Bearizona

We took advantage of some free tickets the kids earned through the summer reading program and made a quick trip to Bearizona! It's a drive-through animal park with the animals all having room to wander over their own little area , or big area in the case of the bison. At the end they have 15 "habitats" that are basically what you'd see in a zoo, including a little petting zoo area with chickens, goats, pigs, ducks, etc. All the animals in the park are more or less native to AZ, and it was neat to get to see them so close!

 Brown bison

 Tundra wolf (from Alaska, I think)

 White bison

 Dall ram

 Black bear

 Storing up for winter? Such cute faces, but I'm glad we were in the car. :)

 We made it just in time for the raptor show- they were flying within a couple inches of our heads!

 Cutie-booty bear cub

 Critters watching critters.

 Little javelinas (pronounced "havelina", for non-Spanish-readers)

 Silly chicken

 Floppy-faced pig

 And the one little duck with the feather on his back...

Life

My apologies if this post is disjointed and hard to follow- that's basically the summation of life at the moment! I feel like James the Juggler from a library show this summer that was juggling a bowling ball, a golf club and a baseball bat all the the same time! I guess in my case it would be a large saucepan, a few eggs, a potty seat, a few sponges and a box full of loose crayons! Here are a few things I've been up to, in no particular order...
-Staining (halfway) the playground set
-Painting various skateboards, scooters and cork boards (just for fun)
-Cleaning the house (and then again and again and again...)
-Homeschooling- 3 kids this year, while the twins are NOT napping
-Baking again
-Not doing dishes nearly as often as they need doing
-Making freezer pickles
-Drinking lots of coffee
-Listening to various sermons/lectures (the 2006 Desiring God Conference on post-modernism, Tim Keller on Proverbs, John Frame on Libertarianism- not the political Libertarians...; RC Sproul's The Holiness of God, etc.-I'm trying not to let my brain turn into mush!)
-Feeding people
-Avoiding the sad tomato garden
-Still putting dratted escaped chickens back in their yard
-Trying not to curse while attempting to pull legos that have been lodged in the wand/handle of my vacuum- a certain little boy decided they would make great "bullets" for his "gun"
-Reading "Loving the Little Years" and crying because some days it's just so hard and I've failed so much
-Laughing at my husband as he tells me that someday I'll write a book called "Loving the Empty Nest Years"
-Reading and listening to God's Word and godly people as they remind me that God's not finished with me yet and that I'm in the exact place He wants me
-Taking little people potty (diapers really were so convenient)
-Trying to figure out how to type with two crabby girls on my lap and wondering how to keep them from biting each other
-Kissing owies (which have increased greatly in the last few days as Peter has taken up skateboarding and Elijah has renewed his bike riding without training wheels)
-Getting up in the middle of the night to deal with people  (at 4am this morning Elijah was very distressed that his pillow was cold)
-Drinking more coffee
-Spending too much time escaping on the computer
-Telling myself every time the kids make a big mess somewhere "Well, at least I didn't clean that already like I was going to today!"
Ok, that's enough for now- life must go on! :) Have a good one wherever you are, remembering Who has put you there!

Surprise in the Sunrise

Labor Day Weekend

Our weekend consisted of the County Fair, the Demolition Derby (the boys), a birthday party (the girls), clipping chickens' wings, fixing their fence, and spending time in the garden. Fun days, and today we're LOVING the cooler, drizzly weather!

And the Rooster Crowed No More

Ever since the pullets started laying last weekend they've all, including and especially the cock, had a lot more attitude. Yesterday, when Peter was out changing their water, he forgot to close the door to the coop all the way so most of them escaped into our backyard. "No biggie," I thought, "the kids have rounded them all up before and maybe they'll catch a few grasshoppers while they're out." Well, they probably would have been fine, but for the twins. The twins have never been mean to the chickens, but they do happen to be just a little larger than the cock and curious. So when the cock didn't want to be rounded up by the kids, he decided to fly at the curious onlookers. Tirzah ended up getting scratched on her cheek and Berea got a scratch on her arm. Of course that scared them quite a bit and made me boiling mad. Thank God the dratted creature hadn't developed longer spurs yet; I've read about toddlers losing an eye due to a rooster attack. If it weren't for the twinsies, we probably would've kept him and just armed the kids with sticks and water guns and made more strict rules about dealing with the chickens, but 2 year olds are just still too young to defend themselves. So this morning (well, afternoon actually) was the last time he crowed. Now, both C. and I are MK's (missionary kids), and while we've (at least I have) SEEN chickens get killed/cleaned neither one of us has ever DONE the deed. So armed with diagrams from our Storey's Raising Chickens book and having watched the butchering chickens section of our Homesteading for Beginners DVD that we got from Bulkherbstore.com (it really is a fun movie- making yogurt, planting gardens, etc.), Christian took off to go set things up. Anne shut herself inside and closed the curtains until Peter came in and said, "Hey, you don't want to miss this! It's going to be just like the movie and you'll get to see its GUTS!" Well, what self-respecting girl could resist that?! Well, I could have, honestly, but C. wanted me out there to consult with (maybe 'cause I'd seen the movie more times?), but I think mostly to keep the twins out of trouble. To get ourselves geared up we first clipped a wing of one particularly obnoxious bird who is constantly escaping and getting into our garden. If that doesn't work, we may need to do the next part all over again... Anyway, I guess you probably don't want all the gory details, but after C had killed it and it was hanging from the tree, it was really amusing listening to the kids' reactions- they were all out there, though they all missed the actual (really fast and not gory) killing. Peter was practically prancing around, giddy with excitement, daring the other kids to touch it. Oh, that was funny- as Peter and Anne starting inching their way towards it to touch it, it suddenly started twitching and flapping- sending them shrieking backwards! Anyway, after it had finally stopped all the "nerve" stuff, Anne started making up a song about chicken hearts and Elijah kept saying how he was really looking forward to seeing its guts. The bird still hanging upside down, Berea said "Whee!" and Tirzah said, "Roooaaarrrrr!" That girl got her revenge tonight. :)