Dreaming Of The Beach!!!

Just as I tell myself that our lives can not get any crazier, it just does. I remember thinking, when my boys were very little, that life would get so much easier as they got older. HAHA I mean, they can now wipe their own bottoms and noses and can whip up something to eat if they are hungry, but along with age has come more activities-sports, school work, rabbit shows, 4-H, youth group.... I’d much rather have children who are involved than children who are not, but sometimes it would be nice to just have a break from everything. I'm starting to think I must have told myself it would be easier when they got older just to get me through the sleepless nights and the days I walked around with doo-doo on my shirt without even knowing it. Now my new thought is: It will get easier when they CAN DRIVE THEMSELVES to their OWN activities! HAHA I'll stop whining now, but the boys seriously have something planned EVERY DAY this week, except for Monday, when football practice was canceled due to illness. Not every week is as bad as this one...thank goodness...but I hate that feeling when all of us are running in 4 different directions.

I think I have mentioned this before but we are taking a vacation to South Carolina this summer. The thought of this trip and sitting on the beach for a week consumes most of my thoughts these days. I am not sure how I am going to survive this very long winter. I got even more excited when F found a townhouse for all of us to rent that week a block from the beach with a hotel with a pool and lazy river a block the other way that we have full rights to. I literally jumped up and down while talking with my friend, seriously feeling like I was 5 years old ago for a few seconds.
I am having a hard time imagining what life will be like for week with nothing to do but sit in the sand and sun, with no where to be or go if we don’t want to. I think the weeks leading up to our trip are going to be crazy, as we have told our boys that their fair projects WILL be done BEFORE we leave.

The boys play their last football games of the season this weekend, and this will J’s last pee-wee game EVER—next year he can play JR HIGH ball. They play a tournament Sunday, and the 5th/6th graders get to play at the Red Demon college stadium. It’s really awesome for them because they turn the music on through the system between plays and quarters…just like the big dogs! ;-)
Last weekend, D was in Pratt for the day, so the boys and I loaded up and went to the football field and took some pictures in their football gear. We had a lot of fun, and I tinkered around with some of the pictures on Photo Shop. I was so excited when I figured out how to pop the color on the photos. Its something I’ve always loved and wanted to do, but could never figure it out.

Danny’s Flemish Giant, Yeti, had 3 babies this morning! She was the one we were SURE probably wasn’t pregnant due to the buck having not seemed to have things figured out. I guess he did after all. Anyway, she was a couple of days overdue, and given that and the fact that she only had 3, these are some BIG babies!! I tend to humanize animals with thoughts and feelings, and felt really bad her for this morning frantically running around pulling out fur, not really sure what was happening. She had 2 white ones, and a dark (black?) one. Not sure if the black one is true black or if will be gray.
J’s Cal is due in a day or two and we are pretty sure she IS pregnant. We also bred the Hotot’s but never did see any “action” so I seriously doubt there will be babies from her.




In chicken news, 16 of the 19 babies are out in the coop with the big ladies. This is a scary new world for them. They run away if any of the big girls come into the coop, and you will find them sometimes with their beaks facing the corners and their eyes shut, as if hoping everything scary will somehow all go away. They do not venture out of the coop yet, but considering they’ve spent the past 5 weeks of their life in a brooder box, the coop probably feels like an entire planet all of their own. It won’t be long, I am sure, before we see them out scratching along side the ladies. I have noticed they are all very plump and full in the evening time, so they are enjoying the scratch we throw out as well as the crickets that live in there.
I still have 3 inside the brooder. Two haven’t fully gotten all of their feathers, one has something wrong with his hips or joints, as he walks like an 80 year old man, but gets along just fine. He’s just a bit slower and behind the others so I’ll give him a bit more time. Any other person probably would have culled this guy, but the “mama’ in me wanted to see what he would do. I call him Tiny Tim, but I think he’s is actually a hen…we will see. I hope he does ok when he gets out to the coop. I should take pictures soon, but they are honestly really ugly at this stage!! They are all each different, with the Easter Eggs all being different colors. Very fun!