than we should have. Then I froze a bunch and dehydrated a bunch. Matt had to go to work so with a little help from the kids we pitted them with my friend's cherry pitter. Jileigh was a sweety and cleaned up the floor underneath me twice without even being asked. Now my hands are stained and I am nervous about leading the music tomorrow with purple hands.

Boysenberry time!

We got to pick boysenberries this week in our little patch. We picked enought to make a batch of boysenberrie jam!!! I just don't like the seeds. I would like to find a kind of strainer that would let the puree through but not the seeds.

Sweet moment

Matt enjoys sitting and playing the guitar once in a while. My little kids have always been facinated with playing on it too. This time it was Elody's turn.

Happy 1st Birthday Elody!!!

Today is my Elody's 1st birthday. And she slept through the night for the first time.
Darn it! I did it sideways again!

My sick little Beau

Today Beau has come down with a fever of 102 degrees. He has also developed a strange rash. Any ideas on what is going on with him would be helpful. I have two theories. 1- The fever and rash are associated with a virus or 2-When we were at the Ranch, he was playing in some new sand. There might be something in it that he is allergic to. I put some Caladryl on him tonight in hopes to stop him from itching himself and causing further irritation. My poor baby!

Next morning: Last night Beau woke up at around 2am with a really bad croupy cough. It was so bad that he could hardly breath. We took him in the front room and set up the nebulizer and gave him a breathing treatment. That really helped him to relax and go back to sleep. This morning his fever is normal, but he is still itchy!

I finally thought to look in his mouth and it is dotted with spots too and his toungue has little raised bumps. wierd!

Day three: I have ruled out the allergy and decided that it is a virus. His tongue has now turned red.

Elody walking

At ll months and three weeks, Elody is now walking.

Memorial Day weekend at the Ranch

We spent Memorial Day weekend at the Ranch. It is a family work weekend. Saturday I got the job to clean the industrial size double oven! I took me half of the afternoon to get it clean. Matt spent Saturday and Monday working on patching ceiling and fixing broken plumbing. Monday I cleaned the kitchen and the basement. Sunday we went for a hike. Little did I know that there would still be snow on the ground. I didn't put on my hiking boots. I only had my running shoes on. Not the best shoes to go tramping through the snow. I was trying to help my little kids get through it as well. Fortunately, I had family members to help.

The only down part of the weekend was all the sugar treat that were there. I tried my best to keep my kids out of them, but I wasn't able to watch all of them all the time. I was nursing Elody when They broke out the ice cream, sherbet and peach cobbler. All my kids (minus the baby) had a bowl or cup full of dessert. I would have let them have a little, but I wasn't there to control the portion size. I took away Beau's because if he gets sweets at night, he coughs. He didn't cough that night this time, but he did have a night mare. But now, Wednesday, he is sick and I have a bunch of sick kids. Almost everyone has a cold, cough, and/or a soar throat. The baby and Talon are throwing up and Matt came home sick from work. I hate the ill effects that sugar has on my family. That is why I don't give it to them and it frustrates me when other people think they need to give it to them, despite the fact that it is just not good for us! Matt's uncle had the flu while we were up there and his brother's kids were sick too. So this week we are just going to ride out and try to get everyone better.