It was a wet sock day

It was one of those days. Bad allergies (makes everything seem worse), and just one hard thing after another (just regular hard day things - I won't bore you with the list). I hate stepping in something wet while wearing socks. Today I got wet socks 4 times. From 4 different things (all water - some from sippy cups, some from the bath). It was just that kind of a day.

I had just vented to Dave on the phone during lunch of my hard day. I was getting lunch ready for the kids, when I looked out the window and wondered what Turkish (our turkey) had in its mouth. Something white? Oh no! It was Ned-feather-head. I scream (that's all I know how to do in emergencies) and send Ash out. She's much better with the animals than I am. After I sent her out, I decided to run after her. That's when I caught a glimpse of Turkish nipping Ash while Ash screams out a bloody murder scream. She was screaming because she saw blood on Ned's head, and I thought she was screaming out of pain. Turns out it was hardly a peck from Turkish to Ash. She was totally fine. I thought for sure Ned was dead. We have no clue why Turkish decided to pick on Ned today. Turkish has always gotten along fine with the chickens. I got Ash in the house - and had 3 screaming kids. I ran back out to find my neighbor pinning Turkish down (thank you) and to our surprise, Ned was walking around. Ned ran off into the woods to find her friends. I ran in the house to rush the kids off to school. Everyone was crying, and as we pulled out of the garage, we looked out back and saw that Turkish had found Ned AGAIN and was attacking her. I really thought that Ned was beaten so bad that she would die any minute. I drove off because I didn't know what else to do! I really didn't think Ned wanted to live after such an event. As we drove off, Ash is mad at me and says "Chickens are more important than school!" It was quite the drive to school. Sadie announced that we need to kill Turkish. Ash bursts into tears again. And then Nate is saying "Ah, Boo" (translate: Ash, Sadie) because he's worried about them crying. And I was dying that I would have to deal with it when I got home. I came home and Turkish was still at it with Ned. And Ned was still alive. Unbelievable! She wouldn't give up. Dave had to walk out on the surgery he was in the middle of 3 times to help tell me what to do at different stages. Sorry Dave. I didn't know I signed up for this sort of thing.

I had to pick up Turkish (while she was still picking at Ned) and put her in our garage. Let me tell you that I was dying the whole time. It was disgusting and scary and I just felt sick inside about poor Ned. Then Dave told me that I had to catch Ned and separate her from the flock because the flock would start picking at her because she would now be considered the weak link. I tried and tried. No success. I was saying prayers, I was moving as slow as I could while dishing out chicken scratch. Finally, I got her. I brought Ned into Dave's workroom in the basement where she could die in peace. I brought food and water in case she wanted it. And I had to spray some stuff on her wound (her whole head) to stop infection from starting. I would call myself brave today only because I actually accomplished what Dave told me to do. My feelings inside were anything but brave.

Ned is still alive and doing pretty well. Dave took a picture of her, but they were all too graphic to put on the blog.

We had to say good-bye to Turkish. Dave is in the middle of preparing her for a brine - and the crazy guy (Dave) thinks we will eat her tomorrow. Which leads me to a great quote for the quote book.

While tucking the girls in bed:
Me: Daddy wants to cook Turkish tomorrow.
Ash: I will NOT eat my pet.
Sadie: I will. I love meat. I love turkey.

While Mom and Dad were visiting us, they happened to pick these two birds (Turkish and Ned) to take a picture with them. They were friends back then.

Ash had a hard day. Sadie did too, but not nearly as sad as Ashlyn's day. Ash shed LOTS of tears, and when she went into her room to cry some more, Sadie followed her in. I came in to this scene and had to capture the cute sight of Sadie trying to cheer up her big sister.

Life on a farm is not always easy. Today I wished I was living in my SF apartment while sweeping sand in my family room from living so close to the beach.

Why can't Dave be home when these things happen?

A lesson learned

I've learned this lesson over and over again, but today it especially stood out in my mind. When someone is mean to Ash at school, I remind her that you just never know if that person had some really hard things they were going through that you might not know about. I try to teach her that it's best to be as nice as you can, even when they aren't being nice. I realize that it's easier to teach this principle than to live it.

The older I get, it seems that I know more of those "hard things" that people are going through.

If Dave ever complains of a driver driving too slow, I suggest that maybe the driver's wife just had a c-section. I know how it feels, and slow-as-a-snail is how I wanted my husband to drive after a c-section.

Today I watched a leader at church lead with a smile - even though last night her teenage son ran away. I was amazed she was there, doing her best, and even with a smile. Most people didn't know about her situation - and I just hoped that everyone around her would be extra warm, extra patient and extra understanding.

Dave has had some things from work weighing heavily on his mind. One day after hearing about everything from Dave, a neighbor stopped by and we chatted for a while. She had no clue of the stress going on inside my head while we talked.

There have been several other situations that have really made me think. And wonder how many times I have interacted with someone. Maybe they were short with me or moody or impatient. Maybe (probably) I had no clue of something they were going through.

And so my resolution today and for this new year is to treat everyone with love, and to remember that most of the time, I may have no clue of the hurt, sadness, suffering, frustration, or WHATEVER, that those I interact with may be going through.



We're back from a fabulous trip to California. It was such a treat to have Mom's cooking and not having to clean or cook or grocery shop! It wasn't the most relaxing trip we've ever had -as we had so much to fit in, and still many people we didn't get to see! But we had a fun time and I have no pictures to prove it. With the airlines being so strict with baggage, I tried to pack as light as possible - and that meant that my big camera didn't stand a chance of making it into the bag. So I'm counting on my family to send pictures soon so I can have some documentation of our trip!

Nate copies everything we do. Lately, when we lay on the floor he gets in right next to us - in the exact position. Today at church we were sustaining new callings. Right when it would be the time to oppose - Nate raised both hands in the air. While I'm talking about church - have I mentioned that during the sacrament, Nate says either "roll" or "wa-wa" the whole time. He calls bread "roll". He always wants more. Funny kid.

Dave was vacuuming yesterday. Nate found it to be quite the fun ride.

Our little Nativity

Ashlyn and Sadie showing sporting their new Christmas pajamas. This is a tradition from when I was little. The girls have too many pajamas from last Christmas. I knew they didn't need more pajamas - but I just had to - for tradition's sake.

From left to right: Ashlyn - the angel. Sadie - Mary. Me - the donkey. Nate - Joseph. Sister Kenzler - a noisy lamb. Dave - photgrapher and narrator.

Mary and baby Jesus - she took the job so seriously.

Christmas jello that we had with our Christmas Eve dinner. I wanted to cut a bunch of Christmas trees, but one was hard enough - with a cookie cutter that didn't go as deep as the jello did.

Truffles

Vanilla Buttercream

I spent all day Saturday making truffles. And I mean all day! I started first thing in the morning, and stopped 30 minutes before we had to leave for 2 Christmas parties that night. I thought Dave might want his date to shower and get out of her pajamas before we left.

I have a friend here who is the chocolate master. She knows everything about chocolate and cake decorating and all of that fun stuff. So I went to her house one day (brought my own centers that she gave me the recipe for) and she showed me how to dip the centers and make truffles. She has a fancy chocolate tempering machine that tempers the chocolate. It was so much fun. I'm hooked to this hobby. I went home and made tonz of centers...250 of them. Then she let me borrow her machine for an all day dipping extravaganza. The girls helped here or there, Dave helped by having an all day date with Nate, and also making me lunch. The only time I sat all day was for 5 minutes to shovel down some lunch and then rushed back to the dipping.


Here are my helpers with the centers ready to dip. Maple fudge, caramel, chocolate chip cookie dough, vanilla buttercream, orange buttercream, chocolate buttercream and chocolate mint buttercream.

My friend showed me a discount website to order gourmet chocolate. I bought a 10 pound block of chocolate and I've never seen anything like it! I wish I got a picture of it before stabbing into it.

Maple Fudge

Chocolate Buttercream

At the end of the dipping day, I handed the girls a bag of Oreos and let them dip away. They had so much fun.

This picture has nothing to do with chocolate - except that it is sooooooooo sweet! This was a couple weeks ago during our first snow storm. Another big storm is coming in tonight.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

It snowed all day. When we got home from church, Ash was dying to go out and take a drink of snow (Grandpa John taught her the great way to quench your thirst when it's raining or snowing). Nate wanted to check it out as well. I didn't have my shoes on, so I tried my best to get Nate to come back in to the warm house. And this is the look I got. He took it all in. He stood like this for a long while - just enjoying all of the snow falling all around him. Then I tried harder to reel him in (I wasn't about to go out in my bare feet!) and he just laughed at me (scroll down for that face.)

Ash said it was actually hard to catch the snow cuz it was jumping all around the place. But she did get some.

Most of the snow didn't stick to the ground, so we couldn't build a snowman. It's still snowing...so maybe soon enough we'll build one.

A few random, cute pictures...

Nate and I went in to wake the girls up for school. They went to say their morning prayer, and Nate marched right over to join them. Nate loves attention for the cute things he does, so it was easy to get him to pose for the picture.

Sadie loves to take care of Nate. He's a pretty good sport considering all of the water she squirts in his hair.

At school Sadie's class was having a TG feast. She has talked about it for weeks and was so excited. Her excitment was evident as she came to breakfast already in her pilgrim costume. She wore it all the day long. It was also fun to have a memory jump into my head...that when I was in kindergarten, I was a pilgrim and wore almost the exact costume. I got the picture out to prove it.

Nate loves to climb on the big kid chair and sits there with as much pride as you could hold in a little 15-month old face. He's always trying to be like his sisters.

Fake Yawns

Background to this photo essay: One day I yawned. Nate copied me and yawned. I thought it was so funny to watch him fake a yawn. I couldn't stop laughing! So for the next several minutes, Nate kept faking a yawn, over and over and over. He LOVED being funny and making us all laugh. Just tonight while putting him down, he was almost asleep, but then poked his head up to show me his fake yawn. Funny, funny boy.

Ready for my yawn?

Here goes...

Aren't those eyes just awesome?

Clap for me!! I'm sooooooo cute! And funny.

Ready to see it again? I'll do it 100 more times if you keep laughing.

Piano Girls

For those of you (grandparents) who would have liked to be here at the recital...you might be glad to watch this short clip instead of sitting through the 1 hour and 40 minute recital. TOO LONG! Especially with Nate to chase.

It was fun to have our first little snowflakes accompany us on our drive to the recital. It was freeeeeeeeeeeeezing but so fun to have snow! Sadie could hardly wait for it to be her turn - and neither of them got nervous at all. Don't know where they got those genes.

Other exciting news at our house this week:

1. We got our first egg yesterday and another one today. We ate one and it was super tasty! We will conduct a blindfolded egg-tasting test soon and let you know if we can tell the difference between our eggs and the store's.

2. For our anniversary (9 years) Dave bought us ballroom dance lessons. Dave is embarrassed about this and has been known to say things like "No, I won't be able to do that...we have plans the next several Friday nights." But, as you might notice, he doesn't add what those plans are. For those of you (possibly the Walton boys?) that might think this is not so manly...I think it is especially manly. What is more manly than a husband doing the last thing in the world he would like to be doing on a Friday night - all out of love for his wife, who has always dreamed of learning to ballroom dance with her husband. We had our first class Friday night - and we had so much fun. Even Dave had fun. Thanks Dave! You know how much I love you!

3. Nate ate a grapefruit. Being the picky eater he is, this especially shocked me. The girls were eating a grapefruit and Nate wanted one. He tried it and kept wanting more. Go Nate!