Hatching Chicken #3

Embryology is fascinating.  How quickly the chicks begin to develop is absolutely astounding.
Of course, they only have an incubation period of 21 days, so they had better grow rapidly!

This egg was placed in the incubator last Friday.  It is scheduled to hatch April 13th.
The dark spot in the middle is the chick.  We could see it wiggling today too, unless that was just Joshie's hand shaking!
The air bubble that you can see at the end of the shell should get larger as they get closer to hatching.
Drew, you and Isabelle should take a few of the chicks home!  If you started now you could build a chicken coop with your new saw!  Certainly your father has a hammer and some nails lying around.

The Best Day ~

Joshie informed me first thing the other morning, "Today is going to be the best day of your life, Mom!"

I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen!

It was a typical day, absolutely nothing extraordinary.  It crossed my mind throughout the day what Joshie had meant.  The day was filled with schoolwork, visiting the neighbor's farm, cuddling a new baby lamb, discussing names for the lamb, climbing rocks, discussing names for the lamb, piano lessons, discussing names for the lamb, choir practice....did I mention discussing names for the lamb?

As I was tucking Josh into bed at night he sighed, "Wasn't that the best day ever?"

And indeed it was, I need to see every day in that light.  Every day is a precious gift from our Creator.  The schoolwork, the craziness, the muddy footprints...they are all good.  We are alive and witnessing such beauty around us, but our vision can be clouded by our day-to-day struggles.

Spring ~

It is officially springtime in the mountains.
The weather cannot decide whether to rain or snow, often doing both simultaneously, my boys are frantic to escape outdoors every day, Shannon is itching to burn piles of brush, and I am dreaming (quite literally) of a new landscape project.
Last night's dream is way beyond our scope this year, but it sure looked good ~ in my dreams anyway ~:o)
Maybe I will just have to settle for a new sandbox.  Of course that will be for the kids, not me!

Yesterday Shannon decided to burn.  Nothing sings spring quite like burning ~ I am not sure why, it just does.  Robins were chirping away, boys were having sword fights, the girls were poking absentmindedly at the coals, Shannon was envisioning all the new wildlife that would be on our property this year since we were clearing feeding space for them.  I thought he was cleaning brush up just for me, but alas, he had an ulterior motive.

Mmmm, new willows will bring in more moose ~

That's the idea anyway ~

If I hide behind this willow, Mom won't notice me drinking her hot chocolate ~

Hot dogs only taste good outside !

Nicholas just jammed his fourth dog in his mouth.....yyyyuck.

Hatching Chickens #2

Sooo ~ we candled the eggs Wednesday evening and they all looked empty to my hurried and unrefined eye. We placed them back in the incubator to deal with the following morning.
Joshie & I decided it would be good to crack one open to see if it was even fertilized, thus indicating whether we had a rooster issue or an incubator issue.  As soon as the egg broke I knew we had made a mistake.  In the middle of the container was the smallest of chics with its' heart beating rapidly away.
This sight cued an immediate response from Josh, "You killed the baby chicken, Mom!"
The thought briefly crossed my mind to open another egg so the other kiddos could see what a miracle LIFE is, (any life, even a little ole chicken)  but decided against it.
I could only handle playing the villain once and besides it seemed a bit, well, just wrong.

This is a not-so-good picture of an egg ~ The chic is the dark spot in the egg.

We could see the veins growing along the interior of the shell but they didn't photo well.

Kath thinks she saw the chic wiggling a little bit.  

Celebrate ~ Use That China!

We were eating dinner with my bro-in-law, John, (Theresa's husband)  last week.  I was setting the table, but was not sure which dishes to use.  He was showing me this set of silverware and that set of ordinary plates.

He mentioned their "good" dishes that they never used in an off-hand manner, then mumbled, "A lot of good that did....saving them."

Yesterday was the Feast of Saint Joseph, so it seemed appropriate to celebrate ~ not just with a nice dinner, but with the china.  Annika and Dom were ecstatic when I told them to use the china.  They didn't even mind setting the table.  Then, they whisked out the name tags to complete the setting!

Now I have another resolution to live life better ~
Use the china ~ go ahead, drag it out, dust it off.
Make life elegant.
And if a piece breaks know that there are many replacements on eBay!

Hatching Chicken Eggs #1

We are hatching chicken eggs for Easter.
Ideally, the little peeps will poke out of their shells on Easter Sunday but since things rarely happen quite as planned in this household, we may be a day or so off.

The topic of whether we should hatch more chickens has been the topic of conversation for many a night 'round the dinner table.  Now that we are committed to more chickens we must begin building a larger and better chicken coop.

Heck, we should hatch a few dozen more and build a barn!

We think the large egg may be a "double yolker" which would mean twin chicks. 

We have read that the success rate of hatching these is pretty low, 

so we shall see what happens.  

Midweek we are going to candle the eggs to see which ones are developing.  We will post pictures of that soon after.

My Cute Ski Tech

This kid thinks he can tune skis ~ 

Really, what does a guy need? 

Apparently only skis, a table knife, and a scuba mask. 

I wouldn't trust him. 

Maybe he should be building surfboards. 

Reading

There is a child that lives in our home that loves to read.  She can be difficult to find when she is buried in a book, she doesn't respond when called and can spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom where I suspect she may be snuggled up with a good book.  I don't know for sure, but the pile of books on the windowsill might be a give-away.  And if she doesn't have a new book, no worries, she will read an old one.  

I see myself in that child of mine.  Back in the day, before there were seven kiddos that enjoyed eating at regular intervals, I would bury myself in the top of a haystack and read whatever book could be scrounged up.  

But, the past years have left me reading whatever I could read in a 10 minute window ~ magazine articles, newspapers, the back of the shampoo bottle.  They are just not quite as fulfilling as a big, fat book!

My reading child with a cake she made for her 

favorite babies, the twins.

When my little sis, Margaret, moved to town, she began talking about the classics that she enjoyed reading, "Phantom of the Opera," "Gone With the Wind," and numerous others.  My desire for reading was stoked and I made a resolution to read a book a month in 2012.  

I forgot how much I loved it and how much Shannon hated it.  He wanted dinner, but I was occupied reading, "Born to Run." Not a classic, not even a book I would recommend to many people, but it gave me something to discuss with the brother that recommended it.  "Brave New World" was not one that I would read again, but "Phantom of the Opera" was worth every minute.  "Miracle in the Andes" made me evaluate life and what can be taken from a person in the blink of an eye, but what can also be gained.  "The Help" piqued my interest in an era of American history that previously wasn't terribly appealing.  "The Long Walk" made me ponder what people are capable of and how little is demanded of us in our daily lives.  

I am a few books ahead of schedule, but that's okay, at least with me!  I try to temper myself and wait to read at night, instead of slipping a book between the pages of the math answer key.  It is rewarding to complete a book, and it spurs the old brain to work in a way that it hasn't for a while and I like that!  


Now, off to finish St. Ignatius' letters to the early Church and begin reading, "Killing Lincoln" with a short stop to read an "Oliver" book to Dom!

Gratitude ~

I am grateful for ~




 ~ Shannon taking the day off work and a family friend skipping school to join us on the ski hill ~

~ Faster skis than Nicholas ~

~ A friend for my girl ~

~ An uncle that shares his Skittles and his time to teach Dom how to ski ~

~ An awesome chairlift on the bunny slope vs. a rope tow ~

~ A beautiful family and warm clothes for each of them ~

~ Night prayers during Lent ~

Free Time

The last couple days have left me feeling as though I had entirely too much free time on my hands.
Friday, Katherine and Michaela attended a homeschool conference.  I am receiving the mother-of-the-year award for that ~ I sent my two eldest, then spent the rest of the day park hopping and riding the carousel with the three youngest cherubs.  Okay, it wasn't quite that easy, but it certainly felt like it with only three kids to tote around.  So easy, in fact, that I decided that it would be a stellar day to catch my boys up on their immunizations.  Annika assured Dom that shots don't hurt while I was bribing him with anything I could think of, because if any of the kiddos would make this sort of adventure interesting, it was Dominic.  He actually did pretty good, I got a perfect view of his tonsils while he screamed his head off, but it was over quickly.
Annika immediately distracted him, helping him decide whether to go to the carousel or the park first.

Later, I was helping Dom relate his adventure to Grandma over the phone ~
"Dom, tell Grandma you had your shots."

    "I had my shots today, Gwamma."

"Dom, tell her you were a brave boy."

     "Gwamma, I was a.......no I wasn't, Mommy, I scweamed.  Gwamma, I scweamed and it hurt and Annika told me shots don't hurt, but she wied."

So then we had to fill out the rest of our day with the park and  carousel and fun stuff because shots are no fun and it takes me a long time to recuperate. The day was spectacular ~ sunny, warm, simply divine, bluebirds flitting around.  Whatever housework was calling my name would simply have to wait ~ and it did.
The laundry, the bathrooms, everything was still there Saturday morning.  But Michaela & Kath had another day at their conference and this time Shannon took all the kids to work with the exception of Nicholas.  The housework had waited one day, so we decided to make it two!  I caught up with a friend for coffee.  Nicholas sat perched up on a high stool and sipped guzzled his hot chocolate then licked up the whipped cream like only a little boy can.  We got our weekly grocery shopping done and tried all the samples in Costco....not the sushi, but all the rest.  Since I seem to accomplish more when I am short on time we invited my brother out for dinner.  By some miracle the laundry was folded and the floors were wiped.  The bathrooms still need some attention, but I am hoping a fairy is in there slaving away while I am wasting time on the computer.

A gal can dream.....

Every nice day we are soaking up sunshine!

Getting muddy right after confession, that has to be wrong somehow ~

The ducks at our fairgrounds, the boys weren't sure whether they should throw them bread or look for a shotgun there are so many ~:o)

We decided that wouldn't be sporting, shooting a sitting duck.  

Through the Clouds

While driving up the Pass through driving snow I could feel the sun trying to burn through the clouds, but the clouds were too stubborn.  The weather felt just like my spirit over the past days.  Intellectually, I know the sun is right there, that days will feel joyful again, but just not yet. Right now, our hearts are still in the middle of a snowstorm.

Theresa passed away last Tuesday and in one sense a cloud that had been hanging over us lifted, but another settled.  This one doesn't seem quite as dark, as Theresa is no longer suffering, but it's still palpable.  I am sad for us, a selfish sadness; certainly if we knew her joy we would be unable to mourn.

Theresa is here in the smallest moments and I will find myself crying, only to be interrupted by the immediate needs of a little one.
The phone will ring, and for a moment I will think it may be her...calling to ask some seemingly mundane question.

But then I remember.

The small moments ~ that's where life is at ~ the quick phone call, spontaneous text, a book read for the 2000th time ~ not the huge celebrations.  It is in day-to-day living, the chaos, the seemingly endless stream of unimportance.  I tend to forget that ~ forget that how I do the little things is much more important than what I do.

On my last birthday, Theresa and her family celebrated with us.  It was the last normal day we had together, within a couple weeks she would learn she had leukemia again. Other than being a birthday celebration it was an average day...walking through meadows, past a creek, then racing back to the cars through a sudden spring downpour.
At the time there was nothing particularly special about the day, but it was my favorite day ever, even before this darn cancer blindsided Theresa.
Now it will forever be etched on my heart as a treasure...a day filled to the brim with randomness, no plans, no glorious celebration, whose sum was so perfect it had to be planned from eternity...and isn't that what we should strive for?