Mikayla Week Part 3

Pretty much 2009, starting with being a super-big sister holding Connor

Mikayla Week Part 2

Today's her birthday, and I didn't expect to be sad about it!  I really was thrown for a loop when I started crying this morning that my little angel is a 10 year old now. Wow.  Here's some photos from October 2006 when Izzy was born through 2008.

The BIG 1 - O

September 18th marks the day my first child was born.  This girl is nearly perfect and I'm always so proud to call her mine.  Here's some pictures of pictures of Mikayla when she was just born through age 4.  They are pictures of pictures because it would take much too long to scan them all and this was before I had a digital camera.  Mikayla was practically born in the stone age people.

First Birthday

5 Generation picture. 

I love the way Granny Ruth is adoring Mikayla

Mikayla would hug this big Santa at Nana and Papa's house every time she came over

Master of the Nuk

More pictures to come!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This was our first week of preschool for the year, and this month I ignored my Funshine Express curriculum book and went with something with more flexibility since I also started a 12 week old baby last thursday.

This month we are reading various Eric Carle books and doing extension projects related to the books we read.

This week we focused on The Very Hungry Caterpillar among other books.  We are also working on the literary concepts of "Cover", "Title", and "Author".

Our first project was simple and adorable!

fingerprint caterpillars

The second project (different day) was to make Hungry Caterpillar hats!  This one was mostly a gluing project for these guys, we're not ready for cutting circles yet, they found it enough of a challenge to work the glue stick, and manage to line up and stick the eye parts down that were also sticking to their fingers!

 And of course we've been doing the calendar every day, figuring out the pattern and predicting the picture on that day's piece, watching the weather and recording it, and have been working on the letter A, number 1, and color Red though those haven't made it onto the board because -well - I have a 6 month old and a brand new 12 week old also in the house. :o)

This is only some of what we've been doing this week, and it's been fun!

Summer of the Chicken

One of our projects this past summer was getting set up with Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens!  Back in June we bought four 1-day-old baby fluffy butts!

They quickly (very quickly) grew and when they were fully feathered out they moved from their brooder box  out to the coop.  The picture below is them in their coop outside of their box for the first time.  The bedding hasn't looked that neat and beautiful since then, but it's not as stinky as I would have thought.

 We will be getting some super delicious and healthier than store bought eggs starting in about 2 - 3 months from now!  We don't have a rooster because they are annoyingly loud and from what I've been reading can be aggressive... which doesn't fly well with this lady, especially considering I want our kids to feel comfortable doing the chicken chores and don't want them getting harassed by a cocky rooster.

Our 4 chickens are very gentle except when they get super excited about treats (worms, raisens, fruit scraps) and can get carried away.

 Though our chickens are not free-ranged because I have a business that requires they not roam around and poop on whatever they want, and their eggs won't be quite as magical as a free-ranged pasture-raised chicken egg, I expect some difference to occur.  They get greens, they get fruit and veggie scraps, bugs, worms, and decent feed, so they and their eggs will be healthier than the chickens living in egg-factories.

Supposedly, these are the differences between a free-range chicken's egg and a store bought egg:

• 1/3 less cholesterol• 1/4 less saturated fat• 2/3 more vitamin A• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids• 3 times more vitamin E• 7 times more beta carotene

Plus, chickens are fun. And funny.  And soft.  And quieter than I expected (our kids are a bajillion times louder when outside than the chickens).   

 The kids have really enjoyed getting to raise animals that are a little different than your usual house pet.  They help let them out of their coop by opening the door to their run in the morning, they can feed them, they can switch out the water jugs, and they can scoop poop as well!

 If the winter goes well we might get a couple more chicks to up our egg supply, because we eat a lot of eggs around here, and we're already getting lots of requests from friends and families for eggs!  But for now we're learning as we go, and taking it one season at a time!