April Fools and the Bunny

April Fools...

Noah doesn't really do April Fools so much... one year awhile back I made mini meatloafs with mashed potatoes on top died pink. They looked like cupcakes. Then made rice crispie treats out of cocoa pebbles so it really looked like meatloaf. I insisted they eat desert first... Noah layed under the table and cried cause of the cruelty of having to eat dessert for dinner... I thought it was hysterical.

This year Addie decided to have some fun.  Noah has an ipod that he uses to tune out the world when he needs to. And because he is a boy and a christian he only has boy christian music on it... makes perfect sense huh?  Addie snuck into his room, took his ipod and synced his ipod to her playlist... the result was hysterical... Noah thought it was pretty funny at first too, then he realized it wasn't going to get fixed till we got home... Addie cracked herself up the whole way to youth.... The look on his face was priceless.

God's Bunny:
Again this year the boys were stumped as to WHY a bunny brings eggs on Easter.  Why is that? Bunnies don't lay eggs... Noah did his best to try and explain this to the boys so that they might understand but also letting them know the true reason we celebrate Easter.
We got to church and someone asked Yordi if the Easter bunny had come...
Yordi says a bit puzzled... I don't think so... I think it was God's rabbit. He got all messed up and layed eggs so God sent him down here...

yeah... that sounds about right...

Not sure how I feel

it has been one of those days... one of those days you think... Really???? Really???? Another stupid thing happens and it stops bothering you because it is just one more crappy thing in a whole line of crappy things....

And then I overhear this... and as a strict mom, a concerned mom I should be "concerned" right? But I am not. Tonight it is just terribly funny and I am laughing. And I keep laughing...

Conversation #1 between my 2 oldest, the 2 more responsible children I have...

Addie: uhhh did I tell you i got refocused today (refocus= time out at school to rethink what you are doing and to give you an opportunity to get it in gear) (*i have to point out here that Addie has NEVER in the history of 9 years been in ANY trouble at school)

Noah: YOU??? Nice work. What did you do?

Addie: I laughed after we were told no more laughing by anyone for the entire class... Went into Mr *** class and nearly made everyone choke that I was being refocused. B (a boy that is ALWAYS in trouble but super nice to Addie) said "what is this world coming to if even Addie is being refocused"?

Noah: that is just awesome.

Addie: yeah, just wanted the experience. Never done anything like that before. Might not ever get the opportunity to get refocused for something like laughing.

Noah: yeah I got sent to the principals office today for having a "dumb report and dumb notes".

Perfect...


Conversation #2

Addie: I am nervous about competing for the creed tomorrow (big FFA competition). i hope I do bad cause it will make mr A really mad.

The other boy competing with her: darn I did good today. If we do good tomorrow then we have to keep on competing... we gotta try harder to do bad.

Really, they are good kids. I don't think i should worry to much. i don't think they have crossed to the dark side. I am fairly confident they are not turning into the school trouble makers...I think we all have just had a bit too much and have snappedin much better moods... tomorrow (or maybe the next day) I will be back to normal... for tonight I am still chuckling.

we are back...

We are home. What a great week at fair. We got all 5 pigs - excuse me- 4 pigs, Buzz, and Fairy Princess (the duck) loaded and taken into fair. Thank you Kerri... Addie and I couldnt have done it without you. I drove with Buzz in my trailer and prayed the whole way that I would get him there safely. He is Addie's baby after all. We got to the scales and realized that Buzz had layed on the duck cage during the trip which had pinned the duck to the floor of the cage. Close call!! 2 pigs made weight- so both kids had a market hog to sell!!!

Tuesday 12:00, we are checked into fair and the work begins. By the end of the day Addie and her friend Jesse had washed 7 pigs and body shaved 5. Noah began Wednsday off by winning GRAND CHAMPION duck (there was only 1) and then taking Grand Champion overall waterfowl. Molly was pretty proud that her duck already had 3 large purple ribbons and 1 trophy!!! By the end of fair the duck had 3 trophies and 7 ribbons. There will be no living with him in the barn now! When it came time for Molly to show her duck on Saturday, the judge couldn't get anywhere near her. Everytime he leaned in to talk to Molly, Fairy Princess would hiss and try to attack the judge. As long as he kept his distance from Molly everything was fine. Noah won Grand Champion showman and was able to participate in the small animal round robin tournament.

The kids did good. We didn't place so high with pigs this year, but learned alot... this new judge likes something completely different than the last judge... and luckily next year we will have another new one... so who knows. The kids had so much fun hanging out with their friends. The pig kids did a great job working together.

Addie ended up fairly sick... By day 2 we realized that she wasn't just working too hard in the heat and she wasn't just overly stressed. I checked her temp and found that she was running a temp of 102.5. There was no getting her out of the barn, although we did make her come back to the trailer for a little bit and her wonderful friends snuck back to the barn and snuck her pigs out for a bath. Even one of the boys who is too young to have a pig came up to me to tell me to not wake Addie in the morning for early morning chores. He said he would muck out her pig pens for her. How sweet is that? She stayed sick all week, but didn't stop. We went to the dr the day after fair and she had lost 5 lbs and they were threatening to put her in the hospital on IV fluids... some nasty virus (we jokingly said we thought she had the swine flu- sick joke I know). She seems to be over the hump now.

County Fair 2009 is over and we have to consider it a sucess. We came home with 2 pigs fewer than we went with and the same number of children...

And so we are off...

Where has this summer gone? I have hardly even posted... I do need to catch up, and plan to. There are so many great pictures of fun times this summer- company from out of state (including ours 10 kids/4 adults), Yordi's birthday, Addie's graduation, pool fun... but that will have to wait. We are outta here- off to county fair tomorrow am. Here are the stats:

me
5 kids (gaining an extra or 2 once there)
4 market hogs (please God let them be 230 lbs or more)
1 stubborn Buzz
1 duck
100 lbs of feed
groceries to feed all of us for 1 week
36 pairs of shorts
36 tshirts
42 pairs of undies
6 pairs of barn boots
6 pairs of show boots
7 show outfits
1 set FFA OD
2 sets complete animals records
2 show sticks
3 sets of completed Daily feed records (with all feed fed in 60 days documented- as well as rate of gain and cost per pound per animal)
tent trailer
5 pair clippers
5 bottles of shampoo/liquid bluing
6 feed pans
2 waterers
6 stall card signs


and whatever else we might possibly need...

Here is a glimpse of how it looks:
Day 1: notice the barns DO smell
Day 2: notice the barns don't smell as bad as previously thought
Day 3: notice the trailer smells like the barn
Day 4: notice that WE smell as bad as the barn
Day 5: settle for sorta clean clothes, debate if showers really are necessary, and then decided that it really doesn't matter
Day 6: shower? no. Clean clothes? forget it. WHEN DO WE GET TO LEAVE?????

Really, it is a highlight of the year. Today the kids are excited... they work so hard. They will be in the barns every morning at 6:30 am, work all day, show all evening, hang out until curfew with friends in the barns, bed by midnight and start all over the next day.
So, my next post will be once we are home... and have found our way to the showers and over the heaping piles of laundry. But there will be pictures...

FAME mission

dont know if I am ready, but...

Addie has travelled with us to both China and EThiopia when we adopted our littles. While we were in Africa she stated that she would be back on a missions trip. Well, she is headed out on a missions trip but instead of Africa they are headed to Haiti. She is going with her best friends family and 2 doctors from our church. It will be a medical missions trip and Addie hopes to be able to help out in the clinic as well as helping out with the malnutrition feeding clinic. I will be posting more info soon- she will be gone October 23-31. She is busy trying to raise funds, as she wants to pay for it all on her own... pretty proud of that kid. She came to me regarding the trip- said she felt it in her heart, it is what she needs to do... not sure if the mom in me is ready, but we are so excited for her.

just an ordinary day...

It is all fun and games in the pig pen until you give 1 kid the hose!!! What do you get? 5 wet kids and a big mud puddle for the pigs to play in. I refuse to think about what percentage is mud and what percentage is pig poo- but my dr assures me this is what keeps kids healthy. A good dose of old fashioned dirt.
Now, what I didnt get on camera... Molly carrying around a fluffy yellow chicken like a little bag on her arm, screaming at her siblings to not dare get her chicken wet. Bis and Yordi wrestling for the hose, coming crazy close to the hot fence (meanwhile, Bis not believing us that it is indeed hot). And my girly girl (not) Addie. Dressed in a WHITE strapless tank top diving into a pile of dry pig mud, throwing her brothers out of the way to capture and grab armfulls of runaway chickens before her pigs eat them. Then, informing me that was so NOT mud! :) And Bis running as fast as he can around the storage unit, screaming ADDIE YOUR PIG- GET YOUR PIG at the top of his lungs. 2 seconds later the pig rounds the storage unit in hot pursuit of Bis, kicking up his heals and laughing...

another relaxing evening...

Tonight we had pig weigh-ins for county fair. This means county fair is just 60 days away. How can that possibly be???? This is a different year for us, a trial year... we are keeping the pigs at our house which allows the kids more chores and more time with their pigs. Normally we borrow a trailer from a friend, but this year Tom got all crafty and built us a trailer. Usually weigh ins take most of an evening... lots of hard work, several big bodies to push, pull, roll, screaming, skittish pigs up into a trailer. This year... the pigs loaded themselves. We literally couldn't get off the ramp quick enough for them to wriggle up into the trailer (the bucket of rotting food I saved for this very occasion certainly helped). Of course it had to be raining, but this is Oregon after all... We get to the fairgrounds and wait our turn to weigh the pigs. We back in the trailer and usually the 2 big boys they have to help with the animals take 1 look at Addie and then start wrestling her pigs from the trailer for her. This year they handed her a pig board. She climbed up in the trailer and wrangled both her and Noah's pigs onto the scales. Poor thing was so tired... she climbed back into the car and Molly started screaming about not wanting to sit next to "pig poop"!!!! I think we are in good shape though... weights are 115 lbs, 120 lbs, 133 lbs, and 154 lbs. We have 60 days to get to minimum of 230 lbs. Now if we could just teach them some manners, personal space, and respect we might just make it!!!

Our Future Farmer of America

So Addie has been able to participate in the high school FFA program this spring, even though she is still in middle school. She was invited to be part of a food science judging team and a dairy food judging team. Last week "districts" were held at our school. Addie was thrilled- the team took first place and she took first place in individuals. This week Monday and Tuesday, the STATE competition took place at OSU... FFA teams from all over the state met and competed. Addie was completely thrilled to find out that the team took 3rd overall in the state and amazingly she placed 9th in individuals!!!!! Sadly enough a new rule had been put into place- "no 8th graders or teams with 8th graders allowed to place". Meaning that she didnt get recognized for her 9th in state finish and the entire team didn't get recognized for finishing 3rd in state... she is happily looking forward to being able to compete for "real" next year!!