Our Baby

I decided to have an Ultrasound with this baby and here are the pictures they took of our baby.

The legs

A foot

A scary looking face
This pic is the standard 2D ultrasound image, the others are from the 4D ultrasound image

Baby's Face

Baby's face with arm and leg visible.

FedEx

We were driving down the road today and Azariah saw a FedEx truck and then said:

"Those trucks are fed x's."

Tirzah agreed with him and I thought it was a pretty good joke.

Talitha and Markers

Talitha has a love for markers. She finds markers and draws on herself or others if they will let her. Where does she like to draw on herself or others? On the bottoms of their feet of course.

You Never Know How a Child Interprets a saying...

Tirzah started Piano lessons a few weeks ago. This week the teacher called and said they were getting hooked up to City Sewer so we would need to park down the street and walk to the house. No problem I said knowing that the boys being able to watch machines would be fun for them.

The boys and I went to look at the trench that was dug down the driveway the day before. We talked about it and then the boys watched the workers start to tare up the street.

Later we went and had art class. On our way home Azariah and Tirzah start to argue. Azariah comes to tears and I ask what is going on.

Azariah says "Was it OK for them to dig up the driveway at that house?"
I say "Yes, Azariah it was fine for them to dig up the driveway."
Azariah "Tirzah said they did it 'on purpose'"
Mom: "Yes, they dug up the driveway 'on purpose'".
Azariah "How can they dig it up on purpose if it's OK?"

I started laughing as I realized the only time Azariah hears the phrase "on purpose" is when we ask him "Azariah did you hit your brother on purpose?" "Azariah did you cut your hair on purpose?" "Azariah, you did to do that on purpose didn't you." No wonder the child thought the phrase "on purpose" meant something bad.

I explained it to him and we were OK from there.

Azariah My Science Guy

My wonderful husband gave me the afternoon off from all my children. He took them to his sisters house and they mowed her lawn, watched a movie and went to the park. I had from about 10:00 AM until 5:45 PM all to myself. It was very nice and I was able to get pictures ordered to I can catch up on 2 1/2 years of scrapbooks.

When they arrived home I was feeding baby goats. Then I did a couple of more things and finally I walked back into the house. My son Azariah had a hand full of stuff and said "I am going to make an electric magnet."

I didn't think much about it since I didn't know what he was talked about. About 10 minutes later he comes in and says, "Mom look at this." He then shows me how my kitchen shears and another pair of scissors were now magnetized. They were attracted to a medal jar ring. He then explained, "I made an electric magnet." I asked "How did you do it?" Azariah says, "Well, I used these two magnets (They are two round magnets) and a small pin (which he couldn't find to show me) and the electric fence charger." I asked, "Where did you learn how to do this?" Azariah matter of factly says "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

Back in May we went on a road trip and I picked up some movies for the kids to watch in the car. One of them was on magnetism. But that was about two months ago. I was very impressed with his creativity and use of resources. I just don't know how useful magnetized kitchen shears will be.

Banana Bread

We had Banana bread for breakfast this morning. It was left over from our camping trip and so instead of making muffins like I usually do on Sunday morning I just brought out the Banana bread.

We had all had two or three pieces and were finishing up when Azariah says:

"This tastes like coconut bread instead of banana bread."
I said "I know son, it has coconut in it."
Azariah: "Don't really like coconut."

At this point, Gil who was standing behind Azariah's chair dipping some bread in fresh goat milk reached his hand out to take Azariah's bread. But then Azariah quickly said "But I really like this banana bread like crazy."

Gil and I started laughing because of his expression and his comment. This is our child who is funny but only when he isn't trying to be.

The First Six Months of News Explained

Monday's

Well, I figure that since no one likes Monday's anyway why not make it cleaning and laundry day? My son, Azariah, many times wakes up on Monday and says "I hate Monday's..." with a whine... because he knows that he will have to work.

So Tirzah and Azariah have one of two chores each Monday. One of them sorts their laundry and cleans the bathroom and the other cleans their room and vacuums the house. I am not sure why I make them sort the laundry because to be honest I don't really wash darks and lights separetaly unless it is a new red shirt or something I think will bleed. So they don't know this but I just make them do it because I have always been told "You need to sort the laundry." So they have to do it because it is suppose to be sorted.

Well today it was Azariah's turn. I also make them turn clothes right side out. He had the two piles but they were not really sorted. Although I must say all the PJ's were in one and all the jeans in the other. It was the shirts that were all mixed up in both. He did it without complaning so I was happy. I started filling the wash machine with the clothes and I feel dirt hitting my sandled feet. Just about every pair of jeans I picked up had a ton of dirt in the pockets. So I dumped all the dirt out on the floor and then swept it up. I am glad my children enjoy playing out doors, but I could have filled a sandbox with all the dirt I emptied from their pockets. The bottom of the their laundry basket was also full of dirt.

I love my children.

Super Glue

I was out hanging up clothes on the line when I came back into the house. I find Azariah picking white stuff off of his fingers.

Me: "Azariah what are you doing?"
A: "Well Mom, I was gluing my playmobil cannon and got super glue all over my fingers."

I then examine the cannon and the counter. Glue, not just glue but Super Glue is all over the cannon and the counter as well as Azariah's fingers. The good thing was that he hadn't allowed his fingers to be stuck together. So I took him in the bathroom and we worked on his fingers for about 15 minutes. Most of it came off so I went back outside. However, 30 minutes later when I came back in he was still running his fingers under the water. I told him to stop and to go play. This elicited a crying spell of "I don't want glue on my fingers..." I informed him that it would were off eventually and that I hoped he learned his lesson. And I told him that he may not use Super Glue without Gil or I helping him.

It could have been worse.

What do you think?

This morning as we were getting ready for church Gil was brushing his teeth. Now this isn't a big deal, however he had no shirt on and was wearing some comfortable shorts while he was brushing his teeth. He sits down next to me on the couch and says "So am I a fat slob too?"

I looked at him and he stammered "That isn't what I meant..."
Then he says "How do you know the too meant you?"

I was rather comical to see him back pedal.

Check Out the Curriculum I Use

Reprimand from my friend

OK I had my dad comment "It hasn't been hard to keep up with your blog." and then a friend of mine said "You need to blog more." So here is my first blog post in two months.

Let's see, Carmel one of my goats decided to kid at 9:38 AM yesterday morning. This was 23 minutes after the rest of the family left for church. I was able to get to church by 10:45 for church service. I would have been there earlier but part way to church I realized I had forgotten my slip and the dress I was wearing really needs a slip. So I turned around and went back.

A few weeks ago I took the training wheels off of Zeb's bike and tried to get him to ride it without them. After a couple of days of him begging me to put them back on I did. Then today he asked me multiple times to take them off. I did and he can now ride his bike without training wheels, but he can't get started by himself. The bike is very small but when he is on the seat he can't stand flat footed on the ground to it is a little hard for him to get started. He is really good at bailing off the bike.

Talitha loves to carry the goat bottles to the barn. If she seems them sitting on the counter she points, and asks to have them. I then give them to her and it takes all of her strength to carry them. It is pretty cute.

Talitha with the goat bottles

The Lord has been so gracious. We had 6 goats kid, giving us a total of 18 kids. Two died so that left us with 16. I am keeping Three of the does and so I have sold or given away 10 kids. The Lord has been good. I am praying that I will be able to sell the kids from this next batch of kids also.

Well I need to go, I will try to blog more often.

2009 Kids

Difficult Kidding

Well, today Jiffy had her babies. I noticed an obvious waterbag coming out around 6:45 AM this morning. I figured she would have her baby within an a few hours from then. Well, around 8:30 she was having obvious contractions, but nothing was presenting and it seemed like it was still far back in the birth canal.

Finally at 9:30 AM I decided to put my hand in and see what was going on. When my hand got in there I was feeling ribs. I knew that the ribs cannot come out first so I started fishing for a leg, however when you put your hand in the uterus it causes more contractions. It was pretty tight in there and on top of that I had to push the kid back in order to get something besides the side coming first. Now she is a Nigerian Dwarf goat so it is hard to get one hand in let alone two, so I a, trying to push the baby back and fish for a leg.

I was finally able to maneuver the kid and find a hind leg. When he came out he gave a couple of gasps but then stopped breathing. I had Tirzah come in the stall and start stimulating him by rubbing him down which made him start breathing. Then in succession two more kids came out. They were doing fairly well. After another 45 minutes Jiffy started having more contractions. I figured there would be at least one more kid in her. I let her push for a little bit and she seemed to be struggling so I went in again. I found a head and two legs. I grabbed the legs and started to pull gently but it seemed like it was too much kid. I then examined the legs and realized one looked thicker than the other. I put my hand back in and felt around. I was pretty sure that two kids were trying to come out at one time. I found a big head and so figured the little leg must be from a fifth goat so I pushed the littler leg back in.

The head of the fourth kid came out and he was the biggest of all the kids. Rather vigorous also. Then I went ahead an found both front legs of the last one and pulled it out, I was ready to be done with the kids. It was a good thing I did because that kid was dead and had been dead for a while. She had some discharge a while back and I am thinking his waterbag may have broken and caused him to die. His eye sockets were sunken and his joints were all loose. With a dead kid, many times they don't come out on their own because they are all floppy and they get all tangled up so I was glad I didn't wait and just pulled it.

She had all boys, last year she had all boys also. I was really hoping to get a doe out of her but I didn't. The first kid still isn't doing well, he responds if I rub him, but hasn't been able to stand up. I finally fed him with a tube put into his stomach, but I am wondering if he has internal injuries because of how he was presenting. I let Jiffy labor like that for about an hour at least and then when I went in it was kind of hard to push him around so I may have hurt him also when I moved him around to get him out. We will see what happens.

This was my most difficult birth so far. I am just glad that this is my third year of kidding and not my first. Since I put my hand in with Spice yesterday I gave her an intramuscular injection of Penicillin G and now I will do that for Jiffy. Wow, I have learned a lot in the last couple days. This should be good training if the Lord ever allows me to be a midwife. A lot of what I have been reading recently about midwifery went through my mind at I was working with Jiffy.

7 New Kids

Tirzah holding one of Spices little does

This morning the children, my mom and I went to Montrose and then the children and I went to the library. I had put three of the four goats who are due in the barn in case they decided to kid while we were gone.

I opened the car door and heard distressed bleating. I found Spice with the head of a kid coming out. She then proceeded to have three more kids. I actually put my hand in and pulled the third one out, it was backwards and though she had a few contractions, nothing was happening. All went well with all four kids and they are doing great.

Spice with her two bucks

At the same time I was watching Spice, Sugar was in her stall and pawing the ground. She looked rather uncomfortable, up and down, up and down. She finally had three kids. Her birthing was easier than Spices. All seven babies are doing well.

Sugar with her three girls

Spice had two bucks and two does. Sugar had all three does.

Zeb is Three

Zebadiah being his silly self.

Blowing out his candles will a little added spit.
This is the reason Aunt Megan chose a piece of Talitha's cake instead of Zeb's.

Zeb enjoying his cake and "race car" ice cream. There was a race car on the carton of the ice cream thus the children called it "race car" ice cream.

So what is Zebadiah Tobias Lawton like at 3 years old. He enjoys making his brother scream. He likes to watch his "ABC" video and when I tell the older two it is time for school he says with a scrunched up face "Nooo, not school." However once I sit down and start reading to the other two, he is right in the middle of it all.

Zebadiah loves his little sister Talitha and calls her "yitha". She likes to annoy him and he likes to hold on to her longer than she thinks is necessary.

The end of Mark.

In family worship time at night, Gil has been reading the book of Mark. Last night he finished reading it and said we are done with the book or something like that. We then started singing songs and then Gil noticed Azariah pouting and crying on the couch.

Gil: "Azariah why are you crying?"
Azariah (starts wailing): "We finished the book and I want to keep reading the Bible."
Gil: "Azariah, we can read it again and look we have the the whole Bible to read, we can always read Mark again also."

That seemed to pacify Azariah. I have no idea why he would think we wouldn't read it again because we read other books multiple times. I am excited that he desires to hear the Word of God like that. It is sharper than a two edge sword.

Toilet Paper

In marriage there are many thing that you have to figure out how to deal with when it concerns your spouse. In 8 1/2 years of marriage this is the first time this came up.

Gil: "Why do you put the toilet paper roll so it rolls towards the wall?"
Taneil: "Studies say that people use less toilet paper that way."
Gil: "Well, in the middle of the night I can't find the end of the roll."
Taneil:" Can't you just run your hand on the wall and find the end?"
Gil: "Not when it's dark and i'm tired and i don't feel good."
Taneil: "I just figured with as much toilet paper as we go through it would be best for it to go that way, can't you just roll it back and find the end?"
Gil: "Not when it is dark and I don't feel well. Then I use more because I can't find the four squares I need to wipe or the two squares I need to blow my nose."
Taneil: (Amidst great laughter,with tears streaming down my face) "I am sorry I had no idea."
Gil: "If you are laughing that hard, you better blog it."

I had not idea how precise my husband was with the use of the toilet paper.

Eating At Our House

The six of us sit around the table to enjoy our meal.

The first thing that happens is Talitha screams because Azariah insists on holding her hand during prayer while she would rather eat her food during the prayer.

Then Tirzah hands Talitha her food bowl and Talitha tries to drop it on the ground, mommy intervenes and saves the day.

Zebadiah who loved the onions yesterday won't touch them or the mushrooms, so he sneaks them into one of the two victim's bowls he is sitting in between. Tonight it was daddy or Tirzah.

Tirzah takes the parmesan cheese grater and licks the last few crumbs of cheese off the grater part. Daddy explains that she should not do this. Especially since she has been sick, and we shouldn't put our sick germs on things that are made for food, even thought it will be washed. He does mention that licking your bowl is OK though it is a food item.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, Azariah has skillfully lined the rim of his bowl with the mushrooms he has picked out of his bowl so that he doesn't have to eat them. The funny thing is, is that he is sick and didn't eat any of the other stuff either. I guess he wanted to make sure he didn't have any chance of eating the mushrooms.

Then as the mom, I am up and down, up and down getting seconds and water and other things that need to be gotten in the middle of the meal.

Thoughts

We bought a laptop last year. I was able to get the desktop and the laptop to network for a while, but now it is not working. When Gil asked me what I was doing I said, "Trying to get my stuff to print, but it isn't working."
Gil asked: "Wasn't it working before?"
Me: "Yes, but it hasn't been recently."
Gil response by saying this little quip: "I will not only share your pain, I will go beyond that and be more upset than you."

This coming from a man who has been sick for the last two days, pretty good for a brain fog man.

Talitha is One

This evening we were going to have a party for Talitha, but she was running a fever and Gil aches all over so we called it off. It was just the six of us and we had a good evening, through we missed the Grandparents and Aunt being with us.

Eating ice cream.
Talitha wasn't sure what to think about the cold wet gooey but she warmed up to it and decided she liked it.

Talitha opens her present from her siblings. Tirzah graciously gave Talitha some of her Calico Critters along with the house. Azariah gave Talitha "Percy". I thought they were both very generous in the presents they gave their little sister.

This afternoon we made star cakes and the older three decorated them for Tally

A happy one year old.

My two thumb suckers with their blankets.

Pictures of the Little Peeps

The Little Peeps

Today we received our shipment of chicks. Last year we did meat chickens with another couple, and it went well. However the feed cost for the chickens was a lot. We saved some money in the project because I used every scrap of the chickens I could.

This year though, Gil wants to see if we can cut feed costs by having slower growing chicks and feeding them table scraps and such as well as allowing them to free range more. So we purchased 25 light breed chicks to raise. We will see how it goes. It is still a little cold here for the chicks, but I wanted to be well underway before the goats start kidding in mid-march.

Along with the birds for meat, I also ordered another Black Polish Creasted rooster because our first "Sir Topham Hat" drowned in the horses water on Tirzah's birthday. And then I ordered two bantam chicks that I am hoping are hens to go with our bantam rooster. Last year our banty hen sat on eggs and had three chicks. However, we lost the momma and two of the chicks. One survived to adulthood but about 6 weeks ago she disappeared, so I wanted a couple more banty hens.

We put the chicks in the barn, but the three in the video were not doing as well as the others. These are the two Silver Pincelled Bantams and Sir Topham Hat Jr. At the beginning we were thinking the bantams were going to die, they were pretty pathetic and so we feed them sugar water and mash. Tonight they are doing well and looking like they will survive, for now.

The neat part was that the children prayed for the chickens. Tirzah said she prayed that God would touch their beaks so they would live. He must have done so because they are still alive.



One of the things I have been thinking about is something I heard from Chuck Bentley on Money Life. He said "If God owns everything then we don't loose anything." This is something I have been pondering over the last couple days. I struggle with "loosing" things such as chicks dying, invested money and expensive light bulbs breaking. When I consider the fact that all these things belong to God and though I need to be a good steward, ultimately it is all God's and He can do with it as He sees fit and many times it is a way for Him to test me to see where my heart. Do I complain, which shows that I don't think God did what was best or do I respond with a heart of surrender knowing God is in control.

Azariah and Shopping

At Wal-Mart today the boys were very good. I left the girls with Gil and just took the boys. Wow, it is amazing how subtracting a child makes a huge difference. They never fought with each other and both were obedient.

After I went through the self checkout lane Zeb had to go potty so we made our way to the bathrooms. Azariah was riding on the bottom of the cart laying down. I looked down at him as we arrived at the bathrooms and his face was red and he was starting to cry.

Me: "Azariah, what is wrong?" (I thought I had run over his finger with the cart because he was holding his hand, I did not feel a bump though.)
Azariah: "I bit my fingers."
Me: "How did you bite your fingers?"
Azariah: "I was sucking on these three and I bit them."

Azariah reminds me of a scientist...smart, but at times lacking in common sense. But like a scientist, he usually learns from his experiements and doesn't repeat the same disaster twice, usually....

He nursed his fingers all the way home and tried to get out of helping to carry in the groceries, but it didn't work. When I told Gil what happened I started laughing. Azariah even asked if he needed a band aid.

What mommy can and cannot do according to Zeb

I stat down on the couch with my laptop.

Zeb: "What you doing?"
Me: "I am going to play Las Vegas Gold Miner like daddy." Gil was sitting at the desktop computer playing the above mentioned game on the internet. I haven't played it this year, but Gil and the children have over the last week or so.
Zeb: "You can't do that, daddy does that."
Me: "Oh really, then what do I do?"
Zeb: "You make lunch."

According to my children, daddy gets to have all the fun while I slave away in the kitchen. At least I have a few years to teach him that mommy's do more than provide food.

Tirzah and Talitha

The Triple Decker Bed

In our house we have a new bed. It is a triple bunk bed. Tirzah on the top bed, Azariah in the middle and Zeb on the bottom bed. This allows for two things. First, I don't have to worry about pushing a trundle bed in and out each day and the second thing is that it frees up the crib for Talitha. Now instead of carrying her pack n' play from our bedroom each night, I just carry her and put her in the crib. (The other three are too noisy so she still goes to sleep in our room.)

Last night I put her down in her crib and she woke up. I shut the door hoping she would fall right back to sleep. Tirzah was whimpering because she didn't want the door shut and both boys were already asleep. Then after a minute or two Gil and I heard Tirzah singing to Tally. "Jesus Loves Me" and "Wiseman Built His House Upon the Rock". This evening Tirzah told us that she had gotten down from her bed, crawled into the crib and held Talitha while she sang. Then Tally fell asleep and she put her down and went to bed herself. It was such a sweet picture in my mind of Tirzah cradling her little sister in her arms as she sung her to sleep, what precious children.

Talitha at 11 Months (A Little Late...)

Talitha is a little cutie, this month she has decided that walking up to five steps is OK but if she needs to get some place fast, crawling is the better method. Because of her siblings vocal tendencies to be loud, she has decided that in order to be heard she must be the loudest. I would say that she can be louder than the other three put together. If she doesn't like something, she has no problem letting you know it. She is saying "Mama". Tally can pick something up and stand up in the middle of the floor no problems. Notice the first picture of her squatting.

What a wonderful little girl the Lord has given us as a family. We look forward to what the Lord has in store for her. Zebadiah has met his match. They both love each other and torment each other at the same time.

The Breeding of Hagar

Tirzah is starting to read more and more, and to my delight she likes to read the Bible. She would rather read it than some of the short little stories they make for beginner readers.

Anyway, she was looking in her Children's Bible and saw a picture of Hagar. She informed me "This is Hagar who Abraham bred before he bred Sarah."

I could not keep from laughing out loud. I guess that is what you get when you have goats that you breed. I did correct her in saying that men don't breed women but that was all I said.

Talitha Playing Peek-A-Boo