Our weekend in review....

Whewww! Nice to sit down and take a breather for a second. Kirk and all the kiddos (but Alexa) are out to lunch and running around, so I can take a second to clear my head. What I really need to do is clear the kitchen table, amongst the other twenty tasks that have gotten left to the wayside this weekend. We went out to the property yesterday. We left as seven and came back as about 47. We spent over an hour catching grasshoppers, crickets, and a fuzzy brown and black caterpillar Abby has claimed as her latest pet. We literally brought home like 39 grasshoppers. Our praying mantis has a very full belly. She was given about 10 of the grasshoppers last night. I think she is now just into the sport of catching them. She has gotten her little legs on about 6 of them, but has yet to completely eat one. One of them was about 3/4 the size of her. Didn't stop her any though. Such a tough cookie. Don't mess with that lady!
We also spent yesterday hiking around, fishing, and identifying leaves and trees. Was a good family day. Closed out the day eating fried potatoes and left over meatloaf that we heated up over the open fire, which is alot more exciting and appetizing than microwaving it. Overall, had a good day.
Today at church we did a little song for Pastor Appreciation. Was quite funny, I must admit. A few weeks back, we had the youth over to the house and we were trying to come up with something cleaver and fun to do. We ended up taking the tune to "The Muffin Man" and changing the words to "The Preacher Man". Here's the lyrics: Do you know the preacher man, the preacher man, the preacher man. Do you know the preacher man who we appreciate? Yes, we know the preacher man, the preacher man, the preacher man. Yes, we know the preacher man we think he's really great! Some of the kids played the recorder and the olders played the boomwhackers. For those of you not familiar w/ boomwhackers, you must know you have not heard musical genius until you have heard these instruments. Someone out there has made a bazillion dollars coming up with these things. Each tube is a different length and when you smack it, it gives off a different pitch. They are also color coded so it makes it easier to know when to play if you use flash cards. I am not very computer savvy, but we did videotape the "performance" so I will try to upload it later today. We then presented Pastor Eric with a chocolate muffin gift. Pretty cute! Got some giggles.

Well, gonna run. Gonna try to get some stuff done before the goof troop gets home.

Homeschooling is "Egg-cellent"!

Okay--have I officially flown "the coop"? I think not! Those are not just any ordinary eggs. Those are fertilized chicken eggs friends. And little did you know that you can buy them on Ebay! Yep! It's true! For just over a buck a piece with shipping, there are several individuals who will send them to you if you have a paypal account. LOL. We ordered a dozen, but one little one didn't quite make the journey from Alabama via the United States Post office, so we are down to eleven. We each named a couple of them and wrote their names on them with pencil just for fun. Kirk only got to name one of them and he named it Humpty. Hope his fate isn't like the real Humpty's fate was! We bought our incubator and egg turner on Ebay too and got our little babes all set up for a nice warm home for the next 21 days. This weekend we plan to candle them and see how they are developing--another first for me. (I am such a city girl! Good thing I married a country boy who can walk me thru this stuff!) I sent Kirk for chicken feed and he came back with a 50 lb bag. We are gonna have some fat chicks! OR some well fed garage mice! Guess that is the smallest bag he could find, but struck me as funny. Fifty pounds of chicken starter! Good grief! So, when our little peepers are hatched in ten short days, I will post the pictures to prove it. Good times!

Our latest and greatest...

Been quite awhile since I have posted. Been a little hectic on top of having computer issues.....so some stuff has definitely changed around here. Earlier this week we got our very first foster child. He's a lively six year old and has definitely kept us on our toes. The kids have been great with him, which has made their mama very proud. Midge is very happy to have a playmate that can actually keep up with her. They have been doing lots of pretending today, which is cute to watch. I am "stuffed to the gills" as they have been preparing me many dishes from their make-believe kitchen. It is very fulfilling to see my kiddies showing God's love to a child who needs it so badly right now. I will have to remember those moments of kindness to our little guy when they are fighting with each other! (they tend to do that more than I like!). Not sure how long our little guy will be with us--there is even a chance of him leaving next week, but we plan to love on him the whole time we get to have him. Wish I could post his picture but I think that goes against the rules....but he's a cutie.

The homeschooling continues on and we are really loving the science---with a nurse Mom, what would ya expect? It's "Eggville" around here between our praying mantis laying her egg sack and we are on day 11 of our chicken incubation. My next post will have some pictures ....

The weather has turned cold on us this week and I think fall is officially here. The leaves are falling like crazy. Gotta love the Midwest!

That about sums it up for now. I will be uploading some more pics soon.

Lloyd is a funny name for a girl....

We have been having great fun for almost a month now with a new friend my BFF Jessica gave us. We came up with the name Lloyd. (our new friend is not the picture above--that is dinner). It turns out our friend is a GIRL Praying Mantis and about two weeks after we brought her in to live with us, she entrusted some precious cargo. We still call her Lloyd and are still enjoying her greatly. I never thought I would be going to the store to buy crickets for a pet, but here I am!

Lloyd is enjoying her dinner as Kyle, Keaton, and Abby watch. (Keaton seems pretty excited about it, huh?)

Never thought bringing a bug indoors could stir so much desire to learn, but seems to have done the trick for us. I am learning a ton too! Surprisingly, my brain isn't as old as I thought and it is managing to pick up some fun facts--like did you know the Praying Mantis egg sack can have up to 200 little ones? We plan to "winter" the egg sack and hopefully come spring Lloyd's legacy will live on. We are hoping to keep some of the babies and raise them so we can see them molt and such. Lloyd came to us full grown so we didn't get to see that. We are pretty excited about it. What a riot!