Our first attempt in a while...

I took the kids to Disneyland with out the hubby. First time in probably around 1 year since I'd done that (swearing I'd never do it again). Well having and 8 year old certainly makes a difference. They let the 8 & 7 year olds ride together and then the little one and I can ride together. Made a HUGE difference in our overall "experience". (If you didn't know it already, using the word "experience" is mandatory when at Disney.)

We were working on the habit of Follwing Directions and the kids did a great job. Considering that only a few short weeks earlier, I'd lost my sweet boy more than once in the crowds, I'm happy to report that he stayed within my sight at all times. It's possible that the threat of having to ride in the stroller motivated him, but I know that he is working on it.

It was a great evening. No pictures, no autograph lines, just us on our own schedule, doing what we wanted to do. It was nice.


And as an added bonus, my sweet husband had purchased a little thermos. I put hot tea in it before we left and even 6 hours later, it was still so piping hot I had to blow it for a while before I could take a sip. That was a super nice treat on a chilly evening.

Sarah Beth's Birthday Week

Just 2 more days till my baby turns 3! Can't believe it.

In an effort to keep things simple and to use the things we currently have at home, I made this banner for her little party. It's not as elaborate as some, but it works for us.

It's scrapbook paper and bias tape. I used a punch for the little flowers and made a template for the triangles. I sewed the paper to the bais tape. Woo Hoo!

And so it begins.

We are happy to announce that we can see at least one live chicken that just may poke on through. We see a little beak and we can even hear him/her chirp. So very exciting.

Upon closer inspection, I see a second egg that the shell is beginning to crack. I'm thrilled my kids will be able to see this process live.

More updates as we get them.

The To Do List

I find that at the end of the day, I feel like I was very busy, but got nothing done. As I was scrubbing lipstick off a dalmatian, I finally realized, it wasn't the things on the to do list that is the problem. It's all the things I did that weren't on the to do list.

Maybe I should write an I Did list, but it could be potentially embarrassing with entries like

*Fished toothbrush out of toilet & sanitized

or

*Investigated where that stinky smell was coming from.

Somehow, it's always a little more tidy to see

*Laundry
*Post Office
*Bake Cake

That's not my real life. I'm OK with that. I know that when the kids are up and grown, I'll reflect on these crazy moments as the good old days. I love living the good old days!

The First of Many Salvation Army Truck Pick-Ups!

What a load off! A really big load went off with the SA truck to bless others. We got rid of 1 of 2 play structures in the backyard, multiple bags of clothes, toys, books, shoes and I'm sure there was more.

I'm scheduling the next pick up for a week from today. Hopefully my man will be able to dismantle the other play structure so that we can open up the backyard for more planting areas.

I love my husband, have I said that recently? Well, probably not here, but I do tell him so every day.

Looking forward to the continued clean-out.

p.s. We are on day 10 of our second attempt to hatch eggs. Candled the other day and 12 of the 24 look good. Keeping our fingers crossed.

I'm going to do it, I'm really going to do it!

I'm so sick of clutter. I mean really, why is it all here?

It's going to go. I'm going to bless others with it through donations to Salvation Army and our local thrift store that uses the profits to help people rehabilitate drug and alcohol additions.

Why have I held on to this stuff? It's not irreplaceable! So what if we "spent good money for ________". God can bless the socks right off of us if He chooses.

I really want to have a garage sale but the hubby is nixing that idea. I understand why - the old tax write off thing. He's right, I know he's right. Still, I'd like to get a little cash in hand. Some spending money, you know.

But this is still me trying to be in control. When I donate something, I've got to trust God to supply my needs - if I ever even need that item again.

So, we've got our first pick up scheduled for Tuesday of next week. I'll be scheduling more/dropping things off over the course of July.

Thank you God for blessing us with so much that we have no choice but to give!

Photos to come!

Today...

Today was the day we hoped to welcome our 4th baby into the world. We looked forward to those little newborn cries, snuggling that baby close to us and talking about how much she looked just like all our other babies.

We were excited to be venturing into the unknown. Nobody in either of our families has more than 3 kids. He came from 2, I came from 3, and my siblings have 2 & 3 respectively.

We were looking forward to knowing that our 4th child would be our final child, due to the fact that I have to have c-sections and I didn't really want to go through that more than 4 times.

But this was not to be. Our sweet baby is already experiencing the true Glory of the Lord. We still mourn for our loss, our hearts still ache. The reminders are everywhere.

Yesterday, I fell on my knees in prayer to the Lord to help me through this. I called on my family to pray for us and as always, God came through. I was far less emotional than I expected to be.

God's grace is sufficient for me. This means if we never have another child, God's grace is sufficient to fill that longing in my heart. I rejoice that God, the creator of every good thing, loves me as His own precious child. I'm thankful that He longs to be with me as I long to be with our sweet baby in heaven.

It's a hard thing to explain when you already have children and you still mourn this kind of loss. Why aren't they enough to keep me from grieving? Because only God is enough. He is truly the only one that can keep me joyful.

Thank you Lord that you love us all in such amazing and personal ways. You are so good to us!


Our sweet baby, Lydia Rachelle Songer, is basking in the Light of our Saviour. I so look forward to meeting you in heaven. You are truly loved.

The Final Report...

Well, nobody hatched.

I took the eggs into the feed store today and returned the incubator. She poked holes in the tops of almost all the eggs and there were bodies, so they were fertile, just not sure why they didn't come all the way out.


We also picked up some baby chicks - 3 to be exact. When I got home and got them into our brooder (i.e. Fuji apple box and heat lamp), we had a lot of fun watching them run around and check things out.

The kids named them - Whitey (all white chick) is Sarah Beth's. She also called it Sarah Sponda. JoJo is Nathan's chick. Abigail started to name hers Pecker but finally decided on Scratcher - Scratch for short. I explained to her that people might think it was a woodpecker instead of a chicken and that seemed to do it.


I'm going to try the process again. I don't like failure really, so I figured that we'd give it another go and see what happens. I plan to get more eggs from a different source and a different incubator (same feed store) to see if it makes a difference.

I'll try to post more on this, but since any action is almost 1 month away, I'm focusing on other things.

Holding My Breath...

Well, I'm actually trying not to...not to just sit and stare at the eggs, not to question myself on all my possible mistakes. Really, I just need to relax and let things happen if/when they will.

The timing on this is just awful. We were scheduled to deliver (via c-section) our sweet baby, Lydia Rachelle Songer, on Monday - just 4 days from now. She is with the Lord right now and I couldn't be happier for her. My heart still aches for that sweet baby that I never met. My love for her is just as strong as for one of my earthly children. It's a strange feeling to love someone that much that you've never actually met.

If we don't have any chicks hatch, well, I'm going to try to not let it put me over the edge. We'll try again to hatch some little chickies. For now, if nobody emerges, we'll get some loaners from the feed store.

I know at least one was alive last week, we saw it moving in the shell. I'm very sure that most won't hatch - based on the candling. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 1.

As with all things, it's in the Lord's hands.

Camping....with a toddler

We decided to give it another go. It had been a year. You forget a lot of things over the course of a year. Only the pleasant memories remain, so that's what you think is going to happen again.

And thankfully, it does. Our family loves to camp. At this time, we have a very nice tent that holds us and all our stuff perfectly. I do hope to someday get some sort of RV because let's face it - I love being on the go and I love the comforts of home. Because of our location, we'd have to pay for RV parking which is a ridiculous fee around here. It's simply not worth it - even as much as I want one, I totally agree with the hubby on this point.

Anyway, we had a great time. I'm sure in a year we'll forget how much work it is to set up the tent (it's a biggie - 10 person), how much work it is cooking for our family with limited space (it's better with my camping kitchen), and what a pain it is to take kids potty in the middle of the night.

We'll just remember the kids enjoying and being creative with nature, hiking, birds, squirrels, campfires, s'mores and spending time together as a family.

I'm also sure we'll never forget the EMTs coming to our campsite when our littlest biscuit decided she'd get into mommy's medicine. She enjoyed the ambulance ride a little too much and was sorely disappointed when she had to come home in the van. Thankfully, she was just fine, but needless to say she gave us quite a scare.

We did take a camera with us, but we were having too much fun to stop and take pictures! Next time! (I'm pretty sure I said that last time.)

Egg hatching update

We are currently on day 5 out of 21 and I couldn't resist checking on my eggs with no kids around.

I researched the process of candling an egg and rigged up a quick little system.

After setting up in the bathroom (the darkest place in the house), I brought in the eggs one at a time to take a look. I can tell for sure that 4 of them have some development. There are 2 I couldn't tell and the rest I'm pretty sure are duds.

Frankly, I'm thrilled. It doesn't mean all 4 will make it, but how cool would that be?

A pencil check mark is on the 4 good ones, question marks on the potentially bad ones and the 2 uncertain ones, double question marks. I know, it's a really sophisticated system.

I found this video on YouTube. It's not mine but it does give you a good idea of what I saw in the 4 fertile ones.

Now that I'm a little more certain of my own candling skills, I'll try to get some actual photos or a video. I'm going to try again on Day 8. I want to get rid of the potential stink bombs.

Resisting the temptation...

I'll admit it. I'm having a hard time resisting the temptation to peek in on the eggs all the time.

It shouldn't be hard, there's a little window. But for some reaon, that's just not satisfying enough. Maybe it comes from the fact that one of my eggs is very pointy and it keeps rolling off the turning rack. Or maybe I just want to double check to make sure all 11 are still there. Can you imagine how I would be if I were a hen?

So, in an effort to thwart a terrible miss-hatching experience, I'll just look at this photo. I might look at it several times each day, but at least the real-deal will be warm and snug and occasionally turning right where they are supposed to be.

Ahhh.... there they are.



And, just in case you are wondering, yes I did get up in the middle of the night to check on them. But only that the incubator was still on. Really, I'm not crazy.

Our Chicken Books

Since of course there's no way I'm letting this chicken hatching opportunity pass us by without some reading involved, we have checked out several books from our local library.

Some are better than others, but hopefully at the end of this process, my children will be able to tell you exactly how a chicken is develops from egg to chick.

Here are the library books we currently have checked out:

Chickens by Lundgren, Julie K.
Egg to chick by Selsam, Millicent Ellis
First the egg by Seeger, Laura Vaccaro
Five little chicks by Tafuri, Nancy
Chickens aren't the only ones by Heller, Ruth
Chicky chicky chook chook by MacLennan, Cathy

These are, of course, just our chicken books. I doubt you'd want to see the litany of other books we check out from the library.

We will read several more books about chicken/eggs/hatching before it is all said and done, but this is a fun place to start!

When I told my sweet big girl that we were going to the library tonight she said "Let me guess, chicken books.".

What is not listed is all my books on how to keep/raise/build coops for chickens. Still trying to convince my sweet hubby. I'll keep on trying...

The Eggs Have Arrived!

I went to the feed store again to pick up the eggs. I'd hoped to be able to get 6 extra, but no such luck. So we've got an even dozen and they look great! There's one that's a little lopsided, and the shell seems soft on one side, so I'm wondering how it will do. These eggs are fresh from the farm hens this morning.

I was somewhat surprised by the incubator. Not sure what I was expecting - guess I've lived in the perfect little SoCal bubble for too long. It's not shiny, it's not new - it's styrofoam, it's a little dirty and dented. Um, hello, it's farm equipment!






I'm still tweaking the increase/decrease dial on the incubator to get it just to the right temperature. It's to be 99.5 degrees Farenheit consistently. We're close, but just a little on the warm side. Don't want to poach my little chickies.

Here's the directions given to me with the incubator:

Day 1
- Add water in the bottom of incubator (only in designated areas) CHECK
- Plug in incubator and turner CHECK
- Set incubator temperature to 99.5 (sort of CHECK - there was no setting, just plug it in)
- Once incubator temperature has stabilized at 99.5 for an hour, place eggs in pointed end down in the turner OR place X's and O's on opposite sides of the egg to keep track of turning.
*So, I decided I should get a turner because I can barely remember to do things one time per day let alone 2 times per day for 21 days. Hoping to increase our odds of hatching*
- Every other day add water to bottom of incubator (as needed) - better set some sort of alarm or something....

The big kids are in class today so I know they'll be excited to see the developments when they get home. I wish we could have done it all together, but so it goes. I'm also wondering how I'm going to keep them out of the incubator when I'm, say, taking a shower...I'd better get to shower at least a few times over the next 21 days.

As a side note, the feed store gave me a FREE poster since I had to make a 2nd trip for the eggs. It's a poster of Chick Development and shows a drawing of what's going on inside the egg for each of the 21 days. They sell it there for $19, so I'm thinking it was worth it to make the second trip.

Well....

We've had a small setback in the department of chicken hatching....specifically the case of the missing chicken eggs.

My contact at the farmer's market sold both dozen to someone else before I got there. The feed store where we are renting the incubator did not have the eggs either. So we've got the incubator, but no eggs. It's not a big deal since school is almost out, they'll let me keep the incubator for a little longer than just the 21 days. They say 5 days after hatching they'd like it back.

So plan B is to get the incubator warming up tomorrow, go pick up the eggs from the feed store and meet up with my farmer's market gal on Saturday in Orange.

Let's hope things work out well. I've got someone who would like to keep a chick or two, and of course that got me thinking. Maybe I could sell them and recoup my costs. Hmmmm.... we'll see....

Exciting Days Ahead!

Tomorrow is the day that we pick up our fertile chicken eggs and our incubator (or Eggy Baker as my sweet girl calls it). We are off on a little adventure of hatching chicken eggs.

I'm excited because I'm only slightly obsessed with chickens right now. My sister was able to talk her husband into getting chickens and a coop, so why haven't I? I can't blame him totally, but since I know he's an animal lover, I'm hoping that seeing these adorable little chicks in about 21 days will help him change his mind.

Of course, there's the issue of sex. Now stop that! I'm talking about a hen or a rooster. We can't have a rooster where we live, and I'm ok with that. The only problem is that, not being an expert, I'll have no idea if we've hatched a hen or a roo until about 4 months down the road.

So if I can convince him, we'll most likely have to order some. I've got my heart set on a particular breed - the Delaware. It's supposed to be a quiet, friendly, docile bird and they lay brown eggs. As a plus, they are somewhat rare.

My father-in-law suggested that the kids raise a bird and show them in the Orange County Fair. I thought that was a great idea, but one thing at a time. This whole conversation started me into a flurry of research on how to do something like this. Though I've never been in 4-H, I might look into it for my kids.

We'll see how it goes. We are almost done with our homeschool year at Spirit Academy and we really enjoy it there. There are things about it that I wouldn't choose, but the benefits far outweigh the downsides. We plan to return next year as well.

I've got some light lesson plans for the summer, mostly focused on improving reading skills, handwriting, and math (this is to get us caught up for the next year in Singapore Math - the whole elementary is doing this).

I'm also going to be focusing on trying to cull through things in our house that we no longer use. Tonight we spent sometime in the garage and that was great. Lots of stuff to drop off at our local christian thrift store. It feels good, though there's a long way to go.

On a less exciting note, we are about to enter the month that our 4th baby was due to be born. We lost our baby at 17 weeks gestation and have grieved this for some time. Some days are good, others not so much. I thought that it would be just around the due date that would be difficult, but being as we are almost a month away and I'm thinking of our loss so often, I can see it will be a challenge to keep my thoughts captive and focused on Christ.

So we'll just keep moving forward. We've got a busy day tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to watching the kids'response to all of this!

Hey Mom....

...you know on Star Wars...what's that guy's name again....Dark Tater?

I love that boy of mine!

Are you keeping up with the news?

Every 2 year old needs to be up on the latest before really kicking off their day, don't you think?