Bella the chicken

Something sad happened today, one of our chickens died. Bella was her name. She was fine this morning and when we checked on the hens this afternoon Bella was laying on the floor of the coop and unable to move much. She didn't look good and I knew it wouldn't be long. With the boys and Michael out of town, that left Anna and I to deal with it. We didn't really know what to do but bring her comfort so we took turns petting her. Anna and I spoke a lot about death, she had a lot of questions, I did my best to answer them, and then we decided to take a break and come inside for a while. About 30 minutes later, we went back to the coop and she had died. We wrapped her in a towel and our sweet neighbors came right over when they saw us out front and helped us dig a hole. Anna wrote on the tombstone and said her goodbyes. I don't know how it's possible to be attached to a chicken and be sad for it's death, but we loved her just like we love our other pets. Here are some pictures from today. If you don't want to see what a sick chicken looks like, then don't view them. Nothing graphic, it just might make you sad. And there is one picture of Anna holding Bella after she was wrapped in the towel on her way to be buried. I was so surprised how brave Anna was, I never thought she would want to carry a dead chicken but she wanted to.

This is what Bella looked like a few weeks ago, happy and healthy!

 And this was today after we noticed she was sick.

 Her sisters look on, they kept coming to check on her.

 Anna called Grandma and Papa to tell them that Bella was sick.

 on the way to the burial.

 What would we do without our great neighbors?

Letters to my daughter

With Michael and the boys gone at summer camp that leaves Annagrace and I to have a girls week here at home (insert happy dance here). I have a lot of special things planned for the week so I thought it might be fun to write Anna a letter each day talking about what we did together while the guys were gone, that way we can forever remember our week. Here are the first 3 letters to my lovely Annagrace.

Letter #1, Sunday

Dear Anngrace,


Today we dropped your daddy and brothers off at church so they could go to summer camp, you gave your daddy one of the biggest hugs I have ever seen you give, I'm sure you will miss him a lot. But with the boys gone that means you and I get some special girl time this week. I'm so excited to spend time with you! We sure had a great day today didn't we. After we dropped the boys off you and I went to one of our favorite places, the mall. We sure love to walk around the mall. Your favorite part was riding the carousel. Of course you chose the tea cup so you could spin real fast, you are such a thrill seeker. I love that about you because we both know that your mother is not so much a thrill seeker so I admire that about you. My favorite part of our mall trip was getting cookies from Paradise Bakery and eating them in the food court. The cookies were great but my time with you was even better, I had fun just talking with you and laughing with you. You sure make me smile. We then went to Bath and Body Works to pick up some hand sanitizer for our purses and you were excited to see that they were having a sale, buy 8 for $5. You took your time picking out the 8 you wanted and insisted on holding all 8 by yourself while we stood in line. You sure enjoyed carrying the bag around the mall after we made our purchase. After our shopping trip, it was nice to relax at Papa and Grandma's house for a few hours before heading back home. Aren't we lucky to live near Grandma and Papa and spend time with them. When we got home we had a few minutes to "be bored" as you put it before going next door for dinner. The Huishes invited us over to their house for Sunday night family dinner. We sure had a great time eating with them and you sure surprised me by eating almost all your barbecued chicken and you made me very proud by having such nice manners. After dinner we got to play two games with them and my favorite part was hearing you giggle as we played the games. You have quite the sense of humor and I love that you are gaining confidence to show it in front of other people and not just your family. We then borrowed the movie High School Musical and came home, put our jammies on, cuddled up on the couch with our popcorn and watched the movie. I loved watching your face during the movie, especially during the singing parts. You really liked the movie and so did I, it was nice to watch a chick flick and not have the boys making fun of it. You are such a special little girl Annagrace and I have so enjoyed this day with you. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow when we have some more special things planned.


Love,
Mommy

Day #2, Monday

Dear Annagrace,


Today has been another fun day together. You woke up a little sad this morning after you realized that brothers and daddy were not home but after some cuddles from mommy in daddy's recliner, your tears left and you were pretty excited about our day. I had you get a piece of paper to make a list of the errands we needed to run today. You love lists just like your mom. These are the things you wrote on our list:


Bank
Library
Mesa Feed (for chicken food)
Petco (for crickets)
Home
Dentist (for mom's appointment)
Taco Bell
Home
Movie at 1:50- Judy Moody
Home
Dinner at the Kruse's house


As you can see we had a very busy day but it sure was fun. What was your favorite part of today? My favorite part was watching you check our list to make sure we were on schedule and mark off the places we had been. I used to do the same thing with my mom when I was your age. You are so much like your me when it comes to keeping a schedule and that makes me smile. I'm so proud of you for reading the book Judy Moody, it sure made the movie more fun since you already knew a little about Judy Moody. I also enjoyed seeing you be such a good friend today. You invited your friend Josh to go with us to the movies, you two sure have a lot of fun together don't you! After getting back from the movie, we did a quick change of clothes and headed over to the Kruse's house for dinner and some swimming. You and Abigail sure had fun playing together and mommy enjoyed spending time with Kelly. By the time we got home you and I were pretty tired and it didn't take long for you to fall asleep but you did shed a few more tears because you missed daddy and brothers. I like that you are able to express how you feel when you are sad. It was another great day spent with you Annagrace!


Love,
Mommy

Day #3, Tuesday

Dear Anna Banana Fee Fi Fo Fanna Anna (of course this has to be read singing),


Today has been another fine day. After the busy pace of our last two days it was nice to sleep in and stay at home most of the day. We enjoyed a playdate with Desi and Josh and their mom Laura this morning, I sure enjoyed listening to you and Desi giggle as you ate your lunch. We sure are blessed with some great friends! After they left, it didn't take long for us to put in High School Musical 2. You and I agreed that it wasn't as good at the first one but we still enjoyed it. I wonder what we will think of High School Musical 3, I guess we'll find out tomorrow. After a lazy afternoon, it was time for your piano lessons and then Grandma and Papa's for dinner. Like always, you played the piano beautifully. Have I ever told you that it makes my heart so happy to hear you play the piano. It puts a smile on my face every time, I just love it. It is so evident that God has given you a very special gift, I can't wait to see how you choose to use it. We were treated to a wonderful meal at Papa and Grandma's house, then we taught them how to play the game Whoonu. We all agreed that it's a great game. After a short walk around their neighborhood, it was time to call it an early night and head home. After all, we have had a few late nights and we needed to get you to bed on time tonight. Tomorrow is kind of a big day, we are heading to Scottsdale to meet with Dr. Graziano who may be the surgeon that will fix your heart. So until then, sweet dreams little one. Thanks for another great day Buttercup, I love you so deeply!  


Love,
Mommy

adjectives and telling the truth

We are in the home stretch of finishing up our homeschool year, just a few more weeks and we will be on our summer break! This past week I gave Anna the assignment of writing about what she learned in Kindergarten this year. I didn't give her any other directions other than that. I simply wanted to see what she would come up with, and I love what she wrote about. And this is what I got. 

In case you can't figure out what all the words are, this is what it says. "I've learned in grammar what adjectives are. I've learned about God, about sharing, to tell the truth. In math I've learned to add." Out of all the things she learned academically, I find it funny that she only mentioned addition and adjectives. But the part I love the most is how she mentioned learning about God, sharing, and telling the truth. I am so happy that those are the things that stuck out to her. Although academics are very important to me, I'll take those three things above all others. I know I will treasure this paper for a long time.

2 updates

I have two updates, I'll save the best one for last so please read all of this post. Only if you want to of course. :)
First, I wanted to update from a post I wrote a while back, you can read it here. We finally came up with a system the kids use to manage the time used on electronics (this includes computer time and x-box time). It looks like this:
Each Sunday night the envelopes are filled with six 30 minute cards for each child. That equals out to 3 hours of playing time per kid. No more than 1 hour can be spent per day and once the cards are gone, that's it for the week. And in order to play, homeschool work has to be completed (by all three kids) and chores have to be done. I still reserve the right to say "no" or "not now" depending on how the day has gone. This system has worked GREAT for us and the kids are doing well spreading out their time during the week. We have been using this system for a month now and we really like it.

 After they turn in a card, it gets placed in this container and stays in here until we reload their cards after they go to bed Sunday night.

After I wrote the last post that was linked above, we did a "cleaning house" so to speak with the games we were letting the boys play. We will be the first to admit we are not perfect parents and we make mistakes and you can read about one of those mistakes on the previous post. But I'm happy to say that the only x-box games we have left in our house are those that are properly rated for our children's ages. No longer do we have any rated M games and it feels so good! It's been a great learning experience for our whole family.

Second, this update is pretty exciting. We are on the third month of Michael being out of work but the Lord continues to provide in amazing ways. Michael still continues to teach CPR classes and do some work for his brother. It's keeping him quite busy which has been good for him, he's not one to sit around during the day and do nothing. But the exciting news is that Michael interviewed with a company called Go Daddy and he is now in the next phase while they do a background investigation on him. We are praying that this is the job for Michael. He and I both feel this would be a great job and Michael will definitely say yes if offered the job. So we wait. That's the hard part. And we hope and pray it's a yes from them!

Water balloons!

I captured this picture tonight as Annagrace was trying to throw a water balloon at her daddy. It just melts my heart.

A chef I am not, final day, day #7

After posting the meals we have eaten for the past 7 days, I have given myself a boost of confidence and I'm beginning to think I am most certainly, a chef. Not a chef like other's may define the word, but I am a chef for my family and I find much joy in preparing meals for them. For tonight's meal I enjoyed making this yummy soup.

Peeling this many potatoes is quite the work out for the upper arms. 

I love red onions!

 I used just a dash of the red pepper, too much of it and it's just too spicy and I love spicy but I overdid it the last time I made this recipe so this time I made sure not to add too much.

 Fresh spinach works much better than frozen.

 This is what it looks like before it warms up on the stove. This was the first time I did not cook the soup in the crock pot, I didn't get it started early enough in the day so I cooked it for 2 1/2 hours on the stovetop and it turned out just as good.

 Don't get any other cheese other than smoked gouda, it adds the most yummy flavor!

 I like to serve this soup with toppings like bacon, leftover gouda, a spoonfull of sour cream, and oyster crackers or saltines, whatever you prefer. I also served some garlic bread with it for a side. It's the perfect fall meal, I had to remind myself it was June 2nd.

This concludes my series on A Chef I am Not. I hope you enjoyed it! Now back to my normal blogging. :)

A chef I am not, day #6

This is the second to last day of my series titled "A chef I am not." On this weeks menu I planned for us to get pizza for one of our dinners. I figure after cooking 6 dinners, I'm entitled every now and then to not having to make dinner. We hardly eat out anymore so it's a real treat when we get to. We had a coupon to Hungry Howies Pizza so that is what we had for dinner tonight. It was delicous!