Anna's Photo Blog

Goats

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:10:25 -0600

10 days ago, we got three goats. They are Nigerian dwarfs, which are quite small. Goats are extremely social, and can be as friendly as a little puppy dog who follows you around. Ours came from a herd of 100+ goats, so they did not start out that tame, but they are quickly becoming so. They are also very gentle, other than accidentally stepping on someone's foot every once in a while. Both L and M love them so very much. L spends lots of time out in the pasture with them. Her time is now split pretty evenly between her bike and the goats. L helps take care of them, and in some ways, she has kind of taken charge. It has been incredible to see a whole new confidence in L as she works with them.

This is Jasmine. She is a year old, and she is a mini-nubian, which is part Nigerian Dwarf and part Nubian.

This is Daisy, who is purebred Nigerian Dwarf. She is about 3 ½ months old.

This is Brownie, also a purebred Nigerian Dwarf. She is about 7 weeks old. (And small enough to fit through the fencing. It's a good thing she would rather stay with her friends.)

All these pictures were taken within the first 24 hours of having them, and the goats were too shy to get any good pictures with people. Too bad you'll have to wait until the next time I can download pictures onto my computer to see how friendly they are with the girls now.

L said, “I have three goats. We have a chocolate one, her name is Brownie. All of our goats are girls. We have two baby goats. When you come to our house to see Daisy, you would think she is 4 years old, but really she is a baby. The mommy goat is Jasmine, she is black and white just like Daisy. I tamed them, in about two days. I like to chase them, and they like that, especially little Brownie. We are getting ready to show the goats in the fair. We have to clean them so that they look pretty so that we can go to the fair. The fair has a little maze to bring your goat through. I'm sure I'll get lost in that maze. (She says with a grin.) Brownie is my favorite, because she follows me around.”

Other Fun Things Around Here

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:08:30 -0600

M has helped me tons in the garden. I am sure L would too, but she is always gone riding her bike. M planted two rows of beans with me (she put all the seeds in the ground), and she helps me pull weeds, and turn the water on and off. She loves to use all the tools, like rakes and hoes. Sometimes she just stands there with me and rubs my back and talks to me while I pull weeds up and down the rows.

This picture is from our first cookout over the fire pit. Here is M eating her first s'more ever. She pulled all kinds of faces because of the mess-the strings of melted marshmallow from her mouth to her hands, and the chocolate squishing out onto her fingers. It was really funny to watch, and I was laughing so hard that she started pulling faces at me too. She only ate about 2/3 of the s'more before she decided that the mess just wasn't worth it.

Here are a few of our neighbors.

Oh, and L turned 5 in June. Hard to believe, I know. I feel like they have both grown tons in the last little while!

Birds

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:07:37 -0600

We had some robins build their nest above the light outside the garage. The girls loved watching them grow up and then fly around the yard for a few weeks while their parents taught them all about life. The robins especially like hunting for worms in our garden.

We had a couple of black-capped chickadees build their nest inside the trunk of our plum tree. Here is one of the babies poking his head out of the hole. The next morning after taking this picture, David and the girls were sleeping outside in a tent, and something crashed into the tent and made a log of commotion. We think it was probably the babies flying out of the nest for the first time and crashing into the tent, which was not too far away.

We have really enjoyed all the colorful birds. L got a bird identification book and binnoculars for her birthday, and we have all put them to good use, but especially her. She has been really interested in all the birds up here from the beginning. She and I both discovered a new bird that we hadn't seen before, on the same day, but independently. It turned out to be this black-headed grosbeak.

She can even tell you the differences between the males and females. Here is a picture David took of a western tanager.

This is what L wanted to tell all her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins:
“I have a new friend, who is Jackson, and he has a bike that doesn't have training wheels, just like me. And I have a friend Markelle, who has a two wheeler bike just like me and Jackson. And I also like my friend Kenzie. I like my new net, so I can catch lots of butterflies. There are lots of butterflies up here. My friends are 5, 9 and 12 years old. We have new birds that we have never heard about, like one is the tanagers, red-winged black birds, and the grosbeak, and the black-capped chickadee, which is the who-who bird. The who-who bird is my favorite, and it talks to me and talks to me and talks to me every day. And I just go who-who back to it. And I learned that robins have white kind of by their wings. Oh, and there is one more bird that I love, it has a white head and the rest of it is light brown, but we couldn't find out what kind of a bird it is yet.”

L's Bike

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:02:35 -0600

Shortly before moving, L was given a bike from a very kind neighbor. She had a lot of fun with it, but there wasn't a whole lot of space to ride it around. And I wasn't available to watch her as often as she would have liked. After we moved, she was suddenly FREE! She spent hours and hours on her bike, and two months later, she still hasn't gotten bored of it. I think she is on her bike more often than not!

We have a nice private lane that we share with just one other house, so we don't have to worry about cars at all. L wakes up really early and here, she can go out and ride her bike before I am even awake. I love, love, LOVE not having to worry about her!!

I think I am going to start including things in L's and M's own words on the blog. So here is what M wanted to say: “I like my car. I like to go clear to the main street and then I go back to our home. And I like going on bike rides.” (Riding in the trailer behind Mom's bike.)

In June, L learned how to ride without training wheels, and wow, is she good! I can't put videos directly on this blog, but you can go here to watch a cute 3-minute video of L riding her bike just minutes after her Dad took the training wheels off. (Let me know if the video doesn't work for you.)

Snowy the Netherland Dwarf

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:04:57 -0600

5 days after moving here, we got a pet rabbit, which we named Snowy. He is a Netherland Dwarf, which is the smallest type of rabbit. As a kid, I had quite a few pet rabbits, and not a single one of them was as friendly and affectionate as Snowy is!! We really lucked out! He was the one and only baby rabbit in the whole lot of them that instead of running away, would come right to the door and poke his head out to get to know us. L said she had wanted a white rabbit, so we decided he was the one. We are so glad we picked him-or maybe I should say he picked us.

This is Snowy at 5 weeks old, the day we bought him.

Oh, and I almost forgot. L and M named him, and his real name is Snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-snowy-bunny. We call him Snowy for short.

Our New Home

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:50:24 -0600

I am finally adding to our blog! I haven't written since we moved, because our cord to download pictures to the computer is still lost in all the boxes! Della came up this last week and brought her cord, so I was able to empty the camera. (Hopefully we won't have to wait that long until the next download.) So, here are a TON of pictures now. I have broken it up into several different entries to make it a little bit easier on those who have slow internet connections.

First off, let me just say that we are completely loving life!!!!!!!!!! L and M have loved our new home and new life from the beginning. They quickly forgot that there was ever anything else. I was fully expecting a difficult period of adjustment, but it never came. We have all felt from the very first day that this is our real life, and we are home. And, in addition to that, David's job is wonderful!! We have been so very blessed!!!

We moved on May 8th. Here are the girls in the moving van with Dad. That was a fun drive!! We joke that we hope it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We moved here just in time for the Dandelion season. I never had a clue that there was a season for Dandelions, but it is pretty obvious up here. Everywhere we went, there were fields that looked yellow, kind of like the picture below. It was so beautiful!! This is the field right behind us. Our own small fields looked pretty yellow too.

Dandelions are great for the kids! L and M spent a whole lot of time filling up baskets and baskets (seriously) with dandelions. Then L liked to go around the house and “decorate” with them. It was really cute. Dandelions on our dressers, lining the sinks in the bathrooms, the window sills, vases full of them...And then they would be dead by the next day and she would do it all over again.

It is hard to see in the photo, but L has a yellow nose from smelling dandelions.

We Own a House!!!!!!!!

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:47:45 -0600

It feels sooo good to be able to say that!! We have our very own house!!! We are so VERY excited and happy and just plain giddy about it. Even L and M. (Although you can't tell in this picture-M just woke up from napping on the long drive.)

This is our real estate agent, handing me the keys--He was AWESOME, by the way! (We really should have closed the door for this shot, but we weren't thinking straight at the time. )

Can you see the joy and excitement radiating from our faces?

Because David still needs to work down here for a little longer, we aren't moving for a couple of weeks. But we did go up and spend the first weekend in our very own house. Here are a few pictures of the house and yard.

Here is the garden. It is huge! I spent quite a bit of time working on it. Here is before:

And after:

Both L and M are ecstatic to have a house! When we were in the car, pulling out of the garage to go back to our apartment, L said, "I wish we were just going grocery shopping and then coming right back." And then, when we pulled up at our apartment and got out of the car, M pointed to the apartment, stomped her foot, and said in a very determined voice, "I don't want that house!"

Trampoline Fun

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:07:00 -0700

While at Grandma's house, the girls once again had a ton of fun on the trampoline. They liked to lay down on their backs and have Aunt Clara jump and bounce them around. This is what they looked like afterwards.

Legos

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:12:00 -0700

L is an early riser and is often the first one up in the morning. She comes into our room and I wake up just enough to give her a flashlight to go downstairs with. Then she sits at the kitchen table and plays with her legos until everyone else is awake. When breakfast is ready, the only way to make her eat is to threaten to take away the legos. And then after breakfast, she goes back to playing with them, and could easily play with them until lunchtime. She has made some really neat creations.

Sometimes L starts off with her own idea, and sometimes she copies the pictures in the booklet, but before long, she is making hers even better than the one in the pictures, and with lots more added on to the idea.

A lot of times, she uses her legos to act out stories. In this picture, our family is moving, back when L was a baby. All the furniture used to be in our old house, which is the green flat piece you can see on the right. But now, it is all loaded up onto the moving truck. Behind Dad, Mom is kind of reclined, wearing a red and green striped outfit. Starting at the top of the pile on the back of the truck, there is a chair, a kitchen table, two decorative archway garland things, a bed, a baby cradle with baby L laying in it (she is all white, and you can just barely see her eye peeking over), a bathtub, and two or three more things that I can't remember what they are. And everything underneath Mom and Dad is from the house too.

One day on the way to the Library, we saw a truck in the middle of the intersection working on the stop light. Both the girls thought that was so cool to see. A few days later, L made this replica, with lights all over the truck, tools in the back, and the bucket for the man to stand in, just like the real thing.

M also loves legos, but L won't let her touch hers. They are way too special. Instead, M has to be satisfied with the next best thing-mega blocks. Here is a bunk bed she made. Don't you LOVE the cheesy grin??

Fall Photos

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:17:00 -0700

Halloween

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:54:00 -0600

We went with L's best friend and her family. We all had a really good time.

Computing With Dad

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:45:00 -0600

In this picture, M is computing with Dad. L did the same thing when she was this age, with the same toy.

Another Camping Trip

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:29:00 -0600

We always roast corn on the cob when we go camping. It is our favorite camping food, especially for M. She can easily eat three large cobs of corn!

One of my very favorite parts about camping is that the kids get super dirty, and I don't even care at all. As weird as it may be, I LOVE letting them get dirty! Maybe this happy face helps explain why.

Family Reunion Campout

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:09:00 -0600

August Photos

nospam@example.com (Anna) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:37:00 -0600