Why do we buy toys?

Yesterday I sent my children outside in some old clothes armed with paint and brushes and told them to go paint rocks. Three hours later... no, three peaceful, quiet, relaxing hours later they proudly showed me the colorful collection that they have made to decorate my around my flowerbeds! I think it kept them busy longer than the last DS game they got! LOL Lesson learned... Don't over think it! They are so easily entertained and I think we over complicate things by trying to hard to engage them. Keep in mind this included age ranges 3-13 and they were all out there having a blast! It got me thinking. When we lived in the house on the south hill I used to send them out with a clean (large) paintbrush and a bucket of water and tell them to paint the house. When they spread water on it it looked darker so they felt like they were "painting". They would stay out there for hours and paint the whole back of the house!

Ummm... Has anyone ever seen this before?!

Remember the "giant" egg from my last post? If you don't, go look now... I'll wait.... do do do do do do do do do do do do dododododo... Ok, we broke it open this morning and although we were not sure what we would find... we did not expect this!

There was another egg inside it!!!

The egg you see in the pan is the one from inside the giant egg and then the little one was in with it.

The second egg was perfect. Good solid shell and cute little egg white and yoke! Babies makin' babies people! What?, you had to know I was gonna say that! LOL

We didn't eat them because I wasn't sure how long the other one had been there and well, better safe than sorry with food folks! We are getting double yokers about every six eggs! I am just curious, has anyone ever heard of this before?

Lessons from Sesame Street...

Do you remember the game on Sesame Street?

One of these things is doing it's own thing... one of these things just doesn't belong...

Well, we had a version of that in our kitchen on Father's day! We have started getting eggs daily now but not all of the chickens are laying. The egg on the far left is the first from one of them and it well... IT'S HUGE!!! Having been through childbirth four times I am feeling for this chicken! LOL

We were also able to get about a quarter of our garden in this weekend. I think I will revise my plan for next year but for now we have corn, snap peas, tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, lettuce, yellow squash, peppers, radishes, broccoli, carrots, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, raspberries and blueberries. By growing a small amount of each this year I hope to find the ones that will do well on a larger scale next year. The berries of course are perennial but on all the others I wanted to see before I go overboard on something that isn't going to grow well.

Happy Birthday to Me....

My birthday present arrived today! I have a brand new fabulous greenhouse to play with! The process of getting it off the truck was not so easy but all of us pitched in to help the poor man (yes, one man... what were they thinking?) who came to deliver it. The important thing is that it is here and has made it safely to it's new residence next to my garden.

This will allow me to extend our growing season by at least four months if not all year round and also makes growing some things possible that might not otherwise work in our area. I am really excited about this new adventure.

We went with pre-built because all the comments on the "build it yourself" models were very frightening! It seems that they are very problematic and even though this was about 10% more... I think it will be a much smarter choice overall. It has built in shelves and is built from solid wood. 10 X 12ft. of planting playground!

Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday dear

completely spoiled and blessed beyond all understanding

Amy...

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Our first egg!

We found our very first egg in the hen house today! The shell was perfect and lightly speckled brown. After having been told that it might take up to a year for them to start laying this was an awesome surprise after only a few months.

We cracked it and it was a double yoker... how cool! The kids were totally in awe (ok, so were Ben and I)!

I drove home from Seattle today with my friends three girls and they will be staying with us for a bit. This is their first time here at our new house and it has been so cute watching them discover all the country life stuff!

Then they all sat down to watch their first sunset hear together (a big deal around here at the Kaeding's) and I could not pass up the photo op!

BJ, Raven, Alyx, Myka, Trinity, Tory and Jedidiah