We Bought a Farm: While the family is away, the farm will play!

JB, myself, and the kiddos are enjoying a much-needed family vacation in Washington DC right now. Normally I refrain from saying we aren't home until we get back, but since there are a gazillion people on our farm right now, I'm not worried about it being a target to anyone.

It was VERY hard to leave the farm while lambs and puppies were due to be born. But Arabelle's due date came up after the trip was planned, and we just felt like we needed to take this trip together.

We have a great friend, Anni, who has come to the farm for a long weekend specifically to help with Arabelle. In addition, we have a great wwoofer at the farm, Nico who has been an invaluable help. My in-laws are all-stars as always, and John's sister is also present and has been a tremendous help. And at the same time, his brother is there doing farm work. We are well taken care of!!

Here is a picture of Arabelle and the pups in the back of my van to head to the vet today.

And while the puppies are busy enough, we have sheep popping out everywhere. In the last 24 hours we have had two sets of twins born. All boys AGAIN! I believe our current count is 11 boys and 3 girls!!

Yesterday, one of our good friends, Erin, came by with her daughters to see the puppies.Erin and her family lost everything in a house fire last year. This included many of their precious pets. When this happened, they began discussing getting a new dog, and their oldest daughter, Hailey, got her heart set on one of our puppies. They will be picking the first girl of the litter. I am so blessed to be able to help rebuild their family in this way. Here's a picture of Erin in the whelping box:

Here is a picture of the eight pups and then a picture below with their sex color on their back. (This isn't really there. It was done just on the photo.) Unfortunately, our little runt passed away last night. So we have a total of eight puppies: there were four boys and four girls, but with his loss, we have four girls and three boys.

In the meantime, while all this is going on, we are enjoying touring and being together as a family in DC. It has been hard to be away from the farm, but we have so enjoyed spending quality time with our family and some dear friends. We are staying with the Connors family for a few nights and will then spend a few night with the Stebbins family. We also got to see my friend Claire and her kiddos while we were here.

Yesterday we went into DC just the six of us to tour around. It is the first time we have ever done a "big outing" without a stroller and without a single diaper. Quite a bit excursion for us!

Snapchat pictures

 

I don't have snapchat on my phone. I've sort of purposely avoided it. But when my kids get together with someone who has it (this time Aunt Danielle) they have a blast putting pictures together.

I must admit, this one is pretty cute!!!

Review: Planet 316

 
If you want an amazing present for your godchild or grandchild for Christmas or Easter, I have the product for you. This is seriously one of the coolest things I have ever seen, and I want to start by saying I am reviewing the Planet 316 Story Bible and the companion Planet 316 Story Bible App from Planet 316 and WorthyKids/Idealsthis with every single thumb I have shooting up in the air!!

 

I want to start by saying I tried to get a video of my kiddos watching this video. I simply could not capture its full essence with any of my video taking skills. So I did some googling and found that Planet 316 had posted a video that realllllly showed how amazing this app and Bible are.

(A quick note: when they lay the pages down, it looks like a thin Bible. This is not a thin Bible. It is a thick book, almost as big as a real Bible. I think they did that just to make it easy to show.)

So how does this work? Basically, you buy the Bible. Then you download the app onto your iPhone or Android. After that, your kids read the Bible and hold the device and watch the Bible stories come to life. It is really that simple.

And that AMAZING.

All of my kids loved this product. I find it is really hard to get kids to verbalize why they love something, but I tried to have Sidge share what he liked. 

You hear him mention the "sounds." There are many pages where you can hear characters or things moving and saying things. It's so cool! It features more than 100 favorite Bible stories from both the Old and New Testaments told in child-friendly language. The purchase of the Bible includes the FREE downloadable app featuring augmented reality. The App, as I mentioned above, allows characters and objects to spring up in 3D and include audio  and and humorous illustrations that ads fun and and context to the stories.

This product is great for kids of all ages. However, my youngest, Hannah, who is 4, was a little too young to manage the hand-eye requirements by herself. So I would put the ages of this product right around 5 and up. Hannah could do it, but I really think this is a good choice for school-aged children.

As always, if you have a question about this product, please let me know. Feel free to email or message me personally.

Oh and did I mention it is under $15?!

Check out this amazing product at: Facebook or Twitter.

   

The puppies are here!!!!

Well Arabelle waited until the day after we left for vacation to have her puppies. We debated cancelling our trip time and time again but ultimately, we have amazing people staying at the farm right now (including John's parents, two of his siblings, and a wwoofer) and my friend Anni is coming tomorrow. We had left things in great hands and just didn't feel like we should cancel so we went.

And all eight puppies are here!! Puppy four is a little smaller and weaker, but they all appear to be doing great. 

We have nearly all the puppies already accounted for so if you wanted an Australian Shepherd for half the price of what they are normally sold for, please let me know!!

Much much more to come!!!!

We Bought a Farm: Sleep Drama

We are barely fitting in our room right now. But everyone does have a bed. Why Hannah would get out of her bed during the night and go to sleep between Isaac's bed (blue stripes which are actually king sized sheets but who is paying attention) and Abigail's (pink flamingo sheets which are size and child appropriate), I have no idea. But not only did Hannah sleep there the whole night, Abigail then woke up to tell me that Hannah was blocking her path to the bathroom! That was bogus. The bathroom is in the top right corner of this photo. Abigail just had to step over the big pink stuffed animal and she was home free.  Sheesh!

P.S. We should have the kids out of our bedroom ANY DAY NOW! But who is counting!

Review: A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc).

Today's review features A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc). This program was fantastic and by using their Adaptive Math Curriculum, we were able to identify and correct some of the learning gaps in the math knowledge of my six-year-old daughter (first grade) and my nine-year-old sons (third grade).  

When doing this review, we were given the possibility of reviewing two different "aspects" of this program. I want to touch briefly on the two different options and then focus primarily on the second one, which was the one that I was assigned for my review. 

The Family Math Package does not pre-test students. It is instead a package for grade level 1-6 (and then for Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1). Basically each grade level is an entire curriculum featuring: 

• video lessons
• interactive review
• practice worksheets
• chapter tests 
• automatic grading 
• and much more!

A student can be placed in any grade level. However, they can also move forward or backward as needed!

The Adaptive Math Curriculum Online is the program we used. I will therefore be spending the remainder of my time on this review, discussing this particular aspect of  A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc). 

In this program, the parent (me!) enrolls each student in a target grade level. I chose third grade for my nine-year-old sons and first grade for my six-year-old daughter. Then, each of my kids logged on themselves and took a "mini-test" for each major math concept. And here's where the program gets cool!

• The program automatically adjusts the difficulty level based on how the student is answering and then creates an individualized plan for the student. 
• The program then gives a mini-test for each major math concept to gauge student’s skill level. 
• The program automatically adjusts the difficulty level of questions based on the answers provided by student. 
• If the program detects any learning gaps between the “target” grade level and student’s current skill level, it automatically creates an individualized plan for the student. 
• The plan includes: 
• video lessons
• interactive review
• practice worksheets online
• automatic grading etc. 

For the sake of this review, I wanted to randomly pick one of my children and fill you in on how this worked for him. Since Sidge (age 9) was a willing participant in my picture taking prowess, I'll choose him.

After setting him in the third grade, Sidge logged into the program.He then comes to a screen that (after doing some work with the program) ends up looking like this.

So Sidge started with the first item: "Number Sense." The first time he took the test, he didn't do so hot on it. So we went over all the questions he missed, and he attempted the test again. This time he did totally great and had reached his goal. In fact, if you look closely, he even passed the goal. Go Sidge! (This is pretty typical for Sidge. He simply goes too fast and knows the answer to many questions he missed.)

I especially loved that while reviewing the questions he missed, it showed how much time Sidge took on each question. There was one question he missed that he had answered in 7 seconds! He couldn't have even read the question in 7 seconds and he agreed that maybe he needed to slow down a bit.

Since I was pretty confident he knew what he was doing on that program, we moved on and did the same with "Addition."

Sidge has since gone on to take a test on "Subtraction" and "Multiplication" and he has scored "below goal level" for those two items. He can then click on the buttons out to the right of those to spend more time learning in an individualized lesson format. He can also "Retake Test" at anytime!

There are many items that Sidge has not gotten to, and we will continue working through.

So what do I love about this program?

Well, I love that I can fill in homeschooling gaps first and foremost. That is a huge worry for homeschool parents. "What if I am missing something?" This assures that you aren't! You can spend the time and make sure you have covered all the bases.

I also think this program is priced VERY reasonably. There is a 30 day money-back guarantee which is always nice. But if you have anywhere from 2-10 children, the program is just $149 for the year. For someone like me who has four children, this works out to about $37 a year per child for them to take math! This is about $3 a month. And if you happen to have 10 children (the Lord bless you and keep you), well, you are spending just under $15 per student and just over $1 a month!

The program is not perfect. They are still improving their interface and there were a few stumbling blocks to my kids. (A quick example, on one test, if they clicked "enter" instead of a button that said "next" it sent them out of the program and made them start again.) However, these were easily overcome and after the first day, they really didn't impact us again.

You can read more about this great option for math by visiting A+ Interactive Math (by A+ TutorSoft Inc) on:

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Tuesday Truth

On Belay with Shelby Mathis

I am incredibly excited to add a new Blogger to my rotation. Shelby Mathis will be posting every Monday. I'll be sharing more about her in the future. Stay tuned!!!

"On belay?" a climber asks of her partner on the other end of the rope. They're both still on the ground. The climber is asking, "are you ready to catch me if I fall when I'm up there?"

This brief exchange opens the line of communication between the climber and her belayer. The rest of the commands will be single-word shouts, rope tugs, and hand signals. The rope is in the belayer's hands, but she is in control of what happens next.

"On belay," the belayer assures. This "on belay" is a touchstone. It is when the climber decides if this security is enough, and if it is, she answers, "climbing!" This is the moment when the ascent begins.

For me, this also is where I have to stop thinking about what could happen to focus on what is happening. Being belayed is not meant to be the hard part. The climbing is the hard part. I switch gears to be intentional about what I'm going to do to not fall off this wall. The word "fall" has to remain on the ground too, or so will I.

Because climbers have one job. Don't fall.

That looks a lot of ways: careful footwork, redundant anchors, calculated gear placement. The most important thing is trusting the rope to my belayer. I won't ascend if I'm unsure the rope is what is going to break my fall.

Climbing in Clear Creek Canyon, Colorado. Photo credit: The Evoke Group

I still fight security. I wrestle with safety. I suppose you may not believe that if you heard of the thousands of vertical feet I've climbed over the years, but it's true. I'm a chicken. I'm not a hardcore climber like my husband, Lane. But I am hardcore into the lessons of faith and endurance and growth that climbing imparts to me.

In this way, I think climbing and life are the same: we are held, even when we think we're falling. We can know we will be caught before we even slip up. We have assurance this gear system will not falter or fail no matter what mountain we've been asked to move or which walls we've been asked to climb.

We are always asking, "are you going to catch me if I fall?"

On belay?

Rappelling in Smith Rock State Park, Oregon.

I spent the first two decades of my life "climbing" without a belay. By that I mean I was just going about life without real purpose or intention. Without security. Never really safe. When I was 21, I met my Creator and realized I was already tied in. I finally got to stop second-guessing that I was being belayed on any real lifeline. 

And so, I got to get on with climbing. REALLY climbing. I don't have to waste precious time and energy wondering, "on belay? will You catch me when I fall up there?" The answer now is always, always of course. This security is enough.

Climbing in Smith Rock State Park, Oregon.

Even when I'm scared, I'm secure. Even when I do slip up, the rope's tension will find me eventually. I can hate, hate, hate the sensation of falling and failing, but I'm trusting my Belay. Even when I can't see Him, He's got me. Even when I can't see the anchor above me, it's still my aim.

When I'm already on the wall now, I can triple and quadruple check that my knot is still secure on my harness. I can check my end of the system. But I don't get to control it all. I don't have to. My one job now is to not fall and to cheer on the climbers to my left and right to keep putting one foot above the other, reminding them they can do hard things and may fall but will be held.

So now, "on belay" is my prayer. "Climbing!" is my baptism into trust and surrender. And so we climb.

I hope you'll join me at this little crag over here every week where I share how I'm learning to be intentional to not fall off my walls, trust the great Belayer, and use too many climbing/life metaphors!

Climb on,

Shelby

Climbing in Clear Creek Canyon, Colorado. Photo credit: The Evoke Group

We Bought a Farm: Meet Trier

Our first sheep of the year was born to TAMARIND. Her name is TRIER. (We are naming all of our females famous cities this year.) Since her birth we have added three more girls: Sydney (to mom Snowball) and Lisbon (to mom Lavender.) We've also added five males!

We bought a Farm: The Sheep are Arriving

So the sheep have started arriving on our farm! 

On Thursday, our very favorite sheep, Snowball, was the first to deliver. And, she had twins! One was a boy (we don't name boys) and one was a girl. We named the girl Sydney. 

Our first season of sheep were all named herbs (except Snowball who has just always been Snowball to us.) All of their babies have the same letter in their name but were named virtues. And this year we have decided to go with famous cities. 

So, for example ...

Tamarind (herb) had a baby last year which we named Truth (virtue). The year Tamarind just had another baby and we are going to call it Trier (famous city in Germany.)

Okay back to Snowball. Unfortunately Snowball rejected the male twin. Our current wwoofer, Nico, captured the exclusion on video. 

No one is really sure why this happens. Some say "the sheep know best" and there might be something wrong with the baby. Either way, this means that the little sheep that is rejected needs to be pulled and bottle fed. The only other option is to leave it to die. (I just can't bring myself to do this!)

We decided long ago we didn't want to bottle feed baby sheep. At least not right now. It's just too much work for a busy farm. I had already arranged with our awesome friend, Anni, that if we had any bottle babies this year, she'd take ownership. 

Anni took "Kenny" home with her. (Anni chose to name the sheep. Since it belongs to her now, she can do that.)

Kenny leaving with Anni was a lot harder than we thought it would be, especially for Abigail. The kids had spent the evening bonding with the little guy, and they did not want him to leave the farm. Abigail cried really hard Bottle babies are notoriously friendly and truly do become like pets. You can see from the pictures below how much "Kenny" was fitting in:

But like I said, our life is already packed full, and bottle feeding a sheep was not on my priority list. So Anni took Kenny back to her house. She had a goat with twins who has a TON of milk that Anni will be using for goat milk soap. She actually managed to get Kenny to latch onto the goat mom. She had tons of milk from the goat that she could use in bottles for the little sheep which was great for all involved.

Anni actually was going to her vet for something else and managed to get little Kenny weighed. We've often wondered what our little lambs weigh. This tells you!

Today was Saturday, and Anni often comes to hang out with us on the farm on Saturdays. So she came today, and she brought Kenny with her. Oh were the kids excited. We housed him in a little kennel behind the garage, and the kids got to spend the whole day helping feed and hang out with Kenny. They had an absolute blast!

Giving him a kiss!

Hard to see but that's our Hannah!

We have decided through this experience that the kids are getting close to old enough to bottle feed a lamb. The first few days can be a little tricky, but once the little lamb has settled into a routine, it's pretty easy. In the future, we may allow the kids, if we don't have any vacations or trips planned, to take "ownership" of the lamb. 

However, there are some things that are challenging about this. In the case of a boy lamb, the whole point is to raise him for food. (So hard when it becomes a pet!) And in the case of a girl lamb, we have decided not to breed bottle babies which means we would process her for food as well. While there are different schools of thought, John's is that it can mean more bottle babies in the future genetically.

This is our third season of having sheep. We had one bad delivery last year, but otherwise, this is our very first bottle baby. We hope we don't have anymore, but man is it fun to snuggle with little lambs!!

P.S. Since Snowball delivered her twins we have had three more sheep born. I'll write more about them tomorrow.

Upstairs is (nearly) done!

Well we still aren't officially moved in upstairs. John prepared me for the possible delays right before you cross the finish line, but my heart still has trouble wanting so badly to utilize our upstairs. Either way, while it isn't cleaned and isn't officially ready, it is basically done. Check it out folks! It truly is a whole new house!

We Bought a Farm: The Big Puppy Reveal!!!

I took Arabelle to the vet today where they did an x-ray to see how many pups she is having. This is suggested so you can know if she is finished or having any problems. She is due sometime around April 27 (from the best we can guess) and after you watch this video, you will join us in knowing how many puppies we will be welcoming to our farm.

P.S. We will NOT be keeping ANY of the puppies. We are selling them and already have 3-5 spoken for. If you are interested in a puppy, please email me (flakymn@hotmail.com) or Facebook message me ASAP! I can give you tons more information via a personal conversation. 

P.S.S. Our reason for having puppies was two-fold. The first was to recoup some of the money that buying two of these dogs for our farm cost. The second, however, was to experience this event with our children on our farm and to get to experience puppies for eight weeks. We are excited to place the dogs with families we know (we hope!) so we can continue to follow their lives in months/years to come.

We totally appreciate that there are shelter dogs who need good homes, and we will not be irresponsible breeders. We welcome different opinions on whether breeding is ethical, but we decided that good Aussies are worth it to the families that love them! If you disagree, you are welcome to that opinion.

Tribe Life Tuesday: Intimidating Intangible Fear

A smasherama

I decided to get out of town with the kids for two days. JB is on nights, we have good help on the farm, and we are days away from our upstairs being done!! I went to John's brother Matt's house in Columbia, South Carolina. His wife Danielle is one of my dearest friends. 

And on the way to their house, I slammed my finger in the truck door!!

But we arrived in one piece and the kids immediately embraced getting to hold the 10th cousin on the Kitsteiner side: Camryn. 

And the girls immediately decided to break into Aunt Danielle's closet!

We Bought a Farm: Preparing for Pups

Arabelle is definitely pregnant. Based on when we saw Ritter and her mate, she is due on April 27th. (They are from different litters by the way.) 

We are scheduled to be away from the farm on a family vacation at that time, but we have good people here and know she is in good hands.

We came up with the following "whelping box" for Arabelle on the porch. JB even worked it out that we can peer in through our bedroom window!

Our plan was to have one litter of puppies and then get the dogs fixed. We thought it would be fun for the kids, and we could make back a little of the costs of buying the dogs. 

Arabelle is slowing down considerably and getting quite large. I'll take her to the vet on Friday for an X-ray so we know how many pups to expect. 

Tuesday Truth

 

My life in my brain is on the left. 

 My life how it goes every day is on the right.

Any questions?

A Special One

When I was in my very early 20's and newly married, I worked for four years (1999-2003) at Franklin-Simpson High School in Franklin, Kentucky. In fact, after the first year, JB and I moved to the tiny town so I could be nearer to work. We lived in a duplex with our little lovebird and four snakes (seriously?!) and across the street from my cousin and his wife.

During that time I met many amazing kids. It was a very special place to me. Finding out that JB had gotten into Mayo Clinic for medical school in 2003 was the most exciting news of our young life. But it also meant I had to grieve saying good bye to this community that had been my home and my first "real job." I had a lot to learn about life in the south and in a Kentucky small town. Man were things different than I had grown up understanding them in an urban sprawl like Fort Lauderdale, Florida. But this community and their people embraced me and loved me and welcomed me. They left me with many wonderful memories. And I hope I did the same for them.

I was only a few years older than most of my students and athletes. I have many stories of wonderful families, but the Mayes family definitely nestled firmly in my heart. This is a picture of Ashley Mayes as I remember her in high school. She played basketball and volleyball for me.

The man on the right was in my senior English class. His name was Cody Baker. He was always present, always polite, always kind. You could tell he had been raised right. He was a gentleman and a true "Yes Ma'am" young man.

And it quickly became apparent that he really liked Ashley!

While I may not get all of the memories correct, here's what I remember: 

They were married not long after I left Kentucky, and Cody joined the Navy. I remember him talking often his plans to join the military. But about 12 years ago, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to medically leave the military.

He ans Ashley settled in Missouuri and had three children together, a son and then twins. 

Cody lived, mostly unimpeded by his tumor for well over a decade before a routine MRI showed that it was not lying dormant anymore. They began to fight the tumor.

And just over a month ago, they were given the news that the cancer was not responding, and Cody had just a short time left to live.

Cody went home to be with the Lord yesterday. They were on a beach vacation together as a family when he became gravely ill and was flown home. They waited for Ashley to arrive at the hospital and then let him go. Her sister Amber called to tell me yesterday.

Through it all, Ashley's faith was INSPIRING. She loves the Lord. She loves her husband. She loves her family. Her father, Terry, was a good friend of mine, and believe it or not, is fighting for his life in the hospital right now too.

I think the reason I find myself awake, in the middle of the night, is because Cody and Ashley were high school sweethearts. Just like John and me. And so my heart feels this loss in my core. I can't imagine my life without John. And I know Ashley feels the same way right now. There are tears streaming down my face as I write this because I feel this loss. It isn't fair. It feels so wrong. I want to fix it.

This is a strong, resilient, beautiful wife and mother who has not lead a life free of pain. And yet despite the challenges she faced throughout her life, she has continued to love and serve Jesus Christ. She thrived in her home with her father Terry and her sister, Amber, (who was also an incredibly special part of my coaching days.) Terry was a single father who loved his girls and raised them to love the Lord.

I do what I do when I am sad.

I write.

I had to get up, even though it is 3am to write since my fingers were typing in my brain as I rested beside my husband in my bed. I know God has a plan. I know He is a good God and He tells us that "All things work together for the good of those that love Him." I have no doubt that will be true in Ashley's life.

But my heart is grieved for her loss. For the loss her children now face. Will you pray for them? Ashley is 33 years old. Cody was 34. Their three children are Olin (12) and twins Isabella and Maverick who are just 8 years old.

I love you Ashley. I love you Amber and Terry. I am grieving and praying for your family during this incredible time of loss and love and rejoicing and sorrow. I continue to pray for Terry as he fights his own battle. A girl should not have to lose her husband and her dad and so I will pray fiercely that Terry comes home whole and as sports-crazy as ever.

Ashley I love you. You have told me that I was a positive influence in your life. You have been just the same in mine.

Homeschool Friends

We went to THE LOST SEA with our homeschool group last week.  This is almost two hours from us but it features the largest underground lake in all of America (and the second largest in the world!) It was so fun. Grampa and Grama came with us, and JB was able to join us as well. My friend Kristin captured a picture of my girls with her girls. I love our homeschool group and our friends!  

 Abigail and Eliza 

 

 

Hazel and Hannah