One Week

The chicks are one week old! Notice the new wing feathers that have sprouted and the paunchy little bellies! Even since 2 days ago when these pictures were taken, they've started getting tail feathers as well. And they have started eating quite a bit more already!

Enjoying the warm Spring!

BBQ Special

I'm glad I checked e-mail at 7am today. There was a shipping confirmation of our new chicks that we're raising for meat! The e-mail was sent at 2am and said to expect them to arrive at our post office anytime today through Tuesday. Fulling expecting it to be tomorrow sometime (I didn't think our P.O. was even operating on Sundays), I was surprised to get a call 15 minutes later from the post office saying that the chicks were in and they would be closing at 10am! So Christian went out (about 20 min. drive one-way) to pick them up while I hurried to get their food/water/light set up as well as get the rest of us ready for church! And we still made it on time! :) Nothing like a little fun on a Sunday morning...

 While these little ones are sooooooo cute now (they only just hatched last night!), they'll be full-grown and ready to eat/freeze in just 8 weeks! We'll take pictures of them every week to log how fast they're growing, just for the fun of it. :)

Creativity Days

 The kids and I painted some dollhouse furniture for the girls' dollhouse recently. Our neighbors gave us the kit for the dollhouse and my parents put it together and fixed it up really nice! The furniture came from a kit at Michael's for $5- just needed assembly with some glue and paint! I ordered a few little cheap Playmobil dolls since we don't have any dolls small enough to fit the furniture! :)

 Since I wouldn't let the twins paint the furniture, here are their painting creations...

 This little sneak got a hold of the scissors and cut several holes in her brand new shirt. My "turning lemons into lemonade" was cutting out flower pieces out of fabric scraps and zig-zag stitching them on the shirt, over the holes. Better a shirt than her hair! Been there and done that with their big sis!

 I finally (mostly) finished A's dress for a wedding she's flower-girling for next month- just needs the sash now! (And please don't look too closely if you go to the wedding...!) The main thing I've learned with my sewing attempts over the years is that invariably the bobbin thread WILL run out 3-6 inches before you want it to- so you might as well just expect it and not get all crabby about it. :)

 The kids made "kites" today (pieces of paper with yarn taped to it)

Elijah made this "beauty", as he calls it, using Peter's new drawing program.

Happy days. What Spring projects are you working on?

Introduction

The new chicks have officially been introduced to the established "flock" (if you can call 3 birds a flock)! The first day they cowered together and just tried to stay out of the way of the big birds. The last couple of days they've been getting bolder and foraging on their own, just hoping they won't be seen. It's quite interesting to watch the pecking order get established and try to guess who's going to be "in" and who's going to just get picked on (literally). So far no injuries at least!

A, with the "old" birds

The little ones- amazing how different they look from even 2 weeks ago!

Silly kids, coops are for chickens!

Silly chickens, coops are for kids!

10

Yep, we officially have a 10-year old!

Just hours old...

Now 10! All the gents look so tired in these pictures because before the party they played a rollicking game of soccer for over an hour! (I won't mention names, but a number of the older fogies are limping around quite a bit today...) :)

 A gumball laying chicken! Huzzah!

"Cheeeeeeze"

Using his pocket knife- I think all the adults were wishing he would just tear the paper off...!

 No ordinary nerf gun- he was speechless with excitement. I think Uncle Andy's jealous. :)

 Upside-down swings!

Marmie made a pretty amazing soccer cake! 

(Peter did like it, but I think was a little embarrassed at all the singing.)