March 30, 2010

Parts is Parts

This is just too gross to not pass on. Literally, I should not pass this on! haha

Chicken Soft Serv found HERE


This furthered me to remember commercials for Wendy's from when I was a child.


Parts is Parts
and
Where's the Beef?


And to think that this passes as food substance! My poor children who have actually eaten spinach!

March 21, 2010

Nothing Much


The watch-not dog.

When the picture taking gets taken over by the little people those who wish not to be in pictures find themselves in them anyway. Poppy in the Moby Wrap. And excuse the infomercial but these are the most comfortable baby carriers I ever used.
Goat Riding

You can get rid of anything on Craig's List, even goats. Here the children are saying good-bye for the last time to goats. So they thought they would ride them.

We gave away our 4 goats because.... what do you do with a goat?

They are kind of cute to look at for a while but then they begin to eat everything and anything and make holes in the sides of buildings. So anyone wishing to bring more animals to the land of misfit animals, no goats please... no jumping pigs either.
Hiking

Another one of those unwanted pictures. Fixing Poppy up in the Moby Wrap.

I'm not sure why but the children found these clusters of pinecones wildly funny. *shrug*

We had a nice stretch of beautiful weather but I hadn't counted on snow on the trail.

We went with a local friend of ours, we'll call her K (haha)
The nice part about the trail is there are rocks the children can climb and mine are alllll climbers, and they start young. Poppy's working her way to climbing... sigh. Can you find 8 children up there?

Galadriel

On a hillside of rocks one doesn't realize how deep some of the snow can be! Oops!

Eleanor

Merry

Rosie

Sam and Frodo (can you find him?)

Sam

Frodo


Frodo and Rosie who are quite a pair. They are good buddies.

Rosie

K 'n the Kids

Eowyn

Eleanor, Galadriel & Rosie

Mom 'n the munchkins... errr... hobbits
Honey

Got honey, honey? What a messy project. We got some of the most delicious honey extracted out of our hives recently. Very sweet and yummy! But I think it will be sticky for months.

Last year we got the worst honey.... because.... we learned the hard way.... that bees need to cap the honey off first otherwise it bubbles and perkolates and tastes ... funny. So here is some of last year's honey being made into mead. This is obviously Aragorn's project. After it is finished, we try it and say "Ewwwwwwwwwww!" Though I once had a friend who actually liked it.
UnCensored!

Poppy...
Eggs


The big excitement today was that 2 geese laid their first eggs. Then there was the talk with what to do with these eggs.... "Give one to the priests!" Well, of course, just what they always wanted!

Fishing Expedition

Grandpa took a couple sons and a handful of grandsons on a fishing expedition.

Even Pippin stood still long enough to nab a fish.

Looks like a pretty little place to me.
Here's one of the fish. I guess the biggest they caught was 16 inches.

Measuring the fish
They caught 29 fish in all over the span of a couple hours.

Thankfully the fish come gutted, I wasn't relishing the idea of that kind of a project.
Three Boys Playing
Three Girls Playing

March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day


St. Patrick's Shamrock ~ O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Read about the Serpents and the Sheep at Fisheaters.


My Grandma Maher died peacefully on St. Patrick's Day in 1981. She was a beautiful woman, truly faithful to God, a mother of 12 and grandma to... hmmm... somewhere around 50. Her cookie jar was always full... of molasses or sugar cookies.

My family is all Irish descent, both sides, so we grew up on Irish music. This one reminds me of my grandma...
*
Over in Killarney Many years ago,
Me Mither sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low.
Just a simple little ditty,
In her good ould Irish way,
And l'd give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.

Chorus:
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby.

Oft in dreams I wander
To that cot again,
I feel her arms a-huggin' me
As when she held me then.
And I hear her voice a -hummin'
To me as in days of yore,
When she used to rock me fast asleep
Outside the cabin door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's a tear in your eye,
And I'm wondering why,
For it never should be there at all.
With such pow'r in your smile,
Sure a stone you'd beguile,
So there's never a teardrop should fall.
When your sweet lilting laughter's
Like some fairy song,
And your eyes twinkle bright as can be;
You should laugh all the while
And all other times smile,
And now, smile a smile for me.

Chorus:
When Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, 'tis like the morn in Spring.
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing.
When Irish hearts are happy,
All the world seems bright and gay.
And when Irish eyes are smiling,
Sure, they steal your heart away.

For your smile is a part
Of the love in your heart,
And it makes even sunshine more bright.
Like the linnet's sweet song,
Crooning all the day long,
Comes your laughter and light.
For the springtime of life
Is the sweetest of all
There is ne'er a real care or regret;
And while springtime is ours
Throughout all of youth's hours,
Let us smile each chance we get.


March 14, 2010

This 'n That


Sam made this little hurricane that Frodo is holding out of 2 little bottles and then he said, "I wish we had another big jug from the apple juice."
Well, he did find a 2nd jug, a full jug, next thing we are asked to help empty the jug. Let me just say, you can only drink so much apple juice in a single sitting. But it was all in the name of science.
And here is the big hurricane.

Bilbo watched a little too much Lord of the Rings, he now constantly shoots orcs and "ga-wum". A train track is his sword and a Handwriting Without Tears Large Curve is his bow and a large train track is his arrow. I will try to get a short video up of him as he has the full sound effects as well.
GUESS WHO PULLED HERSELF UP?
And you ask just how I knew to take these pictures... she is a 10th baby, been there done that!


I know, it is absurd at 6 months. I have a friend who says "Push her down!"
I'm sure she's just checking to see if we are all watching her, she is rather demanding in the attention department.

Almost there.

Sigh!
Yes! Pippin does sleep, though for about 2 years she did sleep on the couch every night as the wolves slept under his bed..................!

Poppy's always crawling in and out of the coffee table.

And in and out under her exersaucer.

HELP!
Trouble needed a cage.

This was our Social Worker Sundae celebration dessert.

Spring has sprung and it's time to sproing.

It turned 45 degrees and the kids thought it was summer. By the time it got up to 59 degrees today, they thought they should pull out the sprinkler "It's so HOT!" This time of year I have to set out temperature rules. 55 and you can take your jacket off, 60 and you can take your shoes off..... "But Mom! It's so hot out, we were just dyyyyyyyyying!" It is beside the point that there is still snow on the ground!

Poppy always seems to have her mouth gaping open, I suppose once she starts to talk she'll have to put it to good use keeping the 3 boys above her in line.
EFFECIENCY

Please note the POT that is sitting on top of the wood boiler. That contained our maple sap collected this year. This comes of having a husband like mine and an oldest son who is just like his dad!

Once it boiled down enough we brought it inside to finish the boiling down.

Several hours later.

Sunday Breakfast was pancakes with fresh syrup. It didn't taste smoked at all after it finally boiled down.

Merry and Poppy playing the William Byrd Mass.

The girls started on a flower making project that Galadriel received from Our Magnum Opus. Thank you so much! ☺

Merry has been working with pennies and buying things so Eowyn and the other girls were busy working on making a full store.




The nice part is that not much sound comes out, unlike the first 4 weeks! I really should have taken a picture under a magnifying glass, truly she isn't bald!
Awwww!
In preparation for breakfast Galadriel showed me this strawberry.

Kind of a Siamese Quintruplet of a strawberry.