Ruby's Agriculture day

I was lucky enough to go go to Ruby's agriculture day field trip with her class.  It was so stinky I kept gagging... literally,  but it totally worth it.

Ruby got to milk a goat... she was very proud of herself.

We learned all about sheep and wool and watched one get her seasonal haircut.

My sweet dear Ruby asked if she could hold the pigs heart.... then she held it long enough for me to go to the other side of the table to take a photo. I was dying!!!!! The other kids thought it was cool so a few of them asked to also hold it. Yuck!

We learned about bees and hives. It was soooo cool and perfect preparation for what happened a few days later....

Some friends of ours had a swarm in their back yard and called another friend of ours that has bees and makes honey for a hobby.

We all got a front row seat to watch him take the swarm (aprox 3 lbs of bees) from the branch and move them into their new home.  No gloves, no hat... no stings. He knew what he was doing and it was amazing.

A wicked good time

Eric surprised us with a family field trip to see Wicked in Eugene. Haley LOVED it when she saw it several years ago and Ruby and Lucy have been begging to see it for a long time.

Since Cheyenne moved back to California we had one extra ticket so had a family vote and decided Haley could bring her friend Anna.

Overall we had a great time. 

I wont mention the car accident that re-designed the driver side of my car...  that might make Eric mad :)  

Getting ready for Easter

Because we have our own little egg factory in the yard we have plenty of eggs for projects. One of my girls favorite things to do is blow out the eggs, paint them, then fill them with colored rice to make confetti eggs.  We have not made the confetti eggs yet, but we have blown out and painted tons of eggs. Several are hanging on our easter tree in the kitchen.

Lucy made an egg of Me and one of Dad. I don't know if you can tell from the photo but she used one of out super jumbo eggs for me and a regular egg for dad. I asked her why I was twice the size of Dad and she just laughed.

As if we don't have enough eggs around the house we decided to make some out of paper mache using fabric. I realized that fabric does not set up as hard as paper so we had to do several layers.

Our kitchen table looked like this for 5 days! We would do a layer, let it dry, do a layer. Then as they were waiting for it to dry, they kept started new eggs. I finally got tired of the liquid starch everywhere and just cleaned up any eggs that were incomplete when they were at school.

Here are a few of the finished eggs. I think they turned out pretty cute!

Oh boy!

So I had an ultrasound early (Eric knows a few people) to determine if we are going to have another chick at our house or if it's a rooster....

We found out that our world is about to be rocked to it's very pink core. All I can say is Oh BOY!!!!!

Driving home Lucy said "Mom, I don't want to have to change his diaper and look at that thing". 

(after we got home I fell asleep and woke up to find a vase full of daffodils with a note reading 

"Happy boy day" from Ruby")

I am still in shock, but excited. Eric is pretending to be excited but you can see the fear in his eyes. The girls are all ecstatic and fighting over who's room he will sleep in! 

Lucy has been praying that the baby will have fun in my tummy and that he will have fun when he gets out. Haley is begging us to name him Jorge or Jahon (Where is she from?) Ruby is trying to farm her sisters out to other people's houses when the baby is born so she can hold him all she wants. 

The Oregon coast/ parents of the year!

One of Eric's partners invited us (along with another partner and his family) to stay at their beach house for the weekend.  With 6 adults and 7 children I expected it to be a fun but crazy crowded time. The house was amazing, everyone had a bed to sleep in with an ocean view and the house was right on the beach! It was fabulous. 

Having grown up in California I am not used to needing sweatshirts/ jackets and rubber boots at the beach, but they were sooo handy.

After getting chilled to the bone playing in the ocean, the girls took hot baths and then had hot chocolate. Such a hard life!

We went exploring to several different locations but this was the most memorable from the trip.  We all went hiking through the Oregon rain forest. While we were walking on of the kids found a newt with a bright orange belly. All the kids were holding it and oohhing over how cool it was when another child caught one. I knew we had a critter keeper in the car (Lucy was hoping to catch a crab) so we brilliant parents all agreed the could each take one home.

After we got back to the house we were talking about the newts and someone said "I just hope they are not poisonous".  Eric quietly pulled out his phone and started Googling oregon newts. He asked Ruby to bring him one... This is where we get the parents of the year award.

Here is what we learned about the new pets we just let the 7 kids (ages 2-12) take home:

"The skin of T. granulosa contains toxins that are used as a defense against predators. Rough-skinned newts are exceptionally potent in this regard, producing a powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin. The toxin has been known to irritate bare skin and mucous membranes of some individuals. One should be careful to wash one's hands after handling them as an accidental rubbing of the eyes afterward can be very painful, but is generally not serious. Humans have been documented to die after ingesting these newts."

The kids were all crying when we told them they could not keep any of them. 

It's goat time!

Several baby goats were born a couple of weeks ago so we decided to run out and look at all of them and put down a deposit on the ones we wanted (before they are all picked over). My Mom came with us and she really fell in love with a tri-color goat that looked like it was wearing brown boots. She wanted to buy it and keep it at our house... that goat was a boy so it was not an option. The girls each picked out their favorite (female) goat. The boy goats STINK and we don't want to worry about multiplying goats.

Although they can't be taken away from their moms until June, we will go out often to visit and help the girls & goats bond.

Ruby choose this chocolate/ white mix with blue eyes. She is still deciding on a name but right now she is thinking about Coco.

I shouldn't have a favorite... so I wont. But this little goat that Haley choose is adorable. She has a heart on her nose, and it looks like she tried to paint on eye brows. Haley is in love with her, but no idea what to name her yet.

Lucy choose hers from a photo online and never changed her mind when we got there. Lucy's goat is white with tan markings on her ears. She has blue eyes now, but they may change as she gets older.

The girls have been begging us to take them early and bottle feed them... With so many baby chicks in the house, garage and yard... we just can't agree to that right now. Plus I know after the first few feedings the novelty will wear off.

Ruby & Grandma's New York trip

They visited lady liberty

FAO Schwarz

While at FAO Schwarz Grandma let Ruby adopt a baby boy! I got a very excited call from Ruby informing me that she wanted me to have a baby boy sooo bad she just adopted one. 

They had lunch at Rockefeller center and got to watch all the foreign tourists wipe out on the ice- ouch!

 They went to the top of empire state building.

 They went on a tour of the fashion district and designer showrooms. One of the jewelry makers let Ruby and Grandma go behind the scenes to see how they make their stuff.

Ruby said the first day she was really scared because it was sooo crowded. There were people and cars everywhere and nobody followed the rules. She told me about how the cabs drive and how often they honk. She commented about how many people smoked and how few people smiled. I thought to myself "Ya, that sounds like New York". When all was said and done she loved it and wants to go back someday.

Thank you Grandma!!!!

Chicks round two

We brought home 4 white polish crested chicks, 3 barred rocks

and 4 gold sex links

The polish crested are tiny and have little mohawks,

but when they are full grown...

These 11 new chicks are living in our bathroom off the garage. Somehow Eric got this huge horse feeder in the tiny room, so these girls are living well.

The round one chicks have gotten large enough and have feathers so they are in the pink coop in the garage.

The silkie's are already sporting some fashion boots!

I need to do an update on Cami because she is huge. This is not the most recent photo, but you can get the idea.

She is so sweet, she seems more like a lap dog then guard dog.

Ruby's big trip

My Mom flew in Saturday....

and left this morning at 4:30 am!!!

For New York city!!!!

My Mom has a tradition of taking each of her grandkids on the trip of their choice as long as it's educational or historical and they have to be over 8 years old. Ruby choose to go to New York to learn about the fashion industry.  I can't wait to heat the stories and see the photos!

Ruby's ortho adventures

For almost a year Ruby has been seeing the Orthodontist. She has had space maintainers then a pallet expander bar on the roof of her mouth that we would turn with a key. She has been so excited about all of this even marking the calendar and reminding me when to turn her bar.  But when the Dr said she was ready for braces and we set the date she could hardly contain herself. To say she was excited is a total understatement!

 before

during

Receiving instruction on using her reverse-pull head gear.... She is even excited about this!

(luckily she is only to wear this at night)

Ruby with her braces!

She totally thought she was "all that"... until she woke up the next morning.

Now she is no longer smiling.

It's a good thing Grandma Bonnie arrives tomorrow to take Ruby on her BIG TRIP to New York. I just hope she will be able to eat there.