Eggs!!!!

Well, Tony was looking out of the window this afternoon and noticed that there were only three chickens pecking around, so he went outside to locate the 4th and discovered Hyacinth was hanging out in the chicken hutch by herself. So, we opened up the side and found eggs! There were 4 in all, and it's been about a week since we've had it open, so we're not sure if she layed them all or if more than one of the chickens is laying, but either way, we have eggs. It was so much fun finding them. I didn't expect the cheeps to start laying until spring, but there you have it. Here are photos:

Hyacinth looking very pleased with herself:

The eggs in the hutch:

After we washed them off:

When I hooked the camera up to upload the photos I took of the eggs I also found this:

It appears that sometime since the last time I looked on the camera there have been chickens in the kitchen. I'll have to ask the kids about that...

Merry Christmas

My Children are Not being nice

We have never done Santa Claus at our house (I have no problems with people who do, we just didn't ever get that started.) My kids know all about Santa, but we don't make believe presents come from Santa, they just come from whoever they're from, mostly mom and dad.

So, up until this year there has never been a "better be good so you can get Christmas presents" thing going around. This year it's all changed because the little girls watched a stupid Christmas show about these weird bug-eyed fairies that work for Santa and go around watching to see who should be on the "naughty" list and who should be on the "nice" list. This has become a constant theme with them, and they have several lists they've been carrying around and working on and using to manipulate each other.

Ellie's list is a bunch of jumbled letters that only she can read, but Sophie's reads "Margaret, Sophie, Ellie, Anna, Penny, Sparkey, Maggie" with a checked box by each one. This is her "nice" list and anytime anyone does something she doesn't like she x's out their check mark. Once she's happy with them again she re-checks the box. The paper is getting crumpled and thin as she removes and reinstates her siblings over and over again. All day long I've been listening to "Margaret is on my naughty list, no presents for her!" and "Anna is so good, see, she's on the nice list" and so on and so forth.

'Tis the Season to tattle, I guess. Sigh.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Hello everybody!

We haven't been posting much, so here is a little update:
We have been getting some snow, and right now its about 3 inches high. It's cold, so no one has gone outside today with the exception to check on the chickens.
We are all preparing for christmas, and the tree is up (but not all the way decorated). Grandma Jo and Grandpa Jim are planning to come and stay a little while for christmas, so we have been cleaning the house and rearranging the bedrooms to make room. All of us kids will camp out in the play room with our couch and tv, and I think that will be a lot of fun.

The weather is really dreary. It's been snowing on and off today. But really, this time I don't want to play in it. :)

Sophie and Dad were playing Animal Yahtzee, and Sophie got 5 of a kind.
Ellie fell asleep before everyone else did, as usual.
And some other random photos:

Chicken on the Roof!

I've been wondering if the chickens were able to fly high enough to escape our 6' fence, and I guess we got our answer. Yes, after spending all day yesterday in their hutch hiding from the cold wind and snow, the chickens came out to stretch their wings this morning and Rosalind flew up onto the garage roof. We convinced her to fly back down, but I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I think we might need to clip their flight feathers to make sure they stay put.

Here they are checking out the wood pile


And Margaret loving on Daisy

Shoe Update and Pest Control

We have a problem with shoes, mostly stemming from the fact that the three littles won't keep their shoes on when we go out. This is actually how we lost one of Anna's boots at church a few weeks ago. So, yesterday we were at church and sitting in the pew where we normally sit and Sophia had her shoes off as usual, and one of them got kicked under the pew. She got down and climbed under the pew to retrieve it and found a little pink furry boot under there with her shoe. It was patiently waiting there for the past few weeks for one of the girls to climb under there and find it, I guess. I'm pretty happy that Anna has both of her boots now!

Margaret found a rather big spider in the kitchen this morning and it wasn't anything poisonous (if it had been we would have just squashed it) so we did the usual and caught it in a jar to take it outside. Margaret took the jar out to the breezeway, where the chickens like to hang out on cold days (you can see it coming, I know) and she released the spider, which scuttled away into the midst of the chickens where it was instantly gobbled up by Celia. It was pretty funny. Chickens really are great pest control.

Busy, Busy

Well, in spite of a scary tire blow-out on the interstate on our way home, we are safely back in Wichita and the Christmas season is now in full swing. For us that means not so much shopping and decorating (well, a little bit of decorating) but rehearsals and dress rehearsals and performances and caroling until we're all ready to collapse. Between Margaret's "Best Christmas Pageant Ever" play and the actual Christmas pageant that the girls are doing at church and the homeschool group and a few office parties thrown in for good measure we will be going non stop for the next two weeks. At least we now have new tires to get around on!

Here's a little co-sleeping funny before I go:
Tony woke up from a trying night's sleep yesterday and told me he's decided that our two youngest children should be re-named Scylla and Charybdis after the mythical monsters. Anna, the all-night nursling as Charybdis of course, and Eleanor, who has her own bed but always wakes up sometime after midnight to climb into our bed and kick and poke Tony for the rest of the night, as Scylla. The more I think about it the more fitting it seems!