An official farm girl!

I butchered my first rooster today, and now I really feel like an official farm girl. I can now raise my own meat from babies, and put them in the stew pot too! My dad came over to help - I wanted to make sure I was doing it correctly. It took me about two hours from start to finish, but I think once I have more practice, it won't take as long. I still have 4 or 5 roosters that need to be added to the stew pot, so over the next week I'm going to be busy! This is the rooster before the butchering. I will spare you all the photos of the rest of the job - it certainly wasn't super pretty!

Mother's Day

I have to say, this year was probably by far one of my best Mother's Days. And I think it was because it was so laid back. We had celebrated with my family, my mom, the day before, so today was all for me. And my husband outdid himself in making sure I enjoyed it. No, there was no fancy restaurant - we tried that last year for brunch and all I can say is "what in the world was I thinking???" Lots of people, my kids were whiny, and it just wasn't fun. But this year, I got to sleep in (cue angel music here), I got served breakfast in bed (Raisin Bran and coffee, and it was perfect!) and then we went to church. I got to watch my kids sing on stage in their oh-so-cute way, and then viewed their artwork on display in the lobby. The message was great, the music was great, and I was teary throughout. Once we got home, my hubby sent me outside to play ball with the kids while he fried up enough bacon to feed the whole neighborhood, and made us all BLT's for lunch. We then spent the rest of the afternoon doing gardening work, which is what I had told him days ago was the way I wanted to spend Mother's Day. We got two maple trees planted, a gardening bed made, flowers planted, and plans made for more projects. Hubby again made dinner - grilled pork, pasta and veggies - and cleaned up the kitchen all along the way. It was such a nice and relaxing day for me! At bedtime all the kids gave me giant hugs and kisses, said Happy Mother's Day and I Love You Soooo Much, and went to sleep. I have photos, and once I get them all edited properly (meaning sized so they don't take three days to upload from here in the woods where we live!) I will post them. But suffice to say, it will be a Mother's Day I will remember for a long time!!

Saturday Fun

I first heard the kids start to stir at 6 am on Saturday morning. Really? Really! The one day we can sleep in during the whole entire week, and they have to get up early. I can't wait until they are teenagers, so I can wake them up early just for the heck of it! The good thing is they stayed relatively quiet for that first hour, and then you could tell they were just itching to get up and really play. So at 7 am I went to their rooms to give them the ok to get up, and by 7:17 am, this is what they came out to the living room in:

So this was the kick start to our day. We spent the rest of the morning getting some last minute preparations done for going out to my parents house. The kids and James sent me to my craft room for a little bit so they could work on some Mother's Day cards, and I gathered the supplies for the kids to make my mom a Mother's Day painting. This is what they did (photo courtesy of Daniel!):

I was so happy with how it turned out. Now I need to have them make me one for my wall! We had a nice BBQ late lunch/early dinner at my parents house. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, and I made angel food cake with strawberries for dessert. The kids had fun presenting me with their treasures they had made in school - my absolute favorite kind of gifts!

Austin was too busy playing with Auntie Melissa's new goat to come over and have his picture taken with me! Oh well, cute picture of Austin and the goat! He had fun with her!

All of my kiddos and I - just love it!