A Day At Lake Huntsville!

Uncle Mike with the kids and their cousins.

The friendly Squirl that did not care when I was photographing him or her.

Aunt Paulette and Uncle Mike with Ayden.

It was a beautiful day!

  This last weekend we had to spray for all the pesky bugs we get out here in Texas. Scorpions and large brown recluse spiders are not my friends!  When we first moved here I was so spooked to go outside at night because I would walk right into cobb webs. I also would not go any where outside without shoes. These days I don't even jump at the site of scorpions or brown recluse spiders and I walk around barefoot even at night. I just grab a shoe and smash the spiders. I like to pick the scorpions up by the tail and toss it to the chickens. There is so much satisfaction watching our chickens rip apart a scorpion.  Our family decided to spray that day too. So while the the spray was drying we met up at the lake. 

 We needed a day out of the house and the boys were so excited to learn that they could go swimming. Swimming was a big part of our lives back home, so they were just ecstatic.  I didn't take to many pics but here are a few. We plan on getting a season pass so we can camp and swim all summer here.

Catching Wild Red Cardinals!

Thayne with a red cardinal and once again with no shirt!

Are you surprised no shirt, ha,ha!

All the boys letting the bird go free!

Ayden proud to have caught a female Cardinal

  We have many beautiful birds here in Bedias. To name a few are  Cardinals, Blue Jays, Wood Peckers and more. I have captured a few with my camera but these animals know when the camera is pointed at them. I find it to be the most fascinating  thing to observe.  I have really become passionate about photographing wild life but I have come to the conclusion that it is a bit challenging.  I will be holding my camera from 300 ft away and deer, birds and even insects notice I am there.  One of the hardest birds to photograph has been the cardinal because it is so fast. My boys are pretty fast themselves and they have figured out a way to catch these beautiful birds.  They have set up the chicken coop with live bait and they catch a few during the week.

  Above are the  shots of some of these amazing birds. In the process the boys have learned that the pretty red ones are the male birds and the camo ones are the female.. What an amazing order nature has and what a blessing to be surrounded and immersed by it's goodness.

Water Ballons, Stomach Flu and Rash.

Water balloon time!

Ayden Michael( a.k.a) Stud muffin! lol

Thayne Zachary (a.k.a) Handsome Tender Boy!

Now for the funny play photo's.

  We have been having some hot days here in Texas. The kids love to play with water balloons.  Here are some shots of them being silly in front of the camera.

  We all have had the stomach flu this week and it sure has made things difficult to keep up.  I have been lacking a lot of sleep because the sickness hit Keynan in the middle of the night. Then the next day, Thayne had it and the day after Ayden had it. Then in the middle of the night yesterday it hit Zach and I.  We all seem to be recovered now but I wanted to be finished with a few photo shop projects and the list of organizing and cleaning keeps piling up. One thing that helped me feel better while having the stomach bug is laying in a warm bath with a cup of Epsom salt in it.  I can tell you I have tons of Epsom salt on hand for not only home remedies but for my plant food. My tomato plants seem to flourish with a feeding every two weeks.

 I also have been meaning to get a picture of all three boys for Fathers Day but Keynan has been having a rash on his chin. The rash spread to his eye and for a few weeks we have been battling it. I believe it to be a yeast rash or even what is called impentigo(which is a common thing for small children to get, it runs in the herpes zoster family).   It might sound weird to some but I have been treating Keynan's eye with my breast milk( I am not sure why I still have some but I do) and it has cleared up his eye very well.  The common term around here when I drop my milk in his eye is so funny, all the boys say," That is just plain weird Mom"! The breast milk has cured a sty in my eye in the past and one of my friends has treated her son's plugged  eye's ducts.

  After trying many things for the infection on his chin I have been using povidone-iodine 10%. I should of  taken pictures of the stages of the rash. The iodine has healed it up so quickly(2 days vs. 2 weeks with other remedies) and I'm hoping he won't have a scar from it because he tends to pick at it.  Since we are a family that treats our common colds or illnesses with herbs or medicinal(non- prescription medicine) Iodine has proven to be one thing needed in the medicine cabinet.

To Every Thing There is A Season.

Well  May has been the closing of spring and summer is coming faster then I imagined. The temperature is now over 100 here in Texas and the air conditioning is running at full blast.  The last few weeks have been filled with much accomplishment and also some disappointment.  One of my favorite scriptures came to mind while these disappointments occurred. I hadn't read the verse for a while and It just made more sense to me now being a little older.  Here is the verse and then I will share what has happened.

Ecclesiastes 3

 1To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

 2A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 3A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 5A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 6A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 7A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 9What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?

 10I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

 11He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

 12I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

 13And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

 14I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

 15That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

 16¶And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

 17I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

 18I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

 19For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

 20All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

 21Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

 22Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

 

     After 4 months of preparing a garden and  experiencing new animals we as a family had been filled with much excitement from all the hard work. I was especially thrilled because even though the kids help me here and there and Zach on the weekends. I have been up from sun up to sun down to make this all happen.   It is so neat to see a seed grow into a plant.  I woke one morning to find all my corn rows dug up after sprouting, and my bean seeds dug out of the ground before even sprouting.  I didn't get to discouraged, I went out and planted 4 more rows of corn and beans.  A zucchini plant also just died. No, biggie I thought, that is why I planted so many. 

  

    My 15 chicks that we had were going to be 2 months in a few days. I did not have a chance to take some pictures of how big they were getting before all 15 of them got killed. They did not all get killed at once but randomly through out the last few weeks. I had five chicks from the first batch left and I was keeping them in the coop until they got bigger.  The boys went out to do their usual feeding for the chicks to find all of them dead.  Three chicks remaining in the coop with their heads bit off.  I was pretty horrified.  I guess raccoons like chicken heads and they manged to sqeeze through a tiny hole in the coop that we had temporarily fixed until we could get more wire. The raccoons  figured out how to undo it and well they had a good dinner I'm sure. 

I have been pondering the verse above and it is still one of my favorites. Even though it applies more to my life now then it ever has.

 

Trampoline instead of Baseball.

I have to admit I was super excited to receive our trampoline from the  UPS guy named Jeff.  I never thought I would be chatting it up with the UPS man but we've become good acquaintances over the last few months. I guess a new perk living out in the middle of no where.  I will tell you more about Jeff in another post.

   The kids and I have been home bound for the last 11 months. I get out into civilization to grocery shop(once a month) and we have done occasional birthday parties with friends and family to get the kids out. We are mostly at home  tending to the animals and the yard.  We no longer have two cars and the car we have is an old clunker so we only drive it when we have to (which means Zach drives it to work and back).

 The kids really loved doing baseball last season. Since we are still in transistion from the big move, we bought them a trampoline instead of signing them up to play baseball.  I still have all my baseball gear from when I played so we still practice and play. We hope to do sports next year but if we don't, we have learned to entertain ourselves here at home. 

The trampoline has been a big hit and both Ayden and Thayne are already doing front and back flips. I captured some great video but of course the video's are 4 min. long and won't fit on here. I will try to get some more but here are some pictures in the meantime. 

Ayden mastered a back and front flip within two weeks of getting the trampoline.

Here Ayden is landing a back flip!

My no fear kid!

Ayden doing a front flip!

Thayne has now mastered the flipping within a few months and he loves practicing his hand stands!

Keynan loves to bounce too. I love having the safety net because when I was a kid there was no such thing!