Strange things are happening on the farm.

My chickens are really a weird bunch. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe they are lacking something in their diet. Maybe they are sick. Yes, I think that's it. They have been eating their eggs for a while. Cannibals! I have no idea which ones actually break the eggs but I think they will all eat the stuff if given the chance. There have been a few times that I have gone out to collect eggs and I have found one of these...


Most of the time the shells are shattered but I find it extra irritating when they just clean out the insides.


But that isn't the strangest happenings (mostly because it has been going on for so long). A couple weeks ago I found a dead chicken in the chicken yard. When I got closer I realized it was missing it's neck and head. Gone. No where to be seen. I had to shew away a couple other chickens that were actually pecking at her remains. (These chickens are sick.) Then a week later I found another dead chicken but she wasn't missing any parts. The very same moment I found the second dead chicken I noticed another chicken eating something. It was not regular food so I looked closer. I realized what ever it was eating, it was stuck. I went into the chicken yard and found the chicken. As I got a better look I realized she was trying to swallow a baby bird. I have no idea how she got the bird. There are no tree branches with nests over the yard. I was able to pull the bird out of the chickens mouth and save the silly chicken. What was she thinking? Would she eat her own baby? I don't know what's going on. Either way I figure it's time to get rid of these crazy chickens and start over. Unfortunately, we should have ordered the babies back in April because we're a little late on replacing our egg layers. Whenever we do order new ones I think we should figure out how to clip their beaks so they don't peck at each other and don't peck at the eggs. Maybe that will save us some of these issues in the future.

I never realized...

that mice like chocolate. I figured they were strictly a grain and seed sort of animal. Or even dairy, with a liking for cheese. I guess we have special mice. I finally set out a trap in the kitchen to see if we could get rid of them. What pushed me over the edge was finding this one day....

Shredded silver wrapper and a half eaten Hershey Kiss on top of the microwave. The mice had to go!



The trap has caught three so far. After catching the mice I found more wrapper in a closet (didn't even know there was chocolate in there). Then today, as I was cleaning out a desk, I found this....


It is the shredded remains of an advent calendar that we were saving for Christmas. The kids said we were lucky when I found 7 pieces of chocolate that the mouse couldn't get because other stuff was on top of the lower part of the calendar. This is why you shouldn't eat anywhere else in the house and never stash food or candy anywhere but the kitchen. Mice will go for the good stuff and not just the grains.

Cute little girls

They were so cute tonight. Xiomara is trying to finish up the summer reading program at the library. She has a few more hours to read before she's done. Everyone else has completed it and so she really wants to earn the T-shirt, too. They had had their shower so I was taking care of the bigger girls. They sat down together and Xiomara started reading to Kemiah. It was so cute to see my 5 1/2 year old reading to my 3 1/2 year old!

Brilliant Baby

Domonique is really catching on to things. The other day I said, "Where did you put your jammie top?" Then I walked to the kitchen to put something away. When I came out she had brought me her jammie top. Clever little girl! She laughs and plays with the other guys. She gives me hugs and kisses. She has figured out how to nod her head to say "yes" and I think she understands it. She loves to go outside. She also loves to climb up the stairs. She is just so fun!

She doesn't like to touch the grass yet, so her sisters got the great idea of pulling her around in the sled. She loved it and so did they. It was so fun to watch them.

Tonight Emily thought it would be fun to put her in a little box. She actually liked it for a really long time. Emily even sat by her and read stories to her.

She's just too lovable! What a little ham!

Of course...

This happened back on the 23rd of June. We were outside doing something and some one said, "Hey, there's a frog." It was quickly captured and then someone else said, "There's another one!" Yes, it was a frenzy. They were all over in the grass so the kids started to watch where they stepped because they didn't want to step on one. Then I thought back to the month of May, before we went on vacation. We enjoyed the sound of frogs. It was their mating call and now we were seeing the results of all their "singing." I must admit they are actually toads but frog sounds better. These little guys were all over so there was no shortage. I got each of the kids a little glass jar so they could keep their captives. After a while I made them release them because I figured they had had enough trauma - the kids were putting them in our neighbor's puddle, watch them swim to the edge, and catch them again. It was certainly an experience, for all those involved.

Ben had eight little guys in his jar.

Happy Birthday Domonique!

I think she had a pretty nice first birthday (on the 4th). She enjoyed some pancakes with ice cream (although she didn't get to pick the flavor). Then she "read" Grammy and Gaffa's card. Then all the kids enjoyed balloons. (I remembered!) It was fun to watch them all play, for a little bit because then the baby went to bed and everyone else went out to work in the garden!

After lunch, and a little more work in the garden, we suited up and went swimming at a friend's pool. It was great! It was the first time the entire family has been in the water together for quite some time and we all enjoyed it. Well, Domonique wasn't really happy about it but she calmed down once I held her close. (There's no picture of that because we were all in the pool.)

We headed home for a quick dinner, then cake and presents with Grandma and Grandpa Nichols. I had all the other kids pick out presents from toys that I took away a while back so no one has seen them for a long time. It turns out the baby really enjoyed them all so we did good! Kevin picked up a really big, super cute, stuffed penguin and a large bottle of bubbles. Grandma and Grandpa Nichols got a couple noisy toys and Domonique loved them - laughing and babbling as they made noise. It was really cute. I'm glad Kevin was video taping.

Then she got a phone call from Memere (Kevin's mom) and that was funny to watch. Kevin put it on speaker phone and Domonique looked at the phone and then at Kevin and then back at the phone. She was trying to figure out if it was a toy or not.

Kevin headed to bed after the party and I stayed up with the kids to take them to the fireworks. We ended up in an okay spot but next year we'll try a different place to see if we can see the lower ones. The kids were all very tired, a bit cranky, and went right to sleep when we got home.

All in all I'd say that was a pretty good day!

I took her to her 1-year check-up on Tuesday. She weighed 18 pounds, 8 ounces, and was 29 inches long. She's a little small for her age, but not at the bottom of the curve. She received 4 shots and didn't like them at all. She has been full on walking for about two months now and has 6 very sharp teeth. She doesn't like the sippy cup so she usually gets only 18-20 ounces of fluids a day because I'm still giving her bottles of formula. (We'll make the switch to real milk as I run out of the remaining formula.) She still has blue eyes and is really starting to laugh along with the other guys. She will give me 5 and kisses (the open mouth kind). She's just a sweet little thing and we love her to bits!

How long is too long?

We have done a lot of stuff in the past two months. I haven't had (or made) the time to blog as I should have about all the things we have done so now it seems a bit daunting to catch up. I must though because this is the only family history/journaling/scrapbooking I am doing and I think that's pretty important. If I don't do it here (even if no one reads it) then I won't have a written history to go with the pictures I have taken. So I will catch up.... some day.

What do you do?

I was working in the yard the other day and so were the kids. We were all out enjoying the beautiful weather while we worked. Then Xiomara came up to me, crying, and said, "Emily just broke her pinky-inky-winky promise." She was so upset but I was about to laugh because they took the pinky promise to an all new level. Do you talk with her about not trusting Emily or do you talk to Emily about not breaking pinky-inky-winky promises?

Domonique is trained!

And she's not yet a year old! No, I don't mean potty trained. Awhile back, I gave in and gave her back her pacifier. (Did I mention that I was trying to get rid of it? Well, I was.) It was helpful while we traveled around a bit. I decided that I didn't want it to be fixed in her mouth all day long so I made it just a sleeping thing. She gets the pacifier when I put her down at nap time, twice a day, and then at night time when I put her to bed. You get the idea. Well, so does she. I get her up and say, "spit out the pacifier." I lean her toward the crib and she spits it out. No fussing or fighting! Hooray. I have also seen her just grab it out of her mouth and toss it back into her bed. Either way is pretty funny to see and I love it! Maybe it will be that easy to get rid of it all together later on. Here's hoping!