December 2013~ The good, the bad, the funny

Going on Day 25 with no refrigerator. I feel asleep last night a huge bag of lettuce did not survive  the bitter frozen night. I read online that frozen romaine lettuce can be cooked like spinach. Ugh. I really wanted salad instead. We thaw our carton of orange juice or milk in the sink. The kids think OJ slush is a treat. Frozen eggs look so cool when you crack them open. Only half of the eggs get frozen; I think it has something to do with how much air is inside them.

New refrigerator is getting delivered on Friday! We couldn't fix ours though we tried to ourselves. Nobody makes anything that lasts anymore, it's sad.

Oh! And we still have a difficult, barely working, must drain it 3x manually, washing machine, too. Trying to remedy that problem presently...

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The weather got warm (50's) for a couple of days. We took advantage and raked tons of leaves, winterized the chicken coop (we are doing the deep litter method this year!), got shelters nice and ready for other farm animals, and put up Christmas lights/decorated the house outside. I also cleaned the back porch/ refrigerator. We are using ice chests and the porch in general as the fridge. When it was in the 50's we had to keep things in coolers, now that it's so cold we're lazy and we just throw stuff out the door. I had to bring the beer and lettuce in though. Don't want those in freezing temps.

We took Sebastian (5) to the eye Dr. yesterday. I noticed six months ago his left eye would cross when he was focused on things. Ricky never noticed until I pointed it out a few times. I could totally tell it was a problem and knew we should get him in to see a optometrist. We had a wave of dentist, orthodontist and Dr. appointments the past 4 months. Like seriously A TON of appointments and so it was easy to put this off. I feel really bad now about it though.
Sebastian's Eye Appointment
Sebastian (5) is a very funny, very dry, very particular kid He's sensitive but strong and very proud. He was apprehensive about going, understandably so, but didn't want me explaining what they were going to do. He dragged his feet into the office (literally!) and I expected him to have a meltdown. He didn't though, he sat up and listened, and the exam started off well. Once we got to looking at letters or cards he started being a goofball. Ricky was with me and we could tell when he called a giant letter 'E' the letter 'A' he was faking. The Dr. moved to black and white pictures and showed him a card with an umbrella on it. Sebastian thought about it and said he didn't know what it was. I could tell he was stalling and then he had an idea click into his head. "Rain" he slyly said. The next picture was of a house and he said, very quickly with a big smile, "DOG!"

The Dr. looked at the card and asked him again, Sebastian went back to his previous tactic of saying something related to the picture. After a long deliberation he calls the house a tent. Clever. He had an ornery I don't really want to play this game grin. Little stinker, he is SUCH a character. The Dr. was so cool about it. He went with the names Sebastian chose for the pictures and continued showing him the same pictures in different sizes. Sebastian slipped up only once calling the 'rain' one it's proper name  of umbrella. 
  At first we were seriously nervous because Sebastian can get really upset and moody -even sad and loudly screaming. Make him feel embarrassed or awkward (or accuse him of something) and he often times really feels it deeply and has a very difficult time dealing with those emotions. So we didn't know what to expect when he started playing silly games. We were also starting to get slightly mortified. I also hid behind Beatrice silently laughing so hard at times. I looked at Ricky trying to keep a cool composure and it made me laugh harder! In the end the doc recommended we see a pediatric specialist for glasses, because  his two sides are very different and we will need special advice (and monitoring) about his left eye. I was worried I waited too long to bring him in. This Dr. said we didn't wait too long and this is the age that is important to get him in glasses since he is learning to write and do things close up. He may have needed surgery as a teen in his left eye if this went untreated. He sees very, very little out of his left eye and his left eye crosses when he tries to focus.
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Beatrice six months old:

Beatrice loves:

When Penelope blows up balloons -she laughs her head off!

When Ethan and Sage play peak a boo with her

When Everett and Sebastian play karate -she watches and wiggles and is entertained

When Charlotte walks her around the house when I can't

Things said in December 2013
Penelope age 7: MOM! I'm bored. I think I got the bored flu.
me: It's called winter

Everett age 3: I don't like this (pokes at his peanut butter and jelly)
me: Okay, you don't have to eat it.

Everett: It taste like zombie brains
me: lol ok don't eat it
Everett: I don't like it, it taste like zombie braaaainNNNs. And I don't like eating that.
me: OKAY, lol don't eat it!
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To close out the day I just got to say this awesome sentence: Don't color on your penis.
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I made a salt table with the kids today. It was ruined in 6 minutes flat. I asked Everett WHY, WHY did he pour his apple juice in our salt table. His reply, "Because a fire is in dare." He was also apologizing profusely and he was surprised, of course, that he had ruined the salt table. We'll try it again when I get more salt... He sees fires everywhere and he's obsessed with it! This is what a salt tray is ... http://www.learning4kids.net/2012/06/05/rainbow-salt-tray/

Sebastian age 5 is supposed to write a letter to give to Santa at pre school class. Here is what he told Ricky. haha.

Dear Santa,

I would like a haunted castle with gaurds and a giant goblin with a giant sword in his hand, a green katana would be best. The goblin should be creepy.

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Sebastian: This is my dollar, look see George Washington is on it

Me: Oh cool. You know that's George Washington?

Sebastian: Auh duh, I know George Washington is on the dollar

Me: Do you know who he is?

Sebastian condescending tone: Auh yeeah I know, don't you know I was born in the 90's, so of course I know who he is.

Me: Oh, lol, okay, I guess you do know him then.

Sebastian: Yeah, he is the first president and that was a long time ago, like 90's.

hahahaaha. Love 5 year olds!

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 Everett-3 years old said he had no eyebrows so Charlotte showed him in a mirror he did. He said in the cutest surprised toddler voice ever, "Oh! There they are! I was lookin' fo' dem'" What is even better is that a couple months ago he told me he didn't have eyebrows! I told him he did but he insisted he didn't and then ran off to play. So all this time he really thought he didn't have any for some reason. So cute and funny! So wonderful.

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Another Kid...

I’ve heard people say that if you wait to have kids (you know until you are “ready” and financially secure) then you’ll never have them. Well as it turns out the same goes for goats.

  I was supposed to get goats 12 years ago. They were a birthday present from my husband. He was clearing land to build me a goat pen for them and everything, but I told him to stop. We were possibly moving and we weren’t ready for goats. Every year thereafter goats have been discussed and a couple of those years we have come realllly close to getting goats, but we always came to our senses. We kept waiting for the right time. This fall we started to talk serious goat talk again. We want some brush clearing yard helpers and mowers, and we are looking for raw milk. We finally made a practical use plan for having goats around. (Things to consider: breeds, sexes, milking, feeding, shelter, fencing, what to do with babies, how to breed them if we don't want a male around -renting a stud goat-, Etc.)

 Even so, goat shopping was not on the top of our priority list as the washing machine and refrigerator simultaneously broke, the holiday season is here, we have a 5 month old baby, and we are already taking on new expenses this month for heating and the growing food budget... now purchasing organic eggs at the grocery store AND buying feed for our chickens because it is cold and our hens are on winter break so they are not laying right now. We could come up with at least six more reasons why we shouldn’t get goats. I really started the whole thing up again when in October I told Ricky nostalgically that this year would be the perfect year for goats because next year Charlotte would be 18, and I promised her that we’d have goats someday. A promise I made to her when she was just a bright eyed kindergartner. He listened thoughtfully and started making goat shelter plans that same morning. In the meantime Craigslist hadn’t yielded anything promising in the way of actual goats. We had very specific requirements and not a lot of time to fool around at an animal auction. For one we wanted Nigerian Dwarf goats for milk flavor and a smaller size goat that fits well on our land and backyard with little human kids, but were also interested in the Saanen breed. We also didn’t want to pay a lot. Goats have really gone up in price since the last time we seriously looked. The goat talk quieted down...

 Since we were going to be further out in the country for two days over Thanksgiving I casually said we should look around for goats. The day after Thanksgiving Ricky looked online and sure enough we found a Dwarf Nigerian mama with a Dwarf Nigerian Saanen cross baby doe. The owners didn't want to see  the mama go but were selling her because she was very “docile” and the other goats were picking on her.  My grandma is a wheeler and a dealer so I asked her to call and negotiate a price for us. She’s hilarious and of course did call for us and got us $30 off their already reduced price (they claimed they had already gone down in price, and it was a good price). Grandma wasn’t pleased they wouldn’t budge more on price but we were happy enough. So we were on our way over hills and winding country roads to pick up new additions to our lives...

Charlotte, 17, and Dixie our very first baby goat. I promised Charlotte we would have goats when she was in pre school and kindergarten. Promise fullfilled!

I fell asleep on the long ride home and Charlotte took my picture. I also got peed on. It was a given though; someone was gonna get it.

We have no refrigerator (New one is on order) and technically a broken washing machine, but we have goats and we have each other. If we were to wait until everything was perfect would we EVER have gotten them??