Spring time

 Dad made a tower of 4 pillows. Stacked together they were taller than him! Alyssa tried to also do this but did not have as much success.

Spring is here! We are working on planting our garden. We are also reaping the rewards of raising a bunch of chicks last year. We get lots of eggs, which is super fun! We are attempting to set up a little stand to sell our abundance!

We celebrated Pi day with pizza. Taft even made his pizza in a pie pan.

We also celebrated the first day of Spring with free cones at Dairy Queen followed by a free carwash at a new carwash in town!

It was also spring break so we met at a park with a big bunch of kids! We have a lot of great families in our branch. It is fun to get together with some of them occasionally.

Evan would like everyone to know "I love my beaver [Buccee]."

He also took a bath with lots of bubbles!

We gave friends from our branch 7 chicks in the fall. It turns out 5 of them were roosters! We went to visit them this week. They are well fed and happy and looking for a new home! The roosters are almost as big as Kent and Taft! They are big! We also got to see our friend's baby goats, Liza and Jane. So little and soft!

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We have had some good times the last couple of weeks!

Grateful and Fulfilled

 This week has been a week where living on the farm has felt so wholesome and good. The spring sun is shining and burning us but it is so welcome after a few chilly days this winter. Everything is coming into green and we all feel alive. We started working on our garden. The peach tree is blossoming with lots of leaves. The animals seem to be thriving and all is well. 

I had a scare with Cappi earlier this week when he was down on the ground and seemed a little weak. I escalated to panic probably faster than I should have! Thankfully my homeschool mamas came to the rescue and one angel lady was able to listen to him and help me know how to beat meet his nutrition needs. He is doing well and eating well and the old horse will keep on grazing. It just made me realize though how much these animals have become a part of me over the last year!

I fill like God fills every part of me as I walk around and enjoy the creations of His that surrounds me. I am thankful to be here for awhile longer and to see my whole family grow and thrive. 

Happenings in the Kids' Words + Kent's Birthday

Kent turned 6! He got a hammock swingy thing. He also got a R/C monster truck that he can drive in the pool! Though maybe it shouldn't be driving excessively in the pool. 

Kent loves Minions so he asked for a minion cake. 

Evan blessed the cake with sneeze.

Evan likes to roller blade. Evan: "I love it! I love roller skating! It's so fun!"

We occasionally get critters in the catio. Taft: I looked out the window of the catio and what did I see? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ummmmmm a um haha hahahahahahahahahahahaha uhh opossum eating cat food on a windy tree.

Joel and Taft put the chickens to bed almost every night. Taft took this stellar picture of Joel looking pained while putting the chickens to bed.

Taft: I climbed up the climbing wall and got up on the beam and then Evan climbed the climbing wall. 

Evan: Taft was doing a little puppet show up on the climbing wall. Taft was saying Evan can do it!

Kent: I lost my tooth - good bye!

Evan: That's Dad with the tractor. Look at that hay ring! Dad moved the hay bale. And the hay ring was not lined up. 

(Oops...don't worry, it was unstuck and the hay was ringed.)

 

Imaginings

 These are normal days. I love our children take time to dress up or not get dressed at all. To play. To make up stories and imagine things.

We started school again this week. There is nothing that gets my kids to be scarce more than the idea of starting school again. But they had a good time. Joel has these gloves on and he said, "I look so cool in these gloves." Joel also set up a little camp fire bed on the living room floor. So many games and imaginings. These are the things that bring us joy in life. 

Animal Happenings

Taft likes to take pictures with the animals. Blinky and Taft - a selfie! Apparently Blinky eats bark or is smokin' a cigar.

Chicken in the sun!

Chickens in Love...not romantically as they are both Hens.

All of the above photo credits go to Taft.

We got an egg with a double yolk! Also featured is my sour dough starter - look how bubbly and beautiful. It's kind of an animal in and of itself...a little bossy sometimes, too.

Some of the younger chickens get out of the fence and forget how to get back in. Taft found a couple of them roosting in the tack room!

The next night he found the same rooster roosting on the gator roof!

Taft loves the animals most especially. He has trained our three original chickens to come to the door. One walked right in the other day and went to the office where Taft was to say hello (ok, fine, Alyssa led her there). They really are fun though!

 

Bone Breakage

Kent is the first child of our Archibald clan to break a bone. He was getting out of the back of the gator and ended up head down and then in a heap on the ground. The sister missionaries were over helping us work on a fence and one of them said, "oh, he broke his arm." I was ready to tell him to get up and he'd be ok when I realized Sister Olson was right! Kent had broken his arm! I picked him up, ran inside, got him ice. Erik gave him a blessing and ibuprofen and then I took him to the ER. Erik blessed Kent that he would be able to endure the pain and Kent was truly blessed with that. He hardly cried and was calm on the 40 minute drive to the hospital. We were also blessed to make almost every light green on the drive. A true miracle for 290, especially through Manor!

We went to the children's hospital where they know how to make your experience as smooth sailing as possible. They numbed his skin for an IV, gave him nasal pain medication so when they x-rayed it, he wouldn't have as much pain, and then heavily sedated him when they set it. He says when he woke up he didn't know where he was and he had forgotten that he had broken his arm!

When Kent got home, Taft gave him a kit of goodies to help him feel better. 

Kent has been mostly rolling around the living room. He discovered he can still play Bomber Man with some assistance. 

Evan has been a great assistant. He gave Kent some ibuprofen tonight! Everyone has been kind and helpful to Kent. We're just trying to remind everyone that breaking your arm is not fun and should not be attempted, even for goodly amounts of attention.

 

An Unexpected Day of Spontaneity

 Today has been the "best day ever" according to Taft, which is wonderful to hear him say because also according to him this month has been the worst month ever. 

We had a really fun, random, unexpected spontaneous day! We started this morning by jumping on the trampoline while listening to songs like Jump On It and We Didn't Start the Fire and Here Come the Men in Black. We might have ripped a spring off the trampoline - maybe a trampoline isn't designed for 2 adults and 3 kids, but we sure had a fun time. Taft suspects the cows wanted to jump too because they were all looking at us intently.

Erik made breakfast and we ate it outside. It included pancakes and a chocolate banana shake.

We played pickleball this morning and this afternoon. We went from casually hitting the ball back and forth to designing a makeshift court with a baby gate for a net. 

After pickleball, Taft was hot, so he decided he should swim, which landed all the boys in the hot tub which was heated up for the first time since we have moved in. It was about 80 F outside but the water was 63 F. They swam for almost 2 hours with Erik and Alyssa joining them towards the end. The hot tub made it to 96 F, which made the experience much more enjoyable and tolerable.

Erik also did a Sea World training routine for us! The kids were his whales and dolphins. The pool fun mostly ended when a scorpion was discovered and then lost in the hot tub. It was a little scary staying in there after that!

Erik has been working with all the kids on building a climbing wall. They decided to paint it like the solar system. It is looking so good! It is ready to get the climbing grip things put on and then somehow we will figure out how to stand and mount the wall!

Alyssa and Evan chased chickens. 

Tonight we had a fire and roasted hot dogs, little smokies, and s'mores.

It was just such a pleasant day and we had fun! It's been a long time since I have had good ol' fun. 

Don't forget to remember!

Life passes way too fast and I just want to remember all the good things; all the cuteness and beauty contained in my children and their every day living and their relationships and all of that. Here's some of the moments that brought my heart joy recently.

Evan's a cute diabetic. A lady in the area was giving away a sugar pixel clock, which is a clock that shows your blood sugar all the time. I'm sure to an older person, they don't want their blood sugar displayed, but as a mom of a diabetic, I love it! It's ideal for night time alerts as it has all sorts of loud and vibrational features, but for now it's just in the kitchen. Anyway, I am also so thankful for this lady who gave us this clock. She even shipped it to us and did it all out of the kindness and goodness of her heart. It restores my faith in humanity and the goodness people have in their hearts!

These boys love to play and create and adventure. There's a new park in town and they have a nature play area (let's not mention we live on lots of nature...but whatever...). The boys had so much fun rearranging logs and making obstacle courses and firepits. It was a fun stop at the park. We had just picked up more eggs to hatch (also, the kindness of humanity...the lady we buy eggs from gave us a dozen more to try again...) and were waiting for Alyssa to finish Teen Night at the library. All these things are beautiful things about our life right now. Just happenings, but indicative of what is going well!

Kent and Evan love the crafts from the library. Kent is very good at putting them all together. This one was a rake with leaves!

A regular scene...look at all those kids reading. Even Evan can read graphic novels ;). Sometimes its hard to get the kids to do anything else because they are so good at reading and looking at books.